No, this is not a photo of my dinner. Today I had to take my sewing machine in for service to repair a complication from a previous surgery. It so happens that the sewing machine repair is right in the middle of a quilt store full of fabric. Coincidence? I think not. Of course, I always find fabric for the quilt I have just completed. Except in this case, I was slow enough that the quilt wasn't finished. (A new definition for slow quilting to justify buying more fabric?)

And yes, these look like delightful additions to the "evil" side of the I-spy quilt.

I have to be careful not to include "evil" images that might be too scary for the intended audience...my grand nephew. And I'm worried that teddy bears playing soccer might provoke nightmares. For me.

Here's my progress on the legos quilt. It looks like all the blocks from the Scrappy Rainbow Challenge mixed in a blender. With the new blocks I was trying to add contrast by adding more lights and darks, but I think I am drawn to medium bright. Plus, to make things interesting, between this batch of blocks and the last, my blocks shrunk by half an inch.  However, I think with this quilt, all is forgiven.

Today's group of fish are ORANGE fish although they could easily be mistaken for goldfish. How confusing is that? However, this is the last week for orange at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. But not all fish are defined by their color, so in the middle row we have a catfish, a monkey fish and the quite famous clown fish.

And today for the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, we are having a roundup of our quilt blocks. Unfortunately, I lose blocks about as fast as I make them. Because obviously the cranes eat the fish. And we have seen plenty of evidence that the cats and kittens eat the cranes.

And of course, the giant mice eat the kittens. Yum!

I began making fish a few months after the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge began so I decided to add some of the colors that I missed including blue and blue-green fish. A few of these fish are extra fishy. And the fish in the middle row on the left hand side is in a very bad mood.

I have been getting suggestions (both on the blog and in real life) to try my hand at Tommy artwork along the lines of the Jimmy theme. Jimmy's image was rendered in such a variety of styles and media that he had his own show at the local college. I have tried using Tommy imagery but the artwork can never match the real handsome mug. So instead, I've exploited his image on t-shirts, mugs, clocks and bags. Shameless, I know. However, to give him his due, I think I will try my hand at using the image above and translate it in fabric. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile you may have been wondering if I found any inappropriate images after discovering my iPod filled with Tommy's selfies. Well, there is this. However, this image is from a scanner and I'm sure that Tommy thought he was having a Catscan...for medical purposes only.

I laid out the first draft of the dark side for the I-spy quilt. I will take my time over the next couple of days to balance out the dark blocks and the yellows. Also, I don't want cat blocks next to each other because they will either fight or conspire.

I also cut the mat board for the Jimmy postcard screen print that I hope will go in a local show. Unfortunately I haven't cut mat board in quite a while and it took A LOT of cardboard to get to this point.

I also spent most of the day waiting for Tommy to show because I knew if anything would bring him back from the great beyond it would be seeing his style icon looking like this.

The "good" side of the I-spy quilt for my grand nephew is all sewn together. It went together fairly quickly. Probably because I have no more staff meetings to attend or long droning lectures on why mice playing a saxophone (upper left top corner) are more evil than accordion playing cats. Okay, I do miss the long droning lectures.

Here's Orange Mouse to join the Orange September party at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.  Orange mouse was born with some foot defects and had to have two surgeries to get her up on her feet.

Orange mouse wasted no time and joined the mouse subcommittee in charge of laying kitten traps in a pointless effort to keep the kitten population explosion under control.

I've been looking through my pile of screen printing classwork--my instructor is having an exhibit of her work plus those of her students at a community art cooperative. The pink cat head is most closely aligned with my innermost artistic soul.

So we're going with this postcard (of Portland) which covers more ground in terms of learning screen printing including three colors, thin lines and transparencies.

I do have a lot of quilts in process right now...one of which is the legos quilt. It uses a lot of 1.25 inch bits. I have saved a lot from the I-spy quilts and the kitten parts and the cranes. And I want a lot of variety, especially a lot more light and dark strips.

 The cutting is a bit tedious so I thought maybe I would get out the iPod and listen to some tunes...

Well, I guess not. Someone had stripped the iPod of its apps and tunes and everything else and filled it with selfies.

I'm going to consider myself lucky that Tommy was always a tasteful cat and didn't take any inappropriate shots. That I know of.

Just my luck. The kittens were "returned to sender." A postal worker heard a lot of swearing and threatening language, so they opened the box. Apparently, kittens are one of those dangerous substances that you can't send by mail. Who knew?

And to make matters worse, the box came back with a new litter of 9 black and white kittens. These colors are not sanctioned by the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge! I hope this doesn't mean that I'll be eliminated from the challenge.

A beautiful flock of orange origami cranes (or swans) flew in this morning. They look so serene and peaceful knowing that all those nasty kittens were stuffed in a box and sent off to New Zealand. For more orange, please visit the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

I had forgotten that I had this fabric to make pillowcases. I decided I should make them quick before I forgot again.

And I didn't think it was possible, but I needed more I-spy blocks--20 of them. These are for the "evil" twin side of the reversible I-spy quilt. Which is worse: a cat on the computer, a cat playing the accordion or a driving dog?

Such a thoughtful gift! This is a 22X24 inch canvas wrapped photo of Tommy to put on the bedroom wall to prevent me from getting a good night's sleep. And yes, the eyes follow me around the room. Apparently, Tommy set me up for a "mounted photo a month" delivery to ensure I didn't forget him. Not likely. I hope you don't think ill of me for canceling the rest of his order but the subscription was set up to run for twelve years.

Here is my first draft on the "good" side of the I-spy quilt. First, I had to sort through the blocks determining which were "good" versus "evil." This reminded me of "Spy VS. Spy" from Mad magazine. Am I dating myself? Obviously clowns would go on the evil side along with kittens and teddy bears. But certainly pandas and polar bears should be on the good side. Needless to say, a reversible quilt isn't as easy as it seems.

I find it helpful to take pictures of the block placements because sometimes I can find weird juxtapositions from the photos that I gloss over when looking at the actual blocks.

I don't quite understand how it could happen, but I sense there is some confusion between the photos of Kibble (Tommy's lawyer) and Tommy (Tommy). Admittedly, they both have ears and eyes and the general shape one associates with "cat" but other than that they don't look at all the same to me. I think Tommy would say the biggest difference is that he knew better than to stay out late drinking the day before a photo shoot.

I just couldn't resist starting a lego quilt. The idea comes from Tonya at Lazy Gal Quilting--who gives a link to the posting about the original antique quilt and also provides a tutorial for making her version of the quilt. The one I'm making uses 1.25 inch cut strips with 7.5 inch (unfinished) blocks. And no! This is not going to be a charm quilt. Only one insane quilt in a life time. Okay, maybe two.

Meanwhile, those of you mentioned in Tommy's will may be wondering about my search for Fluffy McKibble, Tommy's lawyer, who Vicki W. located behind bars at my local SPCA. I dutifully went to the SPCA and asked for "Kibble" but was told he had been adopted out. I asked if that meant Kibble was not accepting new clients and whether I could get on his waiting list or get his new address to confer with him directly. I can't imagine that one family needs a cat lawyer full-time!

I was told that Kibble's new address is confidential, that cats do not go to law school, and even if they did, feline wills are not recognized in the Commonwealth and they have called the police who are on their way. So I am open to any new leads but I won't be able to pursue the SPCA lead any further until the restraining order is lifted.

 

September is the Orange month for the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. It's also the time of year when kitten season starts to wind down. This morning I found a new litter of 8 new orange kittens. I grabbed a pink and orange kitten from another litter to round out the picture.

Meanwhile, Vicki W. (who generously sponsors the Scrappy Challenge with her lovely hand dyed fabric for prizes) thinks she has located Tommy's lawyer, Fluffy McKibble. He's behind bars at my local animal shelter so he may need his own lawyer. The authorities have him listed under the name "Kibble" so I'll have to make a trip into town to find out if he is the real deal.

I thought I would let the kittens out of their box in anticipation of orange kittens for tomorrow's rainbow scrappy challenge. I'm also wondering if some of them might find their way back to their mothers in New Zealand on their own. I'm also a bit surprised that there haven't been any black and white kittens yet.

And if you remember from yesterday's post, against everyone's better judgment, I put out a large bowl of kibble to entice Fluffy McKibble, Tommy's lawyer, to come execute his will. And the photo above shows what I found the next morning. It turns out Tommy wasn't exaggerating when he said "No animal on this planet would eat that crap."

In any case, there is a chance that there is no Fluffy McKibble and Tommy forged the lawyer's signature. But tonight I'm going to leave out a bowl of dollars and see if that entices the cat lawyer out of hiding. So for those of you who are waiting for all the goods Tommy promised...keep waiting!

This may look similar to previous posts, but these are all new I-spy blocks. I have now finished making the blocks and with a couple hundred of them have plenty to choose from to make a quilt for my grand nephew. Unfortunately, he still does not have a king-sized bed.

However, it has come to my attention that sometimes this perfect child becomes a bit tired and allows his evil twin to make an appearance. Aha! This means the evil twin should get a quilt too. I plan to make a reversible quilt--happy, loving and nice on one side, and pure evil on the other. The three middle images in the second row of the image above are more scary than evil. But I think we can all agree that the remaining images show some of the darker sides of life.

And please forgive me for sewing instead of continuing to read Tommy's Policies and Procedures manuals. The 8 point font is hard to read even with all the capitalizations and bold. At least I now know why the printer is out of red ink.

Plus I have to handle Tommy's will. He has bequeathed all of the fabric to Vicki W., while Cassie T. gets all of the weaving and art supplies. Plus all of the kitchen appliances. Mystic Quilter gets all of the kittens. while Tommy's photos go to Judy D. and his ten volume set of Tommy's Sage Advice to Cats and Kittens goes to his love interest in Sacramento. Unfortunately, I first have to locate his lawyer Fluffy McKibble. I'm going to start my search by putting a bowl of kibble out on the back deck and see what happens.

The house feels empty without Tommy's large presence. And it was quite strange sleeping through the night, missing the 4AM wakeup call and sleeping in.

And I am quite used to close supervision or shall we call it micromanagement. In any case, it is very strange to have to think for myself and plan my own day. Some things are obvious though, like the first cup of coffee in the morning.

Plus there's this. Tommy has left a few instructions. Of course, the first rule is NO SLEEPING IN! If you sleep past 4AM, you will not be able to catch the early bird for breakfast.

Tommy. June 1996-September 2014.