Cat No. 11

Think Chanel No. 5...or not. It just popped into my head with that "No." abbreviation for number. Today I got well along on the 11th of 12 cats. My goal is to have them all finished by the end of the weekend. Think I'll make it?

Sue and I walked this morning. It rained. A lot. We were wet by the time we finished. When I got home, spending the afternoon in the sewing room sounded divine, and that's just what I did. When I left off, I'd only pulled fabrics from my stash for this latest cat. First I had to piece together the background.

The background ended up taking far longer than expected for reasons too hard to explain in writing. If you're a glutton for punishment, I'd be happy to bore you in a separate email. If not, then just take my word for it.
Nevertheless, I was feeling pretty smug at this point, thinking I was well along. Only, then I looked more closely at the cat and realized he was another one whose tail and feet extended out into the sashing. That meant I had to put all the borders and the right side of the sashing on before I could continue. It also meant making strip sets for the checkerboard sashing. Fortunately, there is just one more sashing needed to complete the quilt, and I've done both. And, yes, that did restore me to my former smugness. (I looked up "smugness" just now. Yes, it is a word. I didn't just make that up. It was a little disappointing to realize that.)

So with that done, I was ready to make the appliques and fuse the cat. This one makes me think of Captain Cattastic. (You would need to have been reading long enough to remember George, Smitty's predecessor.)

This cat happens to be leaping for a dragonfly. I can't fuse the dragonfly until I've sewn this row of blocks to the row above it because the dragonfly extends into the sashing above.
Coincidentally, this quilt was featured today on the Quilt Inspiration blog. Click on that link, and you can see the quilt that was made by Kathy Mack of the River City Quilt Guild in Sacramento, California. The guild held a show recently, and Kathy's quilt won an Honorable Mention in the show. I'm only showing you this one image of the block I'm currently working on, so that you can see the placement of the dragonfly.

Kathy's quilt is quite different from mine, and it's fun to see another interpretation. Be sure to click on the link I've given you to see her whole quilt and the rest of the blocks. I enjoyed seeing how it was quilted.

Now all that's left is to do the top-stitching and embroider the face. That's enough for one day, however. I'm just going to keep on going until I have all of the cats finished. It's getting very close now. Pin It