Approaching Many Finish Lines

It snowed most of the morning yesterday. There was a weather alert to expect more snow overnight, but it doesn't look as if any new snow fell. The wind has died down, and so it's less bitterly cold. We're expecting some warmer weather today, and so I'm expecting some of the snow will melt. This is the view from the living room this morning.

It was nice seeing blue sky and sunshine while I stitched up the last inchy. What a fun little square with the button there. My button was almost too large, but I went with it anyway.

Now the embroidery is finished. We'll be filling in the two blank squares with fabric somehow, but that will have to wait for a future reveal.

The kitties are bereft at the weather. It's been so boring for them, stuck inside. Yesterday, Smitty leaped over the snow you see there to a relatively dry spot on the deck.

He dearly wanted to play, but the snow was more than he could take.

I took a picture of his paw prints so that we could reminisce about his courage at some point in the future.

Sadie even walked to the edge of the deck, but that was enough for her too.

You might notice I took all of those pictures through the glass and inside the house. I'm not going out there. You'd have to be crazy...or a cat...or something.

Instead, I finished off the 11th of the 12 sundress blocks.

And then traced out the next embroidery. This is Bunny Garden from Lynette Anderson.

Ever feel as if you're being watched?

Here's the picture of the Bunny Garden from Lynette Anderson's website. So cute.

My embroidery projects are organized so that I have five going at any given time. Four of them are worked on in turn and one block at a time. The fifth is a small project that can be finished all in one "turn." This is the newest short project. This morning I got started on it. I'm using all leftover floss from my stash, and so this morning's stitching consisted of using up little leftover bits.

Tomorrow I'll get going on it in a more organized way.

Also yesterday, I dug through my stash and found the fabrics I needed to sew the Tuxedo Tales blocks into a flimsy. With so many fabrics, it made sense to use masking tape to keep them organized.

That will be today's project. I don't know how far I'll get with this, but a finished flimsy wouldn't be out of the question. There's some housework to do today, but it shouldn't cut into my sewing time too much. Mike and I went out last night. A local bird shop had suet on sale during the month of February, and I didn't want to miss it. Suet is expensive, and we are completely out. And all of that to say that I need to trudge out to the bird feeders to fill the suet feeder. My birdy friends are looking gaunt and pale and guilting me into taking care of their feeders despite the cold weather and snow-covered field...or perhaps because of it.

How is March looking at your end? I'm afraid we're getting the in-like-a-lion March here. Spring is coming, my friends. Just a little bit longer.

Thrifty Thursday: Old children's books about cats

This is actually a gifty Thursday. A friend of mine has given me two old children's books that are about cats. One is from 1915, and is a cut-out book shaped like a tabby cat.

The inside has some pages with two colors and others with full color, like this one.

This book is pretty special. It's from 1886! Please excuse some of the photos. I did not want to fully press down the book's spine because of its age.

The cover has some amazing cat drawings.

The back cover has some great illustrations also. I adore the kitties in the sea shells.

Inside are several different stories and a number of amazing illustrations.

It's neat to think about this old book and where it may have been all of these years.

Chickens

We're all chickens here. The weather outside has been frightful. The kitties really, really, really wanted to go outside yesterday. Each time I opened the door for them, they were hit with a blast of cold air that discouraged them stepping outside with even one paw. Snow is falling again this morning, and Smitty is watching it with curiosity.

It was a good day to stay inside and sew. I finished off the 9th Tiny Tuesday block. The "peel" was supposed to be applique, but mine is inset. It seemed like a good opportunity to practice the technique I learned from Dawn White a couple of years ago.

This one is straight set. Here are the nine blocks I have so far:

After that, I finished off the last two Chicken Buffet blocks. Here's "Chicken Cacciatore."

Here's "Chicken Italiano."

They've been so much fun to make, I'm kind of sorry to have them all finished. The pieces are cut for sewing this into a flimsy, but it will need to wait its turn in line behind three other sets of finished blocks. Here are the 12 blocks all together now.

There is some beading to do on the Chicken Divan block in the upper right. I'll probably wait until I have it quilted to add those.

I saw two pictures of last night's red sunset that were taken by others. We were looking north and missed it. Nevertheless, I did get a shot of the two mountains with a pink cast in the sky. Looking at the weather outside, I'd say this debunks the whole "Red sky at night, sailors' delight" idiom.

This morning's inchy was a little bit hard. The one Meg Hawkey posted was a nice star shaped flower, while mine is kind of a bearded iris. I wasn't sure where to bring the needle in and out for the five cast-on stitches. Oh well. It's good enough, I think. Just one more inchy to go, and then the two blank squares.

Mike is working from home again today. Roads are icy. I was supposed to go into town for a pedicure, but I rescheduled that.

My friend Dorothy asked for the link to the Cheesy Potato Soup from yesterday, and there it is. It's a recipe from the Cooking Light Diet, and it was pretty good. It would have been better with bacon, but, you know... the diet. After a month of gluttony in February, we're getting serious about our diet again. We've been on this diet for about 300 years now, I think, but our commitment waxes and wanes. This week, it's all diet all the time.

As for the rest of the day, I don't really know what I'll end up sewing, but I'm very tempted to get going on sewing together the blocks for Tuxedo Tales.

They're next on the list to sew into a flimsy. I don't know if I have the fabrics I'll need, so it might have to be something else...maybe the Snow Globes...

I know I have the fabrics for those, and so they might get to cut into line. It's hard to say what will happen today, but sewing will be involved.

Some of our silly cat language

Come on, admit it. You have special words or terms you use just for the cats. We sure do! Here are some of ours:

Dresser pets: When Ringo is placed on a tall dresser for special pets. We did a post about this yesterday.

Getting dresser pets.

Skitty: A combination of street + kitty, used to describe Lucy's past. However, it has recently become a verb. Sometimes, when Lucy is spooked, she gets a wild look in her eyes and she runs and hides. She becomes skitty.

Who you callin' skitty?

Scrunch: When a cat gives you closed eyes as a sign of love. Benny gives good scrunches.

A good Benny scrunch.

What words do you have?

It's Snow Weather for Cats

Smitty is utterly disgusted by our weather. Every morning he wakes up expecting summer to appear, and every morning he's disappointed.

Sadie doesn't mind. She's happy to snuggle among the quilts. She's glad to have her human tucker-inners back home again.

On the other hand, garden art cat seems excited about the weather!

Yesterday, I caught up with the Tiny Tuesday blocks. This is Block #8. As of this morning, #9 has been posted, and so I'm behind once again.

Also yesterday, I fused the applique for the last two Chicken Buffet blocks. The first one is Chicken Italiano.

Meanwhile, Smitty took the opportunity to test the supply drawer for this quilt with the If-I-Fits-I-Sits maxim,

while I fused the final Chicken Buffet block. This one is Chicken Cacciatore.

Today I'll top-stitch them and embellish them, and then all the blocks for Chicken Buffet will be finished.

This morning I stitched the morning's inchy. We're coming down the home stretch on National Embroidery Month. I'll be sorry when these are all finished.

Also, I'm well along on the 11th of the dresses for the Sundress quilt. I'm hoping to finish this one off tomorrow.

The morning's gloom has given way to a dazzling day. It's supposed to warm up just a little today, and so I imagine the snow will be melting away.

I was supposed to get a haircut today, but rescheduled it to next week. Tomorrow is my monthly pedicure, and so I'm hoping the roads will de-ice themselves today.

Just before sitting down here, I started the last of the bread dough rising. We'll be having some cheesy potato soup for dinner and hunks of bread. It seems like another good soup day. There's very little going on here today other than sewing. It's a good day to stay in and stay warm.

Dresser pets

A number of months ago, I noticed that Jim started a new routine with Ringo. He would carry Ringo around on his shoulders and eventually put him on top of a dresser. Ringo would get pets and just purr away. Jim dubbed it "dresser pets."

I finally got some photos of the routine. He does not get to stay up there because of the fragile and special items (Tucker's ashes are in the brown box on the left.) But for a few minutes, Ringo gets some special one-on-one attention, and he loves it.

Sew Many Stitches

We were pretty lucky weather-wise with our trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon, this past weekend. We threaded the needle between snow storms. Snow flakes were falling as we pulled out from home, but the temperature was above freezing. Snow fell while we were gone, but the roads were clear on our drive home. We were expecting snow last night, and it did not disappoint. This is the view from my office window this morning.

Backing up to Friday afternoon, we were most curious about this heavy wooden cutting board added to the RV since our last trip. I'll say I'm kind of picky about my cutting boards. At home, I have a nice wood Boos Block, and I miss the heavy wood when we're on the road. The new RV has lots of counter space, and so I wanted a good cutting board for the counter. Since we hadn't traveled with it before, we weren't sure it would stay put going down the road. It's pretty, no?

Underneath is some non-skid shelf liner, and this works well on the right surface. The counter tops are a solid surface, and so we thought it would work.

To be safe, we moved both cutting board and shelf liner to the floor for our first trip. When we opened the door upon arrival, neither had moved even a fraction of an inch. We took the chance of leaving it on the counter for the trip home, and it traveled just fine there. So that was a bit of good news.

We hadn't yet used this cutting board, and so it lost its virginity Saturday evening when we cut up limes to have with our shots of tequila.

We missed the kitties...sort of...while we were gone. Instead, we made do with the little kitty mug mat my friend Lana made. I want to make a table topper for this table, but I haven't even come up with an idea for that yet.

This was my view for most of the weekend. I was barely started and turned the first corner when it was time to leave for our dinner at EVOO.

It's such a fun evening there, and the wine flows freely.

EVOO features a dinner "show" where the food is cooked right in front of you. It's a little like watching the Food Network, only you get to eat the food as you go along. This was the first course.

Second course. This was our favorite. Even kale-hater Mike loved this dish.

This was our third course.

And finally, the dessert course. The little scoop of cherries jubilee had whole cherries in it.

Okay, so that was the whole reason for our trip. The rest of the time, we napped, ate, and lazed about.

Saturday's inchy had more of the dreaded cast-on stitches. These are actually easier for me than the bullion stitches.

Saturday morning I turned the second corner on Hocuspocusville.

After that, we headed out to walk the main drag in Cannon Beach. The weather was cooperative, but we decided not to hike, remembering our last trip to Cannon Beach. The hiking trail last trip was so muddy and slippery it was downright dangerous, and so we stuck to walking in town. Of course, we took note of the tsunami evacuation route. One never knows when a tsunami will strike, and so we take no chances with such things.

Cannon Beach is a nice touristy little town filled with restaurants and galleries. It's simple to walk from one end to the other. There were too many parked cars to get a very good picture, but this next image will give you a flavor for what it looks like. Pretty much the whole town looks just like this:

This is the entrance to the library. Looks inviting, doesn't it?

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming thing.

Oh wait...that last picture was taken outside a gallery. Inside they had some fabulous works of art by local artists. I only took pictures of the cats.

Heading on down the road, we pulled off to get a picture of Haystack Rock. This picture pretty much symbolizes Cannon Beach.

Backing off a little, you can see the "needles" a little better.

Haystack rock is a rookery for seabirds of all kinds, including puffins...

which explains my choice of this refrigerator magnet.

Once back at the RV, I stitched around the third corner of Hocuspocusville.

Sunday morning, I stitched up the morning's inchy. This one is closely spaced buttonhole stitch.

And then I stitched around the fourth corner of Hocuspocusville, and I had myself a finish!

The first hand embroidery stitches on this quilt were taken way back in July of 2015. Of course, it's been a finished flimsy for well over a year, and so it's good to finally take it over the finish line. It measures 68 x 68 inches.

After that, it was time to head for home. The first thing I did was to rip off a hunk of bread dough to bake some bread for our dinner last night. I'd taken some frozen leftover roasted vegetable soup from the freezer before we left, and that made a nice comfort food dinner for a cold night.

Since I'm still experimenting, I tried baking this loaf in a Dutch oven to see if the crust would be any "crustier." If anything, it was softer, and so baking it on the baking sheet is a better way to go. Inside, it looked like this. We really love the sourdough tang of this loaf.

This morning I stitched up the morning's inchy. This one contained the dreaded bullion stitches, but I stitched 'em up like a boss.

And there you are...up to date...and I am too.

We're out of coffee, and so I really need to get to the grocery store today. Snow is still falling, however. The roads in town are just wet pavement, but getting off our hill is a little iffy. I'm hoping it will warm up a little by this afternoon. Mike is working from home today, and so I might get him to drive into town with me. (He's more sure and certain on slippery roads than I am.)

On the sewing front, I want to make last week's Tiny Tuesday block. If I finish that, I've decided to finish off the last two blocks for Chicken Buffet. With the blocks so close to being finished, it seems silly to put it off any longer. All my monthlies for February are finished, and so the rest of the month will be for play.