Tag: Knitting with Cats

Hannah’s World: It’s My Birthday!!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I’m exactly 4 months old today. Don’t I look wonderful?

It’s also been a whole month since I came home from the scary cat shelter to live with Kitten Mom. I was really upset the whole way home in the car and then cried whenever I lost sight of her for days. It was a scary time for me. The Kitten Mom petted me a lot, fed me yummy kitten food, and gave me lots of toys. I love my toys!! I take them everywhere with me.

I learned how to climb the screen door.
I started taking naps in the weeping fig tree’s pot.
And I made friends with the hamster. Kitten Mom tells me that her name is Miss Pitty-Pat.
I love Miss Pitty-Pat almost as much as I love my toys.

This week the Kitten Mom and I have been playing in the yarn room (Oh my goodness, you wouldn’t believe all of the exciting stuff that is in that yarn room! I learned how to climb the bookshelf and push down boxes of yarn! I dragged balls of string across the floor and found lots of crinkly bags to sleep on!), and this morning she decided that we could play with some pink and grey yarn. We took the yarn downstairs with some other stuff. Toys!! I was so excited to have another toy. Look at this:

Kind of a funny kitten toy, don’t you think? Still, this could be fun…
Hey, why does this yarn keep moving? This isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.
Wait. There is paper! I like to chomp and chase paper… How nice of the Kitten Mom to put this toy here for me!
Now the Kitten Mom is knitting with that yarn.

See what a good girl I am? I don’t really like to chase the yarn while the Kitten Mom is knitting; I like to eat the papers!! All the papers!! Maybe I can chase them a little too, but mostly I have to tear them into little itty bitty bits. Maybe she will give me papers later…  or some other toys… or just pet me… or…

Hannah, 4 months old.

Maybe when I wake up we can play some more…

Notes from the Kitten Mom:

  • Hannah was the last kitten left in the shelter when I saw her last month. She was a failed adoption who had been returned after three days in her first home. I put her on my lap and petted her for a few minutes as she purred; when I tried to put her back on the ground she cried and clung to me. That was that: I had a kitten.
  • As I filled out her paperwork one of the shelter employees asked if I was prepared to deal with a crying kitten at 3am. Oh. That’s what the problem was, I thought. Hannah cried at me through the window the entire time I was getting the paperwork done. Good set of kitten lungs, I thought.
  • Yep. She glued herself to me for the first 24 hours and cried each time I moved. Poor thing. We got through the night and she continued to stay right with me at all times for the first week. Now she still stays near me and uses me as a huge playmate/cat toy.  Except at night. Then little miss independent rockets around the house with a toy in her mouth. She and Pitty-Pat are best friends.
  • There has been some yarn chomping, but she has already grown out of the behavior. Now she would rather eat the pattern pages.
  • I had desperately wanted a yellow tabby stripped male kitten, but ended up with this tuxedo coated little girl. I have exactly the kitten that is right for me.
  • She doesn’t like kitty cookies: MacKenzie would be so disgusted!

MacKenzie Speaks: Nordiska Sweater is Done!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Do you see how closely I worked with the Mother of Cats this time?

I am happy to announce the arrival of our bouncing baby Nordiska after weeks of effort. I really supervised the Mother of Cats closely this time and kept my paw on the knitting at almost all times, and I do say that my efforts have really paid off.

Looking good, huh! Now that the weather is nice again the Mother of Cats and I are starting to hang out in the yard again.

The Mother of Cats totally freaked out within hours of finishing this sweater and pulled out boxes of yarn to wind for new projects. So emotional, the Mother of Cats. She simply can’t function without me and at least 4 different projects to work on at once. I helped her with all of the yarn winding and we’re hard at work getting new shawls and mitts done now. Next time I write I’ll show them all off!

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The sweater is Nordiska by Caitlin Hunter, and you can find my project notes here.

Here are some of the photos showing the entire knitting process:

Yarn for Nordiska sweater.
The yarns!
The cable detail along the raglan sleeves.
Close-up of the Fair Isle colorwork. I used a slightly darker gray at the bottom of the sweater and you can see the slight difference in the gray in the colorwork.

I posted the picture of MacKenzie sleeping in the knitting to a Facebook knitting group and he already has almost 550 likes. No wonder he has an outsized kitty ego…