One last project before the weekend. I made this for my husband, who is even more of a nut about cats than I am, if that’s possible. I found the free pattern here, and hand traced it in Illustrator to get the cut lines. The whiskers are actually tiny boxes so I could do a vector engrave.
I cut it three times, out of the three Proofgrade hardwoods (maple, cherry, and walnut), so that gave me three puzzles with a different mix of cats in each. Each puzzle cut in less than 7 minutes. On the walnut, I was not getting enough contrast in the eye area so I put a dot of paint there.
Really nice technique too. Should be applicable to a lot of things where you need related multiples. (There’s a quilting technique sorta like that, but it’s all straight cuts.)
You picked a real nice design to make and the colors that you used work so well together. The cats fit together perfectly , although one small piece is missing. Lastly, the painted eyes look amazing.
Yeah, I debated about keeping that in. I could have redesigned the cut lines to eliminate orphans but decided not to. Maybe for version 2.0.
I really like the puzzle idea (super fast and easy on the GF) so I bought a used scrollsaw pattern book for puzzles on Amazon (this one: Scroll Saw Art Puzzles https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565231163/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_Ebn8ybWMNEM7D ). Because I’m likely to need a Pile O Dogs as well at some point.
I normally don’t use the squee icon, but when I do, I mean it. They all look like their food bowls are empty and you are walking out the door! So nice! Another demonstration of why we need that fourth color of proofgrade ply and veneer: 4-color map theorem.