Return of Murderbot

Here is a revised rendition of the Murderbot quilt, influenced by a recent series on AppleTV (also a series of books). The series is a comedy where, for the most part, lives are endangered because the "robot" is too engrossed in watching his space soap operas. In the first season, the "robot" has a helmet that has the company logo laid over the face plate. In the first version of this design, I was a bit literal so I cut down that first design and appliquéd it to Karen Nyberg's (astronaut turned quilter) black space fabric. Next come the purple/pink borders representing the favorite soap opera "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon."

Two More Blocks

 If I remember correctly, these are the last of the pieced blocks that I need to complete for the Stonefield quilt. Fifteen more to go. And the last set of blocks were lacking flash, so the goal today was to put some Tula Pink into one of the blocks. 

I should also mention that Buddy had a rebuttal to my blog post yesterday, but instead of posting his protest, he chose to litter the bedroom floor with mouse toys. He also woke me up in the middle of the night by bringing one into the bed and gnawing on it next to my head. Mysteriously, that mouse toy went flying across the room. And yes, I have had the joy of gifts of real mice, so I am counting myself lucky.

Burgeoning Bureaucracy

 This is my month's progress on the Stonefield quilt by Susan Smith. I chose blocks with lots of circles...which I find the easiest to appliqué (using the Buckley circles, of course). 

My lack of progress is not at all my fault and stems completely from being held down by forces beyond my control. While I have learned to cope with living with Molly as a lap cat, I am now completely overwhelmed by Buddy becoming a lap dog. 

And to make matters worse, while Molly continues as my supervisor, Buddy has anointed himself the inspector. As I sew, Buddy inspects all the items at hand for "toy status." He grabs these items and runs off with them. Favorites are bobbins of appliqué thread, Buckley circles, and paper. He also likes straight pins but they are never left out.

Here is Molly showing me as much sympathy as she can muster. She is also coating fabric in cat hair...in this case Karen Nyberg fabric for the Murderbot quilt.

This is what neglected roses in Portland look like. I didn't cut them back this year so they all tower over me. I did notice these roses as I was picking blackberries, another indomitable force. Apparently thorns attract thorns. (I'm not complaining).

Mollybot's Rebuttal

 I regret that I must apologize for staff's unauthorized post to this blog yesterday. I will now try and dispel some of staff's ridiculous nonsense. First, for context, please realize that staff considers Murderbot (both the books and AppleTV+ series) instructions for interactions with humans. However, given Murderbot's extensive training on soap operas, his skills with human interaction surpasses anything our staff could muster. We prefer staff to maintain her focus on cats and to stop wiggling so much during nap time.

In yesterday's blog, staff referred to "Sanctuary Moon" fabric, but was really referring to this fabric from Cotton + Steel. Admittedly, this does capture the landscape of the Sanctuary Moon love scene as well as featuring cats.

Jumped on the Bandwagon

Okay, so I'm joining everyone else and making the Murderbot Baby Quilt. I'm going with the traditional color way. In the AppleTV+ version of the Murderbot series, there is logo for the Corporation that shows up most notably on uniforms (and elsewhere), but it wasn't until I was working on the center panel for the quilt that I realized that the Murderbot helmet is just an enlarged section of the Corporate logo. Fascinating. A logo for a face. No spoilers, so enough said...except...I found that I don't have enough of the Sanctuary Moon border fabric. I ordered some more but who knows how long it will take to get here and by what system of transport.

And tangentially to transport, there is the postage stamp quilt. I have gotten all the bits up to the 8 by 8 block size and these two piles will determine the final quilt size. There are advanced quilt making strategies for counting the number of blocks, setting a layout and determining the size of the quilt. But that would be time taken from reading Murderbot novellas...

Buddy would like me to go away and take my nonsense with me.

More postage

This feels like progress. I have sewn all of the postage bits into 4 by 8 blocks. For a little bit of history, it was when I had reached the 4 by 4 block stage that I decided to make a larger quilt...so I stepped back and made more colorful and neutral pairs, then 2 X 2, the 2 X 4, then 4 X 4 to reach this 4 X 8 step. 

Admittedly, some might want to count these blocks and get an idea of the eventual size of the quilt, but planning is more appropriate for those who like "productivity" and "finishing quilts." 

As Molly says, I have put myself in a Quilting Quagmire...lots of fussy quilts with tiny bits and/or hand work.  I would think this is an invitation to start a new quilt except for the way Molly is glaring at me.

Lollipop

I found the next steps in the Stonefield quilt and the blocks all required lots of appliqué of small pieces. Turns out I had already finished making the easiest blocks for the month. So I looked at this Lollipop block...it looked like a circle with two strips of rick rack sewn across it. Then I realized that it wasn't rick rack, but fabric that had been cut like rick rack. Then I remembered that I live at a time when there are gazillions of print fabrics many of which can pass for a lollipop. 

Then I interviewed Molly for my new podcast Diatribe. She has become quite a chatterbox. Here she is hanging out in the empty shelves over the refrigerator. 

And everyday I convert some 4X4 postage blocks into 4X8...and I don't forget to twirl the seams.