Taking a Break

 I've decided to take a break from the fabric giveaways until the beginning of the year. I haven't decided whether I will take a break from blogging...although I guess I already am. Most of my projects are on the slower side without much to post...I am a few days away from having the 3/4 inch postage project sewn into 2 by 4 rectangles. However, Molly's fanatical supervision limits how much I can work on it because cats and piles of 2 by 2 squares are incompatible.

With limited time on the postage stamps, I have been basting many more hexies. My pile of cut out hexies are dwindling fast and I will have to make the executive decision of limiting the size of the quilt or hunting down more animals (in fabric form). 

Molly takes her supervisory role very seriously. Here she is supervising me while I am outside watching a dead tree being taken down. If there was a soundtrack it would include a lot of guys yelling, a chainsaw and branch grinding. Buddy, being the sensible cat, was hiding.

Postage Bit Progress

 I decided that I needed more postage so I made more postage bits and sewed them to neutral strips and cut them into two patches. Then I sewed them into four patches.

Now I have two boxes of four patches.

Making the four patches wasn't as easy as you might think, because I have been assigned a second supervisor.

Meanwhile, I now have all the fabrics in Tula Pink's new Tabby Road line. It turns out that the line includes the smaller kittens AND inflated kittens. It also includes inflated cat food cans (obviously for feeding inflated kittens) and inflated diamonds. Happily, the rats curled in the leaves were not inflated (but I bet Tula thought about it!)

For those of you with cats, Tula's new fabric line looks like this.

And now for a bit more email and blogger comments details. As I mentioned in the last post, some comments come from Anonymous (no gmail or blogger account), some come from those with gmail or blogger accounts but no email link, and some come with gmail or blogger accounts with a link to their email. If you don't send me your email address, include the email in your comment or provide that link, I can't contact you for the giveaway.

And I'm now going to give an example using QuiltinginLakeOswego's comment to my last post. (I will happily delete this if their are any objections...)

If you go to the comments to my last blog post, you will see this comment. If you click on the B in the orange circle, you will go to her Blogger profile and see she signed up in 2012 but it does not have an email link. So I have no way to contact her.

On that same page, you will find this comment from Gayle:

If you click on the picture in the circle, it will take you to her Blogger profile page where you will see a link to her email AND a link to her blog (webpage). Unfortunately, there is some horrible glitch in the multiverse and for reasons I can't fathom, her blog appears truncated at December 31, 2023. Maybe if I invest in new hardware, I'll be able to see all of her posts from this year.

August Winners and Postage Progress

I have been busy converting two patches into four patches. Unfortunately, I was so pleased with myself that I recalculated how many four patches I would need and discovered that my calculations were off by a factor of two.

 Molly prefers the sewing stage instead of the cutting stage because sleeping on the sewing chair is more comfortable. At this point, I am just cutting more postage bits.

And postage and bits brings us to the two August Fabric giveaway winners...both anonymous...one requested Kaffe fabric scraps and the other is making a postage stamp quilt. So maybe I am really making more bits because I am piling up more postage for a prize. 

I would also like to mention that in the past when I encounter a "no-reply" comment, I just make another pick. But this time I looked a bit deeper to assess how many "no-reply" comments there were and there were a lot. And at one time I was a "no-reply" commenter and had no idea, so I'm thinking that is true here. I will bring this up again for the next drawing, but you can check by looking at your Blogger profile page. If you don't have an email link on that page, you are a "no-reply" blogger. And its completely reasonable not to want to the email link on your profile page, but it does mean I have no way to contact you. 

And now, pardon me, while I go on a rant about inflation. Many years ago, Tula Pink released a fabric line called Tabby Road. This was wildly successful, so I was delighted that she was re-releasing the fabric line with new color ways. Well excuse me...but in the new line the kittens are inflated!!! This means fewer kittens per yard. Also, a common use for kittens is fussy cutting those adorable faces. But now the faces (while still adorable) are almost 2.5 inches wide. Massive! Tula should rename the fabric line Buddy Road. 

Oopsie addendum: So it turns out that the new Tabby Road line has two color ways of small kittens like before but ADDS the pink color way of inflated kittens. Either the fabric line was always like that or Tula responded incredibly fast to my concerns.

August Fabric Giveaway

 It makes sense that it was 100 degrees F (outside) as I was finishing this quilt and also explains why I took its photo in a darkened room. Although the original has a patchwork border, this one will not. (FYI, this is the Marmalade quilt from Kaffe's Quilt of Grandeur book (or something like that)).

And Molly and I played musical chairs as I finished the quilt top. For most of the afternoon she was snoozing on the official sewing chair which I rolled away from the sewing machine so I could finish the quilt top. After I finished, Molly returned to the spot in front of the sewing machine...now a different chair.

This is what a kitten looks like when she turns nine years old. You can't see what Buddy looks like because he is too busy with his new catnip toys. (Molly only received idiotic toys that are beneath her dignity unlike her cardboard box lined with tissue paper.....?????!?)

In honor of the birthday kittens, if you would like to participate in the August giveaway, leave a comment letting me know what fabric you would like if it were your birthday. If you are anonymous or no-reply, also include your email address so that I can contact you. The prize is enough of the  requested fabric to fill a USPS priority envelop.)

On August 5, at 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time, submissions will close. I will notify the TWO winners by email the next day asking for addresses and clarification about fabric preferences.

Unfortunately, due to the high cost of international shipping, the giveaway is limited to the USA.

Previous winners may enter again.

More Postage

 My first sunflower bloomed. They were not too happy during the heat waves, so I think this one chose our only "rainy" (aka drippy) day to begin blooming. 

Meanwhile Mount Stripmore was reduced to a box of two patches that I am turning into a box of four patches for the postage stamp quilt.

And as usual, I need supervision. Or maybe this is just a cat ruse.

I know a lot of quilters buy sewing machines with larger throat spaces but I don't think that will help reduce furry lump interference.

So sometimes I give up the sewing machine chair way too easily which seems to take a lot of joy out of Molly's victory.

But I am sure she will be happy again in time for the August fabric giveaway.

Feeling the Heat

 I have now sewn all of the postage bits onto strips of neutral fabric (see the pile in the background). Then I iron  them open and fussy cut them apart so I get a pile of two patches (see foreground).

When I get tired of working with Mount Stripmore, I sew two patches into four patches, 

I am only allowed a limited amount of sewing time each day. We are fully into the summer months so the heated beds and pads are turned off. Buddy has taken to napping in a chair by the window while Molly has staked out my sewing chair. When I am in the sewing chair, she takes her place by the sewing machine, flicking her tail closer and closer to the needle.

Despite all of her best efforts, I did manage to finish off the spool of thread today. 

And I get the same disrespect when I cat sit. Here I am being told to return his people immediately and that he will not sign any waivers or nondisclosure agreements for whatever prank show I am affiliated with. He also says I smell like old cats.

I suspect I never got around to showing the fabric I picked up at a recent charity fabric sale. It was back in June some time, oh yeah, the day of the fabric-filled estate sale. The charity sale began at 8AM and the estate sale began at 10AM. 

Winners Announced

 We had a bit of a heat wave, so I only got in a bit of quilting. Happily, I found a whole new bin of bits and I cut postage stamps from them. Along with the heat wave, Buddy and Molly no longer have heated beds and mats to fight over, so Molly returned to full time supervision...that looks a lot like sleeping on my cutting mat. 

I did, however, cut fabric and pack up the giveaway fabric for the four winners:

1. Anonymous (first comment)

2. Cindy F

3. Cherie Moore

4. Susan

The packages were dropped off at the post office yesterday and should arrive either tomorrow or Monday.

To make up for a lack of quilting content, I would love to show you glamorous garden photos, but these scene stealers had a melt down during the heat wave.

And frankly, my garden has an eery, demented side so that it becomes challenging to crop photos to look glamorous and not make children cry.