Nobody Warned Me Quilting Eventually Comes With Cats

When I started quilting, I expected fabric.

Lots and lots of fabric.

I expected rotary cutters.

I expected rulers.

I expected unfinished projects.

I expected to spend far more money on cotton than any reasonable person should.

I expected fabric collections to arrive faster than completed quilts.

All of that happened.

What I did not expect was cats.

I did not expect cat trees.

I did not expect specialty cat food.

I did not expect heavy-duty HEPA air purifiers capable of filtering the atmosphere of a small country.

Nobody tells you this when you start quilting.

They tell you about fabric addiction.

Nobody mentions that quilting may eventually require feline furniture and an upgraded air filtration system.

Somewhere along the way, quilting became significantly more expensive than advertised.

For 57 years, I successfully avoided cat ownership.

Not only because I'm allergic to cats.

I was also fully convinced I didn't like them.

At all.

Dogs made sense to me.

Dogs are straightforward.

Dogs are thrilled you're alive.

Dogs act like you've returned from a heroic military deployment every time you come back from checking the mailbox.

Cats, on the other hand, seemed suspicious.

Judgmental.

Like tiny furry middle managers constantly evaluating my performance.

If you had told me a year ago that I would someday be researching cat behavior, discussing litter box placement, feeding specialty cat food designed to reduce the protein I'm allergic to, and worrying about whether two cats felt comfortable in my home, I would have laughed directly in your face.

Then a stray cat showed up.

Which was unfortunate.

Because it turns out my opinion of cats was based entirely on not knowing any cats.

For over a year she lived outside.

I fed her.

I worried about her.

I checked on her.

I made sure she survived North Dakota weather, which is basically every weather condition known to mankind plus a few experimental ones.

But she remained outside.

This seemed like the perfect arrangement.

I could care about a cat without actually owning a cat.

Or more accurately, without admitting I owned a cat.

Or so I thought.

Then I brought her inside.

Ten days later, she was gone.

And somehow my response to that situation was:

"Perhaps what I need is more cats."

I realize this logic makes absolutely no sense.

Yet here we are.

Looking back, I suspect the stray cat had been slowly converting me for over a year.

Like a tiny furry missionary.

By the time I realized what was happening, it was already too late.

The paperwork had been processed.

The transfer of ownership was complete.

I no longer owned myself.

I belonged to cats.

I just hadn't been notified.

Now, to be completely honest, I was kind of looking for cats.

This realization was almost as shocking as the cats themselves.

A year earlier I was firmly convinced I didn't like cats.

The allergy part wasn't even debatable. My immune system had receipts.

Now I was scrolling through cat listings.

I wasn't searching for a specific breed.

I wasn't making spreadsheets.

I wasn't comparing features and benefits.

I was simply looking for a cat that needed a home.

As it turns out, two cats needed a home.

And apparently the woman who is allergic to cats, disliked cats, and had successfully avoided cat ownership for nearly six decades was suddenly volunteering for the position.

I would love to tell you there was a well-thought-out decision-making process.

There was not.

There were cats.

They needed a home.

I had a home.

The math was surprisingly simple.

This is the sort of decision that makes perfect sense to animal lovers and absolutely no sense to anyone else.

Before I knew it, Skiddy and Bobo had arrived.

And with them came the reminder.

Cats do not have owners.

Cats have staff.

I thought I was adopting two cats.

Instead, I appear to have accepted an entry-level management position in a small but highly demanding feline corporation.

The compensation package remains unclear.

Sometimes I receive purring.

Sometimes I receive judgment.

The performance reviews appear to occur daily.

The expectations are never communicated in advance.

One cat currently believes growling is an acceptable form of conversation.

The other appears to be conducting extensive research from underneath furniture.

Honestly, we're all adjusting.

Looking back, I can actually chart the progression.

First came the fabric.

Then came the rulers.

Then came the patterns.

Then came the storage totes.

Then came additional storage totes for the fabric that no longer fit in the original storage totes.

Then came the cats.

Then came the cat trees.

Then came the specialty food.

Then came the industrial-strength HEPA filters.

At no point did anyone provide a roadmap for this journey.

But as I've navigated this unexpected chapter of life, I've started noticing something.

Every quilting group has cats.

Every quilting magazine has cats.

Every quilting Facebook page has cats.

Every quilting influencer has cats.

Every quilt laid out on the floor appears to summon cats from neighboring zip codes.

For years I assumed this was coincidence.

Now I'm beginning to suspect cats are somehow included with quilting, like a notion or a sewing machine.

Required.

And honestly, I should have picked up on the pattern earlier.

Every quilting Facebook group.

Every quilting Instagram account.

Every quilt retreat.

Every sewing room tour.

Cats.

The evidence was everywhere.

Nobody tells you this when you start.

They tell you about seam allowances.

They tell you about batting.

They tell you about quarter-inch feet.

They tell you about fabric grain.

Nobody tells you that eventually you'll be discussing feline behavior with complete sincerity.

Nobody tells you that cats consider a quilt in progress to be a personal invitation.

Nobody tells you that the quilting community and the cat community apparently merged sometime in the distant past and nobody remembers exactly when.

The longer I quilt, the more evidence I find.

Need proof?

Try laying a quilt on the floor.

Just once.

Leave the room.

I am convinced there is a signal emitted by unfinished quilts that can be detected by cats from several counties away.

They arrive.

They sit.

They shed.

They stare at you as if you're the one being unreasonable.

At this point, I have concluded that quilting is not one hobby.

It's two hobbies.

The first hobby is quilting.

The second hobby is …. Cats.

Experienced quilters are laughing right now because they know exactly how this ends.

The cat wins.

The cat always wins.

The longer I quilt, the more I realize quilting was never really about quilts.

The quilts are wonderful.

But quilting also brought friendships.

Creativity.

Confidence.

Learning.

A community.

This blog.

People who understand why owning enough fabric to survive several economic collapses seems perfectly reasonable.

And somehow, in a completely unexpected turn of events, cats.

I thought quilting would bring fabric into my life.

Instead, it brought friendships, creativity, community, and somehow managed to convince a woman who is still allergic to cats and absolutely certain she disliked them to open her home to two of them.

That's a pretty impressive hobby.

Now I'm curious.

What did quilting bring into your life that you never expected?

Was it lifelong friendships?

Travel?

Teaching?

A business?

A creative confidence you didn't know you had?

Or are you, too, sitting there reading this while a cat supervises you?

Because I genuinely did not know cats and quilting were so intricately connected.

And before anyone asks, no, I do not let them lay on my quilts.

Yet.

Although based on every quilter I've ever met, every quilting photo I've ever seen, and every warning I've received since bringing home Skiddy and Bobo, I suspect that battle has already been lost.

The cats probably know it.

Everyone else probably knows it.

I am apparently the last one to figure it out.