Cat and Mouse

This is Erica's darling cat Beezy snuggling with a catnip mouse I knit for  her. Erica and her fiance Kevin adopted two adorable kitties from the shelter a while ago and I gave them each a catnip mouse as a Welcome-to-your-new-home present. Erica emailed me this picture a couple days ago and I just can't STAND it! Beezy is so cute and the image of her taking her mouse up on her bed for a little snooze is more than I can take.

I always wonder what happens to the things I make and giveaway or sell. Most of the time, I never see them again but when I do see my knitted objects in use it gives me such a thrill! I made mittens for a friend in exchange for a papier-mache moose head like what you see displayed on the racks from our craft sale last summer:

and when I see her wearing them it makes me proud. It makes me proud when Erica says her cats have been chasing their catnip mice around the house all day. It made me proud when I saw a picture of a friend of mine wearing a headband I had knitted and given to her. It's nice to know the things I made and put out into the world are making people or cats warm and happy.

I'm usually so absorbed in the process of designing and knitting and less concerned with the outcome. Rarely do I make time to work on a project because I want the end result and I usually give away or sell almost everything I knit; I actually cannot think of a single thing I knit that I still own. So when I see people or animals enjoying the things I've produced it's a nice reminder that I am actually producing a practical, tangible object from those millions of individual stitches that slide across my needles.