Suzie's first day at home

 Molly is only five months old and not fully grown but she seemed large in comparison to the little kitten, who spent most of the first day trying to hide in various dark corners. It didn’t take her long to settle though and within a couple of days they were playing together and racing all over the house.

Looking pretty on one of my old patchwork quilts

 We named her Suzie after our friend Sue who’s birthday it was on the day we got her. She is quite a different character to Molly, very sweet and gentle and she likes to curl up on my lap when I am sewing or doing stuff on the computer. She can stand up for herself though and she and Molly have great mock battles.

Battles over the cat bed (the other cats used to go inside this little house, but these two prefer to lie on top of it)

It didn’t take long for the pair of them to start invading my sewing studio and turning everything upside down.

My waste paper basket seems to hold a strong attraction.

"I wish I was a little bit taller"

"This looks interesting"

Best of friends now

Millie was rescued by my husband eighteen months ago, a tiny scrap of orange on the side of the busy main road. He at first thought she had been hit by a car because she was so motionless, but she was just petrified, and when he stopped the car and scooped her up she quickly responded with loud purring. He brought her home and to the disgust of the two elder cats she soon settled in and made herself at home.

She turned into a beautiful cat with unusual amber coloured eyes.

As a kitten she loved to play in boxes

 and as she grew older she liked to sit with me in my studio propped up against my sewing machine.

She never got the chance to grow old; last week she went down with a virus and by the time we realized she was seriously ill it was already too late. The vet did what he could and I did everything I could to save her but to no avail and she died last Thursday.

Just over a week later on Friday morning our beautiful, gentle cat Hector died. He was almost seventeen years old and we noticed a sudden deterioration in his condition when we got back from the Philippines at the end of December. We found several small lumps on his body and then these rapidly grew and several of them burst. We got the vet to look at him and he gave him some attention but he was unable to do anything more and didn’t really tell us what the problem was. I’m guessing that he must have had cancer.

Hector was also a cat we rescued from the street and brought with us to Brunei from Spain where we were living at the time. He was the gentlest, sweetest natured cat that I’ve ever come across. He really hated to do anything to offend and I don’t think he ever killed anything apart from the occasional lizard; even then he was very gentle and didn’t really seem to want to harm them.

He was a very elegant cat, and also everyone described him as long, and he was almost a metre nose to tail when stretched out on the sofa or bed. He was also a constant companion in my studio and I will miss him very much too.

Luckily we still have little Molly the black kitten and she is a great consolation.

white allamandas against an early morning sky

It was still a little overcast after a predawn shower and the flowers and plants were wet from the rain.

Heliconia flower

The garden isn’t looking at its best at the moment as I have been too busy quilting lately to devote as much time to it as I should. Everything grows so quickly in this climate and the garden can very quickly get out of hand. Perfect for small cats to play hide and seek in!

No one can see me here if I keep very still

The bougainvilleas also grow into huge shrubs here, and are in constant need of pruning.

Of course, Millie isn’t the least bit interested in gardening and thinks it is a complete waste of time as long as she has somewhere comfortable where she can lounge and keep an eye on things.

Millie looking contented with life

 Madagascar periwinkles grow almost like weeds and crop up all over the garden, but they are pretty and add a bright splash of colour wherever they turn up. I have used them for inspiration for both a cross stitch design and a small quilt, so maybe it is time for another one.

Madagascar Periwinkles

I have yet to make a quilt featuring a Bird’s Nest Fern, but we have a beautiful specimen in the garden, and the best thing now is that the spores have been carried on the wind and we have new ones cropping up all over  the place. I love the delicate curves of the new leaves as they unfurl.

Birds Nest Fern

My favourite colour is green and I love using it  in my quilts. I have a large selection of fabrics in every possible shade of green and I’m working on my thread collection so here is yet another possiblity for a new design.

A pretty pair of toads

These toads were taking an early morning bath, but nice as they are, I’m not planning to put these into a quilt, unless of course, someone specially requested it. Frogs are very popular, and I have sold a large number of my tree frog wall hangings but I don’t think toads have quite the same appeal.

Well, that’s all for now. I think I have given myself some new ideas to think about once I have done my final craft show tomorrow.

Just over a month ago we acquired a tiny black kitten as a companion to Millie our one year old ginger cat that my husband rescued from the side of the road last June. Our other cat Hector is sixteen years old and takes a dim view of being pounced on and generally  treated with disrespect so we felt that Millie needed someone nearer her own age to play with. My friend Karen just happened to mention on Facebook that one of her sons had just brought home another rescued kitten; I know that she doesn’t normally part with any of her rescued cats but I thought I’d ask anyway and was delighted when she said I could have the kitten if I wanted, so Molly came home.

She was very tiny when we first got her, and  a little bit weak, but it didn’t take very long at all for her to find her feet and for Millie, the ginger cat, to accept her as a playmate. Millie seems huge in comparison but nothing deters little Molly, and she seems to have incredibly long spider like legs, all the better for kicking and grabbing.

It has transformed Millie’s life and she seems to be so contented now.

She loves her fluffy mice, and this tunnel arrangement keeps them amused for hours.

It didn’t take her long to make herself at home on one of my patchwork quilts.

Or another! This is one that never got finished as I wasn’t happy with the quilting on it, but the cats don’t seem to mind the unbound edges.

Of course, it didn’t take her long to find her way into my sewing room.

The photoshows the work in progress on my original wall hanging with Aicha keeping a close eye on it. The sky was hand painted and I decided to do the same for my recent piece. I haven’t done any fabric painting for a while so it was fun to get my paints out again.

This was the fabric I painted for the tropical sunset sky.

My recent design was a little different from the original one as there were to be two cats on the wall, one of them a tabby. The tabby was quite a challenge as the people who wanted the quilt were going to bring me a photo but then were too busy so I had to just use my judgement and hope that I would get it right. I chose a grey subtly striped fabric and then used a fabric marker pen to draw the stripes.

The two cats on the wall, everything pinned in place and ready to stitch. I used invisible machine applique to stitch the design as I didn’t want raw edges.

The finished design, two cats beside each other on the wall, dense vegetation and the tropical Brunei sunset in the background. I used a narrow accent border of deep red print batik to create contrast with the outer dark green border and to pick up some of the colours of the sunset sky.