Catfacehorse

I was a little bit excited by the topic of ‘fleeting’ this week on Illustration Friday. I have had a dead beetle sitting on my drawing table for a while. The beetle’s fleeting life fitted with the theme for me, as did a lost feather from a passing bird.

Finally, after looking in at Illustration Friday for a few weeks, I have found a theme that struck a chord - ‘talisman’. I have managed to finish the painting over two nights and scanned it in tonight, just before the theme is changed over.

For those of you that don’t know Illustration Friday, it is a wonderful site aimed to get people making by offering up a theme each Friday, which anyone can then submit to the site. They also have a blog, which often has interesting interviews or articles on artists.

Feathers instantly struck me as an appropriate talisman - they got me started drawing again, and I find them everywhere. They may only be seagull feathers, but they are still perfectly formed and just as beautiful on a patch of city lawn as at the beach.

Last weekend, a dear family member had her baby shower. I wanted to make something special and borrowed my sister’s new sewing machine. My poor old machine is a teaching model from the 1970s and has given up the ghost. Again. With only limited time to sew, I didn’t want to spend the whole time swearing and re-threading bobbins.

I chose a ridiculously easy bib pattern from Amy Karol’s wonderful book, ‘Bend-the-Rules Sewing‘. Amy has a great blog that I have been reading for a few years now, full of great photos and excellent writing. I had the pattern photocopied and cut out already from a previous bib-sewing session for my first-ever niece. Last time, I made the bibs with the recommended snap studs, but I found that they snapped together too tight, making them hard to undo. I was going to use velcro instead, but forgot to buy any, so in the spirit of ‘bending-the-rules’ I dug through my sewing box and found some bias binding. Luckily, the colours matched the fabrics I had chosen, two Japanese-inspired craft cottons, and one precious piece of vintage Japanese fabric with owls on it that I had been saving for a special project. Hopefully, the ties will be practical once they are put to the test. The bibs apparently can be just rinsed out in the sink and hung on the high chair to dry. I am looking forward to seeing them all stained and well-used in a few months.

I managed to sew seven bibs (one for each day of the week), and a matching storage bag in one sitting from 6pm Saturday. I had them pressed and wrapped ready for the shower the next morning. Whew!