At the fabric store where I work, the owner brought in a box of rather small pieces of fabric. It included a number of pieces all designed by the same artist, with colors and elements that were shared in different fabric designs. this was instant inspiration for me! I began with strips that widened from one end to the other, and fell into place as a background. Other pieces had a number of cats, some against a black background, others having a white background, and as well, fabrics that had just those same backgrounds, Most of those cats were incomplete, but there were six that were whole; five of those chose their places, and the sixth one, being identical with one of those except with the other background color, stayed out. And with the wildest abstract pattern, which appears in small scale in each of the cats, I cut fun little swirls and placed them here and there as I felt appropriate. Unlike many of my pieces, Miaow! stayed obstinately rectangular. I tried using that abstract fabric as borders, but it needed a break from the picture itself, and I had enough of the white background fabric to provide a narrow “matt” border to complete the work.