Our Cats' Quilt Penchants - Pets on Quilts Show 2011

I’m bummed that this week is the single most difficult week in the year for me to get to my computer, because I’ve *really* been looking forward to following all the posts in the 2011 Pets On Quilts Show over at SewCalGal’s!  I’ll be snatching moments here and there as I can, but those will be few and far between as we drive 1700 miles EACH WAY to take Devon out to college. (Why do they have to go so far away??)

In the meantime, though, I wanted to share some fun shots I have of our cats this past year, as pertains to my quilts. We have way too many cats for one house, but there are times when that is really very interesting. For example, if we didn’t have so many felines, I never would have found out that each kitty has his or her own color preferences! (Don’t believe anything that says cats are colorblind – it’s obviously not true.)

Boo Girl doesn’t really pay much attention to the quilting going on (which is weird, because we all know how much cats usually love to lay on fabric, patterns, cutting mats, etc.).  But when I was working on these Geese On the Pond blocks with the greens, she had to be on or by them the whole time they were out. Does she like the green because it makes her eyes pop?  (That’s still a UFO, btw.)

Koko (short for Kao Ko Kung) is my blue baby. He doesn’t go for the fabric piles, but he loves to sit cuddled next to me, so he’s right there for just about every binding or label that I stitch. 

When I was doing the binding on Heather’s graduation quilt last summer, I could swear he’d purposefully kept my spot for me when I got up to go get a drink!

 While he always wants to be by me, other than that time of marking my place, he could be relied on to leave the project alone. 

(I almost didn't put that pic up - me in all my get-up-and-go-straight-to-the-sewing-machine glory. ick!)

UNTIL this next one one came out. 

When I plopped the sailboats and mariner’s star on my “design floor,” he suddenly flew over and stretched himself out across them. He kept trying to cover as many as possible. I’d wrestle them out from under him so I could rearrange them, then go off somewhere and he’d relax. As soon as I’d walk back toward them to get a look, he’d throw himself down on them again!

And when I auditioned the various blues for that project (you can see the finished quilt at this post), he went nuts, laying on the fabrics so pestily and getting angry when I’d move him or them. Every time I had that top out he had to come lay on it. And when I got it back from the longarmer’s, he went ape with excitement. You should have seen how ANGRY he got when I wouldn't let him sit on it while I was binding it and adding the embellishments. (But I couldn't have cat hairs all over it!)  Pretty funny.  Everything since then has seen more of the former “yeah, ok, you’re working on something” attitude. 

Except. . . we were working on tucking tails for this quilt full of the pretty blues he likes. Can you see him all burrowed in there?

And one last shot of his preference for blue - Does he like that color so much because he's got those gorgeous sapphire blue eyes that you sometimes find on a Siamese?

Marco is a typical cat - you ca't keep him from laying on any pile of fabric he can find to lay on. He’d be in heaven if someone would leave a pile of fabric out just for him to make a nest in. But the quilts themselves – he doesn't really care for. 

(Although, put a piece of paper on one and he'll brave even pins to sit on that!) 

But when this one came along from Em at Em Cellebrates! and I draped it over the sofa, that funny cat couldn’t go away from it. He laid on the sofa next to it, talking, talking, talking up a storm to it for DAYS! 

It was the funniest thing. I still wish I knew what that cat was saying to that quilt!

Selma obliged me by sitting on this wheelchair quilt for me, but it was clear she was performing a task. What I don’t have a picture of, unfortunately, is the quilts that she went wild over. 

This gorgeous calico mama goes crazy for purple (she doesn't care about pink). Or maybe it was the neon colors interspersed in these tornado relief quilts. 

Oh, look! I do have one shot of a cat that I sewed in a quilt! (well, a block, anyway)

Cats and quilts – they just go together so well, don’t you think?