The Last Kitten

Good morning, my friends. I'm happy to announce I finished making the last kitten in a teacup yesterday. It's surprising that I was able to finish them off without having to use my rotary cutter to slit my own throat. The kitties were there to offer meowral suppurrt. Sadie gazed longingly at the pieces I'd cut to finish the last block. I'd left them covered with rulers to purrtect them from...you know...mice.

Are you pawsitive you don't want to see my suggested purrangement?

Smitty took the seat next to my light box. He was excited to make the next kitten. He thought we might be tracing some applique, and so he was ready.

But no. Sorry, Buddy. It's all piecing today. I think I sewed every seam at least twice, but I got 'er done.

Yay!!! With all twelve blocks finished, I laid them out to have a look.

While I was sewing, I was considering ways to finish it off when the time comes. (That won't happen until next year sometime.) Here's the suggested layout from the pattern picture. She's used the same background from the blocks for sashing, and then she put a narrow border around the perimeter.

I have enough of my background fabric to use it for the sashing. But I'm going to use the fabric below for the border. When the time comes, I might decide to use it for the sashing too. I'll make that decision down the road. As for this fabric...do you see why I bought it? Look carefully.

I distinctly remember "discovering" this fabric at a quilt shop in Eugene, Oregon....or maybe not in Eugene. (I just went looking for the post about the Eugene quilt shop. That's not where I got it.) In any case, I remember pulling it off the shelf, just because it was pretty. And then I saw the cats!!!! Do you see them? Look closely. Need a hint?

Well. When I saw that, I decided I needed several yards. And so that'll make a good border for this quilt, and maybe a good sashing too. I'll decide when I start sewing it together.

For now, I can rest easy having found this fabric for the back when I visited a local quilt shop in September.

Okay, so I realized with horror a few days ago that our trip south is just a little over three weeks away. Since coming to that realization, I've felt some internal pressure to get my kits made up. By rights, I should be making two more blocks for the Northern Wilderness project...this one:

But I think I'll bypass that one temporarily and get busy kitting up the projects I want to take along. If there's still time left (probably), I'll get back to the Northern Wilderness project.

Also on today's agenda, I'm going to do some baking. There is just one more dish I want to make to use up the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers. I'll be making some Sausage-and-Apple Stuffing Bites. I made these one other time (see the link). I used bread cubes from stuffing mix last time. This time I'm going to try making them with the last of the stuffing from our dinner. Also, I realized I didn't get any sausage, but I have some leftover diced pancetta I can use. It'll be an experiment, and it might not work. Hopefully, nobody will die. 

Also, I want to bake some cookies. I'll be testing a recipe from America's Test Kitchens for that. They've sent me a number of recipes lately, but I haven't made them because they were either (a) too much trouble, or (b) had ingredients that were expensive or hard to come by. I had everything I needed for the cookie recipe, and besides...cookies.

Since Thanksgiving, I've done almost no housework. I'll have to do some today. Also, I didn't get in any exercise yesterday, so I'm determined to get in a walk on the treadmill today. And that all adds up to a busy day. With that...I'll get to it.