So there I sat in the rocking chair next to the big window in the living room, hemming down the lining of a mandarin collar on my latest sloper beta, with scissors, pin magnet, and ball of DMC Cordonnette #100 beside me, when it got to be time to do something else, so I stuck my needle into my work, dropped my thimble into the hollow spool inside the ball, and left the room.
When I returned, the ball was where I'd left it -- but a thin white line looped and curved all over the room, twining around his scratching post and the furniture like the dotted line in the "Family Circus" cartoon.
I had to lock Al in the bedroom while I was winding it up again, but bless his little heart, he hadn't tangled it any. (AND I found the thimble!) I was a bit worried when I found that he'd gone through the uprights of the treadle sewing machine, where I couldn't follow, but he'd done that
*first*, so the remaining thread was short enough to pull on through.I've never seen the tom-fool tomcat move any of his
*official* toys more than a yard or two!The sloper beta fits, by the way, but makes me look like an ill-stuffed sausage. (So does my birthday suit, come to think of it.) I won't be cutting my nice cotton-linen print by *this* version of the pattern.
Hmm. I've taken "beta" from the writing groups. It means to test something by putting it into actual use -- in this case, by using the pattern-in-progress to make something I intend to actually wear.
Joy Beeson