ThePoliticalCat

A Blog devoted to progressive politics, environmental issues, LGBT issues, social justice, workers' rights, womens' rights, and, most importantly, Cats.

Monday, April 13, 2009

For Sandy



Part of being a gimp, and growing steadily gimpier over a period of five years, is — you don't have time to clean. At all. And if you have five cats as well, your house slowly acquires an impressive coating of cat hair and dander, with an overlay of all the other detritus that a house acquires over such a long period.

I was reminded of this rather forcefully when fellow-blogger Sirenita Lake and her partner came to call. He's violently allergic to cat hair, and after an hour or two, was forced to take his leave. The good news is that I managed to stay on my feet long enough afterwards to vacuum up an impressive quantity of life-debris, including various "knitting kittens," which is my term for the clumps of cat hair that seem to rise spontaneously out of every nook and cranny. In the process, I cleaned out my art materials, so that I could prepare to work on a piece of fabric art that is being inspired by my dear friend Sandy, who often comments here. That's the good news.

Thanks to the deities of health and wellbeing, I am in much less pain than I was a few weeks ago. It's going slowly, but fabric art can be done sitting down, so I plan to start on the project soon.

Pictures will be posted when the project is ready, over at the sisterblog, CultureVultures.

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3 Comments:

At 7:00 AM, Blogger sgtg said...

nice to hear that you're in less pain!! just spent a week with my dad who had his aortic valve replaced - he's doing well. no horror hospital stories either - other than everything and everyone at the hospital ran in much slower time than I'm used to.

 
At 10:16 PM, Blogger Sandy-LA 90034 said...

TPC - That picture captures a thousand of MY words, that's for sure!

Now, clue me in on this "fabric art" -- I've been threatening to do fabric art (since I love fabric in all its glory - color, texture, etc.) but haven't yet decided/discovered exactly how I can use fabric to create, say, a wall hanging. Knitting and crocheting are possibilities to build on, I suppose.

Whatever you're planning to do, I'm glad it will be something to keep you occupied as you heal!

Feel better soon.

 
At 3:02 PM, Blogger ThePoliticalCat said...

Oh, my! Good thoughts to your dad, sgtg, glad to hear he's doing OK. Thanks for all your good wishes, too.

Sandy — I'm calling it "fabric art" in lieu of some better term. Like art, I guess. But you can't do paint and glue and stuff like that while sitting on your butt in bed, especially with giant clumps of cat hair wafting slowly across your line of vision.

Well, it's not that bad. I did vacuum the bedroom yesterday, but threw my back out so I'm back in bed with more pain pills, grr. You know how your back goes "crunch," and then you can't move or turn or even reach for anything? That's my story today.

I'm using found objects and materials, including yarn, thread, fabric, feathers, beads, buttons, and whatever else I can lay my hands on to create a piece about 14x14 inches. Techniques will include embroidery from different countries, applique, maybe a little metalwork. Some glue and such will be involved but I think a needle might be safer and easier than a glue gun at present. I haven't found all the objects I want to use yet (although quite a bit of it has come together nicely). I might photograph the work in progress.

If you're thinking of doing fabric art for a wall hanging, you might consider Crazy Quilting, which I only just found out about. Here's a site that has some beautiful examples of art using fabric and thread. I'm not ready to try it yet, but it's very similar to what I'll be doing.

Click the link "Galleries" to see what I mean. I talked to the store owner last week while purchasing some thread for the project (OK, that wasn't "found objects," but I couldn't resist the gorgeous colours), and most of the stuff in the gallery is her work. Very beautiful!

 

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