Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

That’s “Vori” with an umlaut over the “o.” That makes the “o” sound like the “eu” in the French “leur.” In case that helps. “Vori” is short for “voros,” with umlauts over both “o’s”, which is Hungarian for “red.” As you can see, Vori is a very unusual color for a cat. His people are Borika and Andras, the parents of our new Hungarian son-in-law, Peter. Like all proper cats, Vori runs the household. So when we visited him and his people last May, the thought occurred to me that it would be fun to try a cross stitch rendering of him as a Christmas present for Borika and Andras. Years ago I worked a cross stitch kit of just the eyes of five different breeds of cats, and I figured I could adapt one of those cats to look like Vori. I chose the Persian cat since Vori has long fur and inserted the eyes of a different cat that were (I hope) close to Vori’s yellow-green eyes. Of course, I was working from memory without even a photo to help me, so I am hoping that I came close with the colors.
Since custom framing is ridiculously expensive, my plan was just to have a mat cut for the needlework and then to buy an inexpensive 5×7 frame for it. But when I was selecting a mat at the frame shop, the framer and I both felt that the 5×7 frame detracted from the interesting long, narrow dimensions of the needlework. (It is about 1.5″ x 5.25″.) And then she told me that she could make a frame with leftover short pieces of frame for very little more than a pre-made frame. So this is what I ended up with.

Now my problem is that I like it so much that I am finding it hard to give away!

P.S. I actually wrote this post sometime before Christmas and never posted it. I discovered in in the drafts folder on the blog when I was working on my mystery quilt post. So here it is.

That’s “Vori” with an umlaut over the “o.” That makes the “o” sound like the “eu” in the French “leur.” In case that helps. “Vori” is short for “voros,” with umlauts over both “o’s”, which is Hungarian for “red.” As you can see, Vori is a very unusual color for a cat. His people are Borika and Andras, the parents of our new Hungarian son-in-law, Peter. Like all proper cats, Vori runs the household. So when we visited him and his people last May, the thought occurred to me that it would be fun to try a cross stitch rendering of him as a Christmas present for Borika and Andras. Years ago I worked a cross stitch kit of just the eyes of five different breeds of cats, and I figured I could adapt one of those cats to look like Vori. I chose the Persian cat since Vori has long fur and inserted the eyes of a different cat that were (I hope) close to Vori’s yellow-green eyes. Of course, I was working from memory without even a photo to help me, so I am hoping that I came close with the colors.
Since custom framing is ridiculously expensive, my plan was just to have a mat cut for the needlework and then to buy an inexpensive 5×7 frame for it. But when I was selecting a mat at the frame shop, the framer and I both felt that the 5×7 frame detracted from the interesting long, narrow dimensions of the needlework. (It is about 1.5″ x 5.25″.) And then she told me that she could make a frame with leftover short pieces of frame for very little more than a pre-made frame. So this is what I ended up with.

Now my problem is that I like it so much that I am finding it hard to give away!

add another!

No, that doesn’t sound quite right. How about: Brain research shows learning new skills is good for you!

Here’s my new toy, a Kundert drop spindle, with my first attempt at spinning (click picture to biggify; teach me photography to better focus-ify).

I need to let the new yarn “marinate” on the spindle overnight so it’ll keep its twist, so I haven’t yet been able to fully evaluate it. I’m quite pleased that it looks rather yarn-esque, though!