Zen Cat Art

Lobster...

I was pretty sick last week.  Strike that, it was NOT pretty.  I was either loosing fluids or sleeping for 2 days and mostly horizontal for the rest of the week.  It was actually scary on Monday and Phil stayed home from teaching to look after me for two days.  Just staying hydrated was a chore (thank heaven for Ginger Ale).  However, by Saturday I thought I would go a little stir crazy with the inactivity and we kept our original plans to go to our friends house by the shore.  After a bit of lunch and two hour nap to recover from the trip I was ready for the evening's activity.  Lobster...

What a feast!  Thanks, Robin & Rick!!

Maggie's tummy...

Maggie Mae has always been a bit protective of her tummy (see my scratches) and she has been doing a bit too much grooming.  It's not sore or redder than the skin should be and it is very warm and soft. (see more scratches - she is quick) So I backed off and gave her some space but her look and that raised paw say it all! 

Mother's Day...

Aren't these beautiful flowers?  A gift from Phil.  I had never seen them before and the photo doesn't really do them justice.  When the light is behind them in the morning they glow a magnificent orange.

From my kids.  Chocolate covered strawberries.  Yum!  Each strawberry is the size of a golf ball and there has to be a small chocolate bar's worth of chocolate on each one.  Since I love dark chocolate they were my favorite.  We shared them with Phil's parents and they were a big hit.

Phil and his parents, Helen and Bob.  It was a good visit.  They had a singer, guitar player and his son playing some of the old songs.  He was pretty good - although his comments that it was such a nice day that he might go down to the beach later seemed a bit unkind to me since for the most part beach days were a thing of the past for the residents in the nursing home.

A little smoked salmon for breakfast, a call from my kids and a visit from friends...

Rick, our favorite Reverend.  That spectacular hat is a bag that I made with my hand painted fabric.  Who knew it would look so good as a hat.  It also makes a lovely Egyptian breast plate.  There were a few other uses contemplated but ah...maybe we won't mention them here.

It was a fun day.  Now I just have to figure out how to spend that Amazon qift certificate I got from the kitties. 

Sneakers for Lauren...

Not the best light for photos and I still need to highlight the silver and paint the laces but they were fun to do.  I might have to do a pair for myself.  Lime green...midori... Teal and blue...  Sand and silver...

Next the jacket. 

Our Bear Larry could be Loretta...

Last night about 10:30 I heard a familiar scratching at our window bird feeder. The bird feeder is part of the kitchen window and sticks out into the house.  It makes a good cat perch and when the birds are feeding it makes for great kitty TV.

Maggie was a bit annoyed that I intrupted her nap by clicking the camera at her. There are two doves in the box but we've seen as many as fourteen goldfinch squeezed together.  Titmice, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, nuthatch - everyone takes a turn.  Last night someone else wanted a turn.

Phil looked out the window.  It was Larry with his paw in the bird feeder window scooping what was left of the days sunflower seed.  If you are measuring from the outside the feeder is more than 6 foot off the ground.  But wait...

A baby bear...

Two baby bears!

It was very exciting (as long as they were out there and I was inside) to see them together.  I ran for my camera but it was hard to get a good shot with the low light and the bears moving around.  We thought at first that Larry had turned out to be a female but I don't remember seeing tags on the mother bear's ears.  I think Larry has a red tag.

I wanted to go out on the deck to get a better picture but it's too dangerous when it comes to a mother who is protecting her cubs.  A case personal of discretion being the better part of valor.  Phil seconded the motion we stay inside.  

The feeder is empty and the pole feeder is in the house tonight...but I'll be listening just in case.

 "The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life." As said by Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV.  It may have been cowardice on the battlefield in the case of Falstaff but I still approve, especially when it comes to bears.   

Old jeans, new bag...

We went through my scrap bag to find yet another bit to sew on my already patched jeans.  The jeans had definitely seen better days and before I knew it the scissors were out.

The pink & blue are my hand painted fabric.  The purple is a batik from a recent project and The pattern fabric has to be at least ten years old.

Not my best free motion stitches but it was fun to make and only took about 4 hours.  I'd do a few things differently...but I like it enough that there will be another one.  

The bag pattern is called "Two-hour Tulip Bag" and it says that "larger" bags take longer.  This is the large bag (out of small, medium, large & ex-large).  I think two hours is a stretch if it is your first time doing one and especially if you want to add pockets or embellish it.   Mine has a pocket on the inside and the outside.  Of couse, in defense of the person that made the pattern - I'm not good at following them AND I always change something.  I just can't help it.

PS It's cold and damp and raw today.  My feet are cold even though I have on socks!  The cat's know what to do...

Indigo cloth - from last Friday's dye play

Some of the indigo pieces from our Creative Ladies Luncheon Salon last Friday.

I like the radiating spokes on this one.

Folded.  A beautiful gradation.

Moons...some clear nights, some cloudy...a lot to think about.  

There are more.  Some might even appear in current work.  Some might even appear on Etsy.  We'll see...still thinking about it.    

 

Creative Ladies Luncheon & Salon goes Indigo Girls...

This is my indigo dye bucket bubbling away ready for dyeing cloth.  The bubbles on the top are called the plume and it carried the extra indigo dye that has not yet been released into the water.   You remove most of the plume everytime you do a batch of cloth and add it back to the bucket when you are done.

Here we are ready to go. Holly, Louise, Karen, Mimi & Nan.

We wrapped wet fabric around pvc pipe or crunched it into balls or folded and clamped it.  Here's Karen dipping some cotton wrapping around a 2" pipe.  The water underneath the plume is green and the fabric will look green when you first take it out of the water but it will turn blue when exposed to oxygen in the air.

Here's a closer look.

This fat-quarter of white PFD was wet and scrunched into a ball and dunked in the vat.  You can see where the top is just starting to turn blue as it hits the air.

You can see the cloth in the basket by Holly's feet.  It included cotton PFD (prepared for dye), old white table clothes ready for a blue adventure, and pieces of wedding dresses that were left over from a quilt that Karen Eckmeier did for a Breast Cancer Awareness raffle.  We didn't dye it all but we had quite a few pieced when we broke for lunch.

We left them in the sun to dry and do their blue magic while we had a bite.
Onion and spinach quiche, tabouli, red pepper humus, salad, mushroom brie, fruit salad, roasted garlic baguette and a delicious holiday bread from Bantam bread.  YUM!

When lunch was over it was time to unwrap! Nan, Mimi and Karen got to it!

Fabulous!!

Here are some of them drying on the lawn.

Blue hands and happy faces.  We had a grand time.  We are holding a piece of cloth that will be a scarf for Nan as she heads off to Argentina in a few weeks.  The fabric is soft and silky - even prettier in person! 

My haiku for the day:

Ancient Indigo.
Modern women
Dipping cloth into history.

Indigo is among the oldest natural dyes (extracted from plants) to be used for textiles and India is believed to be the oldest center of indigo dyeing in the Old World.  Blue dye is mentioned on a cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia in the 7th century BC.  Although associated with "blue" jeans, for me indigo is always tied (pardon the pun) to the Japanese art of Shabori.  Shabori cloth is crunched, folded, tied (as in tie-dye) to form patterns on the cloth.  Read more about indigo here: Indigo and more about Shibori here.  
 

Pink Star Quilt Repair...

Normally I'm not a fan of the color pink but when Laurie brought this quilt to me for a repair on the binding it quickly became a sweet favorite.  Notice how well the points are done. 

It's folded in quarters.  It has one large center star and smaller stars in each corner.  It has some stains on it that I hope will wash out or at least lighten but I'll do the repair first.

The picture is just a touch out of focus but you can see here the edge of the quilt is warn and shredding.

The new binding is a soft muslin that Laurie provided and I washed several times just to ensure all the sizing and any preservatives were removed.  It is almost as soft as the quilt.

Usually I will attach the binding by machine but hand-quilt the back edge.  In this case the backing was a bit fragile and I did the finishing by machine as well to add strength by sewing through all the layers.

You can see the front and back edges of the quilt.  Tomorrow I'll see about washing her and if I can remove some of the stains. 

(also posted on Zen Cat Quilts)

Busy week cleaning up...

When we bought the house in 2003 there was a pile of fire wood out by the little shed we keep our garbage cans in and it was covered by an orange tarp.  It must have been a year or two old then, last week it pretty much looked like sawdust when we finally took the tarp off.  There was also a pile of old 2 by 4s that we brought up out of the basement two years ago that we were meaning to take to the dump but never did.  So last week with the aid of our friend Richard...

This was trip number one.

"You don't want these, right?"

Richard and I put everything we could squeeze in.  A good thing we didn't have to stop short!

The house is starting to look pretty good.  Now for some flowers!