Pussy Pleasure (Annie's New Toy)

I apologize upfront. I couldn't resist the title. But it is fitting, as one of my latest projects was all about making a finicky yellow tabby named Annie happy. Annie is one of my mother-in-law's familiars. She's sassy. She's small. She's picky. She's... well, a cat.

I got the idea as I was diligently crocheting my scrap flowers for promos/gifts/sales/etc. Annie kept playing with all of my yarn, but especially the alpaca. Plymouth makes an alpaca yarn called "Baby Alpaca Brush". I don't even know if you can propertly call it a yarn. It almost feels like pulled roving, and it's divinely soft. It's one of my favorite retail fibers. Apparently, it's one of Annie's favorites, too.

I had just gotten to the end of the ball, and I knew I didn't have enough for a full flower. I figured, what the hell, I'll make Annie a toy. A few double crochets, two pony beads, and a long tail later, I had a toy that looked eerily like a mouse.

Annie took to it instantly. In fact, Annie fought with her fellow cat Max over this toy for a few minutes. And I'm told these two cats generally do not share or fight over toys. We then tried something my mami does with her cat's toys; we put it in a jar of catnip and shook it up a bit. Out emerged a toy coated in catnip. This went over famously with both cats.

And so, in the future, I may be creating cat toys instead of flowers with my animal-based fibers. Because this one got such rave reviews!

Lessons learned:
1) Sometimes, you can make a toy for a cat that it actually loves.
2) Sometimes, making that toy becomes an unspoken truce between you and that cat to leave the rest of your fiber stash alone.
3) Cats are funny when they're high on catnip.

And that was my good deed for that day: I made a pussy happy.