The Cottage Orné Quilt

The Cottage Orné Quilt
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Thursday 25 November 2010

Cats Eyes

Wilfred, my junior cat, has had a problem with one of his eyes so it's been a very worrying time, as those of you with precious pets will understand.  I keep checking him for signs of distress but he is carrying on with life normally while I haven't been able to concentrate on anything.  The vet says to do nothing (which is unusual advice from a vet in my experience) so that is what I am trying to do.  Strangely, and I thought I was imagining it at first, I have had an eye infection too, something I have never had before - how spooky is that?

The other co-incidence is that I have been struggling to finish this little quilt which has at its centre a cat with big eyes.  Actually for a few days I couldn't look at it but at last here it is -


and this is Bella sitting on it during progress - she didn't care two hoots about her son's eye - aren't cats lucky that they don't worry?


I love spotted fabrics but they can be rather attention seeking so I use them with caution.  I thought I would try this one on the reverse and used quite bold quilting motifs with a preponderance of hearts, because I love my cats! 


This is another quilt based on the same pattern as Blanket Star and the Kaffe influenced quilt in earlier posts. The cat image was worked similarly to my Cow quilt panel, on Rustica with Appelton's crewel wool and was based on a cat seen on a sampler.

Happy Thanksgiving to all in the USA from all us Brits.


4 comments:

Karmen said...

I LOVE that little quilt! Best wishes to you on this American Thanksgiving day. Karmen

Nifty Quilts said...

Hi Mary, This is a beautiful quilt, and looks especially great with the kitty sitting on it!

Thank you for checking into my blog. I couldn't find your email address, so I'll answer your question here. No, I don't know anything more about the original quilt. My friend had a tiny photo of it that she found somewhere on the web. It actually looks similar to one on the cover of the new book, Quilts from the American Folk Art Museum, by Elizabeth Warren. If you find out anything more, I'd love to know!

Anonymous said...

She's a beauty! As is the quilt, of course. I think it's possible you can pick up eye infections from pets, my mother is prone to that sort of thing and nearly went demented trying to get a Yorkshire Terrier puppy which didn't have eye problems (loads of them do), so we learned more about that. (She got a completely divine puppy in the end who turned out to develop a major problem needing surgery in her leg, but is fine now.)

The spotted fabric looks like a lovely base for the quilting. I occasionally eye up more interesting backing fabrics, but I've been worried about what will happen if I don't have them lying dead straight, whether you'll be able to tell that they're wonky once they're quilted. I like the little circles in particular. How big are they? I'm nearly done basting my first Welsh quilt, the pattern is drawn out on paper but not yet on the quilt, and there's the odd space where I could conceivable put little circles.

Anonymous said...

And there I forgot to tell you my own animal-quilt coincidence story. A couple of years ago, my partner's mother bought me a set of FQs with peacocks featuring heavily. I made them into a quilt for my friend J, originally as a "congratulations on finishing your PhD" present but in the end as a "congratulations on getting your first academic job" present. Halfway through the quilt's construction, she spent a week house-sitting for her supervisor, which also meant looking after her supervisor's peacocks, and had lots of amusing peacock stories to tell. I don't think she'd ever been near a peacock before that, and I had no idea this would happen when I decided to use the peacock fabric for her quilt.