During the pandemic, like many people, we acquired more animals. We had the two dogs, but we first acquired a “pandemic cat” in 2020 and then another “pandemic cat” in 2021. Both FIV, both old, both amazing. And of course, as they are old but amazing they need to be immortalized.

At first I debated creating a small heart rug. Our house had a fireplace with a hearth. Made sense. But it didn’t seem to be enough for them. Someone sent me this image:

And so things started to explode onwards from that and suddenly I was working on a Luche Libra “Poster” of the cats. It took time to pull it together. first I basically cut and pasted out words and images (I’m not a great artist) and pasted them on paper in what I thought I wanted. Then I transferred that to my “sticky paper” (I think I need to convert to red dot – someone can tell me that) and transferred that to linen. The result of the initial transfer to sticky paper is below:

A move happened in the middle so the above was rolled up and deposited for about a year in a corner (not quite as neglected as my loom – but almost). And then I had shoulder surgery and stuck to smaller projects. But then the day came when I dragged it all out – transferred it to linen and sewed it on the rug hooking frame! Someone (named Chevy) is happy the big frame came out. He enjoyed “making” the fish rug (another post of a rug made a couple years ago).

Work on the rug is finally in progress as a result. I’m doing a mix of dyeing my own wool, bought wool and yarn, and vintage wool clothing. I largely dyed the colors for the cats and their “outfits”. I’m using some Dorr Mill wool for the background around them and then dyed wool again for the borders and words. Here’s a progress photo with (of course) Chevy (and Chevy):

This is where I’m mostly at today:

I think Chevy is coming across nicely – Seren needs work – getting the eyes right can be a challenge. I’ll continue to update as I move forward!