Feeling Feline

It seems amazing given my recent three month long obsession with this piece, but Thursday was the first time I have worked on this since February 24.  That's almost a month without the cats in my lap.  

When last seen, on the 2/25 post, the cats were sitting pretty but the border needed work.  I put in my rotation stitching on Thursday but then just kept going for two more days.

I waited till Saturday night to post a photo so I could show all the progress, including the stitching I did Friday and Saturday. I finished up the right hand border, another two flower petals and started on one of the leaves.  Admittedly, not as much progress as you might expect for all that time but remember this is where I had to place my seams and I was stitching through four thicknesses of Aida with mildly arthritic fingers.  This makes for slow stitching and frequent pauses to rub some circulation back into stiff digits.  The calendar may say Spring but it is still Winter here, complete with four inches of snow on the ground and the occasional patch of black ice on the roads.  Here at the family home, we are not at all stingy with the heat but living in a townhouse built on a concrete slab makes us vulnerable to whatever dampness is in the air.  I believe it is the dampness as much as the chilliness that causes my arthritis flare ups.  Lately, I always seem to feel a chill.  I frequently put on my nice thick chenille bathrobe over my street clothes just to stay warm.  My husband is comfortable in street clothes and it seems cruel to keep bumping up the heat until he sweats.  But I am beginning to think I should take a fashion tip from Bob Cratchitt and start wearing   indoor gloves with the finger tips cut away after the first knuckle.  Won't that look just charming?

I have only one more Thursday left in March.   So, if I stick to a strict rotation, this piece will have to wait till early April for a finish.  But, usually, when I get this close to a finish, I let something else drop to concentrate on the near-finish.  That'll be the case here.  I am going to give over some of my Sunday stitching time to the cats.