UFO No More!!

I am SO thrilled. I first got the idea for this finished object almost four years ago when I snapped this picture:

Yes, the Brat Cat claimed the rose trellis as her turf (we were still living in the house), and I said, "Oh, that is darling!" and took lots of pictures. Then, last summer I took a workshop in turning a photo into abstract art. I worked with this photo and with a shot of the Burnside Bridge at the Antietam battlefield. (I still want to create a quilt from that photo. That's a story for another day, though.)

Anyway, here is the quilt. It's about 18" x 30".

Pardon me, but I totally LOVE this quilt. It has been so much fun to work with. Let me show you my favorite parts (as I type this, the subject of the quilt is draped across the top of my chair, purring):

I was cutting out the flattened circle for the face when I realized that if I positioned the pattern piece right, I could get flowers in the right places.... Isn't that cool? The final embellishment I put on this quilt were the whiskers. I found some sparkly acrylic thread at the store, it was then a question of figuring out HOW to do the whiskers. I got the idea to knot the thread about two inches in, put the needle in at one side of the nose, pull it out the other side, and then knot there. Those are not beads you're seeing at the nose, but knots. For the eye whiskers, the knots are all between the layers.

Those little ribbon roses? Well, six years after my mother's death, I was finally clearing the last of her sewing stuff I would never use when I came across these roses.... hmmmm..... So, it's a little bit of three-dimensional fun in an unexpected place. Also, in these pictures, you can see the several weeks' worth of handstitching to get some subtle color into the blue background.

Anyone who has ever come to my home in the last few years has met the Brat Cat - she is very sociable and very definitely a "self." Her tail is very expressive, and getting that curve right consumed an hour one afternoon.

So, this quilt shows perseverance, attention to detail, found objects, a tangible memory of our house, a tribute to my mother, and a representation of the personality of the alpha creature in our house. Hubby Dearest likes it so much that he's already hung it up where he can see it from his favorite chair - the ultimate compliment.