International Cat Day

Seems like a good time to return to my poor, poor neglected blog.  There are, as ever, lots of reasons why I haven't been posting but one of them is more important than all the others:

This is Deeley, and she was The Best Cat.  For 14 years she was my best friend, and then on 20th July she was hit by a car just outside our house and suddenly I was stroking her side and sobbing as she took a last few breaths.

It is very quiet around here without her loud meows and chirrups, and a bit cold too without her sleeping on our bed, always rolling in so close she nearly pushed me out of it.

Many years ago I had the idea to get a little black cat tattoo - in fact I planned to do it on my 30th birthday, but then I was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time - but I never got around to it.  The day after Deeley died, I went to a very nice, friendly tattoo parlour called Painted People and made my appointment.

So now I have a little reminder of her on my left shoulder, just under my collarbone.  I'm pleased with it, of course, but I'd rather have Deeley back.  Her ashes are in a little wooden box on the sitting room windowsill, in a sunbeam where she liked to sleep.  She was The Best Cat.

A Cushion

I was seized with the desire to make a cushion this weekend.  Recently we re-did our sitting room and I got a bit carried away with making everything co-ordinate in shades of yellow and grey, and having finished, I've decided it's a bit matchy, and some more random is called for.

I had a rootle through my home decor weight and linen scraps - most of which have come from scrap rolls - and put the following pile together.

It sewed up pretty quickly - I used big chunks because these fabrics fray so quickly, and just pieced them randomly.  My favourite kind of quilting if I'm honest.  For the back, I used the daisies and the guitars since they were the only bits left that were big enough, and this rather brilliant zip tutorial from Fiona at the Village Haberdashery.

(I'm not showing you the rest of the room just at the moment because it is A MIDDEN.)

 

Then I decided it was about time we got some cats on this blog.  So I took it upstairs to the bedroom where Deeley (the black one) and Marsha (the tortoiseshell one) are usually sleeping and tried to pose them nicely with it.

Marsha was having none of it.

Deeley, meanwhile, despite being black and usually quite hard to photograph, obligingly sat on the window side of the cushion and looked into the lens and everything.  She's good, is Deeley.  She eats carpets, but for the most part she's pretty good.

Ah, beautiful!  Well done Deeley.

...Marsha.  Go AWAY.