Thursday 1 May 2008

Feline fun!

Ok Week 3 (actually it took a week and a half - busy finishing off group quilt for the QGBI Button Up Challenge and it's amazing how long those final stages take) of the "Wake up Sandra by making postcards challenge" This week I decided to have fun, using a range of favourite print fabrics to create some more lighthearted stuff on one of my favourite topics.

This time the challenge elements were to a)draw the cat outlines myself; and b)use a selection of fabrics I've found difficult to use so far:

In the case of this first one the checkerboard fabric (overdyed a few years back) with the wavy stripes and batik plus gold highlights. The cat needed the narrow red zigzag outline to make it work.

This one's called Hiding in the Garden, something my cats do a lot of, especially when I haven't weeded and the jungle takes over; the background's a really mad Laurel Burch fabric that I love but have found difficult to use so far and the blue seemed to have just the right amount of patterning to provide the contrast.

The thrid one is another two-fabric one, called I'm not talking to you - I'm sure most cat-owners will recognise this behaviour:

The mad squares is another irresistible bright I found languishing in the "one day I will find a use for this" corner of my stash and it sort of made friends with the blue stripe.

The next one, called Chat en forme d'une poire (Cat in the form of a pear) is based on my white cat Bixy who has been on a diet for the last year but not sd's you'd notice (I'm going to have to take drastic measures soon). He likes to spend time sitting looking our of the window and is always there to welcome me when I get home. I've used one of my favourite Carla Miller (Rowan) prints for the background.

This one's a portrait of my cat Django, a sort of birds-eye view of him lying in front of the fire with his paws in the air, in the way he's spent most of the last winter. He really does have a lightning-streak belly and a lop-sided face. A couple of years ago he had a serious road-accident - a complex pelvic fracture, plus associated nerve-damage and I was really scared he would lose the hind leg and the paw with the black spot - thankfully he recovered and is now more of a home-cat than a roaming moggie.

My third cat, Pepper, likes to climb trees: I love the way cats go up trees really fast and then panic sets in when they discover it's not so easy coming down - most tackle the problem by doing a sort of controlled fall. Anyway this is a cat up a tree - not necessarily Pepper who's tabby rather than blue:

The final card uses a selection of fabrics - an African dyed damask, an indonesian batik, a commercial batik and a black fabric with holographic swirls I couldn't resist at a show (you know how it is). I hadn't had any squabbling cats so far so included the arched back hissing pose in this one, plus the tail end of cat disappearing off the scene familiar to cat-owners everywhere.

Now feel inspired to take it a stage further and create a hanging with wild prints in bright colours and black and white: I now have a list of projects to undertake as a result of doing these postcards: well worth while.

8 comments:

mzjohansen said...

Wow ! You have sure been busy - and these are fabulous ! Perfectly captured - beautifully done!

Karen said...

These are fun, fun, fun.
Regards
K

Julie said...

Sandra these are wonderful! Lovely materials and great fun. I can recognise the behaviour in these postcards. :)

Vivian said...

Hi Sandra ... you know what they say,"Dogs have owners and cats have servants".
Thanks for the comment on my dad. Even at 92 it is hard.

margaret said...

Oh those are so fun -- I specially love the first, geometric one - and the hissy one!

SH Sue said...

Sandra - WOW. You are very talented. I love your use of color and playfulness. It truly caputres the moods of our cats. How fun.

Anonymous said...

Love the postcards and the picture of Django on your dyed fabric.

Django looks a lot like a kitty I used to have - the kids named him Oreo because he reminded them of an Oreo cookie - which they dearly loved. LOL

Hugs
Jo Ann

Sandra Wyman said...

Thanks for your comment. Django does look like an oreo! I hadn't thought of that.