How to Build a Cat

In this day and age, you can probably find tutorials posted on YouTube giving excellent instructions for building a cat...no kittens required. First, gather all your pieces. Cats are complex creatures. There are lots of parts.

Next, you'll want to create the most important part of the cat first...the ears.

We worry about those earless cats. How do they get through life looking like that? Do people point and stare? Can they catch mousies? Honestly...inquiring cats want to know.

(Image source: "earless cat is earless" by heart-felt-robot is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

And we think we've said enough.

Okay, and then, of course, your cat will need something to wear. A button-down collar and necktie are appurreciated. Your cat will need a job, and a job interview.

Speaking of cats, we took this one to the vet at this point. He was about to have a very bad day.

Having survived that little outing and now vaccinated against the evil rabies, we felt comfortable finishing off the rest of the parts of the cat. Of course, a cat needs a tail.

We have some tail-less ones running around here at the Three Cats Ranch. Smitty thinks this is laughable. With no tail, how does one even know this is a cat? Thankfully, it still has ears.

Okay, and then we were ready to dress it up for its job interview.

It had to pass muster from the resident head cat in charge. Fortunately, the inspector has both ears and a tail.

And that's the last cat I needed for this quilt. I still need to cut 54 patches for the pieced red sashings, and then it will go into the pile with the rest of the finished sets of blocks that need to be sewn into quilt tops.

If you can believe it, more snow fell yesterday. I think we're really finished with it now. It's mostly melting off, but there are still big patches out in the field and some hanging from the rooftop. I need to make a trip into town today. There is a prescription to pick up, and I figure I might as well get what we need at the grocery store. It will probably be crazy on this Friday before Easter. Fortunately, my list is short.

My sewing day will probably be taken up mostly finishing off the tall cat block, and then I'll be moving into the "Quilter's Choice" section of my work flow. It's there I list projects that aren't a part of the regular rotation, but can be sewn together fairly quickly. They are also categorized. I've selected something from the "Panel" category in the form of this panel. I admired it at a quilt shop in Fallbrook, California, some years back. You can see it the way I saw it the first time in the image below:

When we returned home from that trip, my friend Sharon sent me the panel. Thank you, Sharon! I have some great fabrics to use to sew it into a quilt top. And in that same quilt shop, I found the pattern that will replace Ties & Tails on my WIPs list: Purrfectly Pieced.

The one in the quilt shop was all done in flannel, but mine will be done using scraps from my stash.

So there is plenty of cat business to take care of, and a little bit of human business too. Which do you think we value most here at the Three Cats Ranch?