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
--
http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ -- needlework
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson59...HSEW/ROUGH.HTM
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange
joy beeson at earthlink dot net