Category: cats

Cold Inside

Cold Inside

My furnace went out yesterday, the coldest of the year. A tech came and got it back on. 3 hours after he left it went out again. He’s coming back this morning, but I faced the night — coldest of the year, -3°F with windchill below -20° — with space heaters and a few open taps to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting, and multiple electric blankets for me and the cats. I was freezing and shaking when I went to bed at 1am; I awoke at 5:30 to cloying dry heat, because the furnace mysteriously turned itself on in the wee hours. Got up, turned the thermostat back down to the usual 65°, have no idea if it will turn on again or plummet into the 50’s or below as it did last night.

Also had a bitter argument with a friend, a real disappointing horror.

Just a shitty terrifying night all around, so I drew a picture.

11:22pm last night, with electric blankets and cats and no furnace, worrying about the pipes.
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“Cartoonist’s Armcandy” for Mark

This Hundred Dollar Drawing was commissioned after I posted B. Kliban’s classic over on fecebook:

Of course I and other cartoonists claimed that our lives are just like this, although I specified that my “arm candy” was different. Mark apparently wanted to know how, so now there’s this.

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Il Gatto

cat quiltIl Gatto, approx. 36″ by 48″. (It’s actually well squared with nice right angles, the photo distorts it because I held my wide-angle-lens snapshot consumer camera out over a bed to take the picture.)

This is my first all-traditionally-pieced quilt, no trapplique or applique, just squares and triangles sewn together with 1/4″ seams. Since I don’t get excited about traditional quilt designs, but wanted to try traditional techniques, I designed this insane vicious cat. After Kaye England’s class last month I bought some of her fancy acrylic rulers, a straight stitch plate for my Janome, and some cotton thread. They paid off: although the top isn’t perfect, it came together pretty darn well and hardly required any trimming.

For the eyes I did curved seams, which was tricky and imperfect but sufficient for this project.

cat quilt backAnd here’s the back. I free motion quilted simple spirals all over because they’re relatively quick and contrast with the straight seams.

I’m getting a little tired of FMQ on my domestic machine. I tried a sit-down 16″ long arm quilting machine a few weeks ago and loved it: it was fast, and I could really see what I was doing. Now I really feel the constraints of my Janome, especially how hard it is to see past about an inch. I have yet to try an articulated long arm on a frame, but that’s next. Will it be even more like drawing? Can I get some longed-for spontaneity into quilting with one of those?

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