A sad goodbye to the best cat I ever had.

Lucy came to us June 2016 when my  daughter found her in the state park where she walked every day. After a week of seeing her every day she brought her home. From the first day she was special to us. She was so calm and so friendly that she endeared herself to all of us. After my daughter took her to the vet we found out she had feline leukemia. The vet repeated the test as she appeared healthy but the results were the same. He said we could put her down right then or wait and see how she did. It was unanimous that we would wait and see. She was so active and full of life and so much fun that it was easy to forget that she wouldn't live to a ripe old age.

She was a bright spot in my days. She hung out with me in my sewing room and when we watched TV.  She never once sat on my lap but she sat next to me or on my desk or cutting table or sewing machine. She slept in our bedroom on top of Jack's dresser but when I didn't feel well she curled up next to me on the bed.

She inspected and tested every quilt.

She loved to burrow into the folds

















She liked to guard the quilt pieces.





































When we moved from our daughters house to a first floor apartment, we didn't take Lucy with us. I missed her but I didn't have the heart to take her away from  her big house and yard full of trees and birds and chipmunks. She was supposed to be a house cat but once she got outside there was no way to keep that fast kitty from getting out again. Three weeks ago when I asked how she was and my daughter said she was healthy and contented and the queen of the yard. One week later she started to eat less and less and last Wednesday she died quietly.

I have loved every cat I ever had but Lucy was the sweetest cat and the most fun.

Fancy Forest Foxes

Yesterday, I finished the 4 Fox blocks for the Fancy Forest baby quilt.  The first block didn't go very fast because my 1/4 inch seams were not so red hot accurate. I had to rip out some seams and I also had to re cut a few pieces. Accuracy really gets important when some of the pieces are 1 1/4 inches.  I think that the fact that I have done very little sewing or rotary cutting recently had made a difference. The last 3 blocks went quickly so I guess I sharpened my skills on the first block.

I did have a helper  observer while I was sewing. I wasn't aware that she had joined me until I looked up and there she was. I had hoped she would observe from a distance but she wanted to be right there where she could grab the thread or the pieces as they moved along.

This morning, I cut the pieces for the 2 Bunny blocks. Once again, Lucy paid me a visit and decided to take a nap on the pattern book from which I was working. There many pieces to cut;  different widths and lengths and different numbers of each one to cut. I moved her a couple of times and finally decided to take a break. When I got back to it later, I found that I had cut some of the pieces the wrong size and not enough of some pieces and more than enough of others. I had to sort it all out and get it organized. This is a pattern  that requires one's undivided attention when cutting. Taking a break in the middle of working on it didn't work so well.

The instructions said to cut all the sashing strips from the background fabric before cutting the pieces for the Thistle blocks. As soon as I started cutting the background, Lucy joined me again and settled down on my long cutting ruler. I gave her some chin scratches and a massage and ruffled her fur before I banished her from the sewing room while I cut all the background fabric pieces for the rest of the quilt.
Tomorrow I will sew the 2 Bunny blocks; there are a lot of little fiddly pieces. I will be sure to close the door to the sewing room,

Weeding, Raining, Birds, and not much Sewing

It was raining last weekend and Jack and I put my Christmas present together, it is a Tractor Scoot from Gardeners Supply.  It is basically a tractor seat on a 4 wheel base with a handle to pull it like a wagon. The seat swivels 360 degrees and there is a bucket on the back for weeds and a tray underneath for tools. I think I like it, it is much more comfortable that my kneeler/bench and I have been able to walk after working in the yard. I was able to do some weeding and cleanup in the flowers but then it started raining. It has rained for days and it is cold. Everything is growing; the many shades of green and all the trees blossoming and the spring flowers blooming are wonderful to look at.
Not much sewing going on here but I did get out  to the quilt shop one of the rainy days. I did a little bit of cutting ( and a lot of talking) when I got together with my friends on Wednesday.

These are the fabrics in the fat quarter bundle I bought. I had nothing in mind but they look so springy and cheerful that they called my name .








They called Lucy's name too when I layed them out to photograph them. She always has to curl up on anything that is new.










This is the bird feeder that we see from the window in the living room at the back of the house. The trees all around the sides of the yard and the hemlock trees near the house make it a very attractive place for the birds.    

I noticed 2 pairs of Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks a couple of weeks ago and then didn't see them for a while.

Yesterday they were back and I had eyes on 5 males at one time. One of them was probably immature as it had makings of its head that were more like the female. I'm not sure how many females we have because they were all moving around back and forth, from feeder to tree to bush and back again.

I got this shot of 4 of the males and one little brown sparrow.

We had Nuthatches all winter but this little guy is new to our feeder. When I spotted him I thought he was just another Nuthatch because of his actions. A closer look told me he was different.  I looked him up and identified him as a Red Breasted Nuthatch.

Jack and I and Lucy spend a lot of time watching the birds. I am always excited to see something new at the feeders. I spotted a lone turkey way out in back the past two days and I am pretty sure there were 2 Brown Thrashers just beyond the hemlocks but they moved out of sight before I got my binoculars and bird books.

We use safflower seeds in the feeders and  the squirrels leave them along.  We have a lot of different kinds of squirrels.  We also have many chipmunks who do eat safflower seeds but so far this year they have stayed off the feeders.  Maybe that is because of Lucy. We don't let her outside but she gets out sometimes and one day she left us a dead chipmunk.

A Finish or 4 and Lucy

I just finished his group of wall hangings for my bathroom. Before we moved I had a large wall hanging in my bathroom with similar blocks. You can click on the link to see it. I gave that one away when we moved because I would have no space large enough to hang it. I also had a Flimsy the same size with the same kind of blocks, which I came across recently. I have no idea what I originally intend to do with it and it seemed like a good idea to take it apart and make something for my present (colorless) bathroom.
The six block piece is below some shelves that are over the toilet in  little alcove. I quilted in the ditch on all the seams. There was a spot on the light area of the center star in the bottom row, probably from goo on my iron. I found some tiny colored buttons in assorted colors and shapes and put 2 red buttons to cover the spot. It's seemed that the rest of the quilt should have some buttons as well so I added some tiny buttons in some of the larger patches that could have used some quilting.

These three pieces will go on the wall with double sinks. There are mirrors over each sink and the 3 block piece will hang between the mirrors and the 2 block pieces will go on the other side of each mirror. I did not add any buttons to these as my hands were not working well today, maybe later or maybe not. I did add some prairie points to the bottom edges for a little interest. That made it necessary to use a facing on the bottom edge instead of binding because of the bulk. All of the pieces have a mottled yellow binding to go with yellow hand towels on the two towel rings that are just below the two shorter pieces. I hung the 6 block piece with Velcro Command Strips and I will do the same with the rest.

I had a small furry companion while I was working. Sometimes I had to banish her from my sewing room. You see her laying on my machine table here and in my drawer where I keep my sewing machine accessories and seam rippers etc. She delights in burrowing under anything, clothes, paper, throws,blankets etc. We sometimes find a lump in the middle of the bed between the spead and the blanket. Here she decided to burrow under the piece of backing fabric from which I was cutting trying to cut the backing for the six block piece.

Yesterday I had moved my Ott light and had failed to shorted up the cord and tie it and put it out of sight, BIG mistake. I found it in two pieces. Fortunately Jack was able to repair it.

She likes to hang out with me and after she wears herself out she takes a nap in anything she can find to settle into. She likes the basket on my cutting table where I toss odds and ends. She is especially fond of my collapsable laundry basket.

It's a good thing I like her so much. 

It is even better that she likes me so much.

Starting out 2017

Well the trees are down and the ornaments packed up. the Christmas quilts are packed away and my design wall and bulletin boards are clear. However, I am not ready to start any sewing because my sewing room is, not really a mess, but full of stuff that should go to the basement.

Monday will see the start of a big basement waterproofing project. Though the basement has never
had a water/flood problem it is damp and they want to make it damp proof and that involves a very big waterproofing project. After that all the existing walls will be coming  down and everything will be changed. So for awhile I have extra stuff in  my sewing room.  I just can't see myself dealing with moving everything around in order to sew or cut.

I do have a finish, kind of. It really isn't my own project. My granddaughter in law started this tote bag close to 3 years ago. I think it was before they were even engaged.

We were having some quilting lessons and after piecing a few blocks she wanted to make something she would finish and actually use. I'm beleive the lime green batik was her own fabric; she chose the black batik and the cat print from my stash. I came across this when I was putting Christmas things away and it was all finished except for sewing on the straps and the binding around the top. I decided to finish it because we have not had another lesson in all that time and I don't see one in the near (or maybe even distant)future. 

Maybe this is the time to get out my BIG UFO that I started in 2000. I have not worked on it for a very long time because it is hand quilted.  My hands are not really good for hand quilting anymore but most of the quilting inside the borders is finished. If I can get that done I can do the borders on the machine as it is all in the ditch quilting.

There are overlapping circles in the sashings and concentric circles in the center of the blocks but there are not too many of those left to do. 

 It would be so nice to finish this. I am sure it will be slow going and my stitches won't be as small as the ones that are already there. That just doesn't seem so important anymore.

I am pretty sure I know where my Q-Snap frame is and I just now looked to see where the quilt is stashed. I am going to give it a try.








I am quite sure my friend Lucy will be keeping me company.






She likes to get right up on my sewing table and settle down where she can watch what I am doing.




I really don't continue to sew when she gets that close. I know what it feels like to put a machine needle through my  paw finger.

Almost Finished

I was ready to layer up this quilt October 22 and I posted that I thought it would take 2 weeks if all went well. On my October 29, post I showed the 2 sections of the layered quilt folded up on my sewing table all ready to quilt.
Well it is quilted and the sections joined and the prairie points and the facing/binding is sewn on. I have started hand stitching the facing to the back of the quilt. There were a few bumps in the road. Besides Jack being in the hospital 4 days, there was a follow up doctor visit, which took another whole day out of my quilting time. There were leaves to be raked and hauled to the wooded area. We also went shopping for a more comfortable chair for Jack (and a bonus find of a chair for me). That led to time spent rearranging furniture. There were many distractions dealing with Lucy and a few timeouts along the way for me and vertigo episodes. All things considered, I guess that getting it this far in a month isn't too far off the mark.

Here it is spread out across my bed for a photo shoot

 There seems to be a mystery lump here. I wonder what who it might be.

Mystery solved, it's Lucy. One of her favorite things to do is to burrow underneath something. She suddenly appears whenever I make the bed in the morning or when I lay something out on the bed to photograph it or when I dump the laundry basket of clean clothes on the bed to sort and fold them.








Another thing she likes to do is remove the pins from my pincushion and even from the seam that I had pinned on the back of the quilt where the sections are joined. I am now much more diligent about putting the loose pins in the pincushions and putting the pin cushions away.

This photo on the left shows the back of the quilt with the prairie points and binding/facing stitched on but not yet turned.



On the right are the prairie points, shown from the front, after the facing has been turned and stitched.

Below  is the facing stitched on the back at the corner. I used 2 1/2 inch scrap strips, mostly bias, because I wanted bias when going around the rounded corners.

The edge finishing was much easier this time because I knew I would be trimming the corners round. On the last quilt I tried to have square corners but because of a seam at the corner of the block there was too much bulk. It required the use of my seam ripper and there was much frustration.


I have my needle,thread, scissors  and the quilt ready by my chair with my Ott light and I am going to spend the rest of the evening hand stitching the facing.

Life Happens

I said sometimes life gets in the way of our plans. I thought I would get started quilting the other HST quilt but that didn't happen. I no sooner got the last basting pins in than we had a medical emergency and Jack was in the hospital for 4 days. He is home again and after sleeping 12 hours last night he is feeling pretty good.

Here are the 2 sections of the quilt, all folded up and ready to quilt. I had to be sure to fold the quilt sections so no batting was exposed. Lucy will not leave the batting alone. I had to shut her up in another room when I was pin basting so she wouldn't tear pieces out of the exposed batting.

Here she is  on an old quilt on my cutting table, hanging out with me and napping guarding the quilt sections.

WHAT ! The Middle of October?

The middle of October already, WOW! I didn't accomplish much in September. As the saying goes "life happens" and there was a lot of that happening in our family. It wasn't all bad, our grandson got married in Missouri and it was a lovely wedding. Half of our family didn't make it to the wedding because of our great-grandson's ruptured appendix and two separate stays in the hospital. Great grandson is finally doing well.  After coming home with a rash, nausea, and not eating much for 3 days he told his mother that  he felt amazing and couldn't wait to eat scrambled eggs and sausage for dinner.

Just before the end of September, our granddaughter and her 10 year old son moved in; we are now a 4 generation household. We are all in the process of adjusting.

This is a photo or all seven great grand kids; there are 2-10 year olds, 2-11 year olds, 2-13 year olds, and one 14 year old.  Last weekend we had a birthday party for 5 of them.  In the past we were having a birthday party every 2 weeks through September and October and then one more party combined with Thanksgiving.  Maybe next year we will have one party that includes the 2 summer birthdays as well. As they get older it has become increasingly difficult to get them all together at one time.

I did have some time to quilt.

I quilted this quilt in 3 sections and joined them together. It has been a while since I did it this way and I was surprised that the hand sewing on the back at the joined seams went as well as it did. I took my Advil ahead of time and my hands were not so stiff, though it was slow going.



I did not use a border but finished with prairie points. ordinarily that is fairly easy to do but the edges of the quilt were already quilted and I planned to add the prairie points and then the folded binding as a facing. That did not work well at the corners, too much bulk. After much fiddling and fussing, I ripped out the (several layers of) stitching and cut the corners round. I am still working on fixing the next 2 corners before I sew on the rest of the binding/facing.
I will keep this in mind when I work on the other HST quilt.

I sew several stings of prairie points together and adjust the spaces between the strings as necessary when I sew them to the edge of the quilt.
As usual Lucy settled down for a nap on the quilt as I was working. You can see her at the center top of this photo. I wasn't working on the quilt body at this time so I left her there but sometimes I have to remove here from my sewing room and close the door.

She likes to hang out with me and she sometimes watches what I am doing intently

 as though she was learning how to do it herself.

Other times she just settles down and purrs herself to sleep.

Two More HST Blocks

Almost all quilting and sewing has been on hold this past week. When I  wasn't picking produce from the garden or cooking I was shopping with my DIL(clothes) or Jack (chair) or dealing with vertigo.
I did have a nice relaxing time when we went out to lunch on Thursday with Jack's sister and her husband. so I am not feeling sorry for myself.

I still have this quilt up on the wall and it is 6 blocks by 6 blocks. I decided to make 6 more blocks for the bottom edge to complete the pattern. Idon't really care if the pattern is complete at the top as that part will be under the pillow which will have a cover to go with the quilt.
















These are the 2 blocks I started and finished today. Only the blue one is sewn together in this photo.

Lucy likes hanging out with her people and I guess it was my turn this morning.
She has to inspect everything and she had a good time hiding behind my small design board and attacking various pieces of fabric, scissors, seam rippers and other objects; she can make a toy out of anything. She will also eat tiny shreds of fabric, causing me to become more careful to clean up small shreds of fabric and string.

Before we went to the sewing room this morning she managed to sneak out the door and she wore herself out tearing around the yard like a streak  of lightning. I caught her when she plopped down to rest.

So here she is ready for a nap. About two minutes after I shot this photo she was out like a light and I was able to sew the block behind her without interference.

A Finish

I finished the Disappearing Nine Patch today.

I spread it out on my bed for a photo shoot and Jack said, "This is our quilt for the bed for the rest of the summer".  Well......OK; it really does look  good in our bedroom. The white background print lightens up the room.











 I never thought about using it in our bedroom until I put it on the bed and saw how well it goes with the curtains. And, how could I not have thought about how well it would look with the "Red Flowers blog banner" quilt that hangs on the wall above the bed? I have a plain green coverlet on the bed and the quilt will go across the long way and just curve over the edges on the foot and sides. I have a little bit smaller spiral log cabin quilt across the foot of the bed now and I need something different to cover the pillows. I know Jack will say what I have on the pillows works fine. It does NOT so I am rolling it around in my mind.


 This is the back of the quilt. I had 6 blocks left over  and used them in 2 sets of 3 to make the backing longer.











No matter how I angled my camera I wasn't able to get a good photo of the quilting. Maybe it will show up if you click on the picture to enlarge it. It is pretty simple, quilting in the ditch around all the 6 inch blocks and then using the #4 Bernina serpentine stitch across all the squares

I did the binding on the machine; arthritis in my hands makes it a long drawn out and  painful process by hand.
I stitch the binding to the front and press it away from the quilt.  I then pull it around to the back to cover the stitching and press with steam. I use 1/4 inch Stitch Witchery to fuse the binding to hold it in place and stitch in the ditch on the front. When I come to the corner miter I stitch along the edge of the miter fold to the point and back and then continue on down the next side.
These next 3 photos show the binding and stitching. The true color is closer to the corner photos.

Binding - Corner front

Binding -  corner back

Binding - along the edge

I am minus Lucy's company today. She is at the vet's today getting spayed.  I can't say I will miss her "suspicious" behavior. We have had 2 separate weeks of her rolling on the floor making sounds that bordered on singing. Oh, and then there is her unusual posture. One of the 9 year old great grandsons asked his cousin what she was doing, the other 9 year old looked at her and said " She's catching mice". I'm glad he didn't ask Jack!

Quilting the DNP

I rearranged my sewing room for machine quilting on Friday and started quilting the Disappearing Nine Patch. This is the first machine quilting I have done that needed a rearrangement since we relocated some of the furniture. I spent most of the afternoon and early evening fooling around with different configurations. My original plan would have blocked the 3 drawers on the left side of my desk.

This is the arrangement I settled on. I turned my sewing machine around in the table to give me 2 less inches on the left  so I can sit closer to the table and small chest that is supporting the quilt. It is a little more difficult changing the bobbin but all in all it is working well.

Lucy has turned out to be a very self possessed, independent, friendly little cat. Likes to hang out with her people and she seems to have a need to inspect EVERYTHING.

She was fascinated with the moving parts of the machine.
















She crawled inside the folded over corner of the DNP quilt I am working on and thought she was going to settle down there. I had to banish her from the sewing room so I could move the quilt around.