what a weekend!

I kinda wish all of the challenges I've decided to do didn't all announce new info on the first of the month - it makes the first weekend crazy!

(But maybe it's good so I plan out the rest of my month and know what I SHOULD be doing in my sewing room when I go up there?)

The UFO number for this month is #9 - that's "Retro:"

I don't have a back for this one and it's a relatively newer UFO, but it's on the list, so here we go.

Off to the quilt shop Saturday afternoon to find a back.  I started in the sale room, but nothing there appealed to me enough.  For some reason, I had it in my head that this back was going to be red.  Don't ask why.  I can't explain that idea.

I looked and looked and looked.  The store owner tried to help and has such a different style, it's hard.  (I just want to look, okay?  Thank you for your help, but sometimes I just gotta do this myself!)  She actually suggested the one I purchased, but from a distance I wasn't sure it was what I wanted and I had to rule out a bunch of other ideas, first, too...

It makes me think of olives.  And the pattern on the front...well, we could say it looks a bit like martini glasses.  So I guess it's fitting I put olives on the back, right?

(and I have a dot problem...)

Pieced and ready to roll!  Er...quilt!

Another bit of good news?  I made the binding for this quilt already!  I didn't remember it, but there it was, hanging up with the top, so yay!!!

I also worked on my February dolly quilt.  I pulled this orange frog fabric from the bag of scraps a while ago.  It's the last of the screamers, but the bag is far from empty.  (There are plenty of good candidates, just not so vocal about their needs.)  I shopped the stash and had a few greens that would work, but liked this one best - particularly when I considered the pattern I planned to use.

I wanted to make pinwheel blocks (well, a version of them) and found a tutorial online that worked well for my idea.  It makes two sets, so I thought alternating them would work.  I'd end up with an extra block, but that would go somewhere eventually...

Oh, ugh!  I do not like that.  It appears that I just sewed strips together and these pinwheels took a lot more work than that.  I want it to look like the pinwheels!

Maybe with sashing? (Use your imagination here - I'd choose a color other than that of my cutting mat, of course!)

I went to bed with this sitting on the table.  I wasn't satisfied and I had no idea what other color to add for sashing.  And I still wasn't sure I was keeping the pinwheel design well enough - it just looks like a tessellating pattern now.  I though sleeping on it might help.

Well, it did, but not quite in the way I thought it would.  On to layout #3...

So much better!  I didn't have enough of the froggies for setting triangles, but thought this orange worked nicely.  (Shopping the stash again!)

But wait!  What if I make those setting triangles with a part of a green pinwheel in there so the secondary design continues into the setting triangles?  Ohhhh!!!

Yay!  Win!!!

But now I have those other blocks...hmmm...

And then there were two.  I'm not entirely sure I love the second (particularly that extra green on the outside - perhaps the setting triangles should have been green here? but that seemed like too much green), but if you only see that one, you'll never know the other one is cuter!

They'll need quilting yet, but it's only the 5th and I'm off to a good start on this project!!!

And then, because I'd been such a good girl, I rewarded myself with digging through my scraps to pull fabrics for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color - Aqua!

I wasn't sure how much of this I actually had.  It's a color I usually lump in with the green pile or the blue pile of stash fabrics, so I had to sort through both (gasp!) to find what I wanted.  Turns out, I'm gonna be okay...

...or is this pile messier?...

This is such fun.  As I was pulling these fabrics, I was remembering quilts I'd made with them.  Some of them have been in my stash for quite a while and some are newer, but they're going to make some beautiful cats!

I think I might wait on these until my Saturday sewing day (two weeks out yet), as that seemed like a good, fun project to take last month.  And there's always Candy Bracelets to work on at home until then.  Or quilting and binding Retro.  Or quilting and binding the dolly quilts.  Or, you know, housework.

In addition to this fun, I took two of my kitties to the vet yesterday.  Two separate trips because I only have one carrier and there is NO WAY these two would tolerate sharing a carrier!  Skitter was due for her rabies shot, Luka just due for a checkup.  Skitter has lost a pound, but could use to lose more.  We weren't trying, but the doc isn't too worried.  Luka has lost two.  Not good.  He also had full anal glands (not normal in a cat) and one of them was infected.  So he came home with antibiotics.  After this violation, the vet tech (as good as a doc in my book!) brought him back and I let him get back in his carrier and hide.  A short while later the vet herself came in and said he has a heart murmur.  Like a really noticeable one.  It wasn't there a year ago.  So they want to pry him back out of the carrier and draw blood.  Poor guy!  So nearly $300 later, two cats are home, recovering.  (They seem to be doing just fine and other than Emma hissing at them because they smell funny, none the worse for the visit.)  We don't know what's up with Luka, but I do know humans can live with a heart murmur for a long time and Luka is 12 or 13 and seems to be having no trouble chasing his sisters and begging for treats still, so I'm not going to worry.  When the bloodwork results come back, we'll know more and I can ask the vet a few more questions, but I'm not sure there's much to do.  Love him, snuggle him, feed him and enjoy his company, just like I always have.

And now I should probably go shower and maybe venture to the grocery store.  The hubby is working this weekend, so I have until about 2:30 today to myself.  I really don't want to spend it buying groceries, but we've gotta eat something...

Happy quilting!
Katie