Recycled Afghan Project in Progress

A few months ago I posted about recycling the yarn from various afghans.  The first one I started with was one that I had made quite a few years ago.  This is the afghan before I took it apart:

When I needed something mindless to work on over the last few months, I pulled out the balls of yarn from this afghan and have been making these 11 x 11 inch squares.  My tentative plan is to sew them together into a rug.  The crocheting is very tight so the squares are pretty sturdy and I think could hold up fairly well as a decorative rug. 

Here are the five squares I've completed so far along with the current balls of yarn I'm working with.  I believe I got about 14 large balls from the afghan:

And here is a closeup of a couple of the blocks.  I just weave in the next color when I run out of the previous one and then trim the ends once the block is done.  I'm using different balls of yarn at the same time to make sure I have enough variety of color in each block.  I'm not real pleased with the one that ended up with so much white, but I'm hoping that if I put it between blocks with only a small amount of white, that it will balance out.

I've been lax lately about taking pictures of the felines, but I did get a couple recently.  Here's miss princess (Sassy) surveying her kingdom from atop the plant shelf.



And poor Echo.  Maya decided that he needed a bath again yesterday *sigh*.  She is very thorough and he is very tolerant except if she tries to wash his private parts LOL.  Yesterday she just licked and licked and licked for about five minutes before he got tired of it and walked away.  She just followed him and started up again LOL.

 











Lots of Cat Mats Done!

When I took my trip to North Dakota recently, I took a lot of yarn with for crocheting cat mats on the plane and when visiting.  It was definitely worth the luggage space it took up.  I even bought two more skeins of yarn while I was there since I was quickly using up what I had brought with me.

I got six done while I was back home.  This picture only has five mats in it because the sixth one was completed in the car on the day I left and I didn't get a picture.  All of these mats were left with my sister to mail to me along with some other things of hers that she is passing on to me.  These weighed just enough to put me over the weight limit for my checked bag.  They also couldn't be put in my carry on because that was jam packed with all of the fabric I had purchased, which weighed far more than the cat mats.  So, they had to stay behind.

I've gotten a few more in this style completed since I've gotten home.  Actually, the colorful one in the picture below was mostly completed on the plane ride home.

I had some other yarn I wanted to use up, a melon color and some black, but rather than alternate the two to make the type of cat mat in the above pictures, I used a J hook and crocheted with two strands at a time, one of each color.  I've never done that before and it was surprisingly easy and didn't take long at all to whip up the mat below.  I will definitely use that technique again, maybe for a scrappy rug for the house.  The colors in the picture look more orange and black, but the reddish yarn was really a melon color.  This style is really thick and sturdy.

Pet Quilts/Pillows

Visit me today at Stash Manicure to check out some of the pet pillows and quilts that I've made for the animal shelters, in addition to the ones I finished recently.  Hope to see you there!

Pet Quilts Finished and Ready to Donate

One of my 2010 goals was to finish the pet quilts I had in progress.  I accomplished that recently.  These aren't the best ones I've done because I didn't think through the edging.  I didn't want to spend the time doing traditional binding for quilts that are going to the animal shelter so I ended up just zigzagging twice around the edge.  I'm not sure how that will hold up, but if they get even some use out of them, I'll be happy. 

I made these quilts to use up some older fabric and to practice my machine quilting skills.  I accomplished both of those things, so if they are short lived so be it.  They are nothing special, but here they are.  We are going on vacation in less than to weeks, so I will give them to our cat sitter for drop off at the Arizona Humane Society.  She volunteers there on practically a daily basis, so I know they will make it there.

And speaking of the pets, I have been taking lots of pictures lately and then haven't gotten around to blogging about any of them, so I'll throw a couple in here.

First up is a picture of Koda and Echo hanging out.  I don't know which one was there first, but it's not unusual for them to lay near each other.  They've always been good buddies.  Koda has always been fascinated with Echo, and Echo doesn't mind the dogs at all, maybe because they were his first friends here.  Both he and Sassy had to be quarantined from the other cats for two weeks due to kitty colds, but the vet said they could interact with the dogs so we introduced the dogs while they were in quarantine.  A few days ago, Koda even allowed Echo to not only lay by him while he was chewing a bone, but then lay on the bone so Koda couldn't get to it.  Koda tries to play with Echo sometimes, like he's another dog, and Echo just bats at him like he would a cat and they both get a little confused by the other's behaviour and finally give up.

And here's Sassy curled up sleeping, or at least that's what she appears to be doing.  She's probably just figuring out what to get into next.  She's learned a few new tricks lately that aren't good.  I have been meaning to write about them, but have been so busy lately that I haven't gotten as much blogging done as I would have liked.  But, I have been getting lots of quilting and household projects done, as well as work stuff, so it's definitely been productive around here.