Did you think we were done yet with the random cats around my house? Well, we aren't.
If you are interested, you can find part 1 and 2 here and here in which I said "I have
quite a few around the place, some because I fell in love with them
myself, others because for some weird reason people think I like cats
and have given me a lot of items over the years. Really strange, I know.
Why would they think something like that? 😂"
If you seen some of my posts about the beaded doll outfits, you may also have noticed the wooden cats in the background.
There was a time when these cats were really popular meaning they were everywhere, mostly the small ones. Most of mine (there are more, including a doorstopper) were gifts, but I bought the biggest one myself. I had to get picked up from the shop called "Katze und Kunst" ("Cat and Art") because it is so heavy that it was impossible for me to get it home on the train.
The shop was fun to browse, they had cat related items from figures, pictures, cards, and books to scratching posts
and cat food. Unfortunately it doesn't exist anymore.
If you think they are in the way on those stairs, they really aren't because these are the "Stairs to Nowhere", another one of those things that are weird about me, but that's a longer story. The big ones have also done a great job at guarding the Christmas tree when I still put it in that spot. The big ones are so heavy that they held it in place perfectly when Ponder creeped into the "cave" under the tree. They were even enough for des Dekan's first Christmas.
You always wondered how der Dekan got here? He's a veritable Pinocchio turning from a wooden cat into a real one!
Yeah, not really, but I still think this picture is funny (usually you see the cat under the vintage hat).
Let's go from wooden figures to stone.
A long time ago, the ex had got a small malachite Bastet cat for me. When our personnel admin retired, I asked him if it was okay for me to pass it on to her. I had trained under her when she had still been leader of one of the acquisition teams and I really liked her and also knew how much she loved cats.
The ex then got me this one as a replacement, much bigger and definitely no natural stone, but still pretty. It has found its perfect spot in the cat book cabinet between two books. Actually, most of the little figures I got over the years are in there.
Talking about Bastet reminded me of this bead loomed pendant I designed. I made one for my sister and a slightly different one for myself.
The body was inspired by a typical Bastet silhouette and I added the golden collar with the jewel and the golden earring after seeing something similar on an ancient Egyptian figure. Lapislazuli being such a popular stone in ancient Egypt, I added two beads to the chain ends.
The cat mat was a Christmas gift from my friend.
The cat sat on the mat, a stereotype or a classic? Whatever the answer, Ponder didn't take long to claim this one.
It has never managed to work its charm on Gundel or dem Dekan, though.
Ruscha was a ceramic factory founded in 1905. In 1996, they were taken over by the Scheurich company which used the name Ruscha until 2006.
Beside vases, flower pots and so on, Ruscha was known for their decorative wall plates, especially in the 50s, which came in many different designs, sometimes scratched into the clay, sometimes partially glazed. A lot of them showed animals, among them cats.
Cats were for example part of the "Paris" design which never looked exactly the same, also because the plates were handcrafted. Often there was a young lady at the lamp pole, sometimes with a young man wearing a beret, there was a trash can around the corner or houses in the background.
With its four inch, my little plate was probably too small for more than the cat.
I don't remember who gave those bookends to me, but they do a fine job of holding - cat books, what else?
Bonus cats in the picture are a wooden ring holder cat (with a long tail) and a little amber cat.
As I wrote in this post a few months ago, "I was one of "those" kids ... the kids who never found her name on a mug, on a keychain or on a sticker." So it always had to be custom pieces, like this "Frühstücksbrettchen" (literally "little breakfast board" ("Frühstück" literally means "early piece", by the way)) which people often use for bread instead of a plate, not just for breakfast, but also "Abendbrot" (literally "evening bread"). This one was a gift.
I think those are enough parentheses and quotation marks for one paragraph.
That's it for today.
See you next time - yes, I think there will be more ...
