Cats A-Plenty

Since I'd neglected the Appalachian Memories barn for a couple of days, I gave myself plenty of time to stitch yesterday. Now the upper part of the roof is finished.

This morning I'll be able to fill in more at the bottom of the hoop, and then I think I'll move along to the next section. This being Sunday, I'll be linking up with

While I was stitching, Sadie was very busy enticing me to fill her treat bowl.

Purhaps you've furgotten something?

Pawsibly you'll notice me more if I show you my bedroom eyes.

No? Hmmmmm...what will it take for you to notice the purroblem with my treat bowl?

Sadie, I'm afurraid you'll get nowhere until you do some work on these hindquarters here.

So we fixed the treat bowl, and then I went downstairs to finish top-stitching the shamrock applique. I had in mind to get that finished and then haul Big Bertha to the shop for repair.

Here's how it looks from the back.

I do think that double blanket stitch helps bring out the low contrast shamrocks now.

The emerald green rickrack arrived yesterday, but I'll finish it off once Big Bertha comes back. Several of you have noticed the spate of problems with my machine recently. This last one wasn't her fault. When she came back from her lengthy (and repeated) repairs last time, this new problem with the feed dogs appeared for the first time. My guess is that something got disconnected and then not reconnected while it was being repaired. And I'm finished with that shop. The technician is a lazy, incompetent bully, and I've had more than one near shouting match with her. I'd love to keep my business local, but enough is enough. I'm hoping this new shop will fix her up right...and she deserves it. I like my machine. I just need to take it somewhere I can trust to do the job correctly the first time.

When I got home, I went to work on Cricket's pawtrait. These always start with the eyes. The most important thing I learned from June Jaeger was to put the pupils behind the iris. It gives the eyes more depth.

Smitty sat making eyes at Cricket. He's never met this cat, but he knows how she smells whenever I come home from visiting her.

Also, I wanted just a hint of black eyeliner before beginning to add the face.

Ever feel like you're being watched?

Sadie likes having the scraps spread out on the table. It's a great place for digging around.

Smitty thinks it makes an excellent napping place.

From there, I added some of the brown fur around the eyes. For this pawtrait, it's hard to know what to do without adding in the chocolate brown patch that is so forward on Cricket's face. It's the part of her face that's most noticeable and everything else will be built around that.

When I left it for the day, it looked like this.

 Also, I added a black triangular piece for the nose. Today I'll start adding different shades and start building the face. These are always hard to get started on because they look like they aren't working until quite a bit has been added. It's easy to feel discouraged until the cat begins to emerge. Also, the thread work at the end adds a lot, and so I have to keep reassuring myself as I go along. Hopefully, I'll see more of Cricket as I work on it today.

As for Miss Sadie, she's back to her tricks trying to gain attention for her treat bowl. She likes to stretch out to her full length while she lies on my lap in the morning.

Yesterday, I dug the Hocuspocusville quilt out from the bottom of the quilts-to-be-quilted pile. Now it's draped over my sewing chair to relax and get its mind right for quilting during the month of February.

This has the added advantage of making an excellent kitty fort.

It's looking like a pretty day, and so I'll try to get out for a walk this afternoon when it warms up a little.