The Pink and White Season

Moose the orange cat in his bunker.

I planted all of these in 1994 or 1995, and they are all growing together and intermingling.

Too hard (and too boring) to pick only one color. Front yard along the sidewalk.

Wisteria on the back fence.

Everything is pink and white and it's gloriously springtime! It was also a record high of 83 yesterday. I hope we don't have to use the a/c so early in March, and would gladly send 10 degrees to somewhere else that could use a little spring. Azaleas, wisteria, dogwoods, peach, spirea, redbud, pistache all blooming now. Almost everyone in town has azaleas, and when they're all in bloom, it's quite a sight.

Going to Sacred Threads!

Sacred Threads, a biennial exhibit, will be on display June 17-28, 2009, Reynoldsburg High School, Reynoldsburg, Ohio.

Fire and IceFire and Ice, detail


Summer Breeze Summer Breeze, detail

Both pieces inspired by the photography of John Hartgerink, and made as part of a challenge using John's photographs of Bluebonnet Swamp in Baton Rouge. I just finished two quilts for a Metamorphosis, New Quilts From Old Favorites challenge, but I can't post them yet!

My Three Cats

From These...To these...

To these...

There is NO photo transfer involved in my method. I had the photos on the computer, adjusted the contrast, made the 2 black cats into line drawings & the orange one into a b&w. Then I enlarged & printed each in The Big Picture. You can figure out the size of each finished cat by counting the inches on the green cutting mat they were photographed on.

I took the printed photos and drew the outlines for the different colors, then went over my lines with a black marker. Each piece was then traced onto the proper color of fabric using a light box, and liqui-fuse was applied on the edges of each fabric piece with a fine point squeeze bottle. The black is the background for 2 cats, lightest orange for the other. After the liqui-fuse dried, I ironed it between layers of a teflon sheet and cut each piece out, then laid it on the cat background fabric, using the light box to position it. I held it down with a pin long enough to move to the ironing board and fuse.

The large black cat was the easiest; the orange cat had many tiny irregular fabric pieces. Black cat's eye and the white on sleeping cat are reverse applique'. Pupils are drawn on with a black Micron pen. After attaching a tear away stabilizer to the back, I sewed straight stitches back and forth over all the fabric pieces to make the fur. This was especially effective on orange cat, and blended the colored sections together. I was careful to look at which way real cat fur lies, which was a bit easier due to living with the models.

Steamed flat, and soon to be on a quilt, but you'll have to wait and see!