I am a collector of patterns. Added to my library in September 2016 was the Crochet Cat pattern by Repeat Crafter Me.
I thought the quirky kitties absolutely adorable and imagined a myriad of colour possibilities.
My daughter was invited to a birthday party this weekend. Her friend loves ‘turquoise and bluish’, cats and horses. I showed this pattern to my daughter – she thought it cute. I didn’t have the right colour blue in aran weight so I thought two strands of DK would work nicely instead. We settled on a combination of Turquoise and Empire in Stylecraft Special DK acrylic yarn. The result is a blue tweed effect that suits this cool cat to a T.
I am not a very tight crocheter so I omitted the chain 1 at the end of each round. Had I included the chain 1, I would have ended up with holes all along the ends of rows from top to bottom. Omitting the ch-1 kept my work as neat as it could be.
To make the tail bendy, the pattern suggests using a pipe cleaner. In addition to following the pattern instructions, I folded 5mm of the pipe cleaner ends back on itself – this way if the pipe cleaner did poke through the crochet, it wouldn’t be a sharp end and far less likely to scratch the skin. I left a gap of about 2cm between the end of the pipe cleaner and the end of the crochet tail.
The pattern doesn’t state how much stuffing to use. Overfilling can stretch the stitches allowing the stuffing to show – not a good look. Over-stuffing the head, as I’ve discovered in other projects, can make it heavy and put too much strain on the ‘neck’. Over-stuffing the head can also cause issues with safety eyes and noses. I kept the head fairly soft, the body a bit more firm .
To add a bit of weight to the body, I inserted an organza bag filled with polyethene pellets and stuffed polyester filling around and over it.
If you are used to working in the round, this pattern is very easy to follow. If you’ve never worked in the round, this is a great pattern to learn how to do so. The cat is worked in parts – head, body, ears and tail. It can be worked in any weight yarn – the thicker the strand, the larger the end result – conversely, the thinner the strand, the smaller the end result.
Tension can affect the size and appearance as well. For a neater finish, you do want to keep your tension consistent and quite firm. The tighter the tension, the tighter the stitch – the firmer you can stuff the form. The looser the the tension, the looser the stitch – you’ll have to take more care when stuffing to not stretch the work or you’ll have the fill material showing through stitches.
This cat was for a 13-year old girl and is not a toy. Safety eyes and noses can be pulled out of the work if the tension is not tight enough or the object is handled by a very determined youngster. If I were to do this for a younger child, I would use only fire retardant toy grade stuffing, work the tail differently (no pipe cleaner or other wires) and embroider the eyes and nose.
That is all for this week. Hope y’all have a fabulous, yarny week!
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