Trouble on four legs

Sewing, dogs I've spent the last half hour trying to work on a long-stalled sewing project - a tiered skirt made out of a sari scarf that I bought at a second hand stall around 7 months ago. I found the project bag (a challenge in itself, in the midst of so much fabric and yarn, and after a house move), sorted out the pieces, trimmed a couple and started pinning.

Then I get a call from J - can I come downstairs, please? The reason?

Apparently, she's been working herself into a frenzy because I was in the room with the chinchillas, and she wasn't. She's not allowed in the chinchilla room because she's too likely to jump up at the cage, and the cage is not stable enough to stand it. We're going to build a new cage.

Now I'm downstairs, of course, she's ignoring me completely. It's not my company she wants, it's chinchilla-privileges.

The skirt? In pieces:

...and not likely to make any more progress this evening, either. It's pretty fabric, though:

Close-ups of the paisley design and the deep border: