Awwww.....

A few posts back I showed a picture of the kitty pi that I had knitted. I decided to give it to my bil and sil for their cat, who is probably my favorite cat of all times. I've offered to cat sit, but we are all afraid that their cat and our dog may not see eye to eye........and we don't want to see the dog get hurt. Judging from the pictures that my sil sent, the cat is enjoying his pi. And yes, that is the normal size pi and kitty really is that big. He is part Bengal, a breed I hadn't heard of before meeting him, and he has a lot of 'dog' personality for good measure.

What happened to my Comments on yesterday's post???

I don't know what happened, but Norma has pointed out that she wasn't able to comment on my last post- there is no place to do so. Anyone have an idea as to what happened and how I can fix it?? Thanks, Norma!

Great week!!

This past week has been very busy- and wonderful. Last weekend my Marine showed up unexpectedly. We knew his enlistment was almost up and that he had asked for terminal leave (he had enough leave accumulated that if he takes it now it will carry him thru to his discharge date). He was granted leave, so while he is still 'in' for a few more weeks on paper, he is home and getting used to civilian life! What a Mother's Day present that was!! Yesterday we had all the family here for a BBQ to celebrate his homecoming. All my boys, their wives/girl friends, my grandchildren and my BIL and SIL. We laughed so long and so hard, I still ache.

Today, after my in laws left to drive home to NC, I went up to the sewing room for the first time in a little more than a week and put together the BOMs for this month, they need to go out in tomorrow's mail. It was fun to put together and I made an interesting discovery along the way. This is supposed to be a vase with flowers and leaves. The Moda marbled black is always the required background, then we needed a vase fabric, a leaf/green fabric and two florals. Have you seen many turquise flowers? As I searched thru the stash, I discovered I have precious few florals! Maybe 4 FQs that would qualify as floral. OH well, I'm not going to run out and buy more to make two blocks, these will have to do. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but the longer black sections on the sides were rectangles, not squares, so putting things together needed a little more thought than just assembling 4 rows and them sewing the rows together. Just enough thought to be fun, not enough to be frustrating.

Another deadline met

IFQ has a number of projects that one can participate in. One is the 'Sewing Muse' doll. They post instructions and the requirements for the project, in this case that a picture of the finished project be posted by a particular date. I have beaten the deadline by several days, only some bom swap blocks left to do on my commitment list. Here is a picture of my sewing muse- it was a fun project, but it feels so good to have it behind me instead of ahead of me! LOL

I finally finished the Hour a Day quilt for April--

and here it is. Made from scavenged pieces of 30s repros, some white on white, and a coral/pink fabric. Its light and soft looking, I like it. Thanks, JudyL- another great, easy, fast and thoroughly fun project!

Table topper

The IFQ group does an incredible amount of projects, there is something for everyone. When I joined, I signed up for a couple swaps and a couple projects- as usual, jumping in before looking! This double sided table topper is one of those projects. The directions and diagrams were wonderful, the suggestion was to do it in homespuns, and I did. While I enjoyed the fast sew together, the project reminded me why I avoid working with homespuns. I love looking at them, and the primitive, imperfect look they give, but I hate working with them because invariably one or more is very much off grain and I don't enjoy producing primitive/imperfect- I'm trying to improve my skills and want projects to reflect that! Hubby came up, looked at it hanging on my design wall and immediately informed me that it wasn't up to my usual standards, how was I going to fix it. He also expected that I should have matched the plaids as in garment construction. When I explained about the homespuns he told me if that was the case, I shouldn't have used them. Sigh. All it needs at this point is binding, but I'm not sure I'll bother. I am seriously out of love with this one. I guess I just love homespuns when someone else does them.

Of the two sides, I prefer the one that is more of a bulls-eye. As I said, the construction was fast and very enjoyable, so I would like to do the project again sometime. I am toying with the idea of using seasonal fabrics, ie. Christmas for one side, Thanksgiving for the other. I'd have to recalculate fabric requirements, but that's ok. I think it would be fun to do one project to be used for two seasons. Just think of the possibilities! If you put New years and Valentines day on one, St. Patrick's and Easter on another, both Memorial Day and July 4 on one, maybe with Halloween on the back, and Thanksgiving and Christmas on another. You would have year round decorations-and you wouldn't have to switch out as often in between, just flip it over and you are ready to go! LOL Sort of like Superman slipping into the phone both for a quick costume change....faster than a speeding bullet!!