WOW, has it really been almost two months since I've posted?  I'm sure no one out there missed me, but I am going to just "check in" for now.

I have to say that I am so glad that the holidays are over!  I have been free to busy myself with normal things like sewing and scrap booking.  I finally finished Stephanie's quilt, but I don't want to show it to you until after I give it to her.  It was a lot of work and I'm so glad that one is over!

So I started another quilt.  This time it's for PW.  She loves cats and owns 4 of them, so I thought I would make her a "kitty quilt".  About a year ago I started looking for different kitty patterns and thought I might make a kitty sampler quilt by using all kinds of different designs.  But then I found a cute pattern on the "Shiny Happy World" website and decided to go with that one.

I started with one sample block to practice with, just to get a feel for how to make it and to find out if I wanted to make any kind of adjustments for the quilt itself.  I thought it turned out super cute...

But what was bothering me about the pattern is that they look more like bears or dogs because of the way they have the mouth shaped. 

But I was pleased with the practice block, so went ahead and made the first block for PW's quilt.  This one represents her cat "Peanut", who is black, big, and fat.

Instead of a "bear" mouth, I gave him a little kitty mouth, which I think really gave him the right expression, and made him look more like a CAT.  I didn't do very well on the bow tie - I need more practice with my applique skills.

Anyhoo, the next one I made represents "Raptor".

PW says that Raptor is a biter, so I added some fangs.

PW's four kitties are going to be on colored backgrounds to make them stand out from the rest of the kitties on the quilt, which will be on neutral backgrounds.  So to add a few more splashes of color, I made some "MEOW" blocks, one in each color to match the backgrounds of the 4 kitties.

Then I finished making her other two kitties, "Ash" and "Galadriel".

Every time I make one, I snicker at them because they always turn out so cute!  But I still need to figure out a way to make the noses smaller - they just don't look right being that size.  It is next to impossible to applique pieces that small, especially if you're "turning them under".  I don't want to just fuse it on because it might fall off after several washings.  And I would prefer to turn them under so they don't fray on the edges, so I am still trying to find a solution to this problem, or I just to need to keep practicing with smaller pieces.  Anyway I think I am getting better with each one I make.

Here are two more that I finished.  The rest of them that I make will go on these neutral backgrounds.

The kitties themselves are wooly flannel; I wanted them to feel soft and cuddly.

I am using buttons for the eyes for the same reason I am having problems with the noses - they are just way to small to applique.  Anyway, I think the buttons give them more character.

The quilt will be really cute when it's done.  There are 12 different cat patterns to play with.  I'm not sure yet if I'm doing 6x6 array or a 7x7 array, so I will be making 3 or 4 sets of each of them.  It's also going to be "Quilt As You Go" because the blocks are 10", so I am letting the applique be the quilting, and that would be hard to do if the whole quilt was put together.  I am still very new at QAYG quilts, but after learning how to do it the HARD way with Stephanie's quilt, this one should seem pretty easy.

I think I might even want to make a quilt like it for myself, because I think it's going to be too cute.

Anyhoo, off that subject, we still get our neighbor visitor "Einstein" coming by once in a while.

Usually he shows up on the weekends.  He comes over and scratches on our door and whines, so we let him in.  He's all excited to get a snack from us, and then he leaves.  Sometimes he hangs around for awhile, but after we quit giving him snacks, that's when he decides he wants to go back out.  Some days he is out luck when I don't really have anything for him, but today I had some leftover turkey to give him, then he cleaned out the cat dish (he's never done that before!), and now he's eating a doggie snack - we bought a bag of doggie snacks from the commissary just for him, but usually he doesn't eat them - he would rather first see what I got in the fridge.  He must be really hungry today!  I feel so sorry for him when it's really cold outside.  I don't know if his owners boot him out all day, or what, but he often roams around in the neighborhood as if he has no home.  I suppose he's just making his rounds, seeing what other kinds of snacks he can mooch off of people.  I would really like to give him a bath because he always stinks, but I don't do it because I don't wanna send him back out in the freezing weather if he's still wet - and I don't wanna keep him in the house long enough to thoroughly dry.  So - me thinks his owners need to take better care of him.

So that's pretty much it, just back to my normal activities and waiting for Spring to come!  I already received all the seeds that I ordered, so I am impatiently waiting for March 9 because that is the earliest day that I can start planting seeds.  Celery and parsley will be the first ones that I start.  I can't wait!

I hope you are ready to read all my boring posts about my garden.

If your February is as cold as ours, I hope you are staying warm!