Sticky cat and other things

When showing you the table topper I was making for the blog hop I told you about a sticky cat sitting on it and that I needed to wash the top before I could finish making it. What I didn't tell you was that we needed to bath Picasso. Some cats like having a bath and others don't. Fortunately Picasso enjoys an occasional bath so long as the water is warm. He tried his best to remove the sticky substance from his fur but the whole of one side was affected so he was finding it hard work. In the end we gave him a bath. He happily allowed us to wash him using a pet shampoo made for puppies and kittens. In fact he sat quietly in the warm water while we gently rubbed his fur to remove whatever it was. We towel dried him and gave him a gentle blow dry with cool air. End result one clean non sticky kitten perfumed cat. The table topper was also washed  (several times) by hand and the sticky came off but there is some slight yellow staining on the background fabric. It looks OK and I can live with the slight stain, it will be a talking point if anyone notices. My plan had been that the topper would have been all finished to put on the table on the first day of Autumn but of course that didn't happen but it will be all finished once I've hand stitched the binding on. I'll post a photo when I've finished the stitching.

Older daughter got a new kitten a while back and last night sent us a photo of Rothko and Penny chilling out together and I thought you would like to see. Being a black cat Rothko is difficult to photograph and pick up any features but Penny's markings show up so well and she plays to the camera. she is a very mischievous kitten, into anything and everything.

My one monthly goal this month was to complete the quilting on the hare quilt but this hasn't been successful. I got the opportunity to do a little work on it and may manage to do some more tomorrow or over the weekend.  I added the ribbon stitching along the blue bird section This caused a lot of work and if you look carefully you will see signs of unpicking. I was feeling a little tired but thought some sewing would pick me up  so I got the machine set up and started work on this strip. Having gone one way I turned to do the other strand or side of the design. When I took it off the machine I realised just how tired I was. I hadn't fully opened the quilt out and so I'd stitched through two layers, successfully sewing the quilt in half.  Grrrr. I'm sure most of us have stitched a tuck in the back or caught the edge in when quilting but this was ridiculous. I unpicked it and by the time I finished I was fully alert and very cross. I resewed the strip, successfully this time and then did the meander on the red strip. I also went back and corrected the part where the stitches on the ribbon had gone very small. Warning - don't quilt when you're tired.

The next day I added a line of embroidery down the middle of the narrow red strip. I used a variegated thread. There's little point in having embroidery stitches on the machine if we don't use them.

I also quilted wavy lines across the thick frog strip. The above photo and the one below were taken with the quilt over the back of a chair, hence the odd lumps and bumps. 

 

The last few evenings I've been crocheting the granny squares together on the afghan I'm making to use up left over yarns. When I last worked on this I had got this far.

I've now added 4 more rows but still need to join up the rows going across. There are also a huge number of ends to be sewn in. I made 200 squares for this afghan so there are a lot of squares to add. 

I haven't done any work on the dolls house but I have bought a couple of bits, paint and flooring. I also bought a pattern to make the dolls who will live in the house. No point in sorting the house if there is no one to live in it. This is the doll pattern. The male makes up at 6 inches so would be 6 foot if human. Once made the dolls can be positioned because they have wire inside

I also ordered some fabric to make them. I have enough to make the whole family but the baby doll looks very small and fiddly so there may be two older children instead. the main sewing is done on the machine.

I need to go and cook dinner but I will be back tomorrow. I have walks to tell you about and Lucy ran a half marathon. Doing the remodelling on bits of the house, working and trying to fit in sewing has proved too much for me and recently I have been too tired to read the blogs I follow yet alone write a blog post. Things are now settling down again so I'm setting myself a challenge of posting everyday in October. OK, so we all know it won't happen but a girl can dream.

Take care

Lyndsey