Kitten Kaboodle

I spent the weekend helping a friend move her houseful of rescued cats from Memphis to Nashville. She has bought a house, and it has the most wonderful playroom that I'm sure belonged to kids before, but will now make a great cat playhouse. There are cubbies for nearly everyone, and a great patio door that looks out onto the back yard with several trees. I would love help her build some catwalks to traverse the overhead space. Maybe that will happen someday soon.

When I came back from Nashville, the resident feral kitty, whom I call Pippin, met me at the door. She's a sweet cat, not quite tame enough to let me touch her, but recently has decided to rub on my pantleg. Suppose that means I'm ok.

Today, upon return from some errands, I got a surprise. Little kitty-heads popped up from behind the concrete border bricks along the porch. I had my camera with me, so I took a long shot, assuming they would bolt. I quietly walked up to them, and found three little guys cowering under the ledge. One is a mini-Pippen, one looked to be entirely black, and the third is orange and white, and a good bit fuzzier than the others. Two made a break for it, and the third stayed put, probably because its eyes were matted shut.

After I put up some things in the house, I came back out and gathered the little guy up and brought it in to try to wash the gooky off its eyes. Otherwise, the kitten looked fine. No matted hair, fairly clean ears for a feral, and no sneezing. Quite a voice, however, when I began gently soaking off the icky with warm water and some cotton swabs. As soon as I got it cleaned up, I took it back out and set it back on the porch, and it immediately retreated to the same corner. I peeked out later to see it munching on the moistened kibbles I put out. The other two haven't come back, but they ran toward my fenced back yard, and are probably hiding under the outbuilding.

Now, what do I do with more kitties? I can't bring any more into the house. If I can catch the mother cat, she is going to get spayed, and I will try to find homes for the kittens.

Net Neutrality

Do yourself a favor: take a look at what is going on with internet neutrality.

There is a lot we all stand to lose if legislation is shoved through on this, so do take a look at this issue. Please.

New bookshelves

Uffda! I've been working on these things all day long. Well, I have to admit that I work fifteen minutes, sit down for a few, then work fifteen more. Days like today are the ones where the mind is willing but the body is weak, and it takes way longer to do something that you thought it might. I know at the end of today, I might have these all assembled, but the place is a wreck from all the stuff I took off the old shelves.

It's midafternoon, and I'm beat. I might have to take a siesta and come back for round two. I already have bumps and bruises showing up where I have dropped a piece of shelving or banged against another piece of furniture. Grrrr.

What you see here is one set, with one more layer to add to the top, and the bottom layer of the second set.

Which side are you on?

In case you aren't familiar with this joke, Marvel comics has a new storyline called Civil War, where the superheroes are divided over a superhero registration act. Some are siding with Captain America; others take the same stance as Iron Man. Pictured here is Toby, dressed up to play Darekitty. I think I'll go with him. ; )

I've been working toward reorganising my library space with new shelving from Ikea. I bought their Effektiv storage units, and am presently building them in the living room, six feet to the right of where I'm sitting now. They are easy to put together, but heavy. I might have to call in some reinforcements to help me get this job done. Film at eleven.

Another Great Adventure

Wow, what a weekend! The Free Comic Book Day festivities at CAPE 2 (Comics and Popculture Expo) in Dallas, TX, were sponsored by Zeus Comics. We drove down from NE Arkansas to participate in an event we hadn't attended before, but had heard great things about it from others.

The first part of the trip was rather uneventful: nice weather, not too hot, not a lot of traffic, and didn't have to speed to make time because the roads are not under construction right now. We didn't get away from town quite as early as we first planned, but we had enough leeway built in that we didn't feel rushed to get going. My car was well-loaded down with the display rack for the quilts, tshirts to (hopefully) sell, my sewing machine, K's artwork, and what I now believe to be a lot of good karma.

We only stopped a few times, once in Texarkana, TX, to get gasoline and some sketchpaper and pens (ooooo! New Stardust Pentel pens!) and make a pitstop. K read Good Omens to me as I drove. That was so much better than listening on tape or cd! We decided to take a break one more time around dusk somewhere between Greenville and Dallas. It wasn't until we got to our hotel that K realised her wallet was missing.

For some reason, I didn't feel panic at all, probably because it was not MY wallet and life that wallets tend to contain. I called my ex, and asked him to pull up the Subway sandwich shops website and see where they were located along the interstate. He gave me the phone numbers, and we called all of them to see if the wallet had turned up. No one had seen it. I had a feeling that possibly there was a shop that was too new to be on the website, so we jumped back in the car and drove some forty-odd miles back across Dallas and out to look for where we had stopped.

It was not the first couple of places we saw, because we remembered it being connected to a service station/convenience store, although we didn't remember what brand of gasoline they sold. Finally, we spotted the right Subway/Exxon station combo across the freeway, and went to the next exit to turn around. The news was good. The person who spotted the wallet told the store manager that there was a wallet in the restroom, and she didn't want to pick it up, just report it. Everything was still in there. Good people still exist out there.

Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we went back to the hotel and decided not to try to attend the mixer on Friday night, because we had some things to do and were already tired. I worked on some braille t-shirts and K worked on some sketches.

We arrived at CAPE a little before 8AM for setup. They were just finishing the tent setup, and we waited a few minutes for the tables to be placed, and to find our spot. We were on the outside edge of this huge tent in the parking lot, near the power source so I could run the sewing machine. We had good neighbors with the guys from Stumblebum Studios on one side and Larry Dixon on the other. Very nice setup, very smooth, and the folks who put on the show from Zeus Comics had plenty of staff to help out with anything and everything. They had portajohns on site, lunch provided (really good pasta and salad!), table covers to make the show look more polished. They are quickly learning how to run a great show. And to think that this event is FREE to the public to meet the guests and to pick up comics, and FREE to the guests as far as setting up tables and attending the parties. You can't beat a deal like that all the way around.

More soon.

So close, but not quite.

I just couldn't do it. It's about 4:30 pm, and I just shut off the sewing machine after a marathon sewfest. I was down to the last bit of background quilting, but the borders needed to be put on, and they would need to be quilted, too. I went in to square up the quilt and my brain no longer functioned. I haven't really slept in about 36 hours. I tried to nap yesterday, but my brain at that point was in high gear, figuring all sorts of cool things to do on this quilt. If you look closely, some of those things are the three dimensional belt on Gunther and the archer chick, the 3D quiver with arrows, something you can't see in this shot...a 3D scabbard for a very cool dagger on the archer chick's calf.

The lesson to be learned here is...get your act together, Alice. Starting this thing one day earlier would have made the difference. I tossed in the towel knowing that I had less than 3 hours before FedEx closes to mail my photos for the jurying of the contest. Reality sunk in when I thought about the fact that it will probably take me that long to put the binding on, once I get it cut.

Face facts, girl. You might be Darediva, but you ain't WonderWoman.



I quilted a boatload of oak leaves into the background, rather than do all stippling. They aren't really yellow, that's just a highlighter effect to show you where a couple of them are.

At least, this will be done for us to take with us this weekend when we go to Dallas for Cape 2!

Will she make it?

Here's what is done at the moment. I have until 8 pm to have this done, photographed, and the photos to FedEx. No rest for the wicked.

I have the side panels to sew onto here, the background quilting to be done, and the binding. Screw the hanging sleeve for now. I can add that later, along with the fancy label on back.

The finishing stuff will go on after the quilting. I will add some shadows to her hair to make it have some definition, and the bowstring will be adding in the quilting step, as will some metal studs on the armour and jewels on the wand.

Gotta run.