Wed, 02 Oct 2024

The Simple Hawk Moth dropped yesterday, free for all tier members and available for non-member purchase on Patreon*.

Done right, it comes out a lot like the original Hawk Moth but this one is a single-piece design that uses the usual General Charm instructions. Unlike the full design, you can't mix-and-match vinyl, cotton prints, and plush. You can applique the hindwings, but everything else is the same color, and there's only the one body design: a stitched skull and stripes. There's a large assortment of color changes, at least, so you can mix things up a bit as you'll see on the product cover page. The main picture there shows the bunting in the largest size (almost 10" wide), the plaque in the larger 4x4 size, and a plush bag charm (with some regrettable color choices) in the smallest.

And in other news, one of the things that delayed the September drops was dealing with this guy. He had either kitty IBS or intestinal cancer for some years, and it had escalated in the last year so we put him on steroid pills and then a monthly steroid shot. Well, it was (probably) cancer because the shots simply stopped working. We gave it a month to ensure that it wasn't just a reaction to fleas or worms acquired on an escape attempt and, as you've probably figured out, it wasn't.

We acquired him in 2011 at about two years old - the foster had named his litter after Egyptian gods, and after his last sibling (Isis, which didn't have the connotations then) was adopted out, people kept hearing "Horus" as "Horace" so he was renamed "Ramses" before coming to a pet supply's adoption center and gently hooking a claw in spouse's face ("We have to adopt him, they're inseperable now") and because we are bad about naming pets and so they always keep their shelter names, that stuck. Well, mostly: spouse spells it "Rameses," vets often spelled it "Ramsey."

So he had a good long run, but every time I see a white shopping bag or a pile of white minky out of the corner of my eye, I turn expecting it to be him. But no fear: now that he's gone, Olivia has decided that she needs to take over all his duties and is doing a great job.

If you ever order something from me, and you have a cat, ask me for selvedge strips. These come off the edge of yards of minky and I have a lot of them.

• iPhone folks: always remember not to use the app for buying things, the markup is wild. So far you can just do it from the phone browser, Apple hasn't figured out how to take a cut from there.