Thanks so much for all of the sweet and kind comments about the new patterns. Since writing them up I've found myself a little feline-fixated and have been knitting cats in all kinds of yarns. With all of the work involved in pattern compiling I miss being mostly a maker, so it's nice to be spending more of my time actually knitting rather than writing about it :)
These kittens are made from mohair yarns (one strand of Rowan Kidsilk haze and one of Rowan kid classic). Mohair is a lovely fibre to work with if you want fluffiness, especially if you brush the knitted surface afterwards. Because the fibres are long and strong (it is often referred to as the diamond fibre and has a higher tensile strength than steel of the same diameter) they can be teased out from the knitted surface using an ordinary hairbrush to give a very fuzzy finish.
Mohair often comes in a very thin yarn, so for the purpose of knitting toys is best used in combination with a strand of another yarn in DK weight. These are the yarns I've used previously: Drops Kid-silk, Austerman Kid silk, Lana Grossa silkhair, Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Debbie Bliss Angel (all are thin mohair/silk mix yarns, so do need to be knitted with another strand of DK weight yarn for any of my patterns).
Anyway, I'm having fun making a little collection of cats that I hope to have for sale later in the year. In fact I've decided to give myself the summer off in terms of working on patterns and instead will be spending my Toby-free time knitting lots of different animals. I have a big basket of unfinished ones (mostly heads) so I've already made a start and I'll keep you posted when they are ready.
It's lovely to see photos appearing in the pattern project pages for the cats. I always enjoy seeing what people are making from the patterns, so if you give any of them a go please consider uploading a picture on the ravelry cat Knit-along for us to admire (we also have Knit-alongs for the other patterns too).
In other news from here we are back to having 3 eggs a day as Hattie has come out of her broodiness. The chickens are all doing well and are still a source of daily amusement with their struttings, scratchings and chicken-ish antics. Talking of the chickens, I better go and give them their second breakfast – they eat a lot and have probably already finished their mash from 7am!
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PS: With all of the extra emails I've been receiving about the new patterns I've fallen a bit behind with my plans for responding to comments on the blog (clearly my best attempts were not quite up to scratch!). I won't now reply to each comment on the previous post about the patterns but I will attempt to reply to comments here from now on. Thanks in advance if you take the time to leave one x
It was hard to decide exactly what sort of cat should be in the pattern – after all there are so many different breeds, from refined pure-bred Persians to lowly but loveable moggies. So because I couldn’t decide I’ve included in the pattern 4 extra head designs which are interchangeable, so you can make either a plain coloured cat, or a cat with a white blaze, a cat with an eye patch, a Siamese cat or a tabby. There are little bits that you can combine from these different designs to make your own unique looking cat, a bit like a selection box (sorry I couldn’t resist taking this photo – hope it’s not too creepy!)
little cotton rabbits 