The Trouble with Cats

There are only fabric cats on today's post. The furry ones were in short supply yesterday. I suppose with all the sewing going on these days, they may be striking for higher wages with the increased demand. I have noticed them hanging out next to their treat bowls, carrying signs, and singing protest songs. Until now, I hadn't really wondered what all the fuss was about.

For yesterday's sewing, I was finishing off the first of the Ties & Tails blocks by adding on the pieced sashings. The first step was to add a black flange. It was supposed to be blue, according to the pattern. I looked for something blue, but then did it in black when I couldn't find anything appropriate.

When it was all sewn together, I found the blue piece I'd pulled at the very beginning. Of course, I did. Oh well...another time for the blue, I suppose. For this, I'll stick with black, and no one will be the wiser. You won't tell, will you?

So the next step was to cut 2-1/2 inch squares for the pieced sashing. I'm doing this block by block so I don't have to cut so many at the end. The pattern provides a diagram for the sashing, and I counted out how many I would need: 4 vertical rows of 15 each, and 2 horizontal rows of 6 each, for a total of 72. Then, I picked out any of the smallest red scraps that could be cut into a 2-1/2 inch square. When I was finished, I had more than I needed, and so the extras will get used for the next block.

The upper and lower sashing worked out just fine...6 squares each.

Then, I sewed together four rows of 15 squares each for the vertical sashings. When they were all sewn together, I realized I had one block to many. I counted again on the diagram...twice...then I looked at the pattern cover and counted there. If you can see that well enough, you'll count 14 squares in those vertical rows. Drat.

Oh well...I removed one square from each row, and then all was well. I sewed them to the quilt block, and this one was finished. Next time, I'll know to count on the pattern cover and ignore what the instructions say. It's starting to look as if I'll need to do everything on this quilt wrong first before I can do it right.

So that took up my entire sewing day. Lucky for us, Matthew was cooking last night. Matthew was never much of a cook until the Instant Pot came into his life. Now, he's an Instant Pot convert, and he's making some delicious food with his one cooking vessel. Last night's dinner was a yummy pot roast. The broth was from Madeira (Have some Madeira, m'dear?), and it was delicious. I had some frozen bread that I baked off to soak up all that yummy broth.

We've worked out a deal where Matthew does the cooking on Wednesday and Saturday nights. I love to cook, but I like a day off now and then too. With all the restaurants closed, it's nice to have someone else pick up the slack two days out of the week.

Speaking of Matthew, today is his 36th birthday. We had planned a family get-together for this evening, and we were going to smoke a turkey that's been sitting in the freezer. Then, we thought Lyndsey might be joining us, fresh back from her trip to Bali. We wanted to give her time to self-quarantine, and so we moved it to Sunday. Then, Lyndsey got caught up in flight cancellations and border closings, and so she's still in Bali, unable to get back to the USA. She'll stay in Bali until all this passes. We were sticking with our Sunday date, but with Mike still sick, we decided to cancel our family get-together. We'll still do the turkey, but it will be just the three of us on Sunday.

Instead, I'm making a lasagna and Caesar salad, and I'm going ahead with plans to bake an angelfood cake for dessert. I was able to score some fresh strawberries for the topping. Mike's will be a coffee'd up version of the same dessert, sans strawberries. It doesn't seem very festive to me, but Matthew will be happy with it.

Some of you have asked about Mike. His symptoms are mild, and we still have no way of knowing if he has COVID-19, but it seems the most likely explanation. He had a telephone conversation with his doctor a few days ago (on another matter), and the COVID questions came up. The doctor told him to keep doing what he's doing, and that his symptoms didn't warrant testing. It makes me wonder how many people are in the same situation. The reports we hear of infections are only of "confirmed" cases, which means there are a whole lot more people infected than what we're hearing. It really makes no difference, but it's hard to know how to behave when there's so much uncertainty.

Today I'm going to make a couple of masks for our family to use when we go out, and then I'm going to make up the next block for the Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs. It's next up for embroidery, but I need to do the applique sections first. Appalachian Memories will be finished in the next few days, and I'll want the Dancing Chickens ready to go.