Cats!
In April a colleague ordered a
commission. Quilts for the cat room. It has been home to many cats
and the chairs could use new covers. We discussed the size and color
pallet. He said a calico cat if possible as several, if not all, of
their past cats had been calico, as well as rescue.
I was given creative license. I warned
it could be six months or more. In fact, it took eight. My original
design morphed significantly in process from pieced patch work to
applique cats.
I gathered fabrics from my stash and
picked up a few additional fat quarters to fill out the colorway. My
stash had the white on off white cat outlines. Shadows of cats past.
Using the gentle curve free rotary
cutting method, I looked it up on You Tube. Everything you always
wanted to know is there. I struggled with the randomness of it all It
is good to go outside my comfort zone, trusting it will come out the
way it is to be, and it will be fine.
Then there was the ghost fabric to cut.
The background little quilts grew. I
tried to keep them limited to the 3 I needed for this commission... I
was unsuccessful. There were so many options in my stash. Putting
cats on blue and white backgrounds was a quilt I had seen
somewhere... and thought, that would be fun. Here I was giving it my
spin.
I traced my cat designs to fusible,
then ironed to muslin as foundations for thread painting seam
accents.
The calico fabric came together, and cat foundations were ironed to the back.
Then cut out.
Each applique was thread painted for
added detail and stability.
There are 8 completed appliques. Six
where selected to sit on the blue backgrounds.
Once zig-zagged down, I cut out the
negative space cats. [This sentence makes me laugh!]
Layering, quilting and binding
commenced. And the results were posted above!
Then there is the gathering of the
leavings... the remnants to be revisited.
When trimming the quilts for binding
there were great quilted leavings. I will add to my mini project box,
where inchies, ACEOs and postcards come from. The rest of the cats
are in the bag! Literally, the one in the picture the minis are
resting on! The cats in the bag will go to my studio, down town. They
will live in the cupboard awaiting their return to either finish more
of the same or morph into something else!
When I work/make things I go to the
zone and my brain processes the stuff in my head into new patterns
and realizations. I spent a lot of time remembering my first cat
while working on this project.
Her name was Tanaya. I met her in 1980.
Dropped in the grass beside the sidewalk, birthed on the run, a West
Hartford, street cat's first litter, no doubt. I could not pass as
though I had not seen her suffering. The Vet in the phone book said,
clean her up, hydrate, then kitten milk re-placer. I was warned not
to expect success, it was unlikely. She fit in my hand, eyes not yet
open.
I spent the next several weeks nursing
her. I slept with my hand in her box and fed her when she wiggled in
the night. I took her to work with me. She grew stronger. A dainty,
active snuggler who shared many hours with me. She moved cross
country, through Canada, with her own papers. Lived in Alakaket, the
bush of Alaska, for a year, and then in Two Rivers, Alaska, for a
many more years.
Finally, succumbing to feline leukemia
she left my heart broken and open. Once we know love that deeply we
know we can love, and be affirmed, unconditionally. It is a
challenging lesson for me to translate to people. My children have
taught me much of what I know about how to love, develop and maintain
relationships. I still work daily to accept my limitations and grant
myself the grace I offer others, and breathe. Forgiving my past as I
embrace the moment. Sometime that past is yesterday. My filters are
not as well developed as it might appear at first hearing.
