Mystery of the Pink Cat

I had a phone call from my daughter while I was at work yesterday, half-hysterically asking me if I'd seen our cat Annabelle. I hadn't, at which point she told me Annabelle was pink!

I just had to start laughing, obviously Anna wasn't in any danger of dying or anything from being pink. So when I got home, I got to see just what our pink Annabelle looked like.



She is definitely pink. Both Shannon and DJ wondered if she had gotten into my dyes- no chance, folks, they are in jars that are securely covered. Shannon thought she smelled sweet, like Kool Aid- also interesting, since we don't have that in the house. Anna likes to go outside and lay on our redwood chip mulch, would that turn her pink?

So, the mystery remains. Any ideas out there what would turn a cat pink?

It's almost Friday!!

And for me, that means my weekend is starting, since I work 4 ten hour days. Hopefully, I will get the blouse sewn that I cut out last night. It's a summer blouse, and we haven't had a lot of summer weather yet. We are waiting impatiently, it is late in the spring to be so cool. And I'm sure we'll wish for these temperatures when we get the 90's for days on end.

I got my most recent quilt project done- I decided I didn't like one set of beads I'd put on, so I ripped them out and found others in colors I think look better. This quilt is going in a book, so I won't post an entire picture- but here's a detail shot of a small portion of it.



The fabrics are my hand-dyes. I have rarely used satin stitching on applique quilts, preferring raw edge most of the time- but I like the crisp look it gives on this piece. So, overall I am happy with it.

And, how about some family pictures? Our cat sheds horribly, and we've found that bathing her helps the problem. We use the laundry sink in my dye room. For a cat, Anabelle is relatively cooperative- but the look on her face tells all.



All Shannon has to do is pick her up and carry her downstairs, and she knows what is coming. She doesn't yowl, she doesn't use her back claws to scratch, but you know it isn't her favorite thing. And, she does let us know with her body language that she is not happy with us, for awhile at least! For all her looks and attitude afterwards, Anabelle is easier than Sadie, who weighs 60-plus pounds and barely fits in the laundry tub. We noticed a new business going up in Provo- a "doggie wash", where they have the tub and tools just for dog washing without breaking your back. I think we will be checking it out.

Meanwhile, the weekend is here, so let the sewing begin!!

Back to Work- on both fronts

Well, all good things must come to an end, and today the vacation from work ended. I was glad that it didn't take me all day just to catch up- the holidays meant that things were rather slow anyway.

I'm still playing with the batting/cheesecloth tree. Tonight I decided that I needed to have something to hold the cheesecloth down, at least in places. So, I decided to experiment with painted wonderunder, something I've read about in the Kemshall's book. So I grabbed my paints, mixed some colors that I thought would go, and painted away. This was the final result, still wet--



Next I will cut it into smaller, curvy strips, and place it on the tree. The colors look brighter than I hope they end up- we shall see. Perhaps I will take the wise road and fuse a test piece to the batting where we tried the different paints!

As for the tree itself, this is what it looks like with the cheesecloth draped over it.



I sure hope I haven't way overdone the colors here.

I've been making some preliminary designs for the TIF challenge. Afer deciding that I wouldn't make it about any one person, I went looking for images among my photos- and found one of my mother and younger son Ian when he was a toddler. So, even though the finished piece won't be about my mother, it will have an image of her in it. And, I think that is fitting, since my mother is certainly someone I think of when it comes to people I admire. Maybe I'll be far enough to post photos of preliminary sketches by the weekend.

One last photo. Annabelle is our psycho, bed-hogging cat- but she certainly knows where to take a nap and keep warm! Doesn't matter where the heating vent is, she can nap on it. You gotta love a cat with personality, and Annabelle has no lack of that!

Day Two

I have not made it into the studio at all, closest I got was the desk computer to balance the checkbook. In all fairness, I had an appointment with the eye doctor this morning (6 month checkup after the cataract surgery), and an appointment in Salt Lake. Since I had to go there anyway, I left early and got in a little last-minute Christmas shopping. And all is well with the eye, everything looked great.

I have been sitting on the couch with the laptop, perusing the blogs and sites of some of the people signed up for SharonB's Take It Further challenge. This is a really international group, from literally all over the globe. And, it is not just quilters, it is fiber artists of all kind. This is going to be a fascinating experience- with one big plus for me over the Journal Quilt project. We are SUPPOSED to blog and post about our project, process and thinking each month. Whoohoo!! As much as I loved doing the Journal Quilts, it drove me crazy to keep my thinking and work under wraps until the fall. I'm hoping this will help me become more thoughtful in how I approach the work, maybe even get serious with my sketchbooks. I have them, but they are mostly doodle books.

We will definitely have a white Christmas. It snowed last night, making the drive to Salt Lake a fun one, and more storms coming on Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday. I hope it doesn't wreak havoc with my trip to Reno.

And, in the spirit of the holidays, I leave you with this picture of our crazy cat Annabelle. She is Shannon's cat, but with her departure for Switzerland, she has adopted us. And here you can see that she has taken over the Christmas tree as her personal nap space. Merry Christmas, Annabelle!