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Monday, October 6, 2014

Out with the old, in with the cold!

 That title is wishful thinking. We might get a cold snap this weekend, but nothing like the northern folks get.  Borrowing lyrics from Bananarama, it was a cruel summer.  I didn't do anything crafty from the end of June, until about 2 weeks ago. My heart was just not in it. 

On June 22nd around 1AM, my little cat, Diva ran out the back door as I was trying to let out my geriatric Lab, Tucker. She ran right past me, and then my Dalmatian-mix, Diamond pounced playfully at her and she disappeared over the fence into the darkness. We searched until 4AM, and only stopped because we were exhausted. I put out a live trap, food, some clothes, and one of her favorite blankets in efforts to catch her, to no avail. I went to our animal services every few days to look for her. We posted large, laminated, color signs around the neighborhood and I posted her on craigslist, petfinder, FB animal groups and any website I could find. I emailed all of my cat rescue contacts and called the SPCA and Humane Society to report her missing. We walked the neighborhood, using our flashlights to peer into bushes and under cars, etc.  We put food on the front porch every night and Bruce bought a trail camera to see if she was coming at night. We discovered we were feeding at least 6 other cats and an occasional opossum, but no Diva. I got a lot of calls of possible sightings in our neighborhood. I checked out every one. I even got a call from a woman telling me that she was probably eaten by a coyote.  Nice, huh?  After 21 trips and being on a first name basis with several of the staff, I decided to stop going to Animal Services. It's a good distance from home and Bruce and I agreed that our street smart, former stray, was probably too smart to be caught in a trap. Not to mention that going there was emotionally exhausting. Seeing all the animals waiting for homes is heartbreaking. I became quite attached to a beautiful, black boy cat, named Roland, who was recovering from an URI.  Bruce later admitted that he was caving in on that one. Roland did get adopted and that made me happy and sad. Here's a picture of Roland.
 
Not the best shot, as he was in the cage, but you can see what a looker he is.
  Fast forward to September and the good news. We had that trail camera set up for the 3 months. We saw a cat that looked a lot like Diva on the camera, but none of the shots were clear enough to be 100% certain.  I was sure it was her, but Bruce was not. Our front porch light is one has a motion sensor, so every night if it came on while we were watching tv, we'd jump up to see which cat was eating on the porch. One of those times, we saw her! I had to go slowly, and regain her trust, but 2 weeks later, she was back inside again!  And here she is, supervising my new sewing project and my NewFo for September. 


One of Bruce's lifelong friends is going to be a first time father in a few months.  They know it's going to be a little boy, so I pulled this pattern and fabrics out of my stash. 
 
 I had originally bought this pattern to make for another friend of Bruce's grandson (about 6 years ago), but I didn't know how to applique and got discouraged after I had cut out the pieces. So, now that I know how to machine applique, I felt a little more confident in this getting completed. I got almost all the pieces fused, but then ran out of fusible webbing, so I didn't get to do the clouds and hearts, yet.  My funds are extremely tight right now, so I will have to wait, until I have money to buy more.  I plan on finishing the pieces I have, and then piecing some of the little blocks together until then.  I actually got all 3 airplanes and the 6 stars appliqued down today, but forgot to take pictures.
Here are some of the stars. If you look closely, you can see that I didn't follow the rules of machine applique, that I was taught in class.  Our instructor said to make the stitches smaller as you got to the points of the stars and larger as you went away from them.  I tried it, but ended up ripping it out, because it looked terrible.  I like the uniformity of the stitches my way. 
That was all I got started for September. There were a few other exciting things going on this summer, but I'll put that in a separate post.  For now, I just wanted to link up to the September NewFO challenge over at Cat Patches.

http://catpatches.blogspot.com/p/newfo-challenge.html


In parting, I just wanted to share a warm and fuzzy shot of my sweet little girl, back where she belongs, next to me on the chair.  That's Tucker in the background.





Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy

5 comments:

  1. Those stars are so happy looking. Good news about your kitty. She's so pretty.

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  2. You've got a really pretty cat! Glad you got her back inside.

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  3. I'm so glad she stayed around and you got her back, I'm pretty sure she feels the same way. That quilt is adorable, they're going to love it.

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  4. I am so glad she came back home!!! She's adorable!

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  5. So pleased Diva found her way back to you, lets hope she's scared herself enough to stay home now!
    Love the boys quilt pattern, it looks smashing!

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