Sewing With Cats

I love cats. I also love sewing. Whenever I get out my fabric and threads, my cats start stretching and blinking, and begin to come around. The ironingboard is where I do most of my piecing together of beautiful printed textiles. I cut out shapes and lay them out in an array of patterns. As I drop the scraps to the floor under the ironingboard, my cats pounce and jump on them as if they are alive. I have seen my large Bombay Cat named Pickwick, with threads hanging on his whickers and tail. I sometimes follow him around the house picking off the bothersome attachments.

My small female cat is named Periwinkle. She will climb the bookshelf and drop onto my work area, pushing off the tapemeasure to the floor, then wrestling it into submission. The most exciting part of sewing to my cats is pattern paper. I cannot rustle a pattern piece without being the center of the known world. Laying it out is impossible without putting the cats into another room or banishing them outside.

When I have grown tired of crazyquilting I will brew a cup of tea, and rest in my big old chair in front of my TV. That's when I must have the cats back into my lap and we all get cozy for petting, talking, and a warm, furry friendship.

I love cats.