And Away We Go!

Hello all.  I've finally decided to jump on the blog bandwagon and see what I can do.  If you aren't a fan of yarn, cats, yarn, knitting, yarn, crocheting, and yarn this probably isn't the place for you because that's what I tend to go on about.  Frequently.  And at great length.  For instance...

Today was vet day.  That meant getting two adorable cats into their respective carriers before they turned into evil, razor clawed fiends and listening to the endless cacophony of howls from the back seat on the trip there.  Happily my darling beasties are in perfect health.  Well, almost perfect health.  Turns out that my great plans of healthy kitty lifestyle is only working on one of them.  Cassandra weighed in around 13ish pounds which is heavier than I would like but at least she didn't gain anything this year.  Her sister, Calliope, did.  My little chub-butt Calliope is up almost a pound and a half to 15 pounds.  She's supposed to weigh 10 or 11.  They aren't overfed (and my vet does agree with me on that count, it isn't just me thinking they aren't overfed) so I'm not sure what exactly is causing the problem.  To prevent my girls from getting heavier we are going to start some kitty calisthenics and anything else I can think of to get their weight down.

Enter the yarn.  To get the beasties more active I'm going to try making them a variety of toys in the hopes that it helps get them moving a bit more.  I crocheted them a mouse not all that long ago but they don't go after it as much as I would like.  Maybe it needs catnip, or a rattle, or me to put it where the cats aren't supposed to go.  It's hard to tell with cats.  Honestly it would probably be faster for me to go buy some milk and give them the little plastic bit that milk bottle caps are sealed on with, but that wouldn't be as much fun. I'm thinking maybe some different sized mice, maybe a few balls, and a couple of pretzel-y things that they can drag around the house and chew on.  Once I get going at it I'll post the patterns for whatever it is I come up with.  If anyone has a "tried and true" cat toy pattern in knit, crochet, or macrame I would love to know what it is. I've not played with macrame yet but it looks like the sort of thing you could make really nice, chewable toys out of.