And the ears. Eek. If I attached them before I felted them, they didn't hold that nice triangular shape, they'd bow out in the middle and looked more like a leaf than an ear. And I just couldn't figure out why - I guess I have to chalk it up to the nature of the beast. But oddly enough, when I made seperate ones and then attached them after felting, the head was easier to shape, and the ears had nice definition. YAY! Ear problem was solved, well, sort of.
So back to those pesky eyes. I finally chopped off the threads attached black beads to my gray tabby (my first born) and he was blind for a while. Everyone I showed him to kept asking where his eyes were. I didn't know......and then I had to move, so the blind cat and his three unfelted friends went in a dark box for a month. I made other crafts from the original kitty drawings I did in the meantime. And then I HAD to finish these guys.
So I was limited by my wool yarn choices and used paton's merino. Except they don't make a baby pink, and I needed a baby pink because cat nose's AREN'T magenta. And if they are, the cat's been putting it's nose in some paint. Which they sometimes do... I tried kool-aid dying some white and used that on my gray tabby, but it just wasn't "it". And I decided to use felt for the nose and inside the ears. And then I thought to try felt for the eyes - I could use a french knot and a straight stitch for the highlights on the eyes just like the drawings I did. YAY! I actually liked my kitty now. He was no longer blind and now he matched the drawing.And today I finally finished the others, so I had to take a picture and show someone or a lot of people. They're 3 1/2 inches tall and took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to knit the body, maybe 30 minutes to embellish after felting.
