When I was in my early twenties I worked at an Animal Hospital and was bitten by two different cats. Ever since then I’ve had a hard time trusting cats. They move too quickly and when they bite it can be very painful and easily infected.
Zip is always flirting. Rolling on his back and trying to get me to scratch him under his chin or on his belly.
Unlike other cats I’ve had, when he grabs my hand he never has his claws out. Sometimes he even licks my hand, another thing none of my cats have ever done. And every once in a while he’ll gently bite my hand. I’ve read that a sign of affection or wanting to play.
I never got close enough to my other cats to allow any of this to happen. I feel like Zip is teaching me to trust him and I’m beginning to.
At the end of the day yesterday I made these four Cactus Potholders. It was the colors that drew me to the small piece of fabric. They were similar to the colors I was working with when making my Cat Face Potholders.
I have always loved that cactus fabric, but was waiting for just the right time to use it. That was yesterday.
I’ll finish these next week also and put them up for sale when I do.
After feeding the animals and eating breakfast I drove to Glens Falls to meet my friend Jackie. We would walk in the woods and then have lunch at a Billiards Hall that serves Caribbean food.
A day off from work.
It’s been more than a year since we took our last walk together in the woods. This one had already been postponed from earlier in the month because of snow. But today was sunny with a bit of spring chill.
We drove together to Meadowbrook Preserve and chose a path along the brook. There were a few cars in the lot but we didn’t see another human the whole time we were there.
We walked in the woods, which were sunny since the trees are just starting to bud. The forest floor was green with wildflowers.
Yellow Hobblebush
Jackie and I like to walk the woods in the same way. We aren’t silent, but even when we’re talking we are always looking to see what we can see.
Our conversation is constantly being interrupted.
Jackie spotted the first Trout Lily, then a carpet of them as far as we could see. We saw Dwarf Ginseng, just about to bloom, Bellwort’s, its pale yellow flower hanging straight down, a single yellow Violet, Yellow Hobblebush not yet blooming, False Hellebore growing along side the Skunk Cabbage, and more than one blooming Red Trillium.
The yellow Violet
We noticed a tree with the bark fallen off around it in long oval pieces. A woodpecker, a porcupine, an insect? We still don’t know what caused it.
The tree with its fallen bark all around its trunk.
When we got to the brook which is surrounded by marsh we saw a Great Blue Heron flying between the trees. Later we could see the movement of three or four birds but they were too high up for us to see clearly. Jackie recognized their song as the Norther Flicker.
False Hellebore with it’s pretty striated leaves is toxic to animals.
We stopped on the wooden pier jutting out into the brook. Here the brooks bottom was deep and sandy, the clear water swirling in one big and many small eddies. “People swim here in the summer” Jackie said. It was inviting. we sat on our knees staring into to water long enough for a threesome of mallards to land up stream, take a bath, and fly off.
me walking on the fallen tree
Just off the path we found an owl pellet and marveled at just how small the bones were.
owl pellet
And as the path looped back to the beginning, Jackie stopped and slowly walked into the woods. She held up her hand as if to warn me to be quiet. Then she reached her hand out to a big Red Trillium.
Only after we both got a good look at it did we laugh at how she was trying to be quiet so we didn’t scare the flower away.
But I knew exactly what she meant. Seeing the Red Trillium was the prize. As good as finding a Lady’s Slipper.
My Cat Face Pillow Is $90 + $10 shipping. You can buy it here.
It is my fifth and last Cat Face Pillow. Eileen inspired the idea when she asked me to make two cat pillows for someone she knew who adopted a cat with three legs from Salem Community Cats. The same place that Jon and I got Zip from.
I enjoyed making those first two pillows and made two more which sold quickly. Now I’ve used up all the fabric so this is the last one.
My Cat Face Pillow is 15″x15″ with a 3″ border. It is $90 + $10 shipping. You can buy it in my Etsy Shop. Just click here.
Or you can email me at [email protected]. I take checks, PayPal and Venmo.
Next month I’ll be shearing the sheep. I’ve already talked to Ian McRae, our shearer about it and he’s ready to come when I ask him.
I’d like the sheep to be off hay and grazing for a while before I do. That way there will be less hay in their wool when it’s shorn.
Issachar and Asher’s wool is the most sticky. By that I mean it’d dense and thick with lanolin. So the hay clings to it more than with my Romneys. They are a mix of Romneys, Blueface Leicester and Cormo.
I look at it now and I don’t think it shows. That’s what I want, like a good dancer, I want my art to look like it comes easy.
But when you’re close to the stage you can see the sweat flying, and hear the trumps maybe even the breathing of the dancers.
The good ones make it look easy.
When I finished making the last Cat Face Pillow, I cut up what was left of the fabric and came up with seven whole cat faces.
Yesterday the cat face above was surrounded in the same browns and grays of the cat itself. But even as I sewed it together I knew it wasn’t what I was looking for.
Today I found the fabric that set these Potholders in motion.
Jon bought me the yard of fabric when we still lived in Old Bedlam Farm. He got it at a farm stand and by the looks of it I’d say it was from the 1960s. I loved it’s vintage feel, but was never able to figure out how to use it. So about a year ago, I cut it into strips and tried once again.
Nothing came of it, but I rolled the strips up and put them in a box with other rolled strips of fabric.
In these Potholders what I wanted to bring out was the feel of the cat faces. Not the emotion, but that soft watery charcoal look combined with hard edged dots and lines.
I found that look in the vintage fabric Jon bought me so long ago. And when I cut up the strips just right, I discovered the right colors, abstract designs and subject in the flowers.
The bright graphic colors and drawn lines were just what I had imagined.
The last Cat Face Potholder I made today
I made seven Cat Face Potholders today. I’ll finish them up next week and put them up for sale in my Etsy Shop when I do.
The parts of the refrigerator backing that I still had.
I didn’t know how important that piece of cardboard on the back of the refrigerator was until Bud broke it to pieces when he was trying to get at the rat.
Our fridge is old and that piece of cardboard which helps with the flow of air and keeps the compressor from overheating, has been discontinued. I searched around for a used one and when I couldn’t find one I knew I’d have to make my own.
Luckily I hadn’t thrown the damaged one out. And it was really mostly still there, only in two pieces.
I was able to figure out how much of it was supposed to be solid and how much needed those small opening in it by where the pieces screwed into the back of the fridge.
It was like a puzzle in some ways, just one with missing pieces that had to be replicated.
I found an old cardboard shipping envelope that I saved to reuse. It was the perfect thickness and weight. I just cut it to size, then mades some holes replicating the ones that was all ready there the best I could.
With the help of some duct tape I was able to fit it all together.
The strange thing is that before the rat incident, the refrigerator used to make a lot of noise. Now it’s much quieter.
I don’t know why, maybe Bud and the rat jiggled something back into place.
