Little Big Cat

Sadly, Little Big Cat had to be put down today as his health deteriorated dramatically over the last few days. He was my favourite of Mum's three cats, now looked after by my brother Steve. Little Big Cat defected over the garden wall from the next door neighbours with what we thought was his sister but we discovered later they were brothers! He was the bigger of the two and so was called Big Cat, but his smaller brother grew fat and so we called him 'little' Big Cat, and his brother Big Little Cat. I do wish Mum had given them proper names from the start - he always looked as if he should have been called Felix! He was a sweet, gentle little soul. We'll all miss him.

Merry Christmas!

A belated Merry Christmas! Thank you, as always, for visiting!

I'm a bit late with my Christmas wishes this year as I had a migraine on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - just typical for me! It was what I call a 'walking' migraine so I was up and about and enjoyed the day anyway.

Unfortunately, I didn't get time to do a Christmas related drawing so I'm posting some little Christmas quilts I made a few years ago but have never posted. This one, above, is made from mini Log Cabin blocks and was a lot of fun to do. It probably says something about me that I especially enjoyed doing the plain blocks in the background!

This one is another mini quilt. It's a tweeked copy of a larger one I did at a workshop when I had just learned to quilt. The quilt teacher gave us a large pattern which would have covered a wall, so I cut that down to half and she wasn't impressed that I fiddled with her pattern! This is an even smaller version I did after that and the one I enjoyed most. It was simply shapes cut out and stuck on, then satin stitched around the edges - very easy.

A Christmas tree skirt which is supposed to have a slit into the centre so it can be draped around the base of a tree. I just preferred it like this so it is often used as a table cloth as the square fits one of our tables exactly.

One of the blocks. This is copied from a pattern in an American quilt magazine as I loved the colour scheme and tried to match it as much as I could (probably the only time I've wanted to do that). The stitching in the centre was done using a thick thread in the bobbin, marking and stitching the underside.

Unusually for me, I've made some definite resolutions for next year. This year, I've done quite a bit of 'spring cleaning' so to speak, and I feel ready to start the new year with a clean slate. I won't jinx them by writing about them - no grand schemes or big plans or anything like that, but small things I hope will make a difference and result in more art or creative things being done. 'Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans' as they say, so we'll see how it goes. Being realistic is one of my goals so I'm prepared for that too!

Gold digger

The dangly earrings in my last drawing were all things I'd bought fairly recently. Up until about 2 or 3 years ago I rarely, if ever, bought jewelry for myself, unless it was a watch (like this one in a self portrait) from Marks & Spencer! I'm afraid if I was a gold digger, I'd make a pretty incompetent one! Like my clothes, I tend to have favourites that I wear to death and all of those in this drawing are 'golden oldies'. Top left is my wedding ring, bought in Norwich, made of intertwined white and yellow gold. It's odd, now I think if it, that I've been drawing things around me since I started blogging, but it never occurred to me to draw something I've worn nearly every day for over 20 years. Top right is another intertwined design, and co-incidentally called a Russian wedding ring. That was bought in Dubai in '96 and replaced a thin ring of the same design I'd worn for donkeys years before that. That old ring was taken to the souk, along with some old tat, and I bought a couple of nice things in exchange that I could get more use out of.

The earring on the right was one of the things I bought at the time. It's been worn to death and still is but the earring on the left is my all time favourite. The squiggle and dot design is something that comes out in my doodles so I was delighted to find this in the souk. It would still be worn today if it wasn't for the fact that the other one is missing. I lost it in Coral Bay, Western Australia, so I know where it is, not that that helps!

Unfortunately the little leaf earring is now without it's mate too. I lost it a couple of months ago but how, I don't know, because one day they were on the dressing table and a couple of days later there was only one. I'm the one that Paul and Alex go to when they can't find something. It's a bit of a joke that they can be looking for something for ages then ask me and I'll find it in an instant. I've turned the bedroom upside down, even turned the hoover bag inside out but I still haven't found it. Anyway, that is a pair that was bought in a jewelry shop on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. It was Paul's first holiday - he was 9 weeks old and I was carrying him in a baby sling so we got talking to lots of people on that trip. I remember talking to someone on the train and as we pulled into the station he said he hoped he wasn't staying at the 'Hotel de Cockroach' and we laughed. Turned out that that was where we were heading!

It's interesting to draw something you wear everyday and don't think about. I'm sure, if I hadn't lost the leaf earring, it wouldn't have occurred to me to draw these things. This week is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death so, as it happens, it's also the perfect time to 'rattle my jewelry' in remembrance!