Russion Icon Rabbit

(EDIT:  Of course I only noticed the typo in my title after I linked to it from Sewcalgal"s blog, so it's too late to fix it now.  I really did mean Russian. I apologize!)

OK. My quilt for the Pets On Quilts Show  isn't finished, but I wanted to show it to you anyway. Ginny was helping me baste the quilt this morning. She wasn't too sure about the process. 

She thought it looked sort of interesting, maybe a closer look?

Then she decided the project needed a little paws on attention.  One pass,

and a second pass,

and a whole hearted disapproval. These feet are flicking in distaste.

Maybe she thinks I didn't portrays her as being as beautiful as she is?  Here is the full quilt,  basted with pins.

When I first heard about the Pets on Quilts project, I thought it would be a good place to use the portrait of Ginny that I had made using Shiva Paintsticks in a class with Elin Waterston last year. This had been pinned to my wall, and I had had no idea what to do with it.

Then I thought about our recent trip to the Museum Of Russian Icons, and decided to add a halo, and make Ginny into an icon. From there, the project grew, and life happened, and between those things, I have only reached the basting stage.

First I decided to put her on a chair (throne). Regular readers may remember that Ginny's chair is brown, but that wouldn't be enough contrast, so it got changed to white. I added lettuce,  as many of the figures in the icons carried corresponding symbolic objects. And of course many of the icons had smaller (adjunct ?) saints or religious figures, as well, so I added a smaller Weasley.

The scroll, with scientific names of her favorite plants was added, because I noticed many of the icons had scrolls on them. I also added smaller figures, coming to honor and bring tribute to, the great rabbit.

The landscape background was similar to some of the icons, and I added the giant parsley "trees" to also correspond to some of these features.  The moon is from my own "rabbit in the moon" stamp, and then I finished it off with the larger words stamped in gold. Since I don't write in Russian, I fudged a little here, and used Latin (sort of). The words are the scientific name for rabbit, along with the Latin word for "rule".

This has been a real blast to work on so far, and I am excited about adding detail with my quilting. Miss Ginny, however, seems to be looking down her regal nose on the entire project.

And for anyone wondering, Ginny seems to have gained her weight back. We are still waiting on the pathologist's report from the new vet at the Littleton Animal Hospital. If our old vet's diagnosis were correct, Ginny would be gone by now, so we are hopeful. We found this new vet through the House Rabbit Society, and we are very grateful for all the help that they have provided us with through our rabbit years.