Another Tiny House

Good morning, my friends. It's a wet and blustery day here at the Three Cats Ranch. If the forecast is to be believed, it's going to be like this for quite some time. It's good weather for staying inside and sewing.

The first stitches were taken on the next two blocks for "The Story of My Day" yesterday. I'm happy to be back to using some colored floss after two projects in black work.

Later in the day, I did quite a bit more work on this piece, and it's nearly finished now. There is one more block to stitch before I move on to the next project. Sometimes I get itchy for stitching, and I can finish them faster than expected. It's probably time to make up the next block for the Domestic Affairs quilt. It seems a long time since I worked on it. I'll be doing Block 7 next, but here are all the blocks I have so far.

From there, it was time to make the 11th Tiny House. They feel like tiny taskmasters at this point. Of course, I cannot do paper-piecing without my helper cats. Smitty was napping when I called our work group to order.

Oh wait...you woke me up for papurr-piecing? 

Sadie, it's one of those Tiny Houses. You're expurrtise is supurrior to mine on these. You should be the helpurr cat today. I'm going back to bed.

Really, Smitty? You woke me up for papurr-piecing? Geez. I was just settling in for some really good beauty sleep.

Okay [yawn]. It's a cat's purrogative to return to bed at any time, though. I'm just putting you on notice.

So this was one of the easier ones I've done. It had sections labeled from "C" through "I," which was an improvement over the last one that went all the way to letter "O." When I'd finished the sections for the right side, I sewed them together, and then had some lunch.

When I came back, we finished up the rest of it. They always end up wonky, but I'm getting used to the look. I think it will be fun in its wonkiness when they're all sewn together into a quilt top.

It still needed a border. I've been using up lengths of leftover binding for the borders.

Here are the 11 blocks I have so far. Eleven down, 25 to go.

When I went upstairs, I found one of the grey squirrels serenading us on the world's tiniest harmonica.

Mike made waffles yesterday. We always end up with one extra, which we cook up for easy disposal. Yesterday, we gave the extra to the squirrels. We shouldn't feed them, but one waffle probably won't hurt. I imagine they distributed it among the herd...and yes, there is a herd.

So today I'll get going on the quilting for the "maps" quilt. I'm looking forward to working on it, but I'll be doing some artistic quilting...meaning, I'll be attempting to draw stuff...and that makes it intimidating. Probably, I'll institute the one-hour rule. That means I'll work on it for a minimum of one hour, and then decide whether to keep going or do something else. It's my version of eating the frog first. I'd forgotten that little quotation until I heard someone say it on television a few nights ago. It goes like this:

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first. ~ Mark Twain

So it's a little like eating a frog, but I only have to do it for a single hour, and then I can decide whether to eat the second one right away, or wait until tomorrow. Yeah...it sort of works.

When I get tired of quilting, I'll get busy sewing together the quilt top for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. Making traditional quilt blocks will be a nice change from trying to draw while quilting. I'm a terrible artist, but I can copy something someone else has drawn pretty well. That's what I'll be doing. I've saved up a bunch of images in a folder on Pinterest, and that will be my inspiration.

Okay then. Time to get going. Try to stay warm and dry today. Really...spring is here, and better weather is ahead.