Another Little Quilted Critter

At the last minute, I decided to make a little gift to take with me last weekend when we visited the McBrayers in the western part of North Carolina. Charlie's brother Richard and his wife Phylis have hosted us for many Christmases past. This is no small task, as I well know from having all of my family over for a big Christmas dinner. Richard and Phylis are cat lovers, and lost their long-time family pet, Simba, due to illness this year. I wanted to make them a Simba quilt. I did not have a picture to refer to, but remembered Simba as a big, friendly orange cat. It must have been somewhat close, because Phylis started crying as soon as she saw it. I named it Golden Memories.

The pattern is once again one I purchased from Sharon Malec, who is known for her animal portraits. This pattern was called Tabby Cat. When I finished piecing, this is how it looked.

I asked my husband if he thought it looked like Simba, and he gave a non-committal "sort of." I decided I had not used enough orange, so I got out my Tsukineko inks and went over the cat areas with several shades of orange and gold ink, including some metallic. I also gave him some eyeballs.

I thought that looked better, so I started quilting. I used a thin batt, possibly Thermolam, behind a batting of Warm and Natural. I found that when I made Miranda's horse quilt, the batting needed to be a little firmer to hang right with all the quilting I put in.

By the way, isn't that a great backing fabric? I have a good supply of hand-dyed fabric, and I think this piece was purchased from Ricky Tims. It certainly gives an art quilt a good start to have a beautiful piece of cloth to work with.