moving on

I've had a few days in a row off - enough to have a little down time to relax and THEN get busy on my own projects - and it's been productive!

First, I needed to get those cat carrier covers finished - they were piled (so they stayed nice and flat) on my cutting table.  There were quite a few to be completed, but they don't take a ton of time each.  Just a lot of time when there's a bunch of them together.

This feels so good.  I expect I'll be asked to sew more at some point, but the gal who was coordinating this effort stepped down shortly after she handed over the 14 bolts of fabric.  (I talked with her just a few days ago and found out she'd had a stroke!  She needed to focus on all the healing that goes with that, but I think she may come back and I'm glad,. not only because she is doing so well in her healing (she had zero risk factors, which is crazy), but also because she is so organized!)

So these will get donated the next time we make a run down to the shelter.  Or I know someone who is headed that way.

With that out of of the way, I could allow myself to FINALLY start on the baby quilt that I shopped for a while back.  The fabrics had all been washed and folded somewhat neatly, but needed to be pressed and folded precisely for cutting.

Lily got in on the action.  She wrinkled things up and then attacked my whole arm and tried to kill it when I tried to get her to move.  I turned on an automated toy, trying to get her to leave, but mom's arm was more interesting.  She's a spitfire.

Eventually I did get all the fabric ironed and folded and then I sat down with the pattern.  The eyes, noses, mouths, ears and bodies can all be swapped around to make tons of different monsters, so I needed to decide what I'd do.

The pattern - and I'm so thankful for this - offered a page of all the parts that you could copy and print and clip apart to make a reference.  Until I found that, I wasn't sure how I was going to make this all work, aside from just copying the monsters on the cover, because I wanted to make sure the eyes looked right with the ears and whatnot.

It doesn't look as great here, but since I just used a grey for the bodies where the floral will go, it's going to get a whole lot wilder in real life!  (I also had no purple colored pencils handy, so that one is green for now.)

Today, once chores are done (and blogging!), I get to start!

(Can you spot Salem helping me with the photo above?  She's much gentler and less crazy than her little sister, but she does love to help!)

I did finally (I think) decide on a quilt pattern for my nephew who asked for a new quilt.  I think this quilt at Aunt Em's Quilts will work nicely.  It's fairly easy (though I'm not a huge fan of flying geese) and should go quickly.  Now I just have to decide if I want to try to do it scrappy or go purchase fabric.

And I read just one book this week.  I mean, I started a second one yesterday, but still just finished one.

(book cover is a screenshot from my tracking app - I read a free(!) digital copy)

After reading James, I wanted to read this.  I still don't remember it, so maybe I never read it?

It was not as good.

I'm sorry.  I know it's a classic, but there were sections that went ON and ON and ON and ON and I nearly skipped ahead.

In James I feel like there was more story, even if things didn't always line up with this one (I know some of it is different perspectives, but Tom Sawyer never showed up in James and he took up about the last third of this one).  The story moved along in James, here it got hung up a few times.

And if I didn't really think much of Tom Sawyer from my remembering reading HIS book way back when, I think even less of him now.  (Yes, yes, he's a fictional character, but he's more obviously a controlling con artist in my mind now than he was before.)

It wasn't awful, and I'm glad I read it, but it also took me a week to read because I just didn't want to.  (Written dialect aside - that took a bit to adjust to as well, but I expected/remembered that.)

And with that I'm off to finish the last few chores and get busy sewing...well...cutting at least!

Happy quilting and reading!

Katie