A New Cat

A new cat from an old favourite fabric. It's an old curtain with a huge and varied print that contains every pastel shade of colour under the sun. I've used this fabric a number of times before.

Continued Happy Easter

The Easter Bunny imposter is now stitched and finished. :)

Happy Easter

Not quite an Easter Bunny. Cat with bunny ears and tail. :)


























Fall foliage from last year but for me it has a spring feel to it.

A Little Green For St Paddy's Day

I have not started embellishing and stitching this piece yet, but I had to post it as is today because it's green and it's St Patrick's Day. So there. :)

Red Batik Cat

Not much to say today except that I have been in a creative mood in recent weeks. Probably will be posting a lot in the next little while. I am currently working on something green for St Paddy's Day. :)

Cat In Progress

The cat is actually finished. It's the background that's still in progress.

One of my artistic goals for 2012 is to produce more detailed works. The swirly fabric that serves as the cat's body is too perfect to spoil with additional embellishment so I left it as is. I stitched around the edge two times with medium and light coloured embroidery threads. The stitches are so close that they almost looks like a satin stitch.

Now I have to decide what kind of treatment the background fabric should get. Probably I am going to quilt it. I'll know in a day or two after I think about it.

Feline and Canines

A favourite template created by me paired with a vintage border print from my late mother's stash inspired this kitty. What a beautiful day today to sit outside and stitch and finish up this project.

Below are some more pics of my doggies. One day I followed them around the yard for a long time, took lots of photos and ended up with a couple of excellent shots. Too bad the blue Wubba toy ended up in the second photo. If I had photoshop, I would "erase" that and the picture would be perfect. :)

Tiger

I cut up a wild patterned shirt that a friend gave me. In fact, there was more than one animal print to be found on the "crazy" shirt, but today, I used the section resembling a tiger print. I am really pleased with the way this turned out.

Post #395

I am up to 395 posts on this blog. When I reach #400, I should do a giveaway, don't you think?

Copper Kitty

This kitty (along with everything else I post on this blog) was made from fabric from my huge stash of cotton scraps, thanks to the generosity of my friends. Once they learn that I can put a little bit of fabric to good use, they are more than happy to feed my fabric obsession. And when I say "huge stash", I am not talking about the metres and metres of fabrics I have purchased over the years with the intention of sewing clothing for myself.

I do manage to sew a few garments every year. I do not allow myself to cut into the fabrics meant for clothes unless I am actually making a article of clothing. Those fabrics are only fair game once they become scraps leftover from garment projects.

The fabric acquisition thing is escalating now. I realized that I don't necessarily have to shop in fabric stores anymore. Scouting thrift stores for used clothing has opened up a new world for me. I admit the thought of cutting up perfectly good clothes somehow seems wasteful, but if they're petite sizes, I don't feel so bad. :)

A friend of mine who is an art professor and likes my "art" and is very encouraging to me, just gave me bagfuls of discarded clothing and jewelry and has commanded me to go forth and create. There are some really wild things there that just might steer me into a different direction.

Cat #2 (From Favourite Upholstery Fabric)

This is the second in the series of cats made from a favourite upholstery fabric. :)

A Favourite Upholstery Fabric

Here is what I was working on today using some gorgeous upholstery fabric I found in a bargain bin. I like it so much that I'm going to do a series of cats with this fabric at the risk of getting bored. I usually like to change colours from one project to the next.

Sweet Heart (But Not For Me)

Not every one has a sweetheart or a Valentine. That’s what I had in mind when I made this piece. The text:

“Sweet Heart, but it doesn’t beat for me
It beats softly in love but not for me
Sweet lips I know I’ll never kiss
You’re what I’m afraid I must miss”

is from a song found on a favourite Maria Muldaur LP recorded way back in 1974. The song always stuck with me.

I used the same template I created for my Evil Cat. The printed cottons are various shades of red and pink, the usual colours we associate with Valentine’s Day. The heart is broken because she has no sweetheart.

Miss Kitty Dragonfly

Miss Kitty Dragonfly acquired her name from the dragonfly cotton print that adorns her body.

I started working on her last November and finally finished her today.

I have lots of works in progress. I get to lose myself in thought and good music while painting and stitching. Evenings are reserved for old movies from the 40s and 50s. It sure makes the winter fly by.

One World One Heart (2011)

EDITED: 17FEB2011 - COMMENTS WILL BE CLOSED MIDNIGHT TONIGHT EST.

It's that time of year again for a tour of the "blogosphere". If you're not familiar with the event, click here for the details. You may even want to join in the fun yourself, but you must have a blog to participate.














Below is my giveaway which is typical of the art that I produce. I like to mostly work with fabrics. I have a special affection for cats but I make dolls and other things as well. I give every one of my creations a human face.

Here then is my giveaway, a cat with a menacing face. She measures 7 inches in height and 6 inches across at the widest point. She is made from printed cottons. I "painted" the face with inks. She is backed by felt and the edge is embroidered with a blanket stitch. There is a little hook at the back so she can be hung up on a wall. I think she would be especially appropriate for display around Halloween.

























If you would like a chance to win her (and you have a blog), all you need to do is leave a comment on this post and your Email address (if it isn't shown somewhere on your blog or profile). I need to be able to contact you if your name is drawn. The draw will be on February 18th.

Good luck and many thanks for stopping by.

Evil Cat (In Progress)

This is my giveaway for the One World One Heart event. I will do a separate post about it when the blog hopping begins on January 30th.

I had a great idea for a bushy tail but after I studied this cat for a while, I thought that I just had to leave well enough alone. My planned tail treatment would have detracted from the subtle shading in the fabric. Why mess with perfection? :)

I can't always do cute - must toss in something "dark" once in a while too. This would make a great Halloween ornament.

Black Cat

I am working on several things at the moment. The Black Cat is an experiment to try out some new materials I just started using. I am not entirely satisfied with the heavy weight fusible interfacing that I bought from Fabricland (a huge fabric chain in Canada). My favourite brand, Pellon, which I used to be able to buy at my local Wal-Mart, is no longer available since they did away with their fabric department. Now I am going to have to find another source for the Pellon. I was surprised that Fabricland didn't carry Pellon.

I was finally able to get my sewing machine in for repairs. Hopefully I can have it back this week. The repair man has retired from his regular job and is now able to devote all of his time to machine repairs. Unfortunately, he was not able to start on it last Friday as he had gone fishing. Sigh - I guess you're entitled to do that when you retire. :)

Navy Blue Cat Wearing Bright Red Flowers

It's hard to tell in the picture, but this cotton print has a navy blue background with bright red flowers. I jazzed up the flowers with silver beads secured on red sequins. Hubby said he liked this cat and I think I have to agree with him. :)

Stripes and Texture

In my previous post I talked about stripes. Here's what I did to jazz up the stripes. I roughly cut up a bunch of "squares" and pinned them to a background fabric in an alternating pattern. This red background fabric, by the way, is a really pretty quality cotton that I bought for a couple of dollars at the thrift store. I thought it would make a nice top. When I got it home and unbundled it, I discovered a huge tear in the middle.

I sewed the "squares" to the background by hand, using very messy stitches and to add to the mess, the fabric being a loose weave, started to unravel. The more I handled it, the worse it got so I had to use some Modge Podge around the edges to halt the damage.

Even though it's a big wonderful mess in the middle (let's call it texture :) ) the neat part of me had to make a clean finish around the outside edges. I added a few snippets of the red fabric for additional interest.



















The result:

Bronze Cat

I was surprised to see how this scan turned out. Notice the little bit of gold at the end of her tail? That's how the whole thing is supposed to look. I still like how it looks here too. :)