Happy Feet

After writing yesterday's post, I went downstairs to observe this out the dining room window.

Wait a minute...is he eating the flowers?

He is!!! Little fecker!

Oh yes...by all means...never settle for any bloomed out ones. Be sure to grab the buds and all the most colorful ones. I don't mind at all. Where's a cat when you need one?

Well, kitties are in coyote quarantine for the time being. Sadie doesn't mind. She uses this oppurrtunity to catch up on her purrsonal grooming.

Smitty doesn't like it. Not one bit. He refuses to show you his better side.

Sigh. Well, I'm happy to say I've stitched from one corner to the other on "Mulligan Stew." I can put it away for a while, guilt-free. This morning I'll get started on the last three blocks for "I Believe in Snowmen."

It was time to get ready and go for my first pedicure in many moons. When I got home, I had frazzled nerves from terrible traffic, but also happy feet.

There wasn't much time left in the day, but I hurried into the sewing room. I really wanted to get Luna's pawtrait onto a background piece so I can start the thread work. Of course, my trusty cat was at the ready.

So, before fusing these to a background piece, I always want to check first for any holes in the collage. There was just one tiny one near the eye, but it was small enough I didn't need to fix anything. The white specks above the eyes are just digital noise from my camera. It seems to happen when I'm shooting a shiny surface with a dark background.

Earlier in the morning, I'd dragged out nearly my entire stash of fabrics looking for something I thought would work. I needed to give her a surface to stand on, and I wanted to bring out the color of her eyes. I settled on this pieced background. I'll use that same blue for the binding.

When I first approached this piece, I worried about her ears being cut off in the original photo. I wasn't sure how it would look when it was all put together into a small quilt. When I've done these before, I've always had the whole face in the picture.

So I lined her up with the bottom "surface," sucked in my breath, and fused her down.

So far, so good. And then I added borders.

When I selected that border fabric, I was simply choosing it for the colors. When I had it sewn to the rest, it made me think of a cat sitting at a window looking out. The batik appears like a stone wall. A real artist probably would have figured this out intuitively. But I'm not a "real" artist, and so my choice was just plain dumb luck.

After that, I spray basted it to a piece of scrap batting. Now she's ready for her thread work. She ends up about 15 x 16 inches.

I won't add the backing fabric until all the top-stitching is done. The top-stitching is done just through the batting, which holds it in place. Then, I add just a little quilting when the backing fabric is added. This is the fabric I'll use on the back. I don't know if those are suns or moons. Since there are stars, I'm calling them moons, which is in keeping with her name, Luna.

And that was all the sewing I did yesterday.

Today will be a busy day. I have some things to do in the garden and in the house. Mainly, it will be a cooking day. I'm making one salad and one dessert. Also, I'm putting tonight's dinner in the slow cooker. I'll still have another salad and a side dish to make tomorrow. The kids are coming up to celebrate the Fourth...and just because we've missed one another. I want to have the food prepared ahead of time. Mike will be grilling some crisp-skin chickens, and so I'll want to get those brining too. The brine gives them a nice flavor, but it also gives them a nice crispy skin.

So I doubt I'll get any more done on Luna before Sunday. Also, I received the happy news yesterday that Eliza is back getting serviced, and I can pick her up any time. I'll be glad to get on with my quilting. You might remember I had to stop in the middle of the Shop Hop quilt, and I'd like to get two more quilts finished in July. There is lots to do. I'll be glad to have Eliza back doing her part.