For the sake of brevity (if three posts can be brief), this is a summarized transcript of an evening long conversation which retains both the my own voice and that of Sol. We work very well together!
There is no such thing as solitary cross-stitching in a house full of cats.
This is particularly true when beginning a floral cat.
As I started testing a new project, one cat settled behind me on the chair.
Another positioned himself directly under my elbow and repeatedly bumped my arm while I tried to type.
A third supervised from across the room.
At one point my phone began sending messages before I could correct them, resulting in several mysterious fragments of conversation.
I initially blamed the technology.
This was unfair.
The technology had accomplices.
Meanwhile, the actual stitched cat was undergoing evaluation.
The chart was suspicious.
The palette was questionable.
The confetti was outrageous.
The first stitches were so pale they were barely visible.
Still, after only a handful of stitches, the shadow of a leg appeared.
Then the blue tip of a paw.
The household committee did not formally announce its decision, but nobody sat directly on the fabric, which I am choosing to interpret as conditional approval.
This is the thing about stitching with cats around.
They contribute.
Sometimes they contribute fur.
Sometimes they contribute movement at the exact moment one is counting across twenty-count fabric.
Sometimes they contribute an elbow collision that causes a perfectly sensible sentence to become unintelligible.
Occasionally they simply sleep nearby, which is the most useful contribution available to them and the one they seem least interested in making.
And every so often they become part of the history of the piece.
Years later, I may remember the pattern, the artist who inspired it, the colors I changed, and whether I eventually added backstitch.
But I will also remember the night the first forty-five stitches went in.
I will remember the cat under my elbow.
I will remember another asleep behind me.
I will remember looking across the room at the third member of the committee and realizing that Floral Confetti Cat was being brought into existence under peer review.
This is probably why cat hair appears in full-coverage cross-stitch.
It is not contamination.
It is documentation.
