I’ve had my attention diverted by cat toys. And string.

Why on earth would cat toys be of interest to me when I don’t have a cat. Not since last year when Thug, and in February,  Mewsley succumbed to old age?

Could it be that we have adopted new cats??!!

I would like to introduce Ziggy and Kitty.

From Kitty & Ziggy

Ben could not stand seeing me so miserable without my furries – all made worse by being made redundant shortly after Mewsley died. I felt I had suddenly lost so much all at once (except the lovely Ben, of course!)

We decided we could give a really good home to a rescue cat (or two) and after falling in love with their pictures on the Battersea Cats Home web site, we became the proud owners of Ziggy and Kitty. Ziggy and Kitty are mother and daughter tortoise shell, aged 7 & 6. Ziggy is brave, fearless and loves to have human company. Kitty  is terribly timid and spend a lot of her time hiding under the bed. Kitty is slowly learning to trust us and not run in terror at every noise and Ziggy is slowly learning that she won’t get fed every time we go in the kitchen! Especially since the vet called her a fattie-cattie and suggested we renamed her to “Piggy” !!

The day after we bought Kitty and Ziggy home – I was offered a new job (I start Thursday!!) Obviously these are lucky cats 🙂

Ziggy (renamed to Ziggy because Ben is a David Bowie fan and she has a stripe down her face like Ziggy Stardust) and Kitty are settling in but have tons of energy! We have been used to having very old cats snoozing on the sofa all day. Ziggy and Kitty pounced, batted and killed every toy we gave them – much to our delight 😀

My good friend Judie came over to meet them and bought a lovely, handknitted gift of two catnip filled whales made with oddments of merino wool. I’m ashamed to say that my new kitties had no respect for Judie’s workmanship and set about destroying her work immediately. The merino yarn was no match for enthusiastic teeth and claws authough they thoroughly enjoyed the “killing”. (Thanks Judie!)

Judie had used the Whale Cat Toy pattern, free on the Simple Knits blog or as a free Ravelry download.

Hmmmm….What do I have in my stash that’s tough enough to match those claws?

String!

I had bought 10 balls of the finest B&Q value string at the bargainous price of 50p a ball with the (long abandoned)idea to make a messenger bag from it.

From Kitty & Ziggy

Hmmm- looks a bit “hard on the hands” doesn’t it?

Good Grief! iIf anyone every says to you, “Knitting with blah blah yarn is like knitting with string”, I would challenge them to really try and knit with string. It’s horrible! I had blisters after an hour just from where in ran though my hands!

But, for the love of my new cats, I was brave and persevered. The pattern is simple, elegant and well written. Unfortunately, I misread the instruction to increase to “a total of 19 stitches”to be “19 stitches either side of the central stitch” (slaps forehead and has a small tantrum at the knitting group). So I ended up with a giant sized whale….and a normal sized whale…and a whale with a picot edge tail (just because I could!)

From Kitty & Ziggy

Each whale has a hastily sewn pouch of catnip leaves and some toy stuffing inside…

From Kitty & Ziggy

And do Ziggy and Kitty like them? Oh yes! They are regularly savaged, kicked chewed and batted. Unfortunately though, neither Kitty or Ziggy realize that they are expected to pose with my knitting in return for their board and lodging yet. Give me time to train them – I did snap an action shot of Ziggy with the toys  though…

From Kitty & Ziggy