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. 

Starturday Success!

 It's a bit late in the season to be starting seeds, but that didn't stop me from starting Kaffe's Seed Packet quilt. I couldn't decide whether to make the red version or the blue, so I decided to make both and have a reversible quilt. I am going to consider this a low volume quilt...meaning I'm not going to put a lot of energy into it. As I encounter Kaffe floral fabric in my stash, I'll cut 8 inch squares or 4.5 inch squares depending on the pattern.

Meanwhile, I've tinkered a bit with block placement and think I am only a few tweaks away from starting to sew it together.

I also have been making progress going through the bit box for the postage stamp quilt. This version has a checkerboard of stamps and neutrals.

I sew the bits to neutral strips and then iron them. Next I will cut them down to a height of 1.25 inches.

Meanwhile, Molly decided that there would be FOUR winners...two requesting Japanese fabric and two regular winners. Staff is not allowed to announce the winners until we have heard back from all of them. Also, Molly says not to judge her for continuing to use her heated pad during a heat wave. Apparently hot house temperatures don't quite knock off the chill. Right now she is laying on the only bit of sun I'm letting in the house during our "heat wave" (as defined in Portland, OR terms.)

We explained the new fabric giveaway plan to Buddy but we think his brain stalled out at "Four."

More Fabric Displays

 The yukata cloth and the novelty prints that I showed previously are Japanese fabric printed by Japanese companies. There is also "Japanese style" fabric that were printed by companies such as Kona Bay and FreeSpirit around 2006 and 2007. There were lots of these in the estate sale bin as well.

For those of you who mentioned that you are interested in Japanese fabric for the giveaway, if you win, I will want to know your preference for yukata, novelty or floral (or a mix of all three).

For those of you asking for Buddy's help in choosing fabric, here is his fabric from the bin. As you probably already know, extremely ugly fabric attracts laser dots, so almost everyday Buddy attacks and beats out any laser dots in these fabrics. And I know that Bonnie Hunter says that you can cut an ugly fabric smaller, but some fabrics are so ugly you would have to fussy cut a one inch square and none of us have time for that. 

If you win and asked for Buddy's help, he will want to know if you want your fabrics pre-gash or with a gash. 

July Fabric Giveaway

 I think I have now sewn enough postage stamps to cover postage for the two (soon-to-be) winners of the July fabric giveaway.

Here is some more of the Japanese fabrics that were in the bin from the quilter's estate sale. And if you would like hunks from each of these, just leave a comment on this blog post telling me that. Or maybe you want yukata cloth. Or maybe you want squares from my bin of 2.5 inch squares. Or per chance some batiks, thirties, novelty, orange, or neutral (specify white, beige, grey). We have even devolved to the concept of Buddy picking randomly from the Elfa drawers where we store 1/2 yard or less cuts. Maybe you would like Molly to randomly pick from the flat folds. 

When you leave a comment on this blog post. include your email address if you are anonymous or no-reply. On July 5, at 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time, submissions are closed. I will notify the 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 (and by the way, no one is keeping track.)

Another Starturday

 This is the third Starturday that I don't have a new quilting project to show. I am sure we share a mutual disappointment. I have excellent intentions but keep finding myself drawn to the same old projects. Here the Marmalade quilt from Kaffe's Quilts of Grandeur book has all its blocks constructed. I just put the blocks up and haven't yet moved any around...so we'll see how many quilts don't get started while I dink around moving blocks around.

And its been a couple of weeks since I've been to a massive quilter's estate sale. Of course, I still haven't finished showing the fabric from the last one. Here are the hunks of yukata cloth that came in the bin. It turns out I already had the grey, blue and white fabric on the far right. I bought it on a trip to Berkeley, CA sometime in the early 80s.

And yes there will be another fabric giveaway on July 1. This is part of the package that went to one of the winners from last month. As I recall she asked for "unexpected children's fabric." I may have leaned a bit heavily on unexpected.

Last but not least, here is the sky from last Starturday. I looked outside and saw this and ran outside to take a photo. Happily, as a young child I was told that the white fluff in the sky is called "clouds" so I was only moderately stunned by the beauty, not panicked. 

Unfinished Projects

 I discovered a few unfinished quilting projects in the estate sale bin...although to be fair, I don't know if these projects were completed and the plastic bags were extra pieces or an unfinished project. The package of fan blades had some sections sewn together by hand, each using different techniques. I sorted the blades by fabric and expect to harvest them into postage stamps and/or spools. But then again, a charm tumbler quilt might be in my future.

Some of the fabrics seem to be actual vintage 30s while others are 30s reproductions. But a lot of them are calicos from the early 80s.

And this was a total surprise...Kaffe fabric half-square triangles. I think they are intended to be 2.25 inches unfinished, but I suspect they would need to be trimmed to 2 inches for uniformity. I have an extreme allergy to half-square triangles and these are too small for me to harvest.

Miniature Sidetrack

Maybe it's a compulsion, maybe I'm making another spool quilt. As you might notice, I usually work with bright, wacky fabric, so when I encounter reproduction fabric/small prints my mind thinks mini spools (1.5 in finish). 

Inside the plastic bin of fabric I showed in the last post was a small baggy with these scraps. These are now spools, postage stamps and bits for the bit bin.

In the context of seeing the photos from the estate sale, the bin was a tiny bite of the apple.

And this photo shows her fabulous book collection (completely staked out by a book reseller), more fabric and yes, a bin of "scraps" under the table. There were at least four of these bins.

In looking through the fabric chunks and scraps in the bin, I recognized a lot of fabrics from the early eighties, back when the selection of cotton fabrics was quite limited (relatively). So there was a lot of "historical or reproduction fabrics" but there were also a lot of fabrics with a history of their own.