For the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, we're going to be pulling together all of our blocks on Wednesday. I thought I would start early because I have not really approached this challenge with a finished quilt in mind. Some might even call it goofing off. Plus, I have refined designs or added new ones as I have gone along. The color for July is red, so maybe I can use that month to regroup and rebuild the flock of rose cranes. I'm not certain that blood red cranes are a good idea with so many cats lurking around.

Do you have a void in your life? For example, if you were asleep at 4 AM, you don't have Tommy Cat in your life. Well, today we're having a GIVEAWAY to help fill a void. While Tommy would like to send you a kitten, I'm offering the next best thing: fabric.

In celebration of Tommy turning 18 years old this month and to participate in Vicki W.'s Summer Giveaway, I'm offering 18 fat quarters of cat fabric. Or as an alternative, 18 fat quarters in the color of your choice. Or 18 fat quarters of batiks (assorted colors). To be included in this giveaway, please leave a comment letting me know your preference: cats, batik, yellow, blue, red, orange, pink, teal/turquoise, purple, green, black, or black and white. And to the best of my ability, I will try to keep Tommy from slipping a kitten in with your winnings. (Comments received before July 5 will be included, with the random winner announced July 5.)

And for those of you who can't get enough yellow, here are my yellow fish for the Scrappy Rainbow challenge.

I've cut out about half of the HSTs I will need for the rainbow Omigosh quilt, and here they are sewn together in a chain. I'm not collecting and cutting the colors in a very organized fashion. I can see from this set that I need some grass green, red and light purple. I have a lot of strips already cut to make into HSTs so I will start filling in from there.

Here's the whole chain. Oh, and by the way, most of these are Vicki W.'s hand-dyed fabrics including the ones I won as part of the HST quilt along.

Everyone who has a triangle die cutter should congratulate themselves. I am cutting the HSTs for the Omigosh quilt with the EZ ruler. I have found that the ruler gives me more accuracy than some other methods. And this approach lets me spend a lot of time handling beautiful hand-dyed fabric. Only 77 more sets to go.

I have a lot of projects going all at once which admittedly is kind of fun. On some days I focus on one project at a time, but today I eeked out some time on a lot of different projects. And, of course, Project Tommy got the most attention, but apparently that was not enough.

Have you ever had one of those days that is totally consumed by disciplinary hearings?  I apparently am not meeting Tommy's expectations. But in my defense, inspecting his claws is NOT inappropriate touching. So pretty much all I can account for in my day is blocking out a window!

Usually, at this time of year, I take a screenprinting class at the local community college. The class structure gives me the extra boost I usually need to both design and make a huge chemical mess. This is also the best time of year for dyeing fabric: warm enough for dye, yet not too hot for me in the garage where I make my mess (and yes, my car has screenprinting paint on it...hmmm...just the color of blue on the raccoon shown above. Maybe I need to rethink car as drying rack.)

Recently Vicki W. showed us the product "Color Magic" and I thought that would be a gentle way to slide into screen printing and dyeing. The screen printing part requires the most setup because I use the old timey photo emulsion approach.

 I already have the acetate (shown above) prepared using a design modified from the zebra shirt I made last year. It may have too much detail for an initial effort. But even if it fails, I can call it "mottled" instead of "zebras".

So this is what I accomplished today:  the blackout setup I need to burn the screen using photo emulsion. And with that, I am being called to yet ANOTHER disciplinary hearing...

I finished the Ocean Waves quilt. I started it many years ago and then revived it as part of Vicki W.'s HST quilt along. Now I have to decide whether I will store it as a quilt top or go ahead and quilt it. There are many waiting in line ahead of this one.

As I have been cutting into the hand-dyed fabric for the Omigosh quilt, I decided to play around a bit and practice some skinny strips. The color combinations are irresistible.

 Out in the yard I have sticks that are theoretically apple trees. I planted them in horrible locations so it isn't their fault. But I finally decided that this would be the year to remove the sticks, and look, little apples. And the Granny Smith apple tree is also producing for the first time ever. Maybe they liked all the attention they got from cicadas last year. In any case, these apples won't be around long. I'm pretty sure they are being eaten by deer because the branches disappear along with the apples.

The potted cucumber plant on the back deck seems happy. We'll see how long that lasts!

Just in time for the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, a yellow mouse showed up in my sewing room. The mouse obviously didn't want to be out by the wood pile with the rattlesnake. Nor did I. So we'll both just have to share the sewing room with all those obnoxious kittens.

Here is yellow mouse meeting some of her peers.