Thor the gray tabby really wants to be near Sophie the dilute calico cat. I’m not sure if it is adoration, or just fun for him to get in her personal space.
He sings to her too, plurts and trills. Sophie is remarkably calm about the whole situation, he only gets a bat with a paw when he gets really close.
The favorite scratching post in the house needed a fix-up.
When I last rewrapped this post, I took some of the carpet off the top to provide a higher area for scratching since I have longer cats. From the picture, it really wasn’t necessary, even the big cats scratch the middle of the post. To rewrap this time, I purchased 160 feet of 1/4 inch jute rope.
My future self is not going to be pleased with me, because as I wrapped the rope, I stapled it down on the back every few inches. Last time, I only stapled the top and bottom, which made it easy to remove, but I believe shortened the time of use. The last wrap lasted slightly less than a year.
The most helpful thing this time around was that my eldest held the rope above the scratching post, so it was easier for me to wrap the post from the bottom up smoothly.
The new rope, while marketed as 1/4 inch, has a smaller diameter than the old rope, and a tighter twist. It will be interesting to see if it holds up better.
This is Shadow the long haired black meadow cat that hangs out with Mr Tom, my neighbor’s cat. I’m not sure what other names he goes by, I call him Shadow because he follows Mr Tom around and is black. Shadow has one white whisker, but also doesn’t understand photo shoots. He assumes my presence means he gets brushed, so the photo is hilariously bad.
I found a lollipop made for cats at the pet store. The kind I found was made of freeze-dried chicken pressed into a heart shape on a paper stick.
Thor the cat enjoyed the lollipops the best, he actually licked it, then bit it. When he did bite off a chunk he swallowed it whole, which concerned me because they weren’t small chunks. Izzy the calico was not impressed. Sophie the dilute calico couldn’t be bothered with licking and just chomped hard through the whole lollipop.
The last ornamentations for the Bucilla felt wreath kit are many tiny embroidered and sequined AND stuffed felt bells.
The pattern only has seven decorated sides, with the back sides unadorned yellow felt, but it bothered me that in the picture for the pattern one of the bells on a string was turned backwards, showing the plain side. So for those two bells, I decorated the back as well, increasing the tiny sewing required.
I found that using a bamboo stick to place the stuffing in the tiny elements of the felt wreath really helped.
Honestly, if I had had tiny metal bells in my stash, I would have put those on instead of spending all that time embroidering and adding sequins. I definitely had Edgar Allan Poe’s poem going through my head the whole time.
Critters and Craft 