Inspiration Saturday: Fiber and felines

I've been kind of a lurker this year in Tour de Fleece.  I've only posted my progress for a handful of the days, and done very little chatting in the Peloton group.  Despite this, I have been spinning for at least 15 minutes each day, which was the main idea for this year, along with hopefully finishing this current yarn and starting something new.  I'm still working on singles, but I'm hoping that plying isn't more than a week away.

The other thing I have been doing every day is watching everyone else's progress in my group and the daily threads.  Especially in those daily threads, where there is nothing to do but scroll through pictures and marvel at what others are doing on their spindles and wheels.  Along with the actual spinning, the scrolling is probably my favorite part of Tour de Fleece, just because it's such a concentrated shot of inspiration and aspiration.

In these pictures, though, you don't just see craft.  Very often, you also see cats.  Yes, there are also dogs, children, and other interlopers, but I think cats might be the most often-seen companion to the Tour de Fleecers.  There are two possibilities:

1. There's a correlation between being a cat person and being a crafty person.
2. Cats are just one of a zoo of animals that Ravelry users live with, and cats are just more likely to insert themselves in these photographs.

I don't know which it is, but I do know that despite a reputation for being independent, cats are always willing to lend a paw to 'help' their human counterparts when it comes to spinning and knitting.  Because anything that takes attention away from them must surely be investigated.  There's also the chance that my eyes just always catch the cats in particular.  Because they are cute and cuddly, and I have a bias towards those attributes.  Most likely, a mix of all three of these refined observations has lead me to spotlight this pairing this week.  I'm allowed to be inspired by cat pictures, right?  This is the internet, after all.

I don't want to snatch anyone's photos and post them here, because that seems to violate online image etiquette.  However, for those of you also on Ravelry, may I point you to a few great candid cats from these spinners in the first two weeks. Yarn-vs-zombies's cat likes to nap while she spins, but she stays nearby for support, and midnightblues is working so hard in the Hampshire heat that her cat can barely stand it.  Taking a more active role, camanoSpinner's work is cat-approved.  Mrsblackbeard rudely steals her cat's chair when she is spinning.  And finally, Piquita is her cat's chair while she spins.

For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions, where Alicia's got a whole different kind of cute going on.