Introducing the Disappointing Kitten Thing

You know, for something that started out ostensibly as a knitting blog, there has not been a lot of knitting featured here lately.

There are a couple of reasons behind this:

• As far as crafty girls go, knitters are the riders of the short bus. Those who sew can whip out prodigious amounts of amazing and creative product in what seems like the blink of an eye. Whereas we knitters plod along with our yarn and our sticks. We're slow. (or at least, I am!)
  
  
• I really have been knitting - but I haven't been finishing anything.
  I've got too many projects going on and I just need to buckle down and finish something.
  I'm making slow progress on the Irish Hiking Scarf, plus I'm making a whole slew of bears. Five to be exact. I've got about two and a half of them done, so I'm literally halfway there. I've not taken a picture of them, though, because I figured you all might be tiring of bears. First there was BabyHenry, then Chubbins, and then Miss Laurie. I figure I won't subject you to each individual bear - but you might have to endure a group photo when the clan is all done.
  
  Oh yeah, I still have something that I started for a friend a month ago, and all I need to do is finish two tiny little things and then put it all together - but I seem to never get this done...

Anyway - in keeping with my "not finishing something before I start the new thing" theme, I got an idea, and I had to drop everything to try and create this thing in my head....

I had so much fun with the DomoKun, and he was such a quick little knit and is so pleasing to hold that I wanted to experiment with the "bean bag" format further. Also, I wanted to try my hand at intarsia. So somehow I decided that I wanted to try to knit a stripey kitten.

I got out Excel and plotted the whole thing out and then set to work. The above picture is the final result. I'm not real pleased with him, so I think that I am not going to bother to put him all together. Finishing/assembling is my least favorite part of any project - and since I'm on the fence about him, I'm not going to invest the time right now.

Things I like about the Disappointing Kitten Thing: I did a fairly good job with the intarsia. It was awkward to do and I had a bazillion strands all over the back, but I managed it all. And I even did a nice job of weaving in all the sticky outy bits in back. I also really like the concept of the stripes... the way that they frame his face (the back is a solid set of light orange/dark orange stripes) Finally, I like the fact that I am starting to be able to imagine my own stuff, even if it's not necessarily turning out the way that I wanted....

Things I don't like about DKT: I never did get his expression the way I wanted it to look. I wanted him to have more personality than he ended up with. Also, I made a dumb mistake - due to the fact that I created the pattern for the front of him, then the back of him, and then I ended up modifying the front without modifying the back. His stripes are 4 rows high in front, only 3 rows high in back. It's not the end of the world, but it is going to bug me.

So - thank you for allowing me to introduce the partially completed Disappointing Kitten Thing!