Kitty Cats

One year ago, in June, there was a black cat in my side yard.  I called him and he came running as fast as he could run, meowing at the top of his lungs and then wrapped himself around my legs.  I thought he looked a bit thin, so I fed him.  :-)   He showed up for another three days and then on the fourth day, I looked out the window and there was a different kitty.  She looked really bad, very thin, her hair looked bad.  So I fed her.  About the fourth day, I looked out and there is the second kitty nursing baby kitties.  I named them, Mama Kitty, Baby Girl Kitty and Baby Boy Kitty. 

Where Black Kitty loved me, Mama Kitty would hiss at me and one year later she is still hissing at me.  To shorten a story, they are still here, they are outdoor kitties and they love my food.  I got Baby Boy fixed and my intentions were to get the girls fixed, but that is not easy with wild cats.  So this month, Mama brings me 5 babies and Baby Girl brings me 2 babies.  Help!!!!  They are going to break me buying kitty food. 

 

Moochers

 



The little kitties still run off when I go outside, but they are getting a little closer to me.  I think in a week or two, I will be able to pick them up and pet them.  Hopefully I can find nice homes for them.   The little black kitty,  came often to eat.  I really believe that he belonged to someone because he was not wild.  He was very friendly.   I think he got run over on Parish Road.  I was over there and there was a dead black kitty by the side of the road.  I never saw him again, so I am sure that it was him.  For those of you who don't know, I have two kitties and a dog in the house.  I have enough pet hair, I really cannot bring in more kitty cats.  They are as safe as I can make them. 

 

They are very entertaining.  The kitties are doing what kitties do, running, chasing and wrestling.   They keep Jack (the dog) entertained. 

 

Hope you have had a great day.  We have had rain, rain and more rain.  We are about to float away. 

 

 

It is Quilt Time

Since I last posted, I entered a quilt show and I finished a top. 

The top is one that I started many moons ago and you can find the story of the quilt farther down in the blog.  There is a mistake in it.  Just in case you find it :-) I am fixing it.  Pattern: Sharie's Quilts of Many Pieces

 

The three following quilts are the entries in the show.  The show was held at Sulphur, LA and had approximately 300 entries. 

 



There is Something Figgy Going On - Pattern: Sharie's Quilts of Many Pieces

 

 

Eyelashes for a Lady - Pattern:  Judy Neimeyer

 

 

Alaska - Nebraska
Pattern: Judy Neimeyer - I added the border

 

 

The show was great fun.  I saw many many many quilters that I have not seen for awhile.  The vendors were great, and of course I can always find something to purchase.  There was roughly ten of us for lunch.  Lunch was good and great conversation. 

 

Tomorrow - I hope - I am going to post about my kitchen and then the following day I hope to post about my kitty cats and then there is - what is on my wall???? 

 

Hope you all have a great day.



 

Chester

 

This is Chester, my daughters cat.  Chester is a wonderful cat, and he liked Fred

See the following post for   Fight For Fred Info.



Fight For Fred

FRED

Several years ago, Victor, my son,  was living in Sulphur.  He was on his way home from work.  It was raining, and dark, and as he drove up a busy street there was a Bassett Hound trying to cross the street.  He stopped, and put the Bassett in the car and took him home.  He attempted to find the owner without luck.  A couple weeks later, someone said to him, that they thought he belonged to the people that lived behind him and a house over.  Fred's owners, said for Vic to keep the dog, it looked like he would have a good home.  Vic had a fenced yard so Fred's wandering days were over.  Fred was a wonderful dog with lots of personality. 

Victor moved to California, back to the area that we had lived in for many years.  He took Fred with him.

A few days ago, Vic was in Walmart and he saw a Dynamic Ham Bone.   Vic thought Fred would really enjoy it.  Fred ended up at the vet's where they had to put him to sleep.  The bone had splintered and destroyed his insides. 

Vic and his girl friend Khristy and her sister have been hard at work trying to get these bones banned.  No dog or any animal should have to go through what Fred went through.  If you go to Fred's facebook page you will find there are many, many dogs that have been seriously ill or died from chewing on one of these ham bones.  

Go to Facebook

Fight for Fred...Ban products that are unsafe for dogs to consume.

 

Please sign their petition.  They have over 200,000 shares on this page.  

One More Shade of Blue............

This is a quilt I designed a while back.  I had designed another quilt and started to make it and it just did not "do it" for me.  The background colors were backwards.  I decided to change the dark to the light, and the light to the dark.  I was not  satisfied with the medallion center.  It wasn't working either, so back to the drawing board.  I think I like it now. 

 

One More Shade of Blue

 

I have always wanted to make a two color quilt.  I think they are gorgeous.  Me, being me, I knew that it would never happen. Two colors, never, never, never.  So I decided that I would make it in batik and use many shades of blue.  My white-tan background is all one fabric.  The quilt will probably not qualify as a two color quilt because as we all know, most batiks has other color running through them.  For me it is close.  

 

I watched The Quilt Show this morning.  They had Sharon Shamburg and Tom Russell as their guests.  For those of you who don't know Tom Russell passed away recently.  I met him once in Paducah.  I was with a group of people and Tom and the people he was with joined the people I was with and we all had supper together.  He was a very talented quilter.  The quilting world, and his family and friends will miss him. 

 

It is cold outside.  The wind feels like it is coming off the North Pole.  Before long, I will be saying, it is hot outside. 

 

Hope all is well. 

 

 

I'm Back..................

I am back, but I think I have said that before.  I have been dragging my feet a lot.  But, I do have some quilts done or nearly done.  I should have more done in all reality.  My brain really has not been on quilting but on selling a house and buying a house.  I am so tired of looking at houses (on the net).  And I think I am tired because it has been a chilly winter and a very gloomy one.  I like sunshine.  I do much better if the sun is shining.  But, when looking at houses, you can sure get a lot of ideas.  I have looked at www.zillow.com a lot.  They post the houses that are "for sale by owner" plus those that are for sale by realtor.  I have been looking primarily at the Cedar Rapids/Marion, IA area.  Here is my soapbox  I cannot believe the people vote themselves a tax and if they are not voting for the tax and letting the politicians tell them what is best for them, and the politicians are adding the tax unto an overtaxed situation already, there is something wrong with that picture.  Actually, I cannot believe that I am moving there, I have to be out of my mind, between the taxes, the snow, the cold, I have to have rocks in my head.  I keep telling myself - it will be okay.  It just makes me wonder how many of the people of Iowa loose their homes because they cannot pay the tax? 

Quilts - The World of the Wild Goose
As I said I have been quilting.  Here is one that I have been working on.  I am going to post more in a day or so.  So if you want to see the latest do come back. 

The World of the Wild Goose

 

This quilt has a long story.  I started this at a retreat a few years ago.  Each block has 27 pieces.  It takes a lot of time to make one block.  I didn't make very many at that retreat.  I took the blocks home and put them in a box, marked the box, put them on the shelf.  Next year, retreat, take the box down, go to retreat, make a few blocks, take them home, put them in the box, and put them on the shelf.  I was quilting with some girls at night and I decided this would be a good project.  The problem was, I only met with them usually one time a week.  It was for 2 hours.  I was lucky to make one block.  I decided I was not going to get this quilt done.  I took it home, put it on the design wall and made a few blocks and decided I was bored.  So I put another quilt on top of it, made it, then made a few blocks for this quilt, got bored, made another quilt and it was vicious circle.  Maybe three months ago, I decided I needed to finish this quilt.

 

I looked at the quilt, I still had about 50 blocks to go.  I thought - there is no way on this earth that I am going to finish it.  So I looked at and thought - I will redesign it.  So off to the computer, I took it from 144 block quilt to a 100 block quilt.  That cut down the blocks a bit that I still had to make.  I had nearly all of them done, when the thought came to me - what are you going to do about the border?  The border really needed something, but not too busy because the middle is busy, really busy.  I was standing in front of the quilt looking at an outside block and thought - what would it look like if I expanded this lavender piece into the border.  I got some fabric, folded it, slapped it on the design wall, stuck a pin in it and did the same to the gold.  I stood back and looked at it and thought - that will work. 

 

Now, what am I going to name it?  I had thought of it many times over the period of time that I have been making it.   I knew I had to name it something with geese or goose because of all the flying geese in the pattern.  Lots of times I will get an idea from doing searches on line with just a word.  Well, I tried that, but I could not get anything to fit.  I really wanted to bring in the color of the quilt so it would have meaning.  In the end, I came up with "The World of the Wild Goose."  And it is the world of the wild goose, the gold fields, the blue water, the red sunsets, the purple mountains and the white snow.   Now, wasn't I lucky, I picked those colors :-)  You might want to enlarge this picture so you can see the pattern better. 

 

When I made the border blocks, my quilt went from 100 blocks back to a 144 block quilt. 

 

Genealogy

I am trying to solve the mystery of the "M's."  In my Crago/Craigo line beginning with Nathan born 1783 his name is Nathan M. Crago.  What is "M?"  Nathan named nearly all of his children with an "M" for a middle name.  It tracks through the generations.  I find that the Crago's named all of their children for somebody.  Continental Congress, Revolutionary War, VA governors, anybody who was anybody, the Crago's borrowed their name.  We do have Marion used for a middle name, but I would like to see it in the earlier generations.  Francis Marion, most of the towns, and counties that are named Marion, are named for Francis Marion.  It is hard to find any documentation that lists a full name.  Anyone doing Crago/Craigo/Cragow genealogy if you have an answer, I sure would like to hear it.  Contact me by my email address. 

 

Hope you all have a great day..................