Last week I displayed a photo showing a pile of twenty burgundy flowers. My goal for this week was to add twenty more flowers to that pile. I reached that goal and above is my pile of forty burgundy flowers.

In addition to creating those forty burgundy flowers I managed to sew then into place around the edge of my quilt top along with the corresponding green hexagons used to join them. This was an amazing feat as it required an incredible amount of stitching. Below are some photographs that show off the new border, some of which show pieces of thread and other junk clinging to the quilt top, so please disregard those flaws in the photographs.

Hair, thread, and dirt is especially noticeable in the photo above. Sorry.

Accomplishing so much is good news, but there is some very bad news that I am saddened to report this week.

The fact that I was able to accomplish so much work in one week would ordinarily be great cause for celebration. Unfortunately, the reason I was able to complete so much work in one week is that I was suffering a level of grief so debilitating that the only way to deal with it was to stitch, and stitch, and stitch some more.

On Tuesday my husband, Ted, and I had to say goodbye our best buddy in the world, our dear boy cat named Lucky. We had the privilege of having Lucky in our lives for the past five years. He came to us at the age of 14 years because he needed a new home. We were asked to take him, and we knew going into it that we were going to have limited time with him, but we welcomed him into our home to give him the best golden years we could. We had no idea how much we were going to love Lucky, but it soon became obvious that we were the lucky ones, not he. Never was there a more loving animal than Lucky, and he won both of our hearts in short order.

About a year ago Lucky was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and was put on twice daily medication that took his weight up from a dangerously low eight pounds to a healthy twelve pounds. He was doing quite well recently, and we thought we had more quality time left with him, maybe as much as a year or more. Lucky was getting up and walking around. Lucky loved to spend time with us in his room downstairs which was outfitted with wooden steps that Ted had constructed to allow Lucky to get up and down from the bed which had been taken off its frame so it would be lower to the ground for him. He would come out to visit with me when I was stitching on the conch and beg to be picked up so he could sit next to me on the couch. He just liked to be with people whenever possible, so we spent our nights with Lucky in his room stretched out on his king sized bed with our iPads petting our dearest friend. I won’t go into details about Lucky’s last day except to say that the end was unexpected. After a visit to the vet we were informed that there was nothing to do to make things better for Lucky. I was with him to the very end.

Ted and I been very sad since saying goodbye to Lucky on December the 23rd, and we will continue to be very sad for quite awhile. It’s been a very sad Christmas. This won’t be an easy healing process, so I guess I’ll be doing a lot of stitching moving forward. We’ve still got our girl cat Lori, but she’s very independent and hasn’t stepped up to offer much comfort. But we love her just the same. Below is a picture of Lucky and Lori. Lucky is on the left and Lori is on the right.

Actually, Lori is starting to step up to the plate a bit. She is spending a little more time with us than usual. Maybe she misses Lucky as much as we do.