Patch Notes Update

 Continuing on: eight more patches

Front/Back is a bit of instruction diagram from a cat-based craft panel.  I long ago used the actual cat graphics for doll dresses, or else those would absolutely have gotten involved with this project.

Front/Back, however, is a bit...flat, and, at this point in the project, I wanted texture.

The small white cat rectangle is a detail from a South American (I can't remember which country, sorry) cotton textile, and definitely has more texture than calico.

I cut the plain cotton black cat silhouette with the idea I would do another sort of collage of Wonder-Undered plain cotton, but decided I wanted to get texture involved with it, too, so dug around in the small yardage drawer and found some jacquard 'tapestry' fabric I had cut into rectangles for doll rugs years ago.  The Wonder Under fused easily to it, then I cut it into that shape just because I wanted to do something besides a square or circle.

Then, yeah, back to a rectangle smooth weave and Wonder Under collage patch, using scraps left over from previous Wonder Under collage patches in this project.  The eyes have a 'green leaves from the rose print in the other patch shown here' base, which I completely machine stitched over to add some texture.

The rose cat idea was inspired by half-remembered antique fairy tale illustrations.  I knew I'd have plenty of chintz options to provide a suitable rose, and I found this one on the edge of the 3½ yards of a 60" wide chintz I got from the craft re-use thrift store this summer.  I fused green and pink cottons for the eyes and nose, then stitched around them in purple.

Then ripped out a lot of that purple and went over the green and pink with more satin stitching. Texture.

At this point, I was...kinda ready to be finished with making appliqués.  I decided to finish by making two that I had sketched early on, but wasn't quite sure how to approach: Retro Silhouette Cat and Flower Crown Cat.

My main hesitation with Retro Silhouette cat was that I wanted to use low pile fake fur again--Wonder Under fuses nicely to the back--but I wasn't sure how to go about adding the eyes.  Then I realized it didn't, necessarily, need eyes.  And the original idea of sewing the collar from a novelty fabric with satin stitched edges hadn't sounded like fun, either--but, a-ha! Sequins!  I wouldn't even mind (much) sewing them on by hand.

My original hesitation about Flower Crown Cat (inspired by an embroidered appliqué that I never quite talked myself into going to Joann to buy) had been that I didn't want to deal with stitching all around all the flowers.  But!  I remembered the small embroidered flowers that have been in my stash probably 20 years (acquired back in the glory days of Walmart having mill end fabric on the bolt by the yard and the less obvious but no less interesting pre-cuts of lace and trim, which one day included a package of two dozen of these little floral appliqués for $1.)  Yes, I'm not so fond of yellow these days, but...texture.  And more texture, by using a tweed base and then machine stitching over the fused cotton of the green eyes and black nose, and free-form whisker freckles.

And I thought I was finished, but, no...I wanted another small appliqué for a lapel, and sketched a few things before settling on a single eye.  I sketched it and cut the base colors from cottons, fused them with Wonder Under

then got to zigzaggin'.

I'm not sure if I would have been so ambitious with the fake machine embroidery if that weren't the (probable) last patch.  I had also, by this point, figured out that applying a base of solid cotton in an appropriate color meant I didn't have to be so precise with the satin stitching.

So!  Time to finalize placement, then start zigzagging the patches to the jacket, then back to constructing the jacket again.  That shouldn't take quite as long.