quilty sewing!!!!!

I bet you thought I'd NEVER get back to quilty sewing, didn't you?

There's a lot going on, but a new job starting this week has pushed me into a higher gear to get some things taken care of.

Yep, a new job.

I'd been debating going back to full time again.  Everything is getting more expensive and paychecks aren't reflecting that change and I had been debating with myself if I wanted to give up my free time to make the budget easier.

And then, when I was packing Finn into the car after his dental recheck, one of the gals who works up front at the vet followed me out and told me about an opportunity there.  I applied and got the job!  Turns out taking your pets to the same doc for 24 years can pay off!  This job starts before my two weeks at the old one is done, so I'll be working two jobs for a short while.

Toby is demonstrating how tired he thinks I will be from all the changes.

This change, and finally some time actually at home (it's been a couple of crazy weeks), has kicked my sewing into high gear.  I've made quite a few carrier covers and a few hammocks in an attempt to finish up the ginormous donation of fabrics made earlier this year.  I'm down to 16 fabrics left in the pile, but some of them are larger than others, so it will be more than 16 items made from them.

There seemed to be a light at the end of that tunnel and I was planning to turn over a big stack of goodies and let my volunteer coordinator know about the job and how it would change things and then she sent me a text...  I'd made a huge bin of little catnip toys that they were using at adoption events, but they'd been focusing on getting a (for them to use, not public) clinic up and running and adoptions were taking place through a local pet store, so the toys (intended as a free-for-donation item) were languishing in storage.  This weekend they participated in a local festival and went through a ton of them.  So could I make more?

That upped my notification to the group that my time would be lessened (I'm not quitting!), but also made me want to sew even FASTER!  The little catnip toys take almost as long as the covers and hammocks once you figure in the time required to tell your six cats "NOOOO!!!" 100 times per item! (Filling things with catnip always make construction take longer.)  But I'll raid my stash and start a new batch soon.  I have a huge (and I mean huge) bag of stuffing in my closet that was donated and I'll be glad to use some of that.  (But you know it will still take up the same amount of room because that is the nature of stuffing!)

I thought to start on the Halloween quilt, but found out last week that the hubby's cousin's daughter (who got this quilt for her first child) is pregnant again, due in December.  This time it's a girl.

So you know I had to make her a quilt, right?  (She sent a thank you for the first one - had she not, a second quilt likely wouldn't be happening.)  Off to all my saved quilt ideas (it used to be Pinterest, but now that you can save posts in Instagram and I sometimes just take screenshots, it's gotten more complicated) and see what I come up with.

How about this Baby Chick Quilt from Lori Holt/Bee In My Bonnet?  (You'll have to scroll down a bit - I can't find a good link.)

To the stash!

I pulled yellows and pinks from my stash and started cutting!  And sewing!  This is after just a few hours of sewing, but if you've made any of Lori's patterns, you know there are a lot of parts and a lost of lost corner triangles.

Salem was supervising.  She likes to play fetch with milk rings, but when I get too focused on sewing, or the game gets old, she finds something else to do.  She mostly stole my chair, so this was her form of protest I think.

After a little more sewing, I had chicks with big butts!

This is pretty exciting to have something that looks like something so quickly.  20 6" blocks seem like they might take forever, but I had a good stretch of sewing on Saturday (I also made covers and hammocks and catnip mats - first) and this is exciting!

Back at it on Sunday...

...first I had to find a new box for Finn.  He was trying to lay in the box with all my parts and that wasn't helpful at all.  He loves boxes, so all I had to do was put a paper in this one and make it seem like I needed the box and he was all in.  He slept there most the day.

I sewed and sewed (again, after my first assignment of covers and hammocks and catnip mats) and left off here last night:

The chicks have normal butts now (it probably wasn't obvious there was a problem until you see the finished product) and the hearts that sit next to their feet are partway made - all those red bits.

Today I've gotten most of my at-home chores done now, so I should be able to sew a bunch more.  The hubby is off work today (holiday for us), but he seems settled in to watch garbage TV, so I should be able to do what I want for a while.

I know I'll still have days off and I managed to quilt a lot back when I worked full-time, but this is just a change and a job that is quite different from anything I've done before (usually I'm in the lab getting samples from the animals, now I'll be helping care for them!), so my mind is whirling with worries and possibilities.

The Halloween quilt is on hold for now.  I do want to make it, but I've got a few too many things going on right now and I need to make room (in my brain at least!) before I start anything else.

So that's been my week.  Exciting news AND quilting!  Try not to faint.

Happy quilting,

Katie