Wanted: One Ark

It's been raining hard non-stop since yesterday. The forecast was for three inches of rain over two days. Yikes. It's good to live on a hill. It was a good day for sewing yesterday, and that's pretty much the end of what was accomplished. First, I tidied up my floss bobbins with my start on the latest of the Friendship's Garden blocks.

Yesterday I was simply using up the bits of leftover floss. This morning, I'll get going on it in earnest with whole lengths of floss.

There was a little bit of housekeeping wedged into the space between hand and machine sewing. Back in the sewing room, I continued on making the background quilt for the Alley Cats Quilt Guild, starting with the three strips on the left and right sides.

Then I finished off with three borders all around.

Now it's ready for the appliqued cats, hearts, and stars. I spent some time sorting through my button tin looking for buttons appropriate for the cats' eyes. Here's how the quilt will look. The image below is from the cover of the pattern. Each tuxedo cat also has a little collar and a nose. These cats have noses in various shades of red.

I selected some pink for mine since everyone knows that some kitties have pink noses.

That's an old picture of him. I doubt he fits in that bed any more.

Yesterday's mail contained a mystery package. I finally tracked down the sender to my friend Debi from high school who lives in southern California. The city on the return address gave her away, although I did have to think about who I knew still living there. Debi sent a beautiful cat panel. The image below doesn't do justice to the beautiful colors in this panel. There are some gold metallic accents.

Also, some dark chocolate sea salt caramels. Yum! I only ate two and then wished for more. These will be so good with my afternoon cup of espresso.

Thank you, Debi, my dear friend. Who knew we'd ever get so old when we were in high school? I sure didn't.

And since this little cat has been making herself scarce in the Clubhouse during all this rain, I figured y'all would be Jonesing for a picture of Miss Sadie. When I left her to come upstairs to write this post, she looked like this. Pretty darned cozy for a cat who used to live outdoors...with a litter of kittens. I'm so happy she has a furever home now.

I'm hoping to get a start on the Alley Cat appliques today, but it's going to be a busy day. I'm heading out early (for me) to run a couple of errands before getting my hair permed. And you know I hate getting my hair permed, but I love the perm. It's the only thing that gives my fine straight hair some life. It'll be well after noon by the time I get home, so I'm not sure how much I can get accomplished in the time left in the day. We shall see, won't we? Fortunately, I have some leftovers to warm up for dinner, and that will save me some time.

What are the rest of y'all doing on this one-week-before-Christmas Tuesday?