A little gift from heaven...

I've been meaning to post these pictures for several weeks, but as usual, time has gotten away from me.

My parents feed and care for a number of feral cats at their place; I've mentioned them a time or two before.  A couple of months ago, one of the cats gave birth to a single kitten and he was a special guy from the get go.  They named him Spock.

Spock

Absolutely if I didn't already have 4 cats, I'm sure he would have come home with me.  What was so surprising was that all of the other feral cats would play with and babysit him as well.  He wasn't afraid of any of the other cats or of people either.

He also had a thing for attacking flowers.  He would run up, grab them and rabbit kick them until they died.  Fortunately, my mom isn't too attached to the flowers in her yard, because she has none of them left.  He's killed them all.

I remember thinking the first time that I met him that he wasn't long for this world and unfortunately I was right.  God called him home yesterday.  I considered not posting these pictures or his story; however, he brought a lot of joy to some people and he should be remembered for that.  Goodbye Spock.  Rest in peace.

Until later...

But God untied the death ropes and raised him up. Death was no match for him. 

Acts 2:24 (MSG)

Still 'Leaping' Away...

The extra border fabric for my Leap Year quilt came in a couple of days ago and I wasted no time in sewing it on.  I was eager to call this top finished!  I wasn't sure what size to make the border, so I auditioned a couple of widths first before finally deciding on 5 inches.

Auditioning potential border widths before cutting my fabric

The top now finishes at 67" x 76", which is a little too big to lay out on my sewing room floor, so I brought it down and laid it across my bed to get a good picture of it.

'Leap Year' laid across our bed

Uh oh!  Seeing how well it fit across our bed got me thinking that it wouldn't take that much more effort to turn it into a king size quilt.  And I've been wanting to make a patriotic quilt for our bed for quite some time.  (Should I mention that I have yet to finish even one king-size quilt for our room and our current quilt comes from Kohl's?)

So I've decided to add another border of 16 patches around the outside and a final outer border of the blue fabric.  That should make it plenty big enough.  This fabric line is Wiscasset by Minick & Simpson and is several years old, but I lucked out and managed to find one last Layer Cake online and a few yards of the blue, which should be enough to finish the quilt.  Both of those purchases should be in later this week and I can hopefully get started on it again.

Like most of the country, we've been experiencing record breaking high temperatures and no rain.  In fact, we just finished 7 days in a row of 100+ degree temperatures.  Everything's been drying up here, which is why I was shocked to see my Asiatic Lily bloom this year.  It's looked as sickly as everything else and I was convinced it wasn't going to bloom.  (It's actually supposed to bloom in the Spring.)  However, it surprised me and started with the most glorious blossoms this past week and more are opening every day.

Love Story Asiatic Lily

A cold front (relatively speaking) moved in last night and we're supposed to get rain every day this week.  When I checked this morning, there were another 8 blooms getting ready to open.  God is glorious, isn't He!

Until later...

I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High. 

Psalm 9:2 (NLT)

My sewing buddy...

Recently, I had some family come to visit.  My niece is on summer vacation and she came to play for a week with her favorite Aunt (coincidentally her only one).  While I worked on my Leap Year quilt, she was busy working on her very first quilt, a recent birthday gift from her Uncle.

My temporary sewing buddy

The kit is a beginner quilt kit from Connecting Threads and has the softest flannels in it.  I did all the rotary cutting (because she's still a little too young to do it on her own), but she helped organize and label all the fabric.  She also sewed every piece in the first couple of rows together by herself.  (We practiced on some scrap fabrics to get the hang of the quarter inch seam first.)  She did all of the pressing by herself too.

My niece ironing her quilt

We only had time to do the first couple of rows.  She still has 4 more to put together and a border.  Now that she's back home, she has Grandma to help her out with the rest of it.  Perhaps if she enjoys quilting as much as her Grandma and I do, we might have to see about getting her her own sewing machine in the future.  She certainly did a much better job with her quarter inch seam than I did when I started quilting!

Her quilt in progress

We were so busy during her visit here with exercising and shopping and sewing and swimming and so many other things that I think she was just exhausted.  Gabriel has also been on a new exercise regimen and has been extremely tired too.

Aren't they just adorable together?

Until later...

Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding. 

Proverbs 3:13 (NLT)