Doll

Here she is- Kitty # 4

She is 16″ tall and made of mohair. I made her a little red crocheted hat- these hats were really fun to make-

and here is the whole litter-

and a close-up of their faces.

This is the last of making kitties for a while. These have been lots of fun to work on. Thanks Claire for this great inspiration. I can’t wait to see all the entries for The Month of Softies, when they are posted at the end of the month.

About the kitties-each one is slightly different. Four different noses and 3 different leg designs. I didn’t spend any money making these. They were completely made out of stuff I already have- Yes! Making the hats is the one thing that will probably carry over to my other doll-making.

I am finishing up kitty #4. She is a black and white kitty, knitted with mohair. This turned out to be harder then the other ones. I couldn’t see my stitches and that made keeping track of what I was doing very difficult. On the other hard, it hides any mistakes!

I first tried to follow the same basic pattern as the other kitties. Unfortunately, knitting in a white nose just wasn’t working out. The white mohair I had was thinner then the black.

I took this out and decided to knit a separate piece that would become the sewed on nose. I finished up everything else and when I stood her up, I had a serious case of mushy feet. The black mohair knitted up into a great (for this purpose) dense fabric. The white was too soft, especially for feet.

Off with the feet! I cut them off, picked up the stitches and reknit them.

Much better!

I found perfect button eyes for her- after much searching through my button stash. I forgot I had these. My stash is mostly single buttons, which rarely turn out to be useful. Now that I look at the picture though, I think I need to adjust the eye placement a bit… something looks skewed to me. Tomorrow I will post pictures of her dressed. I made another little crocheted hat and it is drying right now after starching and blocking.

Snowstorms leave me feeling very unsettled. We ended up with 30″ of snow after the weekend storm and now it is snowing again. It has been all day. There’s nowhere to shovel the snow.

Here is my main workspace, now that I am out of the attic until warm weather returns. That is kitty #4 in the pile- Black and white mohair. Last night my family asked me- what is it with the cats? I guess it’s time to get back to people dolls.

I brought the paints down and worked a bit on these. I had to repair some love bites that my alive kitty made. Apparently doll hands are a delicacy.

Everybody looks better with hair.

She’s finished! She’s 13 1/2 inches high. I even made a hat. It is crocheted. Here it is being blocked- I had a hard time figuring out how. I starched it too.

This is the back. I used snaps instead of making actual button holes.

Side view-

and a face and hat close-up-

Try number 3. The yarn I used was recycled from something and I decided to wash and block it when I got done with the head, body, legs part.

Then I attached the arms and tail and stuffed it-

I have been using black stuffing for these last two darker colored kitties. I did more shaping on the legs for a more realistic(?) look. Now for facial features and clothes.

The resident house cats are finding winter to be very boring in the house. Mango thought he’d take a taste of some of my doll hands. Luckily I was sitting right there when he gave it a try, so not too much damage. Actually, maybe he was trying to tell me that I wasn’t paying enough attention to him.

This is what my garden gnomes do in the winter-

They become weather gnomes!

Hey, the snow really came! This is out our backdoor.

We live right up the street from the grocery store and every time there is a prediction of a snowstorm, chaos ensues. Yesterday our street was busier then the day before Thanksgiving. The store’s parking lot was full and people were parked all the way up the street. It’s funny really. Many times the storms amount to nothing. This time the forecasters were right! We’ve got at least 20 inches and lots of drifting. It is too high to clear it with the snowblower.

Here she is, all dressed. Well, she probably needs a bow or a hat, but I’ll wait until I find the perfect thing. Isn’t this fabric just exactly right?! I only had a little bit, but managed to make the dress-

It has been very cold for the last week. That and a $50 increase in our electric bill, which I can only imagine came from using my space heater in December, has inspired me to move out of the attic and downstairs to Eleanor’s room, now that she is back at college.

So far today, it has meant a lot of running upstairs to find buttons or thread in the colors I need.

I’ve got another one knitted but not dressed. That ring around the neck is just a piece of paper for her dress pattern.
I made the nose on this one in a different way- the orange cat has a nose made like a heel of a sock, the black cat has a nose like the shoulder increases on a top-down raglan sweater! -then deceases. Now does that make sense to anyone but me?! I am working on a third one, grey this time, and trying the sock heel method again. I like it better. I am trying very hard to keep track of what I’m doing in a notebook… that is really not part of my nature.

my flower seeds came yesterday… the first step towards spring!