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Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Beading With A Cat

I have heard it said that the people do not own a cat but a cat owns the people. Well that is certainly true in my household. We have a beautiful calico/Siamese female cat. Her name is “Patches.” She came with the name; if I had named her she would have a more exotic name, more befitting with her kitty status, like “Sheharazadde.” And, she is definitely a mans’ cat. She prefers Stan to Angelina and me except when it comes to feeding time. She knows that I am the one who feeds her every morning. If I am not up when she is ready to eat, Patches will gently rub her paws in my hair and “meow” in my ear until I do get up and feed her. The other time she prefers me to Stan is when I am beading.

As soon as Patches notices that I have sat down to bead, she is right there beside me. She bats at the thread with her paws while the needle travels through the holes in the beads. I scold her and say, “Patches, no!” She will then look up at me with those innocent blue kitty eyes and start rubbing her face against my arm as if to apologize. But I know her kitty wiles and I do not fall for her tricks. As soon I pick up my needle and begin to bead again, Patches tries once again to attack the thread. Of course I know she is not being malicious. She is just doing what comes natural to her as a cat.

Patches also loves the beads on my beading tray. When I am not looking, one of her favorite things to do is to pounce on my beading tray and watch the beads scatter. If by chance she happens to find a larger bead on the floor, Patches will roll the bead back and forth between her paws. She will hit the bead with her paw so hard that the bead will zing across the room, hit the wall, and ricochet back to her. Patches will hit the bead again as though she is playing in a kitty handball tournament.

If given the opportunity, Patches likes to steal and hide whatever project I am currently working on. There have been times that Patches has hidden a beading project so well that I have not been able to find it. So, I sit down and start the project over. Sometime later, I may discover her with the beading project between her paws, carefully biting at the threads in order to release the captive beads. Consequently, I am learning not to leave my beads and beading supplies unguarded and out in the open where they are fair kitty game.

But most of all, Patches is a very sweet kitty. And, being a bead-lover myself, I totally understand Patches’ attraction to my beads. It is one of the things that we have in common.

If you get the chance, visit my website. You just might find something that you like, or something that inspires you. And, please take a moment to sign my guest book.


http://www.picturetrail.com/bead_between_the_lines

3 comments:

Princess said...

I love cats, theyre so placid and calm. Yours sounds adorable.

Anonymous said...

I always thought that I didn't like cats, until a friend gave us theirs when they had to move. I took it begrudingly, because I felt sorry for it. BUT we love him. He's the sweetest thing. My dogs don't like him, though. But I think they are jealous. :)

Sonya said...

I love cats:) My husband and I have always had at least 4. They are usually strays that wander in and out of our lives. Right now we don't have an indoor cat, but are feeding about 5 outdoor cats that are slowly becoming more and more social.

BTW, thank you for your kind words on my two blogs. I really appreciate your input. You are right, clear nail polish works great on paper beads. It gets kind of expensive when you are making ALOT of them, though, because the bottle tends to dry out before you finish it from using it so much (learned the hard way). What I have been doing, and found through trial and error that it works pretty well, is using about 5 or more coats of mod podge followed by a couple of spray coats of acrylic glaze. The Mod Podge gives it a depth, and the acrylic glaze keeps the beads from remaining tacky from the mod podge. a side note, polyurethane doesn't work near as well as you think it would, the paper soaks it up.