Meet the Orange Terror

I have recently realised that I have been remiss as a sewing blogger… I have not introduced you all to my furry orange assistant! Luckily, the fantastic Cindy of Cation Designs (if you don’t read her blog, you must – she makes amazing whimsical dresses! she draws! she makes me laugh out loud!) has created the Best. Blog Award. Ever. which has reminded me of my responsibility to the sewing world at large. I am the honored recipient of the Sewing With Cats Blog Award!

So without further ado, meet Malcolm, aka The Orange Terror:

Yeah, I know, he doesn’t seem very intimidating, but trust me. He is a stalker of moving objects, a knocker-down of items from tables, a consummate getter-into of bags and boxes. He is afeared of nothing except the terrible Vacuum Monster (he is certainly not afeared of me). I have found that most other cats I’ve met seem to think they’re people, and as such they are entitled to equal rights in the house. Malcolm’s entitlement works differently – I’m pretty sure Malcolm doesn’t think he’s people… he thinks we’re cats. The hierarchy in our household is as follows: my husband is the alpha cat, Malcolm is his second in command, and I am some kind of minion to be ordered around and arbitrarily attacked anytime I turn a corner or enter a room. Weirdly, despite The Terror’s dominion over me, he doesn’t insert himself too much in my sewing. Perhaps he is too lofty to be concerned with the doings of the lowly serf-cat of the house? Whatever reason, I’m glad that he mostly hasn’t ruined any of my projects or fabric (yet!), though he has contributed a generous amount of hair to everything I’ve ever set down anywhere in my house. He does really enjoy sitting on pattern tissue, but I can usually enlist the aid of the alpha cat to yoink him off the table and distract him while I cut. The weirdest sewing item he likes to mess with, oddly, is pins. Though I’ve never seen him do it, I have found pins in rooms far away from the sewing table, and I can only assume he is carrying them there in his mouth. All right, weirdo. It must be a natural outgrowth of his love of twisty-ties and wire and cut-off ends of guitar strings.

Here’s one last “aaawwww” picture for you:

This is from about a week after we adopted him, almost 9 (!) years ago. (It’s black and white because I used to shoot film and develop/print it myself – until the idea of a “rental darkroom” went the way of the dodo – and there was a time when we didn’t have a point-and-shoot type camera, so all our pictures of Tiny Malcolm are scans of black and white prints from my ancient Mamiya-Sekor SLR.) He was so little and floppy and orange and furry and bitey… and not much has changed except he now takes up much more space on the bed. We’re still waiting for him to stop acting like a kitten and for-God’s-sake-stop-waking-us-up-at-daybreak-by-knocking-things-off-the-dresser, but I have a feeling he’ll just always be The Orange Terror no matter how old he is. But he’s our Terror and we love him… as long as he keeps his claws off my fabric.

Thanks Cindy for making me share him, and for a badge that will make me smile every time I see it in my sidebar! As far as passing on the award, I don’t know of any sewists-with-cats that haven’t already been honored, but if you have a Terror of your own you’d like to share, grab the badge and consider yourself awarded!