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.
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.
I know I take Fanny and Lulu for granted sometimes.
I just expect them to be in the barnyard healthy and happy whenever I visit. But of course that could change any day for so many different reasons.
I wonder if it would have made a difference to ten-year-old-me to know that the older I got the happier I’d be and that donkeys would be a part of my everyday life.
When I was about 10years old, I wanted a horse so bad (like so many little girls) I had an imaginary one. Her name was Star and I’d hold her imaginary lead and walk her around. She felt so real to me that it seemed as good as having an actual horse.
I don’t ride the donkeys or even walk around with them. But I brush them and clean their hooves and ears. We sit together and communicate without words.
I suppose the silent agreement is that they guard the farm and be good to the other animals and people who live here and I make sure they always have food, water, and shelter.
Then there is the love.
Not that Fanny and Lulu would necessarily think of it that way. But they do like attention from Jon and me. Enough that they ask for it by quietly walking up to us when we are in the barnyard, or nudging us with their noses, or braying at the gate.
People have lived with donkeys for thousands of years. That connection may be forgotten if not tended to, but I believe it lives deep inside both humans and donkeys.
It has been reawakened in me. And I only hope that if I get to grow old, I will be able to do it with Fanny and Lulu. They will be forty (the life expectancy of a donkey) when I am eighty. Perhaps it’s just a fantasy, like my horse Star, but at least I can still imagine the reality I desire.
I finished the last Cat Face Pillow. It’s the last one because I used up the fabric. I have a few cats left over that I’m going to make in to Potholders. I started working on those today, but didn’t get far.
I’ll have one or two of these pillows for sale in a couple of days. I’m just waiting to hear back from someone who asked about them.
I love how they wove their way into my class at The Mansion today. That’s how ideas work. One leads to another. The only thing I’ve found is that if I don’t act on an idea, it withers along with what would have grown from it.
There was a frost this morning. Enough to make a slushy layer of ice on the dog bowl outside, but nothing the spring flowers can’t handle.
I did see two barn swallows swoop into the barn circle around and fly out again. I know I startled them. I wonder if they know that Zip is around yet.
It’s early for the swallows, they usually come the first of May. But it was a warm winter. So warm that a few stalks from last years kale that I grew in my garden is growing leaves.
One day about two weeks ago a constant bird call got my attention. It was so consistent I wondered if it wasn’t tree frogs. But then I saw the birds circling over the pasture. They were Killdeers who come to the farm every year, although if they stay long, they are so well hidden, I barely see them.
This year, as far as I could tell, they didn’t even land, just circled overhead. That was the first time I wondered if they’d got news of Zip who prowls the tall grasses where the Killdeers make their nests.
I heard that birds know when a new predator has moved into an area. I don’t know how they get this information, but I do hope the barn swallows decide to stay.
Flo used to the hunt in the barn and hay loft. I’ve seen the barn swallows dive bomb her more than once.
I understand if the barn swallows choose not to stay. I’d hate for Zip to hunt them. But I will miss them if they decide to go to another farm and another barn.
I made one and a half Cat Face Pillows today. I didn’t get to putting the backing on the second one and stuffing it.
As long as the rat is really gone, I should be able to get this pillow done tomorrow. One of them may be spoken for, but then I’ll put the other one up for sale in my Etsy Shop. The pillow is 15″ square with a 4″ border. They are $90 + shipping.
I’m also working with Sara Kelly on making my Meditation Tree into an 11×17″ poster. We’re trying some colors for the border, but I haven’t made a decision yet.
And if I can’t find a backing for our refrigerator, (the one that Bud shredded trying to get rat), I’ll be making one out of cardboard. Seems it’s a more important part of the refrigerator than I would have thought.
