Getting Stitched on the Farm

Our Fat Cat Makes Knitscene

Cookie is our year old ginger cat. He and his sister Ginger were Lilly Pons' first set of kittens last August and they are still living here happily with us and the menagerie of animals we call family. Cookie is a monster - big and fluffy with an attitude. He prowls the yard and the fields as if he is king of all. I used him as the model for my new project in the Fall issue of Interweave's Knitscene Magazine.


When the Knitscene designer package came through this past winter, the editors were calling for projects that combined knitting, felting, embroidery and more. That kind of thing is right down my alley and so I signed on for a "Fat Cat." The yarn is Classic Elite's Renaissance but my Julia Wool/ Mohair/ Alpaca would work beautifully too. I knit a piece in the round combining stripes and little bits of Fair Isle. Then I threw it in the washing machine to felt. When it was felted enough, I cut the tube down the center and cut out these pieces - two bodies, four "arms", four "legs" and a little heart (not shown). Note how the appendages were cut so the stripes are diagonal for interest. I worked the legs and arms together with blanket stitch and stuffed them, sewed the heart on the body, embroidered a face and then sewed the whole thing together enclosing the appendages in the seams.

Julia was in tears as I stuffed him into the Fedex package. He went en route to the photo shoot a la "Flat Stanley". (I have promised her another one since I won't get mine back - add it to the list!)

Lucky for you, this project is on the Knitscene website. Here's the link for the entire set of directions and pattern pieces in a PDF file: Knitscene PDF File for Fat Cat. If you make one, Julia and I would love to see a photo of your version.

The nice thing about this project is you can use felted bits of old sweaters or failed projects. A texture stitch would work out too. And if you're not in as much of a hurry as I was, add some whiskers! Doesn't that parking lot at Staples make a nice textured background?