Our Pets...

It's been a pretty rough week around here for our pets.  Arbour, our 11 year old cat, has gone missing and we fear she may have fallen prey to a fisher.  We've learned since her disappearance that there are more fishers around this area than usual this year. 

Casey was two when we got Arbour and she's always been a bit of a mom to her cat.  As a kitten Arbour would just climb into that little nook in Casey's 'arms' and that's how they'd sleep. Needless to say, Casey has been missing her cat as have we.

To make things worse, Casey started limping on Wednesday and she spent last night in hospital, having had to have a minor surgery to have her damaged 'toe nail' removed.  The claw may grow back, but in the mean time the limp is almost completely gone and she's happy to be resting comfortably at home!  How do you like that cute bandage.  LOL

 Earlier in the summer, when my friend, Heather came to visit, she asked me to back her car down our large hill as she's not as comfortable with it as I am.  Casey, always by my side, followed me up the hill, so Heather told me to invite her in the car and give her a ride back down.  Well, Casey happily jumped in, and when at the bottom of the hill she just curled up on the seat and went to sleep.  She slept there for an hour before we were able to coax her out!  Silly old puppy...(she turned 13 in June, but will always be my puppy!)

Continuing to Make Slow Progress...

As I've been working on my Rust quilt, I'm finding just how much of a challenge it is to machine quilt rust dyed fabric.

I'm making slow progress, but I thought I'd show you a couple of areas that are now done.  I'm really happy with the look I'm achieving, but I can't tell you how many times I've had to rethread the machine because the rust is literally shredding my thread as I sew.

Fortunately I am now moving into some areas which are going to have hand stitching so I'll have a break from the machine work, at least for a while.

I was considering showing you more, but Arbour thinks I should make you wait until it's done...

One of Those Days...

Do you ever have one of those days where you just can't seem to machine quilt...the fabric seems weighed down or something and you're struggling to move it around through the machine with your regular ease?  Well, that's the sort of morning I'm having!

Let's take a closer look at why...

Yes, it would appear as though Arbour has again found the newest 'cat bed' that has obviously been put in the studio for her personal pleasure and comfort!

But, being the horrible person I am, I will have to move my little assistant because my wishes to work on this piece trump her need for yet another comfortable place to sleep!

A Touch of Tradition

It has been a very long time since I have made a 'traditional' quilt.  In fact, this sofa quilt, made with a large variety of batiks, was started over two years ago and has been waiting patiently to be finished.  I finally finished the last bit of work on it and got the binding sewn on last night.  It's a gift, and I'm hoping they won't mind that it's 'slightly used'...the extra warmth provided by the cat hair is a bonus!  Arbour decided she should help me with the binding, but as you can imagine it didn't make the hand sewing any easier!

You might notice in the close up that the two shorter edges of the flying geese (triangles for you non-quilters) are loose, creating little pockets of sorts.  This adds some interesting extra texture to the quilt.

Forced Break...

I've been working on a monochromatic piece for our next GOE challenge and I'm at the machine quilting stage.  I went down to the kitchen to get a coffee, which I had planned to sip on while quilting, but when I returned to the studio I saw that Arbour, our cat, had other ideas. Obviously I couldn't quilt with her there, and I hated to disturb the spoiled brat... so I enjoyed a bit of a coffee break, checked my email, and just relaxed for a while before getting back to my quilting.  I did have to move her though because if left alone she would have likely slept there all day.

Arbour seems to have 'new bed' radar.  Any time there is anything new, whether it's in my studio or else where in the house (i.e., a freshly washed towel that hasn't been put away yet, or a new shirt my husband bought and left on the newel post to remind him to take it upstairs, etc.), if she perceives it to be comfortable  it becomes her new favourite sleeping place until it is moved or something newer shows up to replace it!

My husband Bill has been recently pointing out just how close the words pets and pest are...  (see my final comment in this previous post LOL)

A Photo Shoot and Timeline...

This week in the first Beyond Beyond post, Kim challenged us to do a photo shoot in which we set up a still life and then moved around to take shots from various angles.  The other day, I found our cat Arbour sleeping on a pile of quilts that were left on top of the antique sewing machine at the top of the stairs.  So...

It wasn't long before she was watching me and following the camera.  She didn't look too please that I had disturbed her nap, but I kept shooting.

When it came time to figure out how to present a select few of the shots, I remembered a timeline lesson that Kim had taught us in Beyond Layers, which I have been meaning to try but so far hadn't done.  I had to figure out a few things since I put my own spin on it by using photos along with thought bubbles in place of Kim's text boxes.  It was fun interpreting Arbour's thoughts from some of the looks she was giving me during the shoot.