The things you do after

Keep sewing.  It's where Stella always was right next to me - sitting on my chest licking my face while I'd try to read, or putting her forehead on my cheek while I tried to sew.  It's hard to not have here there, but I don't want to avoid it because she's not.  I just tell myself that's the room where I have a lot of memories.

We took her to the emergency vet on Wednesday - maybe it should have been Tuesday night, but you never really know that until Wednesday morning, do you?  I still wake up crying.

I made this to hang over the chair we always sat in to read each evening.

 Ok, I realize that I use the term "made" pretty loosely when I'm talking about machine embroidery - what I actually did is thread the machine and hit a couple buttons then walk away and start cutting pieces for my first Swoon block.  When it was finished, I put it in vintage wooden embroidery hoop.

This morning I finished putting together the pieces for the afore mentioned Swoon block.

It's HUGE - it's a 24" block, and the pattern has you make 9 of them for an 80x80 quilt.  I think these would make pretty cool pillows too.  I had to buy this pattern after seeing so many amazing blocks on Flicker.  It's all the same pattern, but it's amazing how different it looks when you play around with color (or rather value, I suppose) on the parts.  I'm pretty happy with this one, but I do feel that some of the white circles intersect with the white in the middle and it interrupts that sharp lines of the center star.  That's being a little too anal for me though, and I know that in the grand scheme of things, it'll look just fine.

I made a few wonky bento box blocks a few weeks ago, just because I love the block and wanted to do it.  Later I thought that maybe I could use them for a baby quilt - my manager's wife is pregnant.  They aren't finding out the sex so I wanted to make it kind of neutral.  The solid green is brighter in real life - more of a lime green.  The brown and gold dot fabric is some stuff I've been hording since Catherine and I went to the fabric store in Waynesville (how long ago was that Catherine??) and I decided finally that it needed to be used - what good does it do just sitting there?

My original block was made using this - and that's kind of where I pulled the green and brown from as well.

I like these colors a lot - and I'll certainly save them for something, but Billy convinced me that there may be too much pink for it to be potentially for a boy.  I think it's more acceptable for there to be no "girly" colors in a girl's quilt, than for there to be pink in a boy's quilt.  Oh, this picture shows the brightness of the lime green better too!  

the things you do when you're waiting

You know, people tell you, and you tell yourself, that you'll "know when it's time" but that kind of feels like a bunch of crap.  I don't know.  I feel like if I wait until I know, it'll be inhumanely late, but I also don't want to jump the gun.  My cat Stella, who the vets told me had kidneys that didn't want to work anymore about a month ago, isn't doing so well.  I went in to work on Monday after having a pretty crappy weekend involving a lot of crying, and I just couldn't do it - my head wasn't in the game and I was having trouble feeling like I cared as much as I needed to about stuff at work.  My manager, who I would not necessarily expect to be very sympathetic (he's usually mister all business), has been great - I told him that I had some vacation time and it suddenly felt to me like I'd rather take time and spend it with her while she was still here.  So I've been home with her - basically just hanging out in the sewing room while she tucks herself behind chairs (i think it's that animal instinct kicking in when they know it's about time and they need a place where predators won't find them) and sometimes totters out to get some water, but not food anymore.  I'm hoping that spending time with her now will help me when she's gone and I'm awfully thankful for the luxury of being able to do it.

So some of the things you do when you're just moping about in your sewing room, and watching, and waiting, is read short stories, listen to book reviews and This American Life on podcasts, and sew together a bunch of little felt rabbits.  5 for your nieces and nephews, and 2 for your manager's 8 month old twins to say thanks for letting me hang out with my ailing cat.

Easter bunnies from Japan

This is the first of 5 little bunnies I'm making for the nieces and nephews for Easter!  It's from Felt Friends from Japan, which is a book full of adorable japanese felt stuff (that explanation was probably unnecessary, given the descriptive title!)  I'm going to shred some green paper, put in in the bottom of the box, and pack the easter bunnies in there - I think that'd be a pretty cool parcel to get if I were a kid!  please - I'd love to get a parcel like that NOW!

on a less happy note - my ol' Stella is appearing to not be feeling so great anymore.  She was diagnosed with kidney failure about a month or so ago, and the subcutaneous water treatments made her feel much better for a while.  now she's to the point where she doesn't want to sit still and get water pumped into her - I really can't blame her.  Plus, she looks like it's painful to walk around - she walks like her muscles are stiff or something, and she really just wants to lay in a corner.  she'll let me hold her, but as soon as I put her down it's right back to the corner, or behind a chair.  I knew I'd have to deal with this again, but I'm just not ready for her to be gone.  not at all.