Striped Tabby Cat And Acrylic Painting

Striped Tabby Cat Quilt Pattern | Whims And Fancies

 

 

Thank you so much for visiting me last week and for your lovely comments on my paper piecing.  I have been working on a few different quilting projects simultaneously.  Sometimes I start on one and then get carried away by something else.  I am sure you know the feeling.  I drafted this striped tabby cat quilt pattern months ago.  I was really hoping to finish quilting the mini before showing it here, but alas, that didn’t happen.

 

 

My Orange Maine Coon Cat | Whims And Fancies

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, most of my quilt patterns are derived from different aspects of my life.  This is my orange Maine Coon boy who is my shadow.  He became the model for my mini.

 

 

Striped Tabby Quilt Pattern | Whims And Fancies

 

 

For this special mini I cut into the swirly orange fat quarter that I had saved forever.  I had just enough scraps of the black fabric left from another quilt to use as the background for this one.  The faint gold in that fabric makes me think of magic dust.  I had to add the night sky fabric in the window.  So now my cat and I can sit by the window and cherish each other’s company and the night sky together.

 

 

Striped Tabby Cat Quilt Pattern | Whims And Fancies

 

 

Susie made this pillow from my pattern way before I could finish mine.  I love the vintage look of her kitty.  Her kitty’s name is Tessie!  You can read all about Tessie in Susie’s Post.

 

Hopefully I get to quilt mine soon!  The quilting design is already traced on it and it is basted, but I may have to wait a few more days before I can sit at the machine.

 

 

Trees In Acrylic Paint | Whims And Fancies

 

 

Last week I suddenly got sick with the flu.  When I started feeling a little better, I pulled out the acrylic set that I got during the holidays.  Painting has always been my pastime when I’m sick.  Whenever I can’t go outside, I bring the outside to me with paint.  I love to paint trees.  Last time when we were in the Sierras, we saw a lot of trees dying due to the draught we are facing in California.  They look like fall colours, but sadly they are dried leaves on dying trees.  The orange in the painting depicts those leaves.

Although I hadn’t used acrylic before, I learned a lot about acrylic painting just from this small sketch.  The Liquitex Basics set I got has 48 tubes.  It is perfect for trying out colours before purchasing better quality versions of the colours that I really like.  I highly recommend the set for anyone who is interested in trying out acrylic painting.  I can’t wait to play more with mine.

 

-Soma

 

 

 

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Tree Paintings And Sweden

Eclipse Tree Ink Painting | Whims And Fancies

 

Trees are a lot of fun to draw.  I don’t have to think much, I simply let the lines dictate my drawing.  This is another tree I painted on a bookmark.  I was going to do a watercolour wash and make it a daytime painting.  Then I saw the bottle of orange ink on my desk and ended up drawing an eclipsed moon.  Once I finished painting the background with a recently-acquired blue ink, it became a completely different painting than my original intention.

A few weeks ago I mentioned about our trip to Sweden and I promised to share more.  Special thanks to Lara and Mary for encouraging me to write about this journey.  Before I begin, here is a little summary –

12 days ( includes 3 days for plane travel )

1500 miles

22 cities

1111 photos

It will take me a couple of months to go though all the photos.  However, I have the photos sorted enough to share a skeletal version of the trip.  So here we go –

 

Kiruna Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

I am addicted to the North and I longed to see the Swedish Lapland.  That’s what took my husband and me to the mining town of Kiruna, the northernmost town in Sweden.  It was a very long journey from Northern California to Kiruna and there was the dreaded jet lag.  We stumbled outside for some dinner and spotted the glowing sky.  Neither one of us had ever seen an Aurora before.  Our tired brains took a little time to realise what we were looking at.  Still not really believing our eyes, I looked up the aurora watch sites for nightly activity.  Surely enough, it was an Aurora Borealis.  A mild storm, but a storm nevertheless.  We hurriedly ate our dinner, bundled up with ample clothing to stay warm and headed out to find a dark spot armed with camera and stand.

Kiruna Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

This is the whole of Kiruna airport.  There is a small Hertz centre off to the side where we got our pre-reserved car.

 

Kiruna Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

Kiruna mine at night

 

Abisko Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

After a long rest and a lot of coffee, we headed out next morning to explore the Swedish Lapland in our car.  We drove up to the Norway border on a beautiful road that stretched through lakes, mountains and wilderness as far as the eye could see.  We stopped whenever we found parking, walking closer to the lakes, taking in the cold, desolate beauty of a generally wintry land.

 

Abisko Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

It was September, but it was frigid already and storm clouds were looming.  It poured the next day as we were leaving the Lapland.

 

Kiruna Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

We wondered if we would be able to see the aurora one more time before we had to leave Kiruna.  We got lucky.  The northern sky cleared enough for us to get another glimpse of the aurora and it was breathtaking.

 

Arvidsjaur Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

We started our southbound journey the next day.  After a nice lunch at Arvidsjaur we went to see the Sami Church Village.  A group of people were playing treasure hunt in the open park.

 

Arvidsjaur Sweden Lapland | Whims And Fancies

The colours on some of these logs are so beautiful, I couldn’t resist taking a few detail photos.

 

Bla Vagen Sweden | Whims And Fancies

We spent the late afternoon driving through the famous Swedish Blå Vagen, the Blue Road.

 

Bla Vagen Sweden | Whims And Fancies

The road goes through long, beautiful lakes on both sides.  We took a break to enjoy the sunset.  It was late when we got to Umeå, where we spent the night before continuing southwards.

Hope you enjoyed the first part of our journey through Sweden.

Until next time,
-Soma

 

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