Feline Assistance

Good morning, my friends. I honestly hate to tell you this: It's been snowing outside ever since I got up this morning. Yikes. It isn't sticking, but honestly. What a miserable April this has been. I'm beginning to think about starting our vegetable garden, but we're going to need some extended warmth and sunshine before either of us is willing to put in the effort. There have been years when we put in our garden, only to have absolutely nothing come up. It's too much work for that. So, we're waiting and watching and hoping. Go away, snow. Our seeds are ready. Our bodies are willing. We're just waiting for sunshine.

With yesterday's slow stitching, I stitched enough of my embroidery piece to warrant moving the hoop up to the next position.

From there, I had a couple of housekeeping chores to do...nothing major...and then I was ready to get started on the "Hand Sewing" block for When Quilters Gather. She's been waiting since before we left on our notcamping trip. Smitty was my helper cat for this. He was especially interested in this hand sewing block because hand sewing generally involves excellent lap time. He held the freezer paper while I cut the templates.

He helped me line up my rulers for cutting.

And he held the book open to the color-coded page. Have you ever seen such a helpful cat? He was giving Sadie the day off for National Tortoiseshell Cat Appreciation Day.

How could I go wrong with such excellent assistance? By day's end, I had a finished quilt block.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far:

It looks as if they'll end up at different sizes. I can choose some sort of border for each block to bring them to the same size and shape when I'm ready to sew them together. That will be sometime down the road.

Next on my list of WIPs is to make the next barn block...this one:

I'll do this one in purple. Sadly, today is also a grocery shopping day, and so I'm only hoping to have time for sewing. Before I make the barn block, I want to make the quilt back for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. I sat and did the math yesterday, and figured out I just need to cut this fabric in half and sew one seam to have a back the size I need.

Also, I've selected a fabric for the binding, and so I'll cut those strips and then put the whole shebang on the quilts-to-be-sandwiched pile. There's also another Tiny House to construct. I might hold off on that for another day...I don't know. They're very tedious, but I am happy about using my smallest scraps to make them. Through sheer force of will, I'm managing to keep up week by week.

So there's plenty on the agenda today, including a very long grocery list. It's my day to walk too, and so I'll do that before we leave. Time to get going. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself.