R.I.P. Buddy and Playing with Blocks

Hi, It has been a sad week at our house. Our adopted Maine Coon TomCat Buddy passed away on Wednesday. Buddy went missing the end of last week. He had been off feed and would not come back in the house like he usually did. When he went missing for a few days, we just assumed the worse. Buddy showed up late Tuesday night when I was out walking Katie for the last time before bed. He was laying by the back door and the outside faucet where we have a water dish (which is also a toad swimming pool) for the dogs and cats. We discovered he was very dehydrated and drank lots and lots of water when we got him in the house. He made it through the night but in the morning on Wednesday, his breathing got shallower and he ended up having a seizure/puking and passed away.

Buddy or that is what we chose to call him showed up at our house two years ago during the great Polar Vortex. He showed up on our front porch and kept meowing and would not leave. He was so friendly and let my husband pick him up right away. This never happens with any of our previous owned cats. We discovered he had his front paws declawed and was neutered. He was obviously taken care of at one time as he was huge, having not missed too many meals. Buddy major problem was that his ears were both frostbit and frozen off in different stages. His tail appeared to maybe broken but it also ended up being frozen too and he lost a couple inches of it weeks later.

This is the very first photo of Buddy taken with my phone through the porch door. I sent the photo to my husband and friend to show what showed up on the porch. The ear on the left side of the photo is the one that had a chunk fall off while he had been sleeping in bed with me. Buddy had been laying on my husband’s pillow and he always shook his head at times and this time apparently the loose dead piece of his ear flew off and ended up on the bed. I did not know this til I went around to make the bed. I kind of freaked when I figured out what it was. It was disgusting. lol Poor Buddy…nobody knows what happened to the end of his tail. It just was gone one day. I was always worried about finding it in my grandson’s toy box. He would find the weirdest things to put in his toy tractor wagons to haul.

Buddy was the most loving cat we ever owned. He was the most appreciative. He did eat like there was no tomorrow at times, which our first Tomcat Smokey did not care for. Buddy did not really meow out loud. Alot of times, if you looked at him you could tell he was meowing or talking but it was very soft. Smokey is the very vocal one of the two.

Buddy loved quilts and all fabric items. He especially loved our bed. No matter how hard you would try to keep him off. He would always end up there. There were many times he woke me up with a touch of his paw and I would open my eyes and he would be laying with his head on the other pillow with his paw reaching out to touch me. Buddy could have done his own “Hey, Girl” memes.

We all so wish that Buddy could have talked and told us where he came from but the most of all where did he go when he disappeared last week. We all looked for him. After he showed up here and became a mostly indoor cat, he did not appear to leave the main yards of our acreage.

Buddy will be greatly missed. We are glad we had two years with him. We are certain he would have froze to death if we did not allow him to come in that one cold day.

I did play with some fabric this week. My main project this week was finishing my Fabri-Quilt New Block block called Blue Island Tribal. My block has been sent off to be added to the other 60 some blocks that were made for the blog hop and will be made into quilts for charity.

I played around with the graph paper to draw up what the secondary design might be when putting multiple Blue Island Tribal blocks together. I reversed the colors for two different blocks and added in one more color to the corner stones so that it would create a four patch. I had thought about adding sashing at one time just from the idea that the corner stones would make a nine patch.

Blue Island Tribal block quilt mockup

I think it could make a rather interesting quilt as shown. Here are the two test blocks that I made with the all blue concept and the all blue block split in half with a hibiscus flower applique. I just could not figure out how to add the flower over the entire block. It was only an idea to tie in the Blue Island Tribe band name with the family’s love of Maui. I am going to keep my hibiscus flower paper pieces to draw up a possible reverse applique or quilting design for future use.

Blue Island Tribal test block concepts

Blue Island Tribal block concept closeup

The half block looks similar to a Delectable Mountains block.

It is the first week of September and there is new instructions released on the Midnight Mystery Quilt along by Meadow Mist Designs. We were to make Square in a Square blocks to go with the flying geese blocks we made in August.

Midnight Mystery Quiltalong September Square in a Square blocks

I have about half of them pieced and then I need to square up the entire batch. The instructions made them easy to create and there ends up being hardly anything that is needed to be trimmed off to square them up to size.

I hope that everyone who reads this from the US enjoys their holiday weekends and has a safe Labor Day holiday. We plan to spend ours with some friends and family that we have not seen much this summer.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley