We own 2 cats. The fat, older one is a bully and kinda moody. She's my favorite. She squeaks at me and always greets me at the door. The younger one is a skinny runt that I refer to as the "junkyard kitty." She is a noisy little lap cat. She was supposed to be my cat but she doesn't like me. The older cat, that we call "Tubby" is DH's cat, but she bites him. So basically his cat is mine and my cat is his.
Since we got the second cat, Tubby has been keeping to herself a lot. She doesn't like Junkyard Kitty any more than I do. One thing I've noticed over the last year though is Tubby will come out from hiding when I sew. I like that it's just the 2 of us. It's like our bonding time.
It starts with the paper patterns. The moment I start pulling out the sheets, Tubby comes to investigate. I lay the sheets on the dining room table to figure out which pieces I need. Here comes Tubby, up onto the dining room table, walking all over the paper. As I cut the pieces out, I ball up the scraps and toss them to her. She bats them around for awhile and then comes back to lay on my pattern paper. When I iron the pieces flat, she weaves around my legs rubbing her big belly on me.
Time to tissue fit. I can only imagine how crazy this looks to her. I've got half a pant on and it's made out of paper. The only thing keeping it together is a ton of pins, which are stabbing me in the crotch and waist. I wander from bathroom to bathroom trying to get good light and a better view of my tush in my paper pants. She, of course, follows me; stopping to sniff the dirty laundry basket, door jam, trash can, tub, and all the pins falling off my paper pants. The paper pants don't fit my tush, naturally, so it's time to add more paper.
Back to the dining room table to tape more paper on the pattern. She's back up on the table, sniffing everything in sight. Just for giggles, I put a piece of tape on her paw once. (Don't judge me.) I only did it once because I felt a little guilty but it was darn funny watching her try to get the tape off. Anyway, the taping is now done so the walking paper pant parade begins again.
Back to the dining room table to lay out fabric and cut. Now this is when I fuss at her. She eventually gives up trying to get on the table and just sits on a chair watching me. I toss the fabric scraps onto a pile for her to lay on. It's like a magnet. Works every time.
I think the rest of the sewing process is a little boring for her. No new paper or fabric scraps. No space on the sewing table for her to lay down. She usually sits next to my chair with a "Mother, may I?" look on her face as she very politely asks to get up on the table. I redirect her to the bed 2 feet away. Then she just sits and supervises. She's a crappy supervisor though. I catch her napping and licking her butt quite a bit. Really inappropriate behavior. I still praise her grooming marathon though every time I get up to iron a seam. Her reward for a hard day of supervising is a good face brushing. She loves to be brushed but her favorite part is when you brush up her cheeks towards her ears. Is that weird? I've never seen a cat ram it's face into a wire grooming brush before.
What I left out of this random story is the pinning of fabric on my body before I sew the seams. That's where DH grudgingly helps me. He got fed up with it and insisted I buy a dressform. I don't know what he was complaining about though. He has gotten quite good at pin-fitting me. Now that I have the cover for my Uniquely You dressform, a marathon fitting session will start this weekend. He's griping already but I keep reminding him that the dressform will take the place of him. (When I re-read that statement, it just doesn't sound right. ha, ha) Here's hoping I have some finished dressform news to report by Sunday.
By the way, the cats' names aren't really Tubby and Junkyard Kitty. Misha is the sewing supervisor and Millie is the runt. They came from the shelters with those names. I don't have kids so I'll bore you with cat photos instead.
This is my sweet baby, Misha. In addition to laying on my patterns and fabric, she enjoys shopping bags...
Open drawers...
Christmas tree skirts...
And paper bags.
This is Millie, the noisy lap cat, getting her "Welcome to the family" bath.
Misha didn't like Millie much when we brought her home.
Glasses of water are not safe in our home.
She had a problem with eating too fast when we first got her. I got tired of cleaning up vomit so I took the vet's suggestion to spread out her food in a dish. (I improvised.) The dingbat sat on her food.
She's also afraid of the vacuum cleaner.
Happy Easter!
What a wonderful story about sewing and your kitty! We have always had cats too and there has always been at least one who liked to keep me company in my sewing room. Even when they are "helping" it's hard to get too annoyed, I love them so much. :)
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