Our household goes through a cup and a half of sugar everyday and I, too, think it is outrageous. Today I added a sixth hummingbird feeder. Earlier this spring, it got really quiet and I thought all of the hummingbirds had moved on. I was about to call it quits, but one little fellow showed up. And now the full hummingbird circus is in full flight or should I say fight given their personalities.

I also have too many quilts in process all at once, yet I am still able to find a new one I want to make everyday. Here is the second set of half square triangles (HSTs) being sewn for the Omigosh quilt. The colors are so refreshing that this is a great choice for a summer quilt.

Look what I won! Vicki W. sponsored the Summer Break Giveaway and I won the free gradient hand-dyes. They are really incredible. I know I will probably use a bit of these immediately for the Omigosh quilt that I am in the process of making with Vicki's hand-dyed fabrics.

Tommy is disappointed with Vicki for not signing up to win a free kitten and he was thinking he should send her one anyway. However, today when we were out and about mailing packages, he found something to send her instead. I'm not certain she will like it, but Tommy is certain she will like it more than a kitten.

Today I prepared the packing material for Tommy so he can send kittens to the prize winners. Except he said he may send cats to the winners that said they didn't want a kitten. He is having a hard time catching the kittens anyway, and he thinks he'll have an easier time catching and packing the cats despite the fact they're about 3 inches longer (unfinished).

Aagh! Another litter of kittens. This time they are red so they can participate in the Scrappy Rainbow challenge. 

And oddly enough, I had never heard of the watermelon cat until I read about them on Mystic Quilter's blog. Then when I went into the sewing room this morning there were three watermelon kittens!

And following the "you are what you eat" theme, there is one kitten that appears quite guilty of snacking on cranes.

And finally, Tommy would like to announce the WINNERS to his Birthday Giveaway. First, Tommy wanted to pick the winner based on cuteness, color and markings and overall disposition. I countered that we were not choosing a kitten, but instead were picking a random winner. I showed him how to work the random number generator and he was so pleased with himself, he chose THREE winners instead of just one.

The winners are:

Kathy (Comment #5) who wins cat fabric.

Deb A (Comment #22) who wants to be surprised.

Frances (Comment #15) who wants a kitten and batiks. (Tommy says she also wins best comment for calling him handsome and being willing to take a kitten.)

Here's my HSTeria progress for the day. Looks exactly like yesterday. Today we had a power outage or should I say an incessant flickering that makes you shut your own power off. And no, Hurricane Arthur was not remotely to blame. Just some tree limbs getting too close to the power lines when it gets breezy. Our area has had this problem for about a month but it was finally resolved today. Tommy is greatly relieved because he relies on the computer to babysit me when he has better things to do.

Also, the giveaway signup ends tonight so I can pick and post the winner tomorrow. So if you haven't already signed up for Tommy's free kitten, I mean, 18 fat quarters (you pick the color), go here.

It's definitely kitten season around here. Luckily this pink litter can fill in for some of the colors I'm missing for the Scrappy Rainbow challenge.

And here I've cut the remaining HSTs for the Omigosh quilt.

All of the gigantic mice are present and accounted for. They were all quite happy to pose for the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge mid-year celebration and brought some of their baby mice along. Apparently baby mice only come in secondary colors and not primary. Odd.

Making the tails on the large mice still causes me more grief than I would like to admit to. I started out with an improv tail for the pink mouse, but made and used a template for the rest. Except I think that the seam allowance or something is off so the tails have not come together as nicely as I might like. Then I saw this amazing (and now obvious!) tip by Susan Jacuone in Workshops from Quiltskills, the Quilters' Guild of Australia. Take a paper template of the finished curved piece--in this case the mouse tail and its background components--then sew by machine around the finished edge to mark out your personal seam allowance.

And here is a closeup of some of the kittens. Needless to say, they won't stop play fighting and rolling around, even for their photograph. No wonder Tommy can't give these kittens away. But as you can see, when they play they make more interesting patterns than they would if I tried to keep them apart with sashing. (To see the entire flock of cranes, you can jump to this post.)