Things at Chez Cat have been really hectic of late: I’ve started my second Open University course, which is a lot more demanding than my last (I’ve just handed in my first assignment, and the next is due in three weeks!); last weekend I went to see The Unthanks – the tickets were a wonderful surprise from my bestest-bud, Sarah, as I missed the concert we’d booked to see in London earlier in the year due to illness – and we had a great time, folk music is so meant to be heard live; and I’ve also been on holiday to Spain with my folks which was loads of fun – that’s me feeding a cow at a Spanish petting zoo.

So this weekend was the first weekend in a few months where I’ve had a decent chunk of time to myself to be creative. I started by just sitting in the living room on Friday morning with my sketchbook, sketching Howard the cat with a biro as he napped.

I’ve long-admired Turning’s mini-quilts, and I had the rather ambitious idea to turn my Howard sketch into a quilted wall-hanging.

(A slight aside: I spend a lot of time and energy “being creative”, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at my home; there is no art on the walls, no hand-made furnishings etc. I’m not even entirely sure why, except that a lot of my projects are still in the half-done stage…)

Determined not to shell out for any new fabric (I am currently in the dog-house for spending too much on supplies), I raided the deepest recesses of my craft-cupboard and found this great patterned cream-on-cream cotton I bought three-plus years ago, plus a quarter-yard of brown American Civil War reproduction fabric, and a couple quarter-yards of blue, brown and red Wm Morris reproduction fabrics.

I started out by enlarging my sketch onto A4 paper, and simplifying it into a line drawing.


I traced this a couple of times, so that I could cut out the shapes I’d need for Howard’s body, and then drew around them on the back of the fabrics and cut them out. I tested out a few colour combos:

I decided on the blue, which Howard seemed pretty pleased with.

After shedding on the fabric for good luck, he left to nap on the sofa behind me while I started sewing.

(To be continued in the next fur-raising instalment…)