Kitty quilts (and some houses)

Yesterday I was "teaching" patchwork. I have no idea how one teaches patchwork. It seems like if you give a person a needle, thread, fabric and a pattern and then tell them to sew the pieces together in a certain order, then the teaching part is done and what is left is the doing part. This theory may be the reason why I am not usually a patchwork teacher.

Two of my long time friends decided that they wanted to do some patchwork. Actually, Mrs. Nakazawa really wanted to do patchwork and Rumi-san came along for the ride. Rumi-san admires patchwork but she isn't particularly nuts about it like Mrs. Nazakawa may turn out to be. Mrs. Nakazawa said that she has done some simple patchwork before and had made a couple schoolhouse quilts ...

Excuse me? That's no beginning patchwork! Mrs. Nakazawa doesn't need a patchwork teacher, she just needs inspiration!!

Mrs. Nakazawa first visited me a couple months ago and saw my cat quilt on the wall. Mrs. Nakazawa is the person whose shoulder I cry on when cat woes overwhelm me. She is the cat lady of her neighborhood! Anyway, she saw my cat quilt and decided she wanted to make one of the blocks. And Rumi-san said she'd be willing to try the block too. I "taught" them how to make templates and how to piece and sent them both home with instructions to make one block.

Rumi-san followed directions and made one block and even got it quilted and framed yesterday. Yeah! Rumi-san! She went home with a stiff neck from doing the quilting.

Mrs. Nakazawa went wild and made lots and lots and lots of kitty blocks! Yesterday I helped her put a border on it, and showed her how to use a quilting hoop. Her homework is to quilt it and then she plans to put eyes and whiskers on some of the kitty shapes.

Cleo thoroughly approves!