Kats with Kates - Late Friday Edition

Kate (of Katie Mae Quilts) and I are working on Kitty Kwilts.  Not the same pattern, we both had Kitty projects on our bucket list for this year and decided to start them at the same time.  

You should check out her purrfect blocks (here).  She already has enough blocks done to come up with 2 layouts.  Me, well I suppose I could do a bit of shuffling of what I've gotten done to date.

Calico Cats
Pattern is Fat Cats from the
The Quilter Magazine (July 2006)
by Lucy A. Fazely and Micheal L. Burns

Number 4 lies in pieces next to the sewing machine, it may make it to being a full fledged Kitty by the end of the weekend.  Then I only have 16 more to do!  

Forgetful, Fraught Friday and Kats with Kate

I knew I was forgetting something this morning.  It nagged at me most of the day.  But it never clearly came into focus as I had meetings all day.  Then just before the last meeting of the day I get the following text from Drama Teen who was in Tulsa for a Math Counts competition.

        "Can u schedule a doctors appointment i have a fever and my
          throats sore and i feel really achy"

Oh no!  She hadn't looked good that morning, but didn't want to miss the competition.  She thought it was just the usual sinus crude that she gets sometimes.  Thankfully My Guy had taken the day off and I caught him at home just before he left for a bike ride.  I had him on my Blackberry and school on my personal cell phone trying to figure out where she was.  Turns out she's on her way back from Tulsa and was still 30 minutes from home.  My Guy wants to me to call the doctor and deal with this, but I was already late for a customer meeting, so I dumped it in his lap.  He got her into the doctor.  The doctor confirmed type A influenza.  My Guy was able to locate a pharmacy that had Tamiflu.  Poor DT is currently sacked out on the couch sleeping peacefully at the moment.  We tried to get her a flu vaccine earlier this year, but I couldn't find any place that had any  left.  Hopefully the Tamiflu will blunt the symptoms enough that she'll be much better tomorrow.   

So what was it I forgot?  To link up with Katie Mae Quilts and Kats with Kate projects.  She's making Cat Tails and I'm making Calico Cats.  She's finished block 3 and started on block 4.  I've finished block 1 and started on block 2. 

Calico Cats
Pattern is Fat Cats from the
The Quilter Magazine (July 2006)
by Lucy A. Fazely and Micheal L. Burns

Reasonable progress had been made on block two, till I realized I'd assembled the ears backwards.  So on the agenda tonight is a bit of unsewing.  I don't usually have this much problem making blocks, but this pattern is tricky in that the cats don't all face the same direction.  Hopefully, I'll get better as I go along or else the next 17 blocks are going to be really painful.  

Favorite Things Friday - Starting Something New

Favorite Things Friday with Mrs. P over at Quilting in my Pyjamas is back!  FTF is always a fun way to end the week and get off to a good start for the weekend.  I'm definitely ready to get back into this fun habit.  My first favorite thing for 2013 is starting a new quilt project, especially one that I've wanted to make for a while.  Back in 2006 I saw this quilt in The Quilter Magazine.

Fat Cats
The Quilter Magazine (July 2006)
by Lucy A. Fazely and Micheal L. Burns

I immediately had this vision of making it, but with the cats done in calico florals in a blue setting.  It took a couple of years to accumulate all the right fabrics.   On Monday, I scanned all those fabrics into EQ and played (another favorite thing).  Finally coming coming up with the final fabric selections and a preliminary lay out. 

The original pattern is written to use a pair of white and black fat quarters to make two cats.  Since I was using a common background, I needed to come up with strip cutting instructions to produce all the pieces needed to make 20 blocks.   Using the rotary cutting instructions from EQ, I was able to come up with the number and sizes of strips that needed to be cut.

This does involve quilt math, but I like playing with numbers (except when my quilt math is wrong, then it's not fun).  

Last night I got most of the background pieces cut (Confession:  cutting out the pieces for a new project is really not one of my favorite things, it ranks almost as low as unsewing something).

Now I just need to pick one of the floral fabrics, get it cut and make the first block.  There is nothing quite like working on and finishing that first block of a new project.  It can be both frustrating and exciting as you navigate those instructions for the first time and realize that either you have no clue how this is supposed to go together or it's a complete breeze. 

Another favorite thing this week is that Kate over Katie Mae Quilts is also making a cat themed quilt, so we decided that we are definitely going to cheer each other on with a Kats with Kate joint quilt along.   Since this quilt needs to be done by May, I'm hoping Kate will help keep me motivated and moving on this project.  

That's it for me this Friday.  Check out all the other favorite things over at Quilting in my Pyjamas