About two weeks before Christmas I decided I ought to make these adorable cat dolls I'd been eying up in Hilary Lang's book, "Wee Wonderfuls". I decided that I would make six of them for the six children in my family. As I pressed the fabric and traced the pattern there was a tiny voice in my head telling me that I was insane. That it was two weeks till Christmas, and if that wasn't enough, we were leaving for holidays in about eight days. As I picked up my shears and began to cut, I knew I was in for it.
We began to refer to the project as the "bag of cats". We had a bag stuffed with enough arms and legs and heads and tails for six cats, along with their tiny half-finished dresses and all our supplies. It became a fixture on the hook, on the table, in the car... and nightly was being brought out to create an assembly line of stuffing, sewing and snipping. My husband became lead stuffer as I whip-stitched like crazy, trying to get these guys done before Christmas.
The night before leaving for our trip we had two of them done. I didn't even get a chance to shoot a photo of them before they were whipped into a bag and taken away to sit under a tree we'd be missing out on this year. I'm really missing my nieces, and wishing I could be with them this year, and I hope their wee cats will make their eyes shine.
The remaining four cats were packed back into their bag and whisked away with us to Seattle. I spent a long border wait whip stitching heads and arms and tails, watching them become their cute little cat selves. Gabe joined in at our hotel that night and by midnight before our flight we were done.
Two wee cats for Gabe's little sisters and two wee cats for my own two little kittens.
In the end, I really really wished I had started that sooner. But to be able to give all my kids some handmade love in the best way I know how, makes every stitch worth it.
