Cats. More Cats. And, of course, stitching. And Hawaii. And quilts, but not Hawaiian quilts, not yet anyway.

So aside from the flowers and vases quilt that has grown a bit with time, I also have a long term cat quilt that I've been working on.

Cats have been on my mind today, partly because in an ongoing effort to eradicate the fleas (I have a dog. He goes on walks. He brings home fleas. Yeesh!) everyone got a bath. Yes, I give my cats baths. No, they don't like it. But after a few dozen kitty candies, they start sitting on my lap again. So. I had four cats, two children and a dog in an eight by five foot bathroom, and no, that isn't enough room. But I got it done, and everyone is much more flea free than previously, and so I could get back to my stitching and gardening.

So, I have four cats, so you can tell that I love cats. I also love humor, and there are several designers who do cat designs that are humorous. So I started accumulating them. And stitching some. And realizing that framing was _not_ an option if we wanted to keep the house, not to mention not having near enough wall space. So, the black cats quilt idea was born. The designs I have for the quilt are from several different lines, Kats By Kelly, Diane Graebner, Silly Snobs and Springberry Kreek, all of which I have located on the web doing a simple Google search, so here are a few of the designs...

http://www.katsbykelly.com/

http://happypages.com/diane_g/cross1.html

http://www.123stitch.com/cgi-perl/itemdetail.pl?item=02-1504

http://www.abcstitch.com/designers_php/designers.php?category=Springberry%20Kreek%20Designs

I am stitching them on white aida as being something that can be washed when necessary, and using plain cotton floss and occasionally some of the Kreinik Metallics. All the various designs tend to be black and white with a few touches of color, such that when I do put the quilt top together, I plan to even up the various sizes of stitched piece with black and white calico and then use the bright colors for sashing between the mostly black and white patches. I've been collecting the sashing fabric for a while, and have been trying very hard not to collect any more cat charts, as I think I currently have enough set up to do a king size quilt,  only they are so funny! I'll put a list of the charts I am using in a later article, in case anyone is interested.

Meanwhile, I've almost finished the Chrysanthemum from the Oriental flowers series, so will have to decide which flower to do next. Actually, I think it will be another yellow one, as the metallic gold backstitch is trickier because it is harder to see.

So, Hawaii...

This is a pretty close in picture of a white and yellow plumeria tree. They smell wonderful, and the flowers look artificial to begin with, mostly because they are so perfectly formed. They sell rooting stubs at the airport in Honolulu, so on your way home from this blissful gardener's paradise, you can take a piece or two home with you. Um, I picked up two "stubs", little branches that you take home, stick in some potting soil mixed half and half with sand and wait. Well, I got one pink and one yellow, and both have leaves growing out. I'm so excited. I feel like a Mom all over again. I also got lilikoi and guava seeds, and a red ginger root thingie, all of which have sprouted and are starting to grow secondary leaves.

This, I learned, is called a Heliconia. It is formed a bit like its much more famous/well known relative, the Bird of Paradise flower

which I have pictured here. Incidentally, my fifteen year old daughter took most of these pictures. Partly because once she had the camera in her hot little hands it took dynamite to dislodge it. So I finally gave up and let her at it. She is pretty good at framing, so I think I came out ahead.

This is called a traveller's palm, because water gets trapped at the base of the leaves and so if you know about it you can get a little drink if necessary. It is also a heliconia. I didn't get a good picture of the one with the flowers on it because I couldn't get close enough to the tree. And those fronds are something like 10 or more feet long. I think they look like some of the Hawaiian headdresses the dancers wear so this might be where they got their inspiration.

This is a closeup of a poinciana, albeit not a very good one. If you want to see a good picture of what the flowers look like, try this address. http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/royal_poinciana.htm. Tradewinds Fruit is where I got a bunch of seeds that I am currently waiting rather impatiently to sprout. Since a lot of them can take several months!!! to sprout, this is a lesson in patience for me (although the seeds I bought in Hawaii sprouted in a couple of weeks). Still, I like gardening. It is kind of like gambling, only less chance of losing entirely.

THE Magpie

Photos from Paradise--so this is how Adam and Eve felt--LOL

 I have no idea what this flowering bush is. I have a book, but have yet to locate this particular plant. The flower color is typical of the plants we saw in Hawaii, they seem to go for "the brighter, the better". I want to try to do my applique stuff with some of the photos I took.

This is a fish pond at the Ala Moana Mall. To say that it is big is an understatement. I think we did about a quarter of one floor before giving up in exhaustion. The sculpture is lovely, and a later blog will have it from ground level. I have to confess that I looked at it as a wonderful shape for a jungle gym.

These are called Rainbow Showers trees. The flowers are pendulous and are colored pink and yellow. I have since acquired some seeds of the parent trees of this hybrid, which I have been given to understand is a sterile hybrid. The parents are Golden Shower tree and Pink and White Shower tree, totally unsurprisingly. I found a website that sells seeds of both, and have them planted. Once they flower, I have plans. 

The trees shed the flower petals, hence, I expect, the name. Any place that gets freezing weather requires them to be indoor plants, so cleaning may get interesting once they flower, assuming I can keep them alive that long.

I am pretty sure that this is a very short Royal Poinciana. We saw some on the grounds of the Iolani Palace that were at least 40 feet high. The leaves are similar to the tree I grew up with that we called a Mimosa tree, but is also known as a Silk tree, with flowers composed of threadlike strands of pink and white. Royal Poinciana have deep red flowers.

I loved the richness of the colors of flowers in Hawaii. Reminds me of all the silks I have to embroider flowers with, so despite putting away the other project for now, I have lots of material for other things.

Last picture of all. Little Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the little fish with the big name and he is right in the center of the picture. He is really cute, with his blue lip and gold and black striped body. We looked up the name, and it separates into three words in Hawaiian, humu-humu means triggerfish, nuku-nuku means nose, and apua'a means like a pig, so, triggerfish with a nose like a pig. I want to do some embroidery with this guy in it, I think he will translate well into embroidery.

THE Magpie

Vacations in other places...like Hawaii

I like the weather in Hawaii, in spite of the rain every day. Mostly cause the rain is just little spits of rain mostly. When it poured, it was mostly late evening or night time, except for one ten minute cloudburst one afternoon, but we had stopped at the grocery to get some stuff for breakfast, so missed pretty much the whole thing. The high each day was eighty six, and breezy, so that you were only sweaty if you went inside. Good reason to stay outside, really. And the trees... Oh, My, God, the trees. Sixty foot tall trees with the most flamboyant displays of rich red flowers on top, when it wasn't blaze/daffodil yellow. And the hibiscus, they come in red, natch, and also yellow with red centers, yellow with orange centers, orange, hot pink, magenta, and my personal favorite that I called purple flame, as the lavender petals were definitely heading toward ultra violet, with a burgundy center. And then there were the short trees, plumeria (which they sold legally for houseplants here, and yes, I did get two), golden showers, pink and white showers, rainbow showers (cross of the golden and the pink and white), papaya trees, mango trees, ginger plants, bird of paradise plants, and palm trees. Date palms, coconut palms, travelers palms, the one with the incredible fruit on it that I looked up but will have to go look up again (Pandanus, that is the one). And we are planning on ratting my daughter out to the yearbook committee at her school, as the child is an absolute terror with a camera. I had to threaten mayhem to get her to give it up so I could take the occasional picture. Still, she has talent in that area, so it wasn't all bad.

We got to see the little fish with the big name at the Waikiki Aquarium, Little Humuhumunukunukua'puaha'a. The name means, (and we looked it up in the Hawaiian/English dictionary I got) "Trigger fish with a nose like a pig's". So now we call idiot drivers Nukunukua'puaha'as, as that means pig nosed. I bought a couple of compact discs of vintage music (and learned that ukulele means jumping flea) and a couple of craft books, One has directions for making crocheted leis. I now have a very interesting collection of yarn (purchased since I got home) for making said leis. I also got a book for making ribbon leis, which are a bit more labor intensive, but exceedingly yummilicious. I'll post more about these as I play with my ribbons and yarns to make some.

Took The Bus (so called because it was the only one for a while, although there are other public transport systems now, namely trollies, although they are not on tracks, it is just that they are built like trolley cars elsewhere) to a couple of places. Also so called because there used to be "The Boat" to get from island to island. I think people use planes now. You wouldn't believe how far apart the islands actually are. Atlas photos/map books do not give a good sense of scale. Anyway, wandered around the grounds of Iolani castle which was definitely built on the European type of house plan. Just across the largish street in front of the castle grounds is the iconic statue of King Kamehameha I, and behind him is the courthouse. A couple of blocks down from that is the Mission Museum, which has guided tours but we missed one by a couple of hours and the next one was a couple hours away, so we perused the gift shop items and talked to the woman who worked there. She really liked the earrings and necklace I was wearing, and which I had made. She also asked if I sold stuff, and if so, if I lived in Hawaii. I think she may have been fishing for another supplier, so if I ever do decide to move to Hawaii, I will possibly have a way of funding myself.

I also found a fabric store, and picked up some of what is called "bark cloth" but it is not the stuff that actually is bark cloth. The stuff they sell as bark cloth is made of cotton, and is so called because it has a rough texture reminiscent of the real stuff. If you google tapa or kapa you can find out all about the real thing. The piece of cotton I got has an all over pattern of pale green palm fronds, on a pale blue background. I am thinking of doing a bell pull with an applique pattern of hibiscus on it, using some of my dupione silks for the flower petals.

Sorry about the lack of pictures here, we haven't downloaded them yet (nine days, 600+ photos--told you the child was busy) but once I do, I'll upload some. May take a couple of weeks to sort through them all--yikes!

THE Magpie