a little stitching

I think the winter blahs have got me.  I'm not doing much lately, but I'm getting the things that must be done done (like laundry and vacuuming and such).  The weather has been warmer, but no sunshine is no fun.  Come on spring!!!

Thank goodness for quilty assignments!

I think I've finished stitching for the current Bramble Blooms prompt.  I think.

I thought about adding some kitty footprints, but that would mean either teeny circles or large prints.  I'm not sure I want to do either.

And maybe it needs more of the applique I added in the border?

For now, I'm just gonna let it hang out and if inspiration strikes, I'll add to it.

In the meantime, I've got the daily stitch assignment from the 100 day stitch book project.

This has been fun, but by day 5, I feel like I'm stretching to meet the 15 minute goal because the "page" already feels done.

You've seen days 1-3, but I'll put 1-10 here so you can see the daily progress on each!

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4 - as you can see, I did not remove the ric-rac as I thought I might last week.

Day 5 - not much, but I stitched some stuff and then ripped it out.  I hope that counts as part of my 15 minutes, right?

I learned from this, though - don't do too much at first when it's exciting.  So I planned a little more for the next page.  Which makes the photos look not much different from the start.

Day 6 - I chose all the fabrics and a potential layout first, then stitched down just one of the fabrics in my 15-ish-minute allotment.  (I don't consider fabric selection part of the 15 minutes.)

Day 7 - stitching down the black print was fun since I added some little echo details.

Day 8 - I tried to get a little fancy there in that chevron print and am not sure I like it.  But this is a learning project, right?

Day 9 - French knots - ugh!  They're not as hard as I remember from when I tried them years ago, but still not my favorite.  At least these are staying where I put them and not trying to unravel themselves.  Yet.

Day 10 - once again I am feeling like I'm done, but have my 15 minutes to fill and am unsure if this needs the things I have added.  Or more to make it look less wonky.

Today I will start a new page.  I have no idea what will come.  I grab a "page" and start digging through the bin for a few scraps that look like they'll play nice together.

And I have learned a new trick.

We have six cats.  There is nothing you do that does not involve a cat.  Or three.

Lily does not understand "no."  Or doesn't care.

A few years back I bought an automatic laser "mouse" toy.  It runs for 15 or 20 minutes (the one I linked to here says 15 minutes, but ours is older and a different brand, though it looks exactly the same) and Lily chases it the whole time.

Usually.

It's a good timer for how long I should be stitching as well.

The other cats sometimes join in, too, which I think is the source of her not always sticking with it.  But in general, it's a good distraction.

(It also works to give you a quick window to wolf down any food you don't want to share with her.)

And while we're on the topic of cats, we realized Salem knows how to play fetch.  She'll only do it with a milk ring, but she will do it.  A week or so back, we did this with her for a while and Lily watched.  Last night, while we were rooting hard for the Lions to make it to the Superbowl, the hubby pulled out a handful of kitty toys from the box to keep Lily entertained - you know, toss it across the room and she plays for a few minutes before she comes back to claw her way up your leg again.  In the batch was one of her favorite mousies.  He threw it and she brought it back.  For 20 minutes.  Lily learned to play fetch by watching.

I thought Lily was dumb.

Lily is stubborn.

And with that, I'm off to do a few more chores and some sewing and then Miss Lily needs to go back to the vet for a rabies vaccination that was overlooked when she was in getting spayed last month.  It may have been my mistake, it may have been theirs.  A lot was going on at that point with two new cats and there's nothing I can do to change what happened, so I'll just move forward.  At least with the warmer weather, the roads are good for travel!

Happy quilting!
Katie

PS  No one asked me or paid me to tell you about the laser mouse.  It's good toy, though, and if it helps another quilting cat parent, yay!