Fancy Cats

Our weather was hot yesterday. It was nice to hang out in a cool basement sewing room. Earlier in the morning, I was out watering the flower pots. It's my habit to take a walk around the house to see what's blooming. Lucky me...my cat and his shadow self usually follow along.

There still isn't much blooming, but the hydrangeas continue on their quest to be the stars of the garden. The daylilies and echinacea are giving it a good try too.

Around the far side of the house, we met up with our other little friend. She's stand-offish when she's outside. We've adopted two mostly feral cats in our cat history, and they were both the same...people inside, good. People outside, bad. And so she's shy when we approach outside.

I had some housework to do, but then I got after my sewing. I've been dragging my feet getting started on this panel, mostly because I've never turned a panel of quilt blocks into a quilt before. Here's the panel I was working with.

It's from the "Cat-I-Tude" line of fabrics from Benartex. I've been pinning different versions of what folks have done on Pinterest. I found this image from Sew In Love, and I kind of liked this arrangement. It was identified on her blog as "'Cats on Parade' designed by Lisa Swenson Ruble and machine quilted by Diane Oakes; featured in Quilter's World Fall 2018." Here's the photo:

The one in the photo is a panel with a black background. Mine is white, but I can always switch out the black fabric for a white one. I thought I might be able to figure this out on my own, but then...on a whim...I searched around and found it! Cool! You can find the free pattern right here. She's calling her quilt "Cats on Parade," but I'm calling mine "Fancy Cats." The panel has bits of gold metallic in it, and so the cats, psychedelic as they are, look elegant to me. I was looking for fabrics that would stand up to that elegance. And, honestly, if you want to get right down to it...all cats are elegant. Especially when they've been digging for gophers. Wouldn't you agree?

So, anyway...I chose the dark purple right away. It's been in my stash since the beginning of my quilting days. And I chose the white one. You can't really see it in the image below, but it has pale gray polka dots. I had a couple of aqua fabrics selected, and settled on the fairy frost. It was the top fabric that had me stuck for a while. When I found this sort of paisley with some gold metallic flecks in it, I knew I was ready to go.

I'm usually kind of a cut-as-you-go person, but I decided to do all the cutting and labeling ahead of time. There are lots of different pieces, and I was worried about getting confused. (Not at all surprising.)

Once I had the cutting finished, I went to work snow-balling the six cat blocks.

The "twist" blocks had a "Y" seam, and so I first made just one to make sure I had it right.

And then I made five more. Here are the blocks I've made so far.

By then, it was time to stop for the day. Now I'm on a roll, and it was hard to walk away from it. I'm excited to get back to it and start sewing it all together.

Upstairs, Sadie was cooling herself next to the open window.

Smitty always chooses the top of the china cabinet to keep his tummy furs frosty.

The week is just about to get a little bit busy. I'm getting a haircut today. HOORAY! My hair hasn't seen a professional hairdresser since last November. Believe me when I say it shows. Mike made it possible for me to maintain my sanity by giving me a trim several weeks ago. It isn't so bad, but it does need some shaping. Tomorrow our window-washer guy is coming. He comes once per year, and it's very nice to have clean windows after he goes. Friday I'm getting a pedicure for the first time since last November. I'm looking forward to that.

For our partial reopening, we are required to wear masks for these kind of salon visits. We are to wait in our car and text our stylist/nail artist when we arrive, and then they will come to the car to meet us. Hair is not shampooed in a shampoo bowl, but wet down with a spray bottle, which allows us to keep our masks on. Appropriate social distancing is required. The number of people allowed inside the salon is limited. Mike has been out for a haircut, but this will be my first time.

As for the virus, Oregon has seen a spike in cases since our reopening began, and so we've been on "pause" before moving on to the next phase. Fortunately, we're not seeing the spike that some of the other states have seen. The City of Portland has seen a lot of protesting, and that isn't helping at all. And all of that to say that I'm only hoping to get back to my sewing today. Now that I've started on this, my sewing mojo is in high gear, and I just want to keep going. You probably know the feeling.

We're expecting cooler weather today, but still sunny and warm. Maybe summer has actually arrived. FYI, I wrote this post trying a different browser...Firefox, instead of my usual Google Chrome. I didn't notice any difference, but Firefox politely welcomed me back and asked me if I wanted to "refresh." Well...who doesn't love a good refreshing? Since I didn't notice any improvement on performance of the new Blogger platform, I thanked Firefox, but said no. Refreshing is not necessary. I'll be back to Chrome tomorrow. You won't know the difference, but I like keeping you guessing.