WINNER #2

My husband woke me up early yesterday morning panicking, because he went to feed the kittens and none of them showed up. They ALWAYS come to breakfast. My thoughts first were that a coyote got them. I lost 3 cats in the last few months and I wasn't sure I could handle losing all 6 kittens! Mike told me that because the cats travel in a pack that he doubted that that happened. As he was getting ready to go outside to look for them he looked out our back sun room window and said that he saw 3 of them behind the fence. His first thought was that because our neighbor was deer hunting and he couldn't find the dear, that maybe they found it (thus they weren't hungry). We called them and then the other 3 showed up.

I have always had indoor cats until we moved out to a more rural area. I never had to worry about anything happening to them other than growing old or coming down with some type of disease (cancer, etc.). We have had cats and dogs since before we got married. Since we have been together (it will be 45 years this December, married for 42 years) we have had 19 cats (we currently have 8) and 9 dogs (we currently have 2).

I always wanted cats when I was a kid but my brother had terrible allergies and asthma so we weren't able to. I used to cut out pictures of cats in my mother's magazines and keep them in an album knowing that it was as close as I was going to get to having a cat as a child. My husband was never allowed to have any animals and loved dogs but his mother grew up believing dogs do not belong in a house. So we knew we both wanted to have animals in our lives. He never liked cats but when I started bringing them home, he had a hard time saying no! It is always hard to lose a pet. Some I have been more attached to than others. Only people who own pets can understand the connection that there is. It just reminds me that everyday that they are with us is very precious.

Anyone who has ever own a cat knows that we don't really own them and they come into our lives sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. Our first outdoor cat was discovered in a neighbor's bass boat while he was fishing over 10 years ago. He realized that there were kittens with her and knew that if anyone could get them out of his boat, Mike could. Mike was able to coax her out with food, and while she was eating he was able to get her two kittens. He built a little home on our front porch for her to raise them. We never really gave her a name so we just called her momma kitty. We gave her two kittens away, but she continued to stayed close to home. We were never really able to get very close to her. She was just not a people cat. The last couple of years she was willing to let us pet her just a little. We didn't know how old she was when we got her but recently we noticed that she was losing weight and her fur was a disaster which, with cats, is a sign that something was wrong. She continued to have a good appetite and was active so we never thought anything about it. Just that she was getting old. Well, a couple weeks ago she did not show up for breakfast and we knew that something was not right. We didn't see her at all after that so we figured she just went somewhere in our woods to die. Rest in peace momma kitty.

I could go on forever talking about my animals, but I will tell you a little about each one in future posts.

Now to the winner. I was so happy to see that there were a lot more people reading my posts and leaving comments. I hope each of you share my blog with your quilting friends and they share it with theirs. I would love for more people to follow my posts and share in my personal and quilting life. People who know me, know that I am a very private person, but every little bit of myself I can share with others, helps me to open up a little bit more. People say that keeping a journal is a good thing, so I will use this as my journal.

Today's winner is Patience Griffin! She said "From a distance this looks like a complicated pattern, but up close it looks easy. I love this pattern. I would love to make this for my cousin who loves quilts and has been a wonderful cheerleader in my life." Congratulations Patience! Please email me with your address so I can send you your prizes. Everyone else, don't give up. I have 9 more drawings! 

I said I was going to show you how to use my Cutting Corners template set with this pattern. This template set and my North Star set are both available for purchase on my website. I am currently having a 20% off all regular priced items on my website until December 15 (along with fabrics for as low as $5 a yard) so this would be a good time to purchase either one. That also includes my Mosaic Magic pattern.

In the Mosaic Magic pattern, there is a triangle on the ends of long strips and half-square triangles. 

There are two templates that are included in the set. One is a right angle triangle. It can be used to make half-square triangles and eliminates the need to draw a line on the back of the squares used to create those triangle ends. 

When making half-square triangles, you do not need any special math. You only need to know the size of the finished square. As you can see in this photo there are lines on the triangle. They give you the size of the finished piece. If you know that size, you only need to add your usual 1/2" seam allowance when cutting strips. Place the two strips right sides together and cut them out at the same time by lining up the appropriate line on triangle to the bottom of the strip. Then take them to the sewing machine and sew along the long edge. This particular strip was cut at 2" and will create a 1-1/2" HST. You can also see that the corners are trimmed before sewing so you have no dog ears to trim after sewing.

You can also use this template to eliminate having to draw a line on the back of a square in patterns that tell you to do this for a variety of blocks such as Snowball or Flying Geese. I originally designed this template set because I thought that drawing that line was a waste of time. The edge has to be trimmed anyway. This is a strip that is 3-1/2" wide and I place a 3-1/2" square on the right end of the strip. The template is lined up along the left edge of the square and the 3" mark along the bottom of it. The seam line (dashed line) goes through the right bottom corner. Just trim and sew it with a 1/4" seam allowance. You do not have to be afraid of bias edges. Just don't stretch the edge when you are sewing and let the machine do the work. I finger press everything before I take it to the iron (dry iron) so that I know that the seam is nice and flat and it doesn't stretch the seam.

I will show you how to use this template set more with some of the other patterns that I will be giving away.
 
Here is a sneak peek of the next bundle I will be giving away.  It is another bundle of P&B's Luxury Essentials that I gave away in my first drawing. It has a very cute gold swirl in it. Tomorrow I will play with it in some of my patterns to show you how you can use it. You can put your comments in tomorrow's post for the next drawing.

Stay warm and dry and come back tomorrow. As always; do what you love and love what you do. Thanks for reading. Toby Lischko