Something New

Good morning, my friends. It was kind of a ho-hum day...just the way I like it. I spent quite a bit of time in the morning stitching away at the Bicycles and Lace piece. I'm nearly finished with the "Rosy Pink" bicycle, and looking at this, I decided to move my hoop to the right some.

I wanted to capture the lace between the pink and aqua bicycles. The aqua bicycle will be the fourth of four on this piece, and so I'm nearing a finish. It'll still probably be toward the latter part of the week before it's done.

As I was packing that away, the doorbell rang. It was the FedEx man delivering a new kitty pole for the kitties. (Obviously, it was for the kitties.) As I mentioned in a previous post, Smitty seems to be having trouble jumping to the top rung of their other pole, and so we found a geriatric version for our nearly 13-year-old boy. Those are all their kitty toys at the bottom.

Smitty could scarcely believe it when Sadie took up the top spot right from the get-go.

This is pawsitively outrageous! Are you going to allow this apawmination to continue?

Sadie turned on her lasers just in case she needed to zap something quickly. Smitty sat and considered his options, clearly infurriated by this latest assault to his leadership purrsition.

Finally, she jumped down. Of course, she left her girly purrfume everywhere. It was pawsitively revolting.

Well. He knew he could get rid of the odor by placing his own hind end directly on that spot. It's propurr scent will be restored soon enough.

His dignity refurreshed, he consented to helping me in the sewing room.

Together, we finished off January's Kitten in a Cup. It was way more complicated than it needed to be.

I'm every bit as put out about the quality of this pattern as I was yesterday. I'll never do another one of her patterns. With almost nothing in the way of instruction, and with errors to boot, it might win the prize for being the most poorly written pattern I've ever seen. Sorry if that offends anyone, but I'm being honest about this. I was curious about online reviews of the pattern, and so I took a look. I noticed that reviewers who had actually started making it were saying the same thing I am. The diagrams were nice, but labeling and more instruction would have been helpful.

Finishing that off pretty much killed my motivation to do anything else in the sewing room. Instead, I calmed my frustration by spending the rest of the afternoon slow-stitching the first block for The Sewing Room BOM. It still needs borders, but the embroidery is finished.

This BOM consists of 9 embroidered blocks and 27 pieced blocks. My goal for this project will be to finish one embroidered block and three pieced blocks each month until we reach the end.

Just before sitting down here to write, I was noticing the mess at the bottom of the new kitty pole. I was thinking it needed a basket with low sides for all that stuff. We have toy baskets in both RV's and part of the fun (especially for Sadie) is rifling through the basket for the next toy she can kill. Then I remembered a basket given to me decades ago by my former sister-in-law. I've never used it for anything, and it's been hanging out in my pantry considering its purpose in life. It makes a perfect toy basket to fit at the bottom there, and now it all looks a little tidier. Of course, I left the grooming tools within easy reach of the human salon workers.

And now I'm certain that when I tell the kitties to pick up their toys, they'll do it without delay. As everyone knows, cats are very obedient and cooperative.

Okay, so it's a floor-mopping day. So much fun. That's probably the extent of what will happen today beyond sewing. I want to finish up the month's quota for The Sewing Room project, and then I want to get to work on the baby quilt I'm making for a friend from high school. If I weren't so lazy, I might get in a Bowflex workout. I've worked out the past three days, however, and so maybe I'll give myself a day off. We'll see where my attitude takes me. 

Oh yes, and I can't forget...Season 16 of Project Quilting starts today. The first prompt should be posted within the next couple of hours. It's one of my favorite challenges, and so I'm excited to see what the first project will be. If you're not familiar with Project Quilting, you can read all the skinny about it right here. And if that makes you want to join in, then click right here. The prompt will be posted at noon Central Time today.