Catch Up

 

After a day of food food food, Friday was a day of playing catch up. 

After I planned my menus for the coming week, I placed my grocery order before I went to bed on Thursday. It was ready by 9AM the next day, so I had a quick breakfast then went to pick it up. I filled the car with gas then did another errand and went home. I made a big batch of tomato soup for my lunches during the week, made a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and then packed the Christmas presents into their gift bags, calculated all the shipping costs, printed the labels and then drove to the post office to drop them off. Back at home I did all the laundry, folded it; changed the sheets on the bed, cleaned up the kitchen and made dinner and ran the dishwasher.

I switched out the pink pillows and quilt for the Holiday Boxes quilt and silver pillows, hung the Happy Holidays quilt and switched out Millie's summer tent for the winter version. As you can see Millie wasted no time in covering it with her furs. I'll put up the Christmas decorations a little at a time over the next few days.

I still have to clean off the dining room table and cover it with the Christmas table cover, pay a few bills and move some garden tools to the shed. It's snowing as I write this, and although it won't stick around, it does mean the end of the garden season, so it's beyond time to put the garden tools away and bring out the snow shovels.

I've got a few more bags to make too.

My mother was so funny. She saw the bags I made for my son, DIL and DGG and said, "So Lynne, where is MY bag? Am I going to get one...?"

The Winter Tent!

Well that didn't take long!  I got home from work, changed clothes, fed Millie and then Face Time'd with my son, DIL and granddaughter for about an hour before I made my dinner and then went into the sewing studio to start sewing the Winter Tent for Millie.  I deliberately chose this rather subdued fabric instead of the riot of red, green and gold that is most common in holiday novelty fabrics. The original tent was already bright, I wanted something a bit softer. I also opted to not have the casings be a contrasting color.  I'm happy with the bottom, if I lift the pillow I see the right side of the decorative fabric, and not the wrong side. The underneath is likewise attractive.

Later, I made the red flannel pillow cover and that really spiced it up a bit. I have to replace the bright colored fabric that holds the tubes together at the top. I'll probably choose some scrap of white fabric and leave it there after the holiday season is over.  I'm happy with it.

Of course, now that I've made it, Millie may decide to sleep in her heated cat cup instead of the tent.

She's a cat. What else is new?

 Of course, Millie is all about surprising me.

 Apparently Millie approves. She's slept in the tent all day!

Starting the Tent

The Holiday fabric I bought online for Millie's tent was supposed to arrive at work a week ago Friday. But Friday was our annual Holiday party, and nobody was at the building to receive it. Then on Monday I had to leave early for an appointment, so I only received my package on Tuesday.

The fabric had to go through the washer and dryer, and then be ironed before I could start cutting out the pieces.

One of the pieces - the casing for the legs of the tent - needed to be cut four times. Working with a tissue paper pattern is frustrating enough, but moving it around four times seemed a bit absurd. On a whim, I measured it - exactly four inches wide, by 29-1/2" long. WELL! I'll tell anybody at work that while I don't mind working hard, I don't like working stupid. I have a plexiglass ruler exactly four inches wide, so I folded over my fabric and used the ruler and my rotary cutter to cut two pieces in less time than it would have taken me with the tissue pattern. Then I did it again to cut the last two pieces.  I did make one other change.

One of the thing that always annoyed me about the tent was the base. The right side of the fabric faced down, and the wrong side of the fabric showed on the inside of the tent.

Even covered with a pillow you can still see the wrong side of the fabric. I decided I wouldn't do that again, so I cut an additional panel for the bottom of the tent. You can see it in the second photo. It's contrasting fabric of tan and gray.  Works for me.

I made the original tent way back in 2007, and it didn't take me very long, so I'm going to take a quick break from the slab triangles to finish this up.  I've got a nice red flannel for the pillow. I hope Millie is pleased.

There is, of course, no guarantee!