Book arrival

Woohoo!  My copy of Stitch n' Bitch Nation arrived in the mail today!  Free books are a wonderful thing.

Working on a couple of catnip mice, which taught me how to do bobbles.  Or rather, how to attempt to do bobbles, reason that the cats will only chew on them, and to leave well alone.  Also learned this about hand felting cat toys:

• It takes a while
• A long while
• Hot water helps
• Boiling water is not a good idea
• Poking the wet mouse in boiling water with a dishwashing brush doesn't help it felt
• Boiling water makes wool smell funny
• Never even consider putting your wet knitting in the oven to dry.
• It looked fine before you tried to felt it anyway
• It's a cat toy.  It's going to get drooled on, bitten, kicked, scratched, clawed, and otherwise abused, just let it be.
• Step away from the microwave
• Kitchen roll holders make good temporary drying racks for wet mice
• It takes ages to dry
• Put the hairdryer down
• Start another mouse for pity's sake, and let the first one dry naturally
• Never try hand felting anything ever again

So cat toy #2 will not be felted, just stuffed, sewn and given to the cat.  They won't care so long as it has a nice long tail, it's all about the string for them.  Both of them are made with the leftovers from the Coronet hat, Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted yarn in Raspberry.