good kitty / bad kitty

Watch out! Someone is waiting to pounce on you!



It's Bad Kitty! Be careful - he has razor-sharp fangs and claws!



Don't worry, he's just showing off. He won't really hurt you - he's too busy planning his next prank on his sister, Good Kitty.



Here she is sniffing flowers. Good Kitty loves flowers, butterflies, unicorns and candy. Her favorite color is pink, and when she grows up, Good Kitty wants to be a ballerina or a veterinarian, or maybe an astronaut.



Bad Kitty and Good Kitty are destined to be birthday presents for Miss Jay, who will be five this week. They are named after her two big lazy kitties at home (they have real names, but Jay has re-named them based on their attitudes towards small children).

Making this pair of sock monsters was a treat, for several reasons. It was my first experience with HWWLLB's fabulous sewing machine, which I have been too nervous to use until now - I guess I was afraid I would break it or something. Ha! That Swiss-made sewing machine laughed at my sock monsters, and they were done in a quiet, blissful blink of the eye. My old machine may never see the outside of the closet again.

It was also fun to make these because all the socks were donated by friends: Mitzi gave me the pink ladybug socks that made Good Kitty's sweater, and Bad Kitty's sweater is made from a pair of HWWLLB's old dress socks. Bugheart recently gave me the boot socks that made both kitties' bodies (and I think I got that green ribbon from her, too).

Bad Kitty's fangs and claws are my first attempt at embroidery in about twenty years (I know I tried embroidery, along with cross-stitch, as a kid). Let me tell you, I suck at embroidery. But I loved it! It was fun to be able to add a bit of detail to the monster - I think I will be doing a lot more of it in future. Check out the embroidery detail on Jaypeg's latest monster - I swoon for it.

I was inspired to embroider after Mitzi came over recently for a mini stitch+bitch and was embroidering on a purse she had knitted. We dug out a bunch of my sewing and crafting books to read about embroidery techniques (it was the first time she had done it since childhood, too). Now I am hooked. And even more in love with the beautiful embroidered things people can make - like the beautiful tea leaf detail my sister added to a shirt she gave me last year. The next sock monster will definitely be full of my sloppy embroidery.


the end