Yes I know it's March - but though this was designed when we had all the snow in Feb it was a long time getting finished - I tried various techniques and ended up with Shiva paintsticks. The format for Contemporary Quilt JQs this year is 6" x 12", hence the shape which has turned out to be real fun to work with.
Inspiration - as my cats and I get older we enjoy snow less - at least when we have to go out in it. In my case I have a fear of slipping and falling: despite being a lot rounder than I used to be I don't bounce as well as I used to. In Django's case - the only one of the three felines willing to venture beyond the door - he has short stubby legs and soon discovered the snow came up to his armpits and froze his belly. The JQ shows my tentative footprints (in my new walking shoes) and Django's few footsteps before turning back.
The fabric is a silk mix that my nephew brought me back from Thailand. First I made a rubbing from my shoes, then tried to get a rubbing on tissue paper from one of Django's paws but Django wouldn't play nicely and kept tugging it away, though I did manage to get a sort of rubbing in the end, which gave me the right size (with my footprints being lifesize I felt the cat's prints should be too. Drew on the pawprints, ironed to set, then FMQ'd which I really enjoyed on the silk - some areas where the fabric was totally flattened, others forming a sort of drifty pattern.
All in all the final version took a lot less time than all the experiments that led up to it, and this was the simplest of the techniques I tried.
