I'm a Cat Walker...

K is carrying on a tradition of sorts in our family, she is learning how to walk our cats outdoors on a leash. You see, our cats are indoor cats (because the current state of the world is just too cruel, and we would never want anything to happen to them), but we know they long to be outside exploring and munching on grass. Our compromise is to get them outdoors for a couple of hours at a time but on a leash.



My family used to do this with our cat when I was growing up, too. I can still see her in her collar and leash munching on grass by the deck at my Mom's house.



Now it's K's turn to keep this fun tradition going. We just started recently and so far two of our four cats are loving it. The other two are too jumpy to take outside just yet, unless an adult is walking them. K absolutely loves it. It helps to bring her closer to her furry friends while teaching her responsibility and building her confidence.



C will get her turn, too, once she is a little bit older. I know she can not wait!



So many memories came flooding back to me of walking my first cat as I was typing this post so I thought I would share a couple pictures I have of her out and about. I used to have more but can't seem to find them now. She traveled all over the world with me and was always out to explore her new surroundings. She was a well traveled cat, let me tell you!
*Little Warning - these pictures are copies of my original pictures. The quality of these are pretty horrible (and grainy, and washed out, oh I could go on and on) due to being copies. I took these pictures many years ago with my beloved manual film camera.


Kevin walking my kitty in South Korea (told you she went everywhere!)


Kevin walking her in the alley behind our home in South Korea

And just because I found these while looking for my cat walking pictures... a couple shots from our time living in South Korea. I have a lot of beautiful images I took of the temples and life there, but again they seem to have disappeared *sigh*. We loved living there and I hope we get to bring the girls there someday.


Cartoon cardboard stand ups outside of a military building




The DMZ

Thanks for letting me share! Wishing you all a beautiful weekend!

I'm a Cat Walker...

WIP Wednesday : Adventures

Yummy yarn

I finished up quite a few things during my time away but since I was taking a break from my camera as well, I didn't get any pictures. Go figure. That is something I shall have to remedy soon, but in the meantime here are a couple things I do have pictures of.



I mentioned working on a project for K's skuut bike adventures awhile back.
When we take longer nature walks, or when we are trying to wear out the dogs, K rides her skuut bike along side us. She loves riding it and from the way she rides it, I think she'll be on a traditional bike by next summer (we chose to have her learn to ride on a balance bike instead of a traditional bike with training wheels, to avoid training wheels all together). The only problem she has with riding her bike is that she has no place to put all of her nature treasures. She tries to carry them in her hands while riding but she always finds so much more than she could possibly hold on to. I promised her I would figure something out. I really wanted to get her a basket to put on the front of her bike but a.) I didn't know if a basket would fit on her bike and b.) money is always an issue. So that idea was scrapped. Then I happened to look over at my scrap fabric pile and thought I could just sew her a little bag.

I took some measurements of the front of her bike and her handle bars and just winged it from there. I used some dark corduroy fabric with acorns on it that I bought years ago for some random project that never happened. Although I stay away from dark colors with things for the girls, it seemed perfect for this project because her bike is always covered in mud and this would hide dirt. I used some bright pink on the inside for the liner fabric to make up for it, too.



Her bag needed some kind of extra something, something. K loves embroidery so I thought I would embroider a couple of flowers and a simple word to finish it off. I sewed some pink ties to the back of it (one for each handle bar and one in the middle of the bag to tie around the front part of her bike), and it was done. I surprised K on our next nature walk with it, and she really put it to the test.



Mother nature helped a bit with testing it as well, she was pouring rain on us, but we carried on. One thing we have learned so far from living in Oregon is if you don't get outside in the rain, you won't get outside at all!



Another couple of projects I worked on are for an upcoming adventure - K's first day of school! The school has quite a list of things required for each child to keep at the school, so this means we need two of a lot of basic things (one for school, one for home). I knit her another gnomie gnome hat (notes here, made some alterations) in some super soft rainbow yarn she picked out herself (from inspired mama makes) to keep at school. Since this will be a gift for her first day of school I had C model it for the picture.



She also needs a pair of waterproof mittens so I am trying the felted mittens pattern in an old issue of Living Crafts. They are about halfway done, I just need to knit the cuffs and sew them on.



Wow, that was quite a bit for one post, wasn't it? More to come soon!
Happy creating everyone!!

WIP Wednesday : Adventures