We Are Siamese if you Please

We had a nice break from the rain yesterday. It was sunny but chilly when the kitties and I ventured outside to fill the birdfeeders.

Sadie was on the hunt for anything small and furry.

Smitty paused to sniff the crisp December air. This is his bad-woofie-detection mode.

I noticed a silly geranium that doesn't seem to know it's December.

We didn't stay outside long. Back inside, we went to work finishing up the latest cat for the Ties & Tails quilt. Smitty was ready to help. Fortunately, all my cut, sorted, and organized pieces were covered with rulers. He was encouraged to find a different job for the time being.

There was a little piecing left to do to complete the cat and accompanying bird.

Then, I stitched in details and gave both critters some eyes.

Next, I added a black flange around the block.

And then, I pieced together the scrappy red sashing. I'm only doing the sashing necessary for each block. The blocks will complete their own sashings once they're sewn together.

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far. I still need one more striped cat, and one more tall cat to finish it off.

When I laid out all the blocks yesterday, I realized this is going to be a very large quilt. It still has three borders in addition to all the sashings. I might end up with fewer borders if it ends up too large.

This morning I finished up the next section of the Heartland Barns quilt. I've moved my hoop to the right now to encompass the remainder of the top right side. This one will probably be finished in a day or two.

As I'm writing this, I have some chicken stock simmering on the stove top. It's making the house smell good. I have one housekeeping chore to do, and then I'm going to spend the rest of my day quilting the Appalachian Memories quilt. It's been lounging on my sewing chair for the past week or so. Fortunately, it was only just sandwiched a couple of weeks ago, and so it hasn't had time to develop any near-permanent fold lines.

I have some ideas about how I'm going to quilt this...at least until I get to the outer border. Then, I'll have to do some experimentation just to see what I'm able to do there. Sometimes I get big ideas about a motif only to realize that it is beyond my capabilities. So we'll see...sometimes I surprise myself. Also, I haven't really done any thinking about what colors of thread to use, but I'm leaning toward a gold. The quilt blocks will be done in an off-white. I don't want the quilting there to detract from the hand embroidery.

Okay, so that's a day's work. Time to get going.