This craft night was purr-ific.
More than 60 kitty-loving craftswomen gathered over the weekend in Greenpoint for the Brooklyn Craft Company’s Cat Lady Craft Night. Feline fandom is taking the place of another popular form of critter fascination among do-it-yourselfers, according to the event’s organizer.
“I personally am a total cat lady, and the whole lady cat thing is an exploding trend right now. It’s the new ‘put a bird on it,’ ” said Brett Bara, owner of Brooklyn Craft Company, referring to the famous sketch on the television show “Portlandia,” a send-up the hipster mecca that some have argued is Williamsburg’s sister city on the West Coast. “I had a feeling that people would be into it and they were.”
Attendees coughed up $85 for the privilege of drawing cats on mugs, embroidering furry faces onto garments, assembling cat jewelry — to be worn both by nine-lived pets and their owners — sewing mouser tote bags, and gluing together kitty collages. The entrance fee got them craft materials, including a heap of “aw”-inducing images to be used in cat collages.
The craft circle helps breaks the stigma around cat love among ladies, proving that while female kitten-philes might like to crochet, they are not necessarily crotchety, according to one attendee.
“Cat owners are seen as negative, so it is great that they made it into a fun night,” said Tara Borejka, 36, who has one furball named Carbyn at home. “We are not just lonely people living alone with our cats. This gets us together to talk about our cats.”
And talk about their cats they did.
The get-together was the first explicitly cat-themed craft night the Brooklyn Craft Company has held, though whiskered visages have no doubt crept into do-it-yourself projects there before. The group hosts craft sessions and classes in its new studio in a former pencil factory, around the corner from the crowd-funding website Kickstarter’s new headquarters.
