Zen Cat Art

Lauren's Jacket...

My friend Lauren in a jacket I painted for her.

And the matching shoes.

A close up of the jacket.  The color is a mellowed in the photo than in "real life." 

Now to do the blue one...

Mini Quilts...Cranberry...

Quilting Arts, my favorite quilting magazine, has a "Go To Color" challenge.  I love color - all colors - and it was hard to pick a favorite.  But today, cranberry won out.

8" x 8"  Just a bit of slicing and dicing...

A close up.  Love that splash of gold.  Now, I wish I had done a bit more quilting in it but today was the last day to submit so in it went.  The other I did had a bit more quilting. 

I did another one with more quilting...

This is one of my hand-dyed fabrics from the dyeing session last week.  You can see the whole piece of fabric if you scroll down to the "A Good Day to Dye" blog entry.

A close up.  The "go to color" would have been yellow. 

I'm going to have to think about this...colors are like kids.  Sometimes you favor one over the other but in the long run, you love them all. 

Daffodils...

They always make me smile.
Their cheerful faces turned toward the sun.


Happy in my Buddha garden.



And this is just a beginning of an idea...

but it might be time for me to work on it again.

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~William Wordsworth 

Three Curvy Friends - not what you think...

 
Karen wrote the book on layered curves, Holly (I made the story telling stool for her) made them go in both directions and framed them with more curves, and I'm going to teach the class at Common Threads.  The center is made from a fat quarter of Ricky Tims fabric and I used a second fat quarter for the backing and rolled it around to the front for a self binding.  I'm thinking everything from wall hanging to tea mat.  There will be more...  

Mid-winter "wide" cloth...

Both Jude at Spirit Cloth and Joe at ManhandledThreads have done some wonderful "long cloths."  I love the idea and have just the place to hang it.  They inspire me.  But as a rule I seem to gravitate  more toward wide (in more ways than one) than long.  So this is my "mid-winter wide cloth" in the making.  The indigo cloth and moon are fabrics that I dyed this summer.  My first indigo and I am missing having the dye bucket on my porch.  The other is a Japanese fabric that I have had for years.  

I am not sure how I will stitch on it yet but I am thinking about extending lines from the Japanese fabric and seeing where that takes me.

It's snowing again...  Buddha wears it well. 
 

Needle Keeper...

Part of an organizational attemp for the New Year... plus it keeps my needles and threads away from my kitties.

My painted fabric and some strips.  Open it's 8 x 10 and it's about 5 x 8 closed.

A couple of pockets for needle packs and sissors,  A folded section for needles, especially ones with threads still attached.  It snaps closed because the tuxedo Breezy can open almost anything. 

Today she threw up a six inch piece of red plastic ribbon.  I throw out anything that she might eat and I try to be especially vigilant but she will dig about until something looks interesting and being a kitten almost anything is interesting.  And, sometimes tasty.  

I'll eventually make a pattern of it and print up some instructions.  It's really easy but some people like to have the measurement and the order in which to do things.   

Rainbow colors...

I love color! I'm dying a rainbow of fabric in plastic cups.  Each cup holds a x-large fat quarter, some harem cloth (like dense cheese cloth), and a few feet of cotton trim.  I carried the tray out to have a look at them in natural light. 
 

Here they are drying on the porch after being rinsed.   
 

This was the second batch of colors - I think of them as "Karen's Colors" since she wears them often and looks great in them.  
 

Now all I have to do is decide what to make with them.  Look at all that potential! 

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment."
~Claude Monet

Fancy Cat...

Her name is Fancy and she's wearing a string of pearls and a serene smile of her face.  She's in the present moment and enjoying it.  She was made for a Patchwork Beasts class with Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth.
 
Her dress is from a discarded wedding dress (I don't know whose) that was donated for sewing/quilting purposes.  All the fabric except the bottom strip is either hand-dye or painted and the moon in the corner was my first shot at an indigo moon. You can see pictures of the process on here. It was super fun to do.  Nowhere near Shibori Girl's Moons but learning.  I stitched around the moon and off into the sky in some Van Gogh swirls but they are hard to see unless you are holding her.  I might have to add some other thread colors to have it stand out more.  Now I have to think about a background and if she wants to join her pink friend on a larger piece. 
 
Both may need a bit more embellishment - tassels on her socks or a sun in the sky?  But I have definitely enjoyed making them and will continue to play around with these magical beasts. 
 
 

Indigo moon...

 
My first indigo moons.  Inspired by Glennis from Shibori Girl, who makes the most wonderful moons and Jude Hill from Spirit Cloth who uses them beautuflly in her work.  These are poor imitations but they are mine and I love them. 

Here is some pictures about my process:

 
5 gallon bucket, respirator, stick for stirring...
 
First hour...
 
Next day... looks a bit more bubblie.

 
Prep work: clipped, tied, clipped & tied.  
 
Three minute dip.
 
Pulled out and draining.  The material was a lime green when it came out of the vat and turned blue as it hit the air.  I was supposed to wait for them to dry but after a day and a half I unrapped everything and rinsed them out. 

 
I have a lot more to learn but it's a beginning...    

Stitching Waves...

Water without movement could not be the sea.
 
 
~click on the image to see the swirls better~
 
I'm note sure whether I will put a formal border on it or not but I think that it might be something from the indigo fabric that I am dyeing.  More on that soon... for now I am still listening to the sea.

"I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying."

  from Sea Fever by John Masefield (1878-1967)