Cats Rule the Day

Good morning, my friends. I'm happy to report that our water woes from yesterday were over about two hours after discovering the problem. Before I even finished yesterday's post, Mike was on his way to the hardware store to get the part he needed. It was a quick fix, and the water was back on with no more problems. He's my hero. While he was gone, it occurred to me that I couldn't even brush my teeth, and I really, really, really wanted to. I found an open bottle of club soda in the refrigerator, and I used that as my water source. (Thinking. The woman is always thinking.) My mouth felt so much better, and my whole self felt a lot more human.

And so it was with my clean teeth that I continued on with my stitching. I'm going to say I'm about 1/3 of the way across with this. It's not as tedious as I feared, but I might feel differently in a few more days.

I've yet to choose a project for March's

and finishing this long line of stitching seems like a good choice.

I'm using two different colors of floss for this. I worry I'm going to run out of the one that accounts for the upper line of "flowers." When I purchased this pattern from Crabapple Hill Studios some years ago, I also purchased the floss "kit." Just now I looked at the website to see if I could score another skein of this Cosmo color. You may or may not know that Meg Hawkey is retiring, and she's selling off all her patterns and everything else. Most everything has already been sold, although some patterns are still available as pdfs. And all of that to say that she doesn't appear to be selling any more embroidery floss. It means I'll have to look for another source for the color I want. Hopefully, it won't come to that.

As you might guess, the kitties were totally stressed out at this situation with the water. They were even more distressed at the embroidery floss issue. Here's how I left them when I retreated into the sewing room. 

This is how they spent their afternoon. Too bad they're so tense all the time.

As for me, I had cats in the sewing room too. I added borders to the Catmint embroidery piece.

From there, I quilted just a straight line both inside and outside the inner border. It's a small quilt at 12 x 12 inches and that was all the quilting it needed. 

Here's how it looks from the back.

And then it just needed a binding. I decided on the dark blue fabric from the inner border. The gray paw prints I had in mind were cute, but they didn't seem right for this piece.

Now it just needs hand-stitching. I'll finish it off today, and then it will be hung in the Mewseum with the other cat quilts. I'll add that I've included this on my Used and New Patterns page. With Crabapple Hill Studios retiring, the pattern is currently available as a pdf online for $2.50. If you're interested in anything on my page, I'll add the Catmint pattern at no extra charge.

For dinner last night, I tried this recipe for Balsamic-Glazed Salmon with Spinach, Olives, and Golden Raisins. This was easy, all prepared in a single skillet. It's easy enough to do in the RV, and that is always appreciated. The recipe calls for an impossible amount of spinach, but it all cooks down to a small portion when it's finished. The raisins give it a little hint of sweetness. I've done spinach this way using dried cranberries too, and I think those would be a good substitute for the raisins if one were so inclined.

There are a few things on today's agenda. I need to get in a Bowflex workout, and I have one housekeeping task. When I'm ready to sew, I'll make March's block for the Kittens in Cups quilt. I sincerely hope I've learned something now that I've made both block patterns for this quilt. Possibly the next one will go together with less gnashing of teeth. These are the two blocks I have for that quilt so far. The next one will be in March's yellow.

These generally take a full day to make, but if I can finish it off, I'll get to work making the sixth block for the Merry, Merry Snowmen...this one:

And that's a full day right there. For now, I'll get back to my slow-stitching, and the rest of the day will follow.