So, during my nearly year-long vacation from writing, our house was blessed with the arrival of two cats. And when I say arrival, I mean it–we didn’t plan to add two cats to our household–far from it. But two stray cats had other ideas.

The first to show up was the fellow you see in the first picture: Po. (Kat named him after Po, the title character in the movie, “Kung Fu Panda.” And while he is grey and white instead of black and white–the fluffy cat’s personality certainly fits his name.)

And when I say show up–that is exactly what he did. Our deck was redone this spring to make it safe for Kat–the original railings would have let a toddler fall through very easily–and so we spent most of our time outside. Kat and I were playing out there one evening, while Delia, one of our favorite cats watched from a window and meowed at us, and I had the thought, “I wish we had a cat who could come out on the deck with us, but all of ours would try to run off.”

Not ten minutes later, a grey and white fluffy cat came sauntering down the hill, climbed the steps to our second story deck and proceeded to be loving and charming. Zak came out and there was this fluffy cat purring while Kat hugged him.

At first we were adamant: no new cats. So, when we went inside, Mr. Fluffy (which was the name Kat wanted to give him when she first saw him) stayed outside. But, he settled down on our porch and stayed the night. He wasn’t there when we got up in the morning, so Zak and I thought we had dodged a bullet.

However, when I went to take out the trash that night, a fuzzy blur dashed down the hill and shot into our garage. When I came back for more trash, a very fluffy cat started winding himself around and through my ankles, purring like a dove cooing.

And he refused to leave the garage. So, we set up a bed, gave him food and water and brought a cat littler box to the garage, and resolved to call the vet the next day.

After being vetted, Po became a new member of the household and he has settled in nicely. He does have adolescent male cat problems–in that he is very active and likes to chase the other cats and bedevils them at every opportunity, but usually, he is so good-natured about it that the other cats don’t much care. Except for Grimmy who hates him, but she mostly keeps to herself, and when Po tries to get her to play, we shoot him with water pistols.

Now Po is fully integrated into our family. He likes to help with everything I do–as you can see, he even wants to help me work with my quilting machine! Not that having him sit on the fabric is much help! He also loves to sit on my ironing board or cutting table, and has been known to jump up on my sewing table and try to “help” me there–usually by trying to steal the thread spool from the machine while it is running!

Not a month after Po had settled himself comfortably as a member of our family, another cat appeared. I had gone out one night to make a grocery run, and as I was unlocking one of our cars, I heard a tiny, sad-sounding mew. Looking down, I saw a very small orange kitten under our other car. I set down my purse and called to the kitten–and eventually, she trusted me enough to come out. She was so thin, and dirty, it was obvious that she had been on the streets for a while, but she was so friendly, I knew she couldn’t be truly feral.

I also saw that she was pregnant.

So, I went inside and got some leftover beef from dinner and brought it out to feed her, and she gobbled it down voraciously. I called Zak out and he shook his head–no way could we take another cat–we just brought Po in.

So, I bedded her down in our walled garden, where there was water and shelter, and I put more food out for her.

When I got up the next morning, she was gone.

And I looked for her every day, but for a week, she never came back.

Seven days later, Zak and I were on our way outside when she showed up on our porch again, thinner than ever, and even more loving.

Zak petted her and watched me feed her by hand, and saw how hungry she was, and how sweet she was and he relented. Into the garage she went until she was vetted, and pronounced healthy. She came to live inside with us after a day–she was litter trained and tiny–but the vet said she was an adult. And she was pregnant, so we had her spayed and had the kittens aborted–because she was so starved, the poor things were probably starved as well, and she was so small, we thought she would have problems with delivery. And besides, we’d have to find homes for them.

We ended up naming her Jane after the protagonist from the Jane and the Dragon books by Martin Baynton, . These books tell the story of a young red-haired girl who decides that instead of being a lady in waiting, she would study to become a knight. In the course of her journey, she makes friends with a dragon, and many adventures ensue.

Jane is a great name for our littlest cat–she has turned out to be alert, playful, fierce and very interested in EVERYTHING! She is a lot of fun, and is very, very cute–and is also a great and brave spider killer–she has caught and killed several very large creepy-looking spiders, and brought them to me so I could dispose of them. What a good kitty!

I am just hoping that no other cats appear on our doorstep, though. We have plenty.

Yes, I just had an old photo of Schmoo as my illustration for the last post, the one about books.

So, why am I posting this one I took earlier this week?

So you can see how much Schmoo has grown.

And, so you can see him in his natural habitat–the bathroom sink.

I think he believes the sink is a Schmoo nest.

He sleeps in it. And curls up in it, and lounges, washes his paws and generally looks ridiculous.

And if you turn on the water, he doesn’t run away–that just makes it all the more interesting.

He is a VERY STRANGE CREATURE.

I had to post about this, because it is so cute.

In the photo to the left, you see two of our beloved departed cats, Ozy, the big grey King of Cats, and Tristan, his best friend. They died within months of each other last year, both at ripe old ages.

Kat, even though she was just a tiny girl, remembers them.

I know this, because she has a book about cat breeds that has two photos in it that look just like Ozy and one that looks just like Tristan. When she gets the book out, for months, I would say, “Which kitty is Ozy,” and she would point to those two pictures of Russian Blues who looked just like the old Oz. And if I asked which one looked like Tristan, she’d point to the one Siamese cat in the book who looked like old Sir Triz.

The other night, when we went out so Zak could play open mike night, as we were leaving, she apparently brought the book over to Brittany and opened it to the Ozy picture and said quite clearly, “Ozy.”

And then didn’t say it again for two days.

Then, yesterday, she got it out and looked at the picture again, then ran over and started pulling on my sleeve, saying, over and over, “Ozy, Ozy, Ozy, Ozy.” She did this until I came over to where she had left the book and looked down to see it laying open to the picture of our old, departed, beloved King of Cats.

It almost made me cry to know that our little baby, even though she was so small, remembers Ozy.

I think that the King would be pleased.

Now, she just needs to learn to say “Tristan.”

Since folks asked, I guess that I will post pictures and explanations of some of my recent sewing projects on Saturdays and leave Sundays for Weekend Kat Blogging, with the weekdays reserved for all things food and culinary. Since I get most of my foodie traffic on weekdays, this arrangement should satisfy just about everyone, including myself.

So, what is a rag quilt?

Well, it is a blanket or quilt made of easily frayed fabrics, often flannel or recycled (or as they say in the world of crafts these days, “upcylced”) denim, but plain cotton fabric is used as well. The quilt is put together completely differently than the traditional method of sewing a top out of patchwork or applique blocks, then layering it with batting and backing fabric, quilting it, then binding the edges. Instead of these usual techniques, rag quilts are constructed by sandwiching together front and back fabric with either flannel or batting in between block by block. After the blocks are layered, each one is individually quilted–most often with a simple “X” of stitches from corner to corner, then each block is sewn together, with the seams exposed on the TOP of the quilt. Instead of the usual 1/4″ seams used in traditional patchwork, these exposed seams are at least 1/3″ to 1″ wide, with most quilters using a 3/4″ seam.

After each row of blocks is assembled and stitched into a complete quilt, it can either be bound, or finished by sewing a line of stitching of the same depth as the seam allowance used in the rest of the quilt all the way around the edge. I chose the latter method, being as binding a quilt is my least favorite part of the exercise.

Then comes the tedious and somewhat tiring part: each seam is snipped through all three layers, to, but not through the stitches that hold them together, with each clip about 1/4″ apart. If you make a queen sized quilt like I did, this takes a while, and frankly, it is kind of hard to keep track of what has been snipped and what hasn’t. (Spring-loaded scissors help keep the hand fatigue at a minimum while executing this step in the process.)

Then, you wash and dry the quilt, preferably at least twice, although three times is better. This allows the snipped seams to fray, and the colors of the fabric, particularly if you use flannels blend into a fuzzy, soft chenille that frames each block.

That is the simplest method of method of making a rag quilt although my explanation probably makes it sound harder to do than it actually is. Most of the difficulty in making this quilt, which features flannel fabric with leaf, flower and vine motifs, along with hand-dyes and solids, came about because of the weight and the size of the thing. Putting it together, row by row, after about five rows was nearly impossible. This one is constructed of ten rows with eight ten inch blocks per row, some of them with appliqued leaves on them, and others constructed of smaller squares and rectangles sewn together into a ten inch square.After stitching five rows together, the weight of the three layers of flannel makes stitching it nearly impossible, as gravity wants to drag the quilt down from the sewing table, pulling it from under the feed presser foot of the machine.

So, I put it together in two five-row chunks, and then sewed those together, with my friends Britanny and Heather holding the weight of the rest of the quilt up in the air to keep it from slithering out of the grasp of the sewing machine while I grappled to keep the seams relatively straight. Without their help, I would never have gotten the thing put together, and it would have ended up to be two oddly shaped and sized quilts instead of one magnificent one.

All of that said, I had a great time making this quilt. It took me only a week, which is pretty impressive considering that it is the largest quilt I have made to date, and it is my first attempt at complex free-motion quilting. Instead of just quilting an “X” through each block, I stitched leaf-shaped designs, vines, curving lines representing the wind and stylized flowers that matched the motifs on the fabrics. And, instead of just using plain square blocks, I added texture by piecing some of them, which had the added benefit of allowing me to use up nearly every bit of the fabric, which nearly cleaned out my stash of pretty flannels. (I had bought most of these fabrics right after Kat was born while we were staying in Columbus to be with her. There was a quilt shop a block from one of our hotels and I saw the gorgeous leaf fabric and bought some intending to make a baby quilt which never happened. So, instead, I combined these fabrics with other flannels I had bought years before just because it was pretty and ended up making this pretty thing.)

My favorite part about these quilts, aside from the ease of their construction and how quickly they come together, is the way the colors of the flannels blend together in the fuzzy seams. Especially the parts where the purples and greens blend together. I specifically used dark and pale green flannel–the only stuff I bought especially for this quilt–for the center layer, which only shows at the edges. I liked the way the two colors brought the different shades of plum, russet, green, purple, brown and cream together on the quilt.

So, there you have it–a cuddly, soft and sweet queen sized quilt, ready to pack in a box and ship to its destination–it is a late Generic Winter Holiday gift for friends having a hard time. I think it will cheer them up–it will certainly warm them up. Wrapping up in it is like having a warm hug–which Cordelia agrees with as you can see.

When I brought the quilt back from the laundromat–I washed it in the big commercial machines so as to not overwhelm my washer with the weight–it was still damp, so I spread it out on the dining room table to let it finish drying before I folded it up and put it away.

The kitties took this opportunity to curl up on it, which was cute–except when I went to fold it up right before bed, I found that one of them had felt the need to anoint the quilt with a regurgitated offering of a hairball.

So, the next day, I was back at the laundromat, washing and drying it again.

Which is okay–because the more a quilt like this is washed and dried, the softer and fuzzier it gets, and the seams fluff out into really beautiful chenille. I took these photos before the third washing–the quilt is even prettier now. But, I have already wrapped it up with a matching lavender sachet and put it safely in a shipping box to go to UPS tomorrow, thus keeping it safe from feline intervention.

I can’t wait to make another one–I have a pile of old jeans from myself, Zak, Morganna and Kat to cut apart and combine with some really yummy hand-dyed orange flannel for a quilt for our guest room, which is done in blues and oranges and is decorated with a southwestern desert theme, and which features a bunch of paintings I did years ago. (Yes, I paint, too.) When it is done, I will feature it here, and maybe will take pictures of its construction while I am at it.

It is a great quote.

And a tagline for a great photograph, courtesy of Brittany and Morganna.

I would say poor Schmoo, but really, he didn’t care that he was having stuff placed upon his person for embarrassing photographs.

He’s just too laid back for that.