Seriously.
My cat ate my Sorbetto Redux! Well, specifically, he ate the french seam on the right shoulder. The first item I've sewn, out of a silk blend no less, and actually worn proudly out of the house, and he ATE IT. FML!
This is actually an ongoing issue with this cat. Johnny Cash is a clothes eater. Specifically, my clothes. (Never the Mr's.) My clean clothes. (Never the dirty ones.) My expensive or sentimental clothes. (Never the cheap, crappy ones I don't care about.) Oh, and shoelaces.
All I can say is that I'm happy that so far he hasn't made himself sick (and yes, I do realize this is a serious concern), and that I'm trying to figure out the solution - be it cat grass, more toys, more playtime, catnip, WHATEVER. (Suggestions are more than welcome!)
Now, lest Hobbes look like a little angel in comparison, I'd like to take a moment to show you the most amazingly thoughtful birthday present the Mr. got for me the other day:
That's Aslan Trends King Llama & Mulberry Silk in the Andean Coal colourway. It's this gorgeous charcoal that almost shimmers metallic silver. The Mr. bought me three skeins and it's AMAZING.
Oh, and this is what it looks like now:
Thanks, Hobbes.
Note to self: that hiding spot on the bookshelf isn't as clever as you thought it was.
Anyway. The good news is that while Hobbes loves going mental playing with balls of yarn, he actually doesn't tend to eat any of it. So, I may have to spend a few thousand hours untangling this mess, but I won't have to spend a few thousand dollars for the vet to untangle his guts.
Silver linings...
We've been trying our best to keep our house tidy and the cats entertained, but with all four of us in a one bedroom apartment, this is a bigger task than you might think. And I'm trying hard to stifle my inner voice, which is screaming about how keeping cats indoors isn't natural or ideal for their well-being, and remind myself that we really do give them a good life and they're generally pretty happy little guys.
But they sure are lucky I don't believe in declawing. (Or de-toothing.)
Who, us?
Aw, look at those innocent little angels! Love that picture. :)
ReplyDeleteI also have two cats and they're also destroyers of fabric and thread. What I do is, I keep my stuff in my bedroom (which also functions as my workroom) and don't let them in there, ever. It's far from ideal as I live in a one-bedroom too, and it gives them significantly less room to play in (they have the living room, kitchen and porch...).
However, I think keeping pets is all about compromises -- you can't give them the perfect life (just as you wouldn't be able to give your children *everything* that would make them happy), but you do your best within your constraints and you make sure both sides are happier than they would be otherwise.
Oh no!!! Other than maybe having a cat free room which stays locked and where you can keepall your yarn and clothes and sharps I don't know what else to do. I never had cats so have no clue. They look gorgeous and very innocent though.
ReplyDeleteWhich one is the clothes eater, from the photo above?
Oh dear! Never heard of cats eating (only nice) clothes before! Maybe he wanted to see one a one shouldered Sorbetto looked like on you! If I was to guess I would say the white cat did this to your top. He looks the most guilty out of the two!
ReplyDeleteWow, that's some selective cat you have there. I have never owned a cat myself so I can't help you with cat behaviour. They are pretty cute, although I agree with Katy, the top one looks more mischevious.
ReplyDeleteOH NO!!!!!! :( How awful. Argh. Our cats just had a tendency to "mistake" the laundry basket for the litter box... Can you repair the shoulder, maybe by adding a band of the same fabric? I know it won't look like new, but better than losing that entire beautiful top!
ReplyDelete@Dora - I'm sorry you have to deal with this too! Thank your for your thoughts :) We've had the "should we lock them out of the bedroom?" talk on a few occasions, but it's just not the right decision for us. We've compromised by locking them out when clothes are drying, as clothes hanging on the rack seem to be the ones that attract Johnny Cash's attention the most. We also child locked the sliding door on the closet, which helped. I guess it's not SUCH a bad thing to have something to motivate us to put our clothes away faster :)
ReplyDelete@Suzy - we seriously fantasize about getting a 2bdrm place just so we can have a "dressing room" where our clothes/shoes live and the cats never enter! But that seems sort of crazy, lol. The black/white one is the devious clothes eater (Johnny Cash) and the orange/white one is the yarn addict (Hobbes).
@Katy - I've never had a cat who did this, but perhaps because all my other cats were indoor/outdoor in the country? (i.e. had other things to entertain them!) But if you google "clothes eating cat" apparently it's a thing! For some of them it's a thing about wool (which I think is to do with the smell of lanolin... Hobbes seems to have that, as he's only interested in wool made of animal fibres, not acrylic) but with JC it's just clothes. I'm not sure if he's actually picky about what kind of clothes or if it's just been a coincidence so far that they're only my clean nice ones. (And yes, Hobbes' little face always looks worried! I'm not sure if it's the markings on his forehead or what but we've always noticed it!)
@Seraphinalina - haha, yes, he always has that worried sort of look on his face. The other one always looks just plain surprised. I was reading a while ago that it's due to their evolution that cats aren't able to express with their faces (no eyebrows and unable to smile/frown) so I guess whatever shape their face/features/markings take kind of gives them a perma-expression?
@Tanit-Isis - thankfully, ours have never had litter box problems. I think that's so much worse! (My Dad's cat at home has that problem and yes... ugh.) Now that you mention it, I do have more fabric so I could totally mend it the way you describe. (I'd probably do both shoulders for the sake of symmetry.) But... why is mending so much less appealing than sewing? lol
That top photo really says it all :-) I can't believe the yarn was all maimed like that! I think you might want to purchase the "workhorse" rather than "luxury" yarn, now that I think about it. I think you show remarkable compassion for your kitties. It's lucky for them they are so cute.
ReplyDelete@K-Line - No way! If I start buying crappier stuff just because I'm worried they'll ruin it, then they've won! Only buying "workhorse" yarn sounds like the pet-owner's equivalent of living in sweat pants and mom-jeans after having children, lol.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, usually it's not a problem if I just remember to put it in the closet where it belongs, or put it in a project bag that I can close up. This was just a case of my being lazy and popping the paper bag on top of some books on the bookcase, which is a temporary place just out of reach. That would have been fine if I'd remembered to grab it and put it away properly before bed, but instead they had a few hours to figure out how to get it down. My fault, not theirs! Thankfully, he actually only got one of the skeins that badly. The other two are relatively unharmed.
Ack!! Bad cats!! It's amazing that critters that small have such great capacity to annoy! Hope you guys can figure out a solution that works for everybody. For me, I keep yarn sealed up in ziplock bags or in storage containers so Doug the Pug isn't tempted too much to unravel it (he likes to play with yarn like a kitty... cause he's the weirdest dog ever). They're not as easy to store that way as they were just tucked in baskets like I did pre-dog, but it keeps him out, at least.
ReplyDelete@gingermakes - Yes, that's what I do now. Actually, yarn isn't generally a big problem around here. Prior to the cats I stored my yarn in a beautiful basket which I bought at a folk festival. It only took the wee kitten version of Hobbes a few weeks to discover it, and he DESTROYED it. We came home one day to find ALL my yarn strung literally ALL around the house... each ball wrapped around each leg of the dining room table, coffee table, our bedframe... it was crazy! All I can say is, it's a good thing I'm not much of a stasher, so there wasn't all that much there for him to ruin.
ReplyDeleteEver since then I've stored it in ziplocks in a plastic duvet bag in a closet with a latching door. (Better for dust, etc, as well.) This is the first time he's gotten his mitts on it since that first time, and it was just due to my own forgetfulness.
The clothes thing is the one we've got to figure out a solution to. It seems he gets things when they're hanging, either in the closet or on the drying rack, so keeping him away from those two things is working for now. We'll see! More than anything it's funny how things become an issue that once were not... like, how despite everything, he didn't actually discover and start destroying shoelaces until about a month ago. Prior to that he slept on top of our shoe rack without problems for nearly two years!
OH NO! What a little bugger! But so friggin' cute, it's hard to be mad. When Riley was an indoor cat he was the most gigantic brat you've ever met - climbing on everything, getting into everything - but now that he's allowed to go outdoors he's mellowed out considerably. Maybe one day you guys will live somewhere that the cats can go outside!
ReplyDeleteEven so, Riley still has a thing for sleeping on clothes. Not just any clothes though - they have to be Nate's, and they're even better when they're clean. If we have a pile of our clothes dumped on the bed, Riley will actually bypass all my stuff and pull something of Nate's out of the pile just to sleep on.
Cats. They're weird.
GAH! That is horrible! I can't even imagine how hard it must be to not hold a grudge against your sweet little furballs. My only suggestion would be to get yarn storage that the cats can not get into and to be super fastidious with putting away your laundry. It is hard though when normal daily life takes over! Good luck.
ReplyDelete@Korena - our goal is definitely to eventually live somewhere they can be outdoors... although by the time that happens I hope they're not too old to figure that out without getting themselves hurt or into trouble! We shall see. It's funny how particular they are, though!
ReplyDelete@Crystal - we're definitely trying our best! lol