Stormy Weather

To quote a phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night." And that was our day yesterday. It rained hard most of the day. The kitties spent their time snuggled up in their quilts. Smitty paused to knead his quilt back into submission as I was taking his picture.

Sadie likes staying undercover. She's practicing to become an agent for the CIA (Cats In Action).

We had grocery shopping to do, and so it was around 2:00 p.m. by the time I made my way into the sewing room. I still had nine cats from the cat panel to use up, and I had an idea about making a donation quilt to send off to Quilts for Kids. I think this is about the 7th quilt I've made for them. Except for one, I've always used this pattern from their website. I just like it. There are other downloadable patterns to choose from as well. Originally, I'd intended to continue using the black and white scraps from the day before. But then, I decided I wanted more color. I didn't have enough of any two fabrics for the four-patches, and I thought they needed to be from the same fabrics. 

So, the first step was to make the four-patches. After spending a long time in the selection process, I made these from two uncut fat quarters in my cat fabric stash.

For the "focus fabric," I decided to use this leftover yardage.

The only other time I used this fabric was in the Let Sleeping Cats Lie quilt. This one is hanging in the upstairs portion of the Mewseum at the Three Cats Ranch.

I only had nine cats from the panel, and so I filled in the six gaps with the focus fabric.

When they were all sewn together...

I had to decide on the first border. I had just enough of this bright green to make it all the way around.

Then, I finished off the quilt top using the same "focus fabric" in the outer border. I'm calling this quilt Paws & Purrs.

Then I chose this one for the quilt back and cut a piece large enough. I had quite a bit of this fabric. I've probably used it before, but I can't remember when.

Then I went in search of a fabric for the binding. I have some of this fabric leftover from when I made the quilt of my brother.

His quilt was called Snips & Snails. I used this fabric for the snake, but also for the binding.

Thinking about this quilt reminded me that my brother was a polio survivor. He was five years old when he was diagnosed, and he spent 60 days in one of these contraptions known as an "iron lung."

And, you know, I raised two little boys. I can't even imagine the angst for my parents. Even worse, I can't imagine the energetic little boy from my quilt confined to this claustrophobic environment for two months! I wasn't yet born when all this took place, but I've heard stories. Apparently, when one comes off an iron lung, one has to be weaned off and learn to breathe on one's own again. And so as they weaned my brother off, the time off was lengthened each day until he could breathe on his own. My dad awarded him one of his military service medals each time he lengthened his time off the machine. Writing about it makes me tear up. I only mention this because I think if Quilts for Kids had been around when my brother was being treated for polio, he might have received one of the quilts. Perhaps that's why this charity is so dear to my heart.

Okay, so it looks as if it will be a better day weather-wise. We were treated to a beautiful red sunrise this morning.

I have an appointment for a haircut and color this morning, and so I'll need to take off around 9:15. We have someone coming to take a look at the damage downstairs from our water leak. By the way, Mike's plumbing "putty" worked to hold the pipe temporarily, and so we're back to using our kitchen and bathroom sinks and the dishwasher. Except for the big mess downstairs, you'd never know anything was amiss. 

The response from our insurance company has been abysmal at best. A full two days after submitting our claim, we have yet to speak to anyone who can offer any guidance. Yesterday morning, Mike called the person he'd left a message with originally. His name and number was listed in an email sent by the person who took down the claim information. Listening to his voice mail again, he said the date, and it was April 13th. So, his message was more than a week old, and he was still claiming to be returning calls in the order received. Well...that seemed bogus. So we went online looking for more information. Entering our claim information on Mike's iPad, we found a different name listed as our "claims specialist." Calling him, we got voice mail again. (We'd also called both managers of these two people.) Then, Mike checked again on his iPhone and found yet another person listed as our representative. Well, as you might imagine, this was confusing and frustrating. Calling the original number again, we were told our claim had been reassigned, and that the *third* person was actually the right person.

Okay, so we called him, and got voice mail again. We needed to get our grocery shopping done, and so we left the house. He returned our call as we were heading down our hill, where the cell service is iffy. We missed the call, but returned his call as soon as we could...about a half-hour later. We never received another call from him. Mike sent him a text telling him we were moving ahead and calling places to get it repaired. There was no response to the text. 

So that's a long story to say we've had one contractor out to look at it, and another is coming this morning. We're told by both contractors they can handle all the business with the insurance company, and that was somewhat reassuring. Nevertheless, the service from Traveler's Insurance has been astonishingly bad. I expect we may be shopping for another carrier when this is all over.

All right. Rant ended. I'll keep you updated. For now, I have just enough time to get in some slow-stitching before I need to hit the showers.