Mirabella–A Lady Cat Jester

Here we are again, another day another Jester. This time it’s a cat Jester. Two of my favourite things. ;o)  This is a design by Paula McGee. My first task was to find a way to display her. I didn’t want to make her another wall doll as I have two of those for the exhibit already.

As luck would have it I found a wonderful hanging chair in a thrift shop last year. It was on sale for 50% off, so it cost me $1.00, you have to love thrift shops. This chair was just the plain wicker look, so I painted it black to make the colours of Mirabella really pop. I made a tufted cushion about 3” thick, to fit the chair and make it cozy for her. I didn’t have a place to hang it, so you’ll have to visualize that. I’ll be taking pictures of the final display so you can see how she looks when she’s swinging in her chair.

Here she is all snuggled in.

Her costuming is mostly cottons. Her boots are a faux patent type leather for lack of a better description. Her sleeves are not part of the pattern, I made those for her just because I thought it would complete the outfit. She has 8 bells, 3 on her hat, one on each sleeve cuff, one on each shoe point and one for her tail.

Her face is a trapunto style. You first make the trapunto face mask then attach it to the stuffed head. In the instructions it says to attach it, then paint the face. I painted the face first, it gave me the ability to bend the mask in places where I needed to get the brush in to fill the seam lines. Then I sprayed it and lastly, attached it with a ladder stitch.

Check out those whiskers. Aren’t they great. They belong to Chrissie, my friends cat. She has the longest whiskers I have ever seen on a cat. And like I said before, no, I don’t go yanking on kitty faces to get their whiskers, they just fall out from time to time, naturally, just like our eye lashes. Then you have to be alert when you’re sweeping or vacuuming so you don’t miss them on the floor or carpet.. I just love them..

Now a couple more pictures showing her body a little closer and the different fabrics and trims.

To finish off, here are her shoes. Kind of a cross between witchy and Jester boots. The laces are silk ribbon. And there she is. One more down. And if you notice in the picture above, I have essentially belled the cat. However I think Mirabella is too much of a lady to chase birds and mice, but that’s just an assumption.