By the time I came to paint the next cat I had realised the better way would be to paint the cat all over first and then tape and paint the second colour for the stripes.

I used acrylic to paint them with here they are all tidied up waiting for their faces. The painting of the stripes took me twice as long as the sewing and stuffing. The tails are just tubes of calico with one of those arty pipe cleaners in and hand sewn on.

Cats for Becky

Having painted the faces I didn't want to part with them I shall have to make myself a cat but it wont have stripes maybe I will stamp some flowers on mine.

I did learn one or two things from making these cats mainly from Becky's Blog the word anthropomorphic which I had to look up means with human like characteristics and I found the lovely cats of Rosina Wachjmeister I might just buy a print or poster to put up on the wall. If you don't know her just put her name in search. Also the hearts of Jim Dine the American pop artist The names of the cats are Molly and Rosie and if you click on the title at the start of these postings it will take you to their very own book.

Atcs

I haven't made any atcs for a while being busy making craft stall stuff. I do like making them they are like designing little pictures and they don't take long and isn't it nice to get the swaps back in the post.

The heart is for a Valentine swap its filled with bullion and french knots very relaxing just sewing one on top of another no designing there. The second ones are for a patchwork theme made with ribbon and machine stitches I'm not into patchwork its all to neat and precise for me although I do like crazy patchwork. Again for mixedmediauk. If you would like to join click on the name in my links everyone is welcome beginners especially.

Book Page Swap

Before Christmas I hosted a fabric book page swap at mixedmediauk yahoo group see my links. The pages were all very different and all well done. I have now made the pages up into a book. I used one of those pliers with the eyelets to make the holes but I don't get on with this tool very well I'm not sure exactly how its done and the instructions on the packet are not very good I expect its all very easy if you see how its done. I am not very good at figuring these things out but its all very scary when you are doing it on some sewing you have spent some time doing. I did just about manage it but it could have been done a bit more expertly.

Book Page Swap

Postcard Swap