So you saw him at the machine in my last post.  He was up to more shenanigans and I thought he might need a post all his own.  He really is a sweetheart.  Really.  No really!

He looks so in charge sitting on my quilt behind the machine, doesn’t he?  He thinks he’s in charge of the whole house.  Wait a minute.  I think maybe he is!

He loves to lay on the table by the machine.  And I can’t tell you how many times he’s climbed right through the throat area.  Thankfully, not while I’m stitching.  At least not so far.  And I’m happy that he mostly lays on the ends.  But one day if I’m quilting along and it feels like the machine won’t move?  I’ll know that Pappy is on the other side, blocking the machine.  Well, maybe I’ll know.  After I’ve pushed and pushed on the machine and not gotten it to move.  Oh, I’m sure it’s gonna happen.  I just hope it’s not at a critical time in my stitching!  And that I can hit the stop button quickly.

Shortly after I’d taken that last pic and finished quilting for the night, this happened…..

I had moved the machine to the other end.  And unhooked the latching mechanism on one of the poles, thinking that if one of the cats decided to lay on the quilt “hammock,” it would not stretch out the fabric but would just unroll.  But I was not prepared for Pappy to jump over the back poles onto the quilt and slide all the way to the floor, unrolling the quilt backing all the way as he went!  And then he just laid there, covered up with the batting and quilt top.  Even after I had pulled it off and snapped this pic, it took him several minutes to decide that this comfy quilt backing was not what he wanted to lay on after all.

This had never happened on my old longarm machine.  But the table sat more under the quilt and I was able to release the tension on the quilts, cover them with a sheet and then let it all lay on the table beneath.  There is more open air beneath the quilt itself on this machine.

Well, this is never going to do with customer quilts, right?  I mean it’s one thing for my beloved cat to mess with my personal quilts, but customers?  This could be the shortest longarm business in history. So I set about finding a solution.

I can’t just close the doors and keep the cats out.

See that open window to the kitchen?  All the cats know how to go around and come through that window.  My sis suggested putting shutters or some kind of doors in front of that window that I could close at night.  But I’m not sure I really want to deal with closing off the kitchen.

So for starters, I moved the drawer units so they are under the quilt instead of under the table part.  That at least would keep the poles from unrolling all the way to the floor. In this pic, I’ve lowered the quilt to rest on the drawer units.  And I would also cover the quilt with a sheet so that no cat could lay directly on it.  This worked well with my old machine.  And in time, the cats really didn’t bother things at all.  I think there’s something about this being new.  And Pappy is very curious about it.

But then I came up with the best solution of all.

This is a piece of foam board that was used as a design wall.  There is batting on the other side of it.  I could wedge it between the two back poles and on top of the front one.  Even with the overhang, I could not push on that and make it fall off.  Pappy could sit on this to his heart’s content and not be on the quilt or stretch anything!  Yahoo!  A solution I can live with!

I’m probably going to cut that foam board a bit narrower so that it doesn’t have that large overhang.  I think it would work even better if it’s just the right size.

Silly Pappy.  Ever the Entertainer.  And always, always getting into some kind of trouble. Gotta love him!  And today is his birthday!  He’s 5 years old today.  Happy Birthday, Pappy!

Hugs,
Pappy’s Mom