Some of you know bits or all of her story.  On February 9, 2000, I was driving my usual route north along I-75 after work.  As is my wont, I was in the left (faster) lane, but keeping a sharp eye out for the unexpected.  Construction had been lingering along this stretch for months, and on windy days, debris had been known to blow across the median wall separating northbound from southbound.  This watchfulness is how I detected a brownish lump sitting atop the wall; I took it at first to be one of the sandbags previously noted along the construction site, but drawing closer, realized it was in fact an adult cat.  On the wall of an expressway.  At rush hour.  Obviously there wasn’t a thing I could do at that moment and from that location.  I changed lanes rapidly so I could exit at the next opportunity, turned around and got myself southbound, repeating out loud, “Please stay on the wall… please stay on the wall, just a bit longer.”  The timing of traffic on the lighter side of I-75 could not have been better.  Once again in the left lane, I was able to safely slow since no one was immediately behind me, and pull off onto the shoulder as close to the wall, and her location, as possible.  Her attention was still focused on crossing northbound, one paw extended as if preparing to jump down.  I realized that my appearance may well scare her into oncoming traffic (a sight from which I would never have recovered), but I also would never have forgiven myself for not at least trying to help.  Powering my window down, I made the expected coo-ey, kissy noises of one attempting to lure and comfort a frightened animal.  Her head whipped around to focus on me, eyes blazingly wide, cuts on her face.  Ever so slowly, I got out of my car and watched her carefully for any signs of bolting but she remained still.  I swallowed deeply and slowly encircled her body with my arms, preparing to grasp her.  I was ready for anything… she could have turned into a clawing, biting wildcat and I knew I would not let her go.  But she did not; she came to me willingly, blood from her face transferring to my shirt, and allowed me to sit back down in my car with her and close the door.  Mission accomplished.

I was driving a Honda Civic at the time, not know for its abundance of spare space; yet in her trauma, she wedged her plump striped body completely under my passenger seat.  When she would become quiet, I worried since I had no idea of possible internal injuries; “Talk to me, kitty!”  She would meow a bit so at least I knew she felt well enough to be responsive.  Twenty minutes later we were in my driveway, but she would not come out from under the seat.  As it was a cold winter day and I feared for shock, etc., I eventually restarted my car to keep her warm  until I could devise a way to coax her out.  This involved much patient chatter of some 40 minutes, but I believe it was the can of tuna which finally did the trick.  At length she emerged, to be carried (with her tuna) into my house and upstairs to our office until I could decide what to do next.

You see, we had a cat.  My Shadow.  The Queen Bee.  She who would brook no other creatures in her domain, who’d reigned supreme -if alone- for years.  We simply couldn’t keep a second cat (I thought.)  So I tended to immediate matters at least, inspecting and gently cleaning her cuts as well as I could and determining that she was otherwise physically sound.  She was so responsive – this was a cat who had known the love of a human and trusted in it.  Her purr… I had never heard such a loud, solid purr, and haven’t to this day.  That evening as I curled around her in her makeshift bed, still sequestered in my husband’s office, she purred until she finally dropped off to sleep.  I thought for sure someone must be looking for such an affectionate and domesticated animal.  Also in my handling of her, I had noted scabs on all four paws (!) where claws would have been and gathered that she had just been de-clawed; perhaps she’d gotten away while someone was retrieving her from the vet’s office.  I called several shelters in the area to see if anyone had reported a missing brown tabby, but no one had heard anything.  I left my information with them in case anyone came looking for her, but was never contacted.  In subsequent days, I also trolled the neighborhoods close to where I found her, looking for LOST posters and the like.

The next morning, I took her to our own vet for a onceover, and she was determined to be otherwise healthy, clean and well-fed… estimated age of between one and three years old.  The doctor assured me my Shadow-cat WOULD come around and accept an interloper; his multiple rescues had all acclimated to one another and “now sleep in a pile together.”  Since I couldn’t justify leaving her at a shelter after what she’d been through, assuming any of them had any room,  I decided to at least attempt an adoption and my husband agreed.  We now needed a name.  I’d always grooved on the perceived letter M on tabby foreheads and figured any kittycat who came with her own monogram should be named accordingly.  The problem was because of her size and build (she was unusually wide even when not plump) we had thought her to be male, and so I named her Mason.  Upon learning at the vet that she was simply a, um, statuesque female, we made a slight adjustment and called her Macy.

Several weeks later, two things occurred which gave us some insight into what might have happened to her and how she wound up where I found her.  One was a conversation with my nail technician who had worked with rescues, and explained how dogfighting rings typically use young adult cats to bait the dogs and instigate conflict.  This horrifying scenario jived with the second event which occurred while I was out of town on business for a couple of days.  While talking on the phone with my husband, Macy on his lap, he suddenly went quiet.  “Um, April?  She isn’t declawed.  They’re growing back.”  Her claws had been brutally clipped so far back, it took over two weeks for them to reappear and this also explained the scabs on her paws.  I’ve been informed since that this also is typical treatment of bait cats so as to prevent any (premature) injury to the dogs.  Once bait animals have served their purpose, they are frequently disposed of from a moving vehicle which may explain how she wound up on I-75; or perhaps, strong, quick and resourceful animal that she was, she managed an escape.  It didn’t matter, really.  Although Shadow was less than enthusiastic,  it became clear to us that Macy would now have a home for life.

However responsive and affectionate she was, it also became clear with the passage of time that her experiences had left their mark.  She loathed, in the most violent of terms, to be picked up or handled.  Petting was fine, and she had no problem occupying a lap.  However, she also had no compunction about biting or lashing out and was in general a nervous animal.  Unless my husband was home.  In the contrary way of cats, while tolerating and trusting me as her rescuer, it was my husband around whom her world revolved.  She was simply…  addicted to him.  Where he sat, she sat upon him and where he lay, she smooshed up against him noisily purring.  A motorcycle rider and hunter, he is not infrequently out of town and these absences tried her temper most sorely.  Typically by the third day of No Daddy, no one (feline or human) could enter a room she occupied without being hissed at.  She was his constant companion at night, purring next to his head until she finally dropped off to sleep.

(This is not posed; they truly fell asleep like that.  Christian had no idea until I showed him the next morning.)

Over the years, we acquired more rescues and in spite of certain recurring tensions, generally everyone did acclimate as the old kind doctor had predicted.  It took about two years, but finally Shadow and Macy reached a certainly level of detente and would allow the other to occupy the same queen-sized bed (albeit at opposite corners.)

Dinnertime = unity, if at no other time

I won’t go into her health and habits in the last couple of years which remained good in spite of noticeable weight loss, but when I returned from a trip to Florida in early May, I was struck by how labored her breathing had suddenly become.  She was also quite distended around her midsection.  I ran her into the vet’s office the next morning where they could not determine what was happening internally as the fluid she retained blocked all attempts at x-rays.  After several days of drug treatments and an eventual procedure using a needle to drain the fluid, they suspected either heart disease (manageable at least in the short term) or tumors in her chest cavity.  It was recommended we seek the services of a more specialized facility for an echocardiogram.  Without this last test, we could not make an informed decision; we wouldn’t allow her suffer a painful life, but also didn’t want to euthanize prematurely.  She was stable and breathing well, and continuing to eat and drink, so we elected to wait a few days for the echo.  Those three days at the vet had amounted to $500; the ultrasound of her heart would be at least that, and we preferred to get another paycheck under our belts then take her to the specialist five days later.  We did not get the chance.

This was Saturday, May 11.  Knowing she wasn’t feeling feisty enough to attempt a getaway, I had her outside with me as I worked in the garden.  Grass inspection was a specialty.

Sunday evening (May 12), she would not eat.  We had noticed a fair amount of drooling that began to escalate and turn bloody, and suspected some sort of gum infection; her teeth were sound particularly for an older cat.  So back Macy and I went to our vet first thing Monday, where our kind and pretty Dr. Robin noted the subtle offset of her jaw and discovered a marble-sized tumor along her left jawbone.  The tumor in all likelihood was causing the jaw to dislocate, but without dental x-rays, this could neither be confirmed nor remedied.  However one cannot obtain x-rays of that precision on a cat without anesthetizing them… and a cat of that age cannot be assured of surviving general anesthesia.  Even if the odds were in favor of her coming out of it, the tumor near her mouth seemed to confirm the suspected presence of tumors elsewhere.  Our girl was hungry, in considerable pain, and so tired.  As our vet spelled out these hard facts, my eyes filled and then hers did as well; our course was clear.  I called my husband at work and tearfully explained that we had to let her go.  I said my farewells during this half hour I had alone with her, as she left the exam counter to curl up upon my wrap in a corner of the room.  I sat close by, stroking her head and kissing her between her ears in the way she’d always liked so much that she’d push her head forward to situate herself just right.  Finally, Christian came and I moved aside; at the end of the day, she would always be his cat… or more correctly, he would always be her human.  His arms encircled her, much as mine had on that first cold day, to protect and save her.  And safely comfortable, she slipped away.

He had decided well in advance that he would take a different path then I did with Shadow, whose ashes remain with me in my sewing room.  Under a gorgeously lush pine tree, he made a grave which is adorned with the cement figure of a cat curled up sleeping.

She graced our lives and taught us to love on her terms for over thirteen years; the hole she has left is vast and unfillable, but her legacy is that because of her, we unwittingly turned into feline rescuers and have subsequently saved six more precious kitties.  They don’t know what they owe her… but we do.  And we will never forget.

Good-bye, sweet one.

That same day, my hubby’s foot exploded (figuratively, but the plantar fasciitis/bone spur rendered him and it useless), and ensuing weeks saw me scurrying to do his work and mine around the house, my own work work, plus taking care of him as his mobility was so limited.  And so the project, in its infancy, sat.  Problem was, I had a deadline!  One of my besties was graduating high school this Spring and her party was to be April 27; so in late March as normalcy of sorts resumed, I finally buckled down back to it.

Throughout April while I was piecing, my machine was giving me fits with terribly convoluted jams.  No doubt it could do with a professional cleaning and servicing, but I couldn’t spare it long enough to do so, and had to limp along.  I’d removed the quilt top to address one of these episodes of thread vomiting, but at least I knew the quilt wasn’t going anywhere.

One week left, and I’d finished the top.  Five days to go, I was basting (and being closely inspected.)  I don’t pin baste, as you may notice below.  I find it difficult to sew around, impossible to sew through if necessary, my thumb gives out after the first 20 basting safety pins, and I worry about scratching up my sewing machine.  But threadbasting is time-consuming, make no mistake.    Even when an animal isn’t lying on the quilt.

I had the binding machine-sewn to the front with 24+ hours to go, but lost a bit of time as my mother-in-law had arranged to take us out to dinner for our anniversary that evening (at T minus 20 hours.)  Three hours later, I raced back home, got into pajamas, and resumed hand-sewing the binding to the back of the quilt; I made myself take my customary small stitches, trying not to rush though I was ever aware of the advancing hours.  Did you know, a 65″ x 81″ quilt finished with 1/8″ stitches = 2336 stitches (give or take)?  That’s not including extra stitches for the mitred corners.  Yes, these are the sorts of fun math games I like to play with myself during such times. ;-p  Hubby stayed up with me as we watched movie after movie, but he peetered out at 4.  At 5:30, the end was in sight, but I groaned when I heard the birds begin chirping.  At 6:00 on the dot, the very last stitch went in, and I numbly climbed upstairs to my bed.

But it was finished and it was cheerful and I think my dear friend likes it.   Also, it has been cat-tasted and Anabelle-approved, though I did my best with the lint roller.  It’s a happy quilt for a sunny, happy day.  Her party was lovely.

My friend is making a really cool career working with horses; the theme/motif for her party was to be sunflowers.  Ergo, the backing (thank you, e-Quilter!) :

I really loved the binding fabric, which I’ve had in my stash forever:

Enjoy, girlie!

Dimensions: 65 x 81 inches

Fabrics:  Mostly “Apple of my Eye” from Riley Blake Designs, with a bit of Kaffe Fassett and some other miscellaneous prints for variety

Pattern:  Vintage Nine Patch, by Jeni Baker

So far, I find it nicely cheerful; love those feedsack fabrics!  Here are my third and fourth blocks:

Country Path

Silver Lane

Joining Cut Glass Dish and Kitchen Woodbox…

These are numbers 26, 54, 24 and 79 in the Farmers Wife Quilt book.  I am working them in order as presented in the book; they are not published/numbered sequentially for some reason which sets off my OCD.  I am coping, nevertheless. 

Only 107 to go… *sigh*

I still need to turn my previous six into a doll quilt. 

The right fabrics turned out to be “Apple of my Eye” from Riley Blake.  They were purchased, and lovingly packaged, from Sew Fabulous.

One published quilter, whose name unfortunately escapes me, mentioned how she always mixes fabrics up – not using just those from a single line in the same quilt.  She felt it added more contrast, punch, variety and unexpectedness to her finished projects, and when I saw her work in a magazine, I had to agree.  So I pulled in a few fabrics already in my stash to also break up the continuity of a single line and colorway of fabrics; hopefully they will also play nicely together. 

Anyway, having anticipated the exhibit for weeks, we finally got ourselves down to the incomparable Detroit Institute of Arts to drool over the works of Faberge’s design firm in Russia.  No photography in any form was allowed; the guide even supervised everyone’s shutting off of their cellphones.  (I had the uncharitable thought that this was to nudge visitors to buy the $65 book in the museum gift shop, but tried to check such cynicism.)

Most people are familiar at least with the trove of Faberge eggs, exquisitely created for the Romanovs.  They essentially came about as Easter was by far the most important holiday in Russia;  had Faberge set up shop in another European capitol, the world likely would never have seen such a beautiful art form.  But the creations of the design house went far beyond the famous eggs.

Some of my favorites involved the literal creation of beautiful flowers, gifted to the Czarina to comfort her through long winters when nothing living could grow.  I could not find an image online of the violet I was so taken with (seemed simple enough in design but in truth required months of painstaking craftsmanship), but the dandelion is amazing:

There was of course jewelry… dainty miniatures of Faberge eggs as pendants:

…parasol handles (all the rage for fine young ladies):

…innumerable picture frames, often featuring members of the royal family.  Many incorporated an enameling technique known as guilloche’ and a video demonstrating this was shown.  Fascinating.  It is what creates the shimmery ripple affect seen here:

…animal figurines of surprising delicacy:

…and, of course, the EGGS.

I’m limiting myself just to three.  The spectacular Czarevich’s egg, created to honor the young boy who suffered so with hemophilia:

My husband’s favorite at the exhibit, and certainly a showstopper, the Imperial Peter the Great Easter Egg:

…and finally, my favorite – the Pelican Egg.

I loved this for several reasons, not the least of which is its unexpectedness.  When one thinks “pelicans”, Russia may not be the first location to spring to mind.  I’ve also always found them rather goofy creatures, so to see them so honored and rendered sort of tickled me:

This is an egg you simply must see opened up, to view the beautiful miniatures huddled together inside:  PELICAN EGG.   “Clever” doesn’t even begin to describe.

While I couldn’t bring myself to buy the aforementioned coffee table book, I did treat myself a bit at the museum shop.  Clearly, late January weather had me craving colors and flowers:

The bit of Monet cloth is a wipe for reading glasses, or, in my case, an iPad.    The painting on the note cards is from Rosalind Wise’s Cycle of Flowers, an originally enormous canvas, which in a spiral fashion, displays flowers in sequence as they appear seasonally.

Must have bling as well.

It was a good day. 

I am going to put away for now and get back to it in the Spring.  I have been working on another project over the holidays while I’ve had some time off of work, but more on that later. 

Anyway…

It’s a happy, frolicsome quilt methinks. 

Original pattern found here (English version at bottom of webpage .)

About 2-3 weeks ago, when the temperatures were forecasted to reach 75 degrees, I suggested to hubby that we take the kayaks out after work for a last paddle of the season and enjoy some fall colors.  They got more vibrant as the evening went on.  I did nothing to touch up these brilliant shades; it was merely the effect of the setting sun.  (A lovely time was had by all… two of us.)

From the Metamora-Hadley State Recreation Area:

Water is my happy place.

It involved cutting triangles.

…and putting triangles together.

Lots and lots of triangles (this is barely a fraction. I stopped counting after 400.)

But at last… on the design wall…

… you can sort of see how it will come together! (Did I mention the triangles?)