A Day for Blocks

All the monthly sew-along blocks are finished now, and I can head south with a clear conscience. Not that my conscience would have been anything but clear. I only mention it to fool you into thinking there's some sort of morality in my sewing room. There isn't. Projects get started willy-nilly without a care for how many years it will take to bring them to completion. Think of it as rogue sewing.

The Day was set aside to do two blocks for the CTC Sewalong. These are the Countdown to Christmas blocks published in the Moda Bake Shop just before Christmas last year. Originally they were all done in red and white, but I'm on a quest to use some of my blue and green scraps. I'm thinking of calling this quilt Forest and Stream, or Field and Stream, or Land and Sea, or something like that.

When I started sewing yesterday, I first cut the pieces for the 7th block, which is called "Festival." You can find the instructions for this block right here. I had the pieces cut . . .

when I remembered it was Tiny Tuesday, and I needed to do that one first. Yesterday's Tiny Tuesday was a wonky log cabin in a straight setting. That was pretty simple.

I've always sewn blocks like this without using any sort of foundation. Yesterday, I decided to see what all the hubbub was about, and so I ripped a page out of an old phone book and used that. It worked nicely, and the paper was easy enough to remove. So, okay...thanks for the tip, my friends.

With that finished, I could return to my previous block, already in progress. So, here we go..."Festival." It's a pretty block, and pretty easy to sew together.

The next block was a little trickier. This block is called "Special Gift." You can find the instructions right here. It used the "4 at a time no waste" method for making flying geese. That was simple enough, but it would have been helpful if the desired measurements had been listed. As it was, I kind of winged it with trimming and matching seams. I had it this far when it was time to make dinner.

These strips needed to be sewn together to fill in the pieces missing from the middle.

Mike wanted to do some packing after dinner, and that gave me some time to finish it off. It turned out okay despite the guesswork on the trimming.

When I went upstairs, I could see that Sadie is trying again to carry out a coups d'etat on the upper rung of the kitty pole. Smitty left his territory undefended again.

Also, a rainbow appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. There was no rain at our place, but we could see rain was falling in the valley.

Since we're getting ready to travel, we wanted to put some Advantage on the kitties before leaving. We'll be heading into warmer weather where fleas are going to be more wide awake than they are here. By putting it on a few days before we leave, we can avoid the wet necks and the smell. They like to go out and roll in the dirt after we've applied it...although they may find dirt in short supply right now. What we have is mud. Either way...

Want to see what a screaming banshee looks like?

Oh. My. Gosh. In our married life, we've loved and been owned by 13 cats...Sadie, being the 13th...and black. It sort of gives one pause, doesn't it? (Or is it "paws"?) Anyway...she is by far the most athletic, agile, and strongest cat we've ever owned. Also, she's the tiniest and most vulnerable in appearance and behavior. Don't let her diminutive stature and her short tail fool you. Just try getting a grip on her and doing something she doesn't want, and you will get an idea what it means to release the hounds of hell. We always clear everything from the smooth surface of our breakfast bar. We use that surface because there's nothing for her to get her claws into. She is so strong, she can escape from any grip if she can get her claws into some surface. Skin will do nicely, thank you. And she got me good last night. I had to let go of her or risk being torn to shreds.

This morning I put on my kevlar vest (also known as "an old denim jacket"), and got a really good grip on her, and we got it done. Sheesh. I'll start this morning cleaning the blood from the walls...mine, of course.

As for Himself...he's put us in the dog house. He's much more cooperative physically. As far as he's concerned, we will pay in a different way.

You no longer exist in my world...I have crossed you out. Oh wait...did someone say "treats"?

Yesterday morning I got a start on my new little redwork piece. Ordinarily, I would have started stitching with the quilt block. In this case, I started with the girl. This way, she'll be able to watch while I stitch her up.

She looks happy, no?

Today I need to make a trip to the grocery store and pack our food. Tomorrow I'll be packing clothing and other stuff. The countdown progresses.