Oscar Attacked!

While I was away, my favorite kitty, Oscar, was attacked by some raccoons.  Here is Oscar in younger days:

Joe called me while I was in Kansas to report a wound back by Oscar’s tail.  Hmmm…. we have a number of wild critters living here on the ranch,  so I was thankful he had escaped.

Since Rex passed away, we have noticed more wild animals coming closer to our house- coyotes, skunks, raccoons, deer, etc.

Last night, we figured out that raccoons were coming through our cat door into the garage to eat the catfood.   Joe saw one in the garage, so he blocked access and kept them out last night.  We will do a permanent fix, since we need to keep our kitties safe.

I know you can buy cat doors that opens only if your cat wears a special collar.  We tried this previously, but the cats just didn’t respond to training.  I will look into it once again now.

Enjoy your week!  Carla

Autumn quilt finished

Ok, it’s been a busy week, but I finally finished quilting my quilt. This is a memory quilt I made for my son, he went to a special school in CT about 2 years ago. The autumns in CT are just spectacular, hence the bright autumn theme and colors. There are about a dozen pictures of my son and life at the school subtly placed in this quilt:

and the back of the quilt:

As you can see, it is a perfectly typical quilting job. My freehand Carla border focusing on oak leaves, CC in the pieced border using mono filament so as not to obscure the photo transfers, and texture quilting in the oak leaf blocks. Now to trim the quilt and start the binding. Have I mentioned how much I dislike bindings? LOL

Note from Carla:  This quilt was originally featured in Fall 2002 Quiltmaker’s magazine, it is a design by Carolyn Reardon.  Here is a link to this pattern:  http://www.quiltandsewshop.com/product/Turning-Leaves/quiltmaker-patterns

Speaking of quilts, I have my own snuggle quilt I made for myself a few years ago. I love the feel of minkee, so the back is a lovely shade of pink minkee. This morning, my cat, Oscar, decided that it belongs to him instead:

There is a special relationship between cats and quilts. Put a quilt in the room and turn your back for just one moment, then look around and the cat is sleeping on the quilt. Weird….

Enjoy your day! Carla

Quilts and Pets

I’m busy quilting the autumn leaf photo transfer memory quilt today. I threw on the borders, pieced the back, then loaded it on my longarm table. Here’s a picture of it before the quilting:

You can see a few of the photo transfers if you look close at the picture above. I’m entering this quilt into the “memory quilt” category at the local fair.

Btw, the oak leaf quilt is a design by Carolyn Reardon and may be purchased at http://www.quiltandsewshop.com/product/Turning-Leaves/quiltmaker-patterns.

This weekend, I spent a couple of hours volunteering for the local quilting guild. They were trying to raise money for the guild by selling raffle tickets in front of the local grocery store. If this quilt looks familiar, that is because I did the asian style contemporary quilting for this quilt designed by Jill Rixman:

It is always fun to see quilts that I have quilted down the road at a later time and place. There is a funny story about this picture… notice the man in the window to the left of the quilt? He put up a fuss when we put the quilt there, which blocked his view. He finally was irate enough to complain to the store manager. The store manager was very nice guy when he came out to talk to us. He was also a smart man… did he side with a crank customer who will only be there a short while?? Or a bunch of sweet ladies oozing quilty goodness who do charitable things for the community?? LOL Guess who won?? LOL!!

Pets

I have to take Oscar, our gray kitty, to the vet today. He got a foxtail in his eye or eyelid and though we pulled it out, it must have left debris behind because his beautiful eye is not normal. Yesterday, I put some antibiotic ointment in there until I could have him see the vet today. Poor Oscar!!

I dread Foxtail season with a passion! Every day I need to groom all the animals and conduct a thorough foxtail search. Left alone, a foxtail will corkscrew down the animal’s hair shaft and enter the animal’s body. It will continue to migrate and can actually kill your pets if left unattended. If you are lucky, it will only form an infection and abscess, which requires a vet visit and possibly surgery. Last year, we had to spend about 2k on vet bills related to foxtails.

I will report on Oscar’s condition tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have pets and live where there are foxtails, please check them regularly for this horrible weed!

Regards, Carla

Oscar Update: It was a good thing Oscar saw the vet today. There was another whole foxtail in his eye and part of yet a third. His cornea is torn, but with the antibiotic ointment, and no more run ins with foxtails, his beautiful eye will be restored. – Carla

Oscar the Cat

Oscar is now a full adult male cat… but he is still cute:

Oscar is the favorite of my 3 cats.  We adopted him from a cat shelter and I am so glad we did.  He has a wonderful, loving personality.

Who is your favorite pet?

Regards, Carla

Missing!!

Remember this bracelet from a few days ago? It looks like this:

Well… I got up this morning and it was gone! I have looked high and low and it has gone missing from my work area. I was using it as a reference to make this bracelet, an obvious work-in-progress:

I think I know who my top suspect is… let’s just say he is gray, furry, purrs like no tomorrow and looks like this:

Oscar has been brought in for questioning, but so far he hasn’t confessed. My guess is he played with it and probably batted it underneath the sofa or chair.

Hopefully, it will turn up soon!

Oscar

Thought I would update you on Oscar, the rescue kitty from this summer. Here is what he looked like a few months ago:

He is growing up quickly, here is what he looks like today:

You can tell we are starving him- LOL! His personality is still skittish, yet loving. He has a bad habit of sucking and chewing on my son’s fingers. He woke me up this morning, hasn’t he heard of daylight savings time?

After my quilting time, I decided to start new crochet purse base number 2 today. Here it in a brighter color palette:

I’ll be sure to show you both purses when I’m finished.