What 'Ya Doin'?

I recently posted a travelling interview & discussed what & why I craft.  I'm posting today about a few recently completed projects.

A couple years ago I knitted a blanket for a niece who was getting married.  The yarn was chocolate brown (did I mention niece adores chocolate?) and ultra soft.  So soft that when I tossed the finished blanket on the floor to photograph it, in the time it took me to pick up my camera, the cat had bounded onto the center of the blanket WITH a toy and was all set to play on it.  I felt guilty for shooing her off but couldn't have her getting cat hair on the new blanket.  I probably needn't have bothered as niece has several cats of her own and is crazy about them all.

About a year later, the niece's sister asked if I would knit her a headband/ear warmer.  I agreed and found a pattern similar to the design she liked, and used the leftover brown yarn.  As I worked on the ear warmer I kept the yarn next to me on the sofa.  The cat decided I had obviously put it there just for her and each time it was unprotected, jumped up next to me on the couch, kneaded the yarn into a mess of spaghetti and curled up on it for a nap.  She did this even if the yarn was in a protective plastic bag.  She loves the crinkle of a plastic bag . . .

Headband finished, I presented it to niece and wondered what to do with the little bit of soft brown yarn remaining.  I decided a cushion for the cat's favorite bed was in order. 

I used to get gift baskets delivered to our department at work.  After sharing all the goodies the basket either languished in a closet or was tossed in the trash.  Since I planned the annual golf outing, I decided to keep the baskets and fill them with donated items for our door prizes & drawings.  But when I left that job nobody was interested in the remaining basket so I brought it home rather than contribute it to landfill.  It spent some time on an ottoman waiting for a home until the cat found it and claimed it as her own.  I rescued the shredded paper for another use and filled her "bed" with wadded up plastic bags, stuffed into a small cover.  She loved it.

I decided a soft brown cover would be more comfy than her existing accommodations and set out to knit one from the remaining brown yarn.  Alas, I ran out before it was big enough.  I substituted some similar brown yarn (it was on the bottom so the color change did not show nor would the less soft texture be an issue.

I stuffed the cushion into the new cover and placed it lovingly in the basket . . . and waited.  Kitty was not interested in sleeping just yet.

But a few days later she discovered the newly soft cushion and has hardly left the bed since except for meal time and play time.  A job well done.

Quotable quotes; in the category Waste Not Want Not!

"Time spent with cats is never wasted."  Sigmund Freud