Using Janette Williams’ free Caity Cat crochet pattern, a 4.0 mm hook, and a ball of yarn scraps tied end-to-end, I have spent the past couple of days working to crochet a crochet kitty cat companion for my oldest son’s cat.

While Mr. Bigglesworth had been enjoying the rainbow sunshine and shadow blanket I sent him:

I am also looking to make him a few things to help him find his kitty cat “joi,” and this crochet cat made predomimantly from yarn scraps tied end-to-end is part of my effort.

While I really like the idea of using yarn scraps, when a scrap yarn strand it is used alone (and not paired with a solid strand of yarn), it is somewhat slow going.

Along with managing the challenge of what to do with a knot when it turns out to be inconveniently placed, it’s also easy to skip over a stitch, and mess up the count, so when I started the morning from here:

I didn’t realize quite how long it would take me to get to here:

I had thought that it would take me an hour (two at most), but it wasn’t until I neared the end that I had fully figured out the easiest ways to manage the challenges of the multi-color multi-knotted yarn, and part of that learning process involved a lot of counting and recounting as well as a fair amount of frogging and recrocheting, but once it was done, I was reasonably happy with how it had turned out.

So happy, in fact, I decided to plow forward and use the scrap yarn to crochet the ears, and I did manage to get one done before sunset:

and while on it’s own it looks like a messy blob of yarn ends, when it is laid out “just so” with the body of the crochet kitty cat, it looks (to my mind) just right:

Of course, the final arbiter in all of this will be Mr. Bigglesworth, and it it is just one-tenth as well-received as the blanket, I will be very happy.

Related post: Constant companion