Tilt-a-whirl

About a month ago, my friend A. and I took a quilting class together. The instructor showed us a way to cut and sew simple, curved patchwork. Just as advertised, it was super-easy and QUICK! By the next day, I'd finished piecing my squares (all 84 of them).



When laid out one way, the effect is similar to blades of a windmill.



I'm not normally one to follow directions when it comes to crafting (see: every sweater I've knit has failed because of this tendency), and so I decided to play around with different ways of piecing this quilt. I liked the idea of staggered, deconstructed windmill blades. To lend a bit more to the staggering, I threw in the occasional scrap of solid (as in, uncut) fabric, and then sewed the squares into vertical columns.

I used my living room carpet as my design board, something I've done dozens of times in the past. I carefully laid everything out, paying attention to pattern and color repeats and proximity. Then, I took a couple of photos, and went to bed, just like I'd done the same dozens of times before.



The next morning, Mike got up and went about his morning routine. When he came back up to say good-bye, he said, "Uh, did you need the fabric to stay in order from last night?"

Half asleep, I mumbled back that it didn't matter, I'd taken a photo. "Why?"

"Well, I think one of the cats got to it last night."


Suspect is a female torty flops-a-lot kitten

And while there's another cat in the house, we honestly knew it wasn't her doing, whatever it was that was done. Aside from her incessant chattering and constant need to be ALL UP IN YOUR GRILL, Penny's not a bad cat at all. She's more likely to nap upon the laid out craft-in-progress than anything else. Unless it's yarn - she will chase a ball of yarn like it's going out of style. Good thing I'm not so much into the knitting these days, right?

Anyway, I figured whatever Lucy had done to the fabric was no big deal. I figured maybe Miss Flop had decided to flop on the fabric and that maybe that had caused things to move slightly askew. Mike didn't elaborate - and I went back to dozing for another 20 minutes or so.

When I finally did get up and moving, I went downstairs and found this:



And honestly, the only thing I could do was laugh. I tried to imagine her delight as she played with the fabric strips, batting them around the living room and into the dining room. Then, I picked them up, laid them out again, numbered them in the order I wanted, and folded them into neat little piles before storing them in a large zippie bag.

All's well that ends well - I managed to finish the top a couple of days after the "incident". It's not at all close to the order I'd originally intended or, for that matter, the second order I laid out. Still, I like it and can't wait to finish this one. More photos when that happens, for sure!