Siamese Cat Quilt

I've been intending to make this quilt for awhile. An acquaintance, who was a breeder of Siamese, had to give them up a while ago. I'm sure she misses them.
I owned one of her cats about 20 years ago, and I thought I'd like to give her this token.

I was hesitant about recording this, here, as I would like it to be a surprise. I'm not sure how often she checks in. So I'm hoping I can get the quilt complete and posted without her realizing it's destined for her.

So a few days efforts are rolled into today's post.

I found, on line of course, lots of sketches of cats as well as many cat quilt, so I'm rolling several ideas into one. Size? This will probably be a lap quilt in it's finished form.

I took 11 printouts and pinned them to my wall for about a week, the whole time I was working on the birds! LOL

Some of the shapes are definite Siamese, and some are generic cats.
It took a while for me to decide how to portray their colour. I tried dying a brown/tan cloth........I have 2 yards of dirty grey.

So I chose to use a variety of brown prints, geometric and curves, from my stash. I would "colour" the "points" on each to imply Siamese.

I decided to trace them onto freezer paper, as I was concerned whether the fusible web materials would stand up to wetting and then Heat setting. It made for extra work, but in the end I think it was a good decision.

 Using transparent paint, I bloched the areas that were iconic for Siamese markings, the head, the tail and the four feet.

I know there are many shades of Siamese so I included some darker brown material in the mix.

After they were painted and heat set, I transfered the rough shapes or material AND the original cartoons to the fusible web.
Careful cutting through both sheets of paper and cloth, gave me my finished cats.

I was undecided for a long time whether to fuse the figures or use turned applique. In the end I went for the web. Then I pinned them to 8x11 paper sheets, on the wall.

I started with 11 pictures, and have come down to 9. I'm now leaning toward this "regular" look.

Now it so happens this person's favourite colours are black and red/burgundy. I need to decide whether to fuse these cats to red or black. That will result in very different looks.