Kitty Kat Transport 2.0

Version 2.0 featured update based on the many lessons I had learned from 1.0. First, hand sewing those letters on was a giant pain in the ass, and didn't offer the impact I was looking for. So somewhere I found some iron on letters. I think leftover from some project in an old Dynamite magazine.

Much better as far as readability and amount of effort required for the end result. Then I made sure this time I chose a leg from Levi's Jeans, nice heavyweight denim. I reused the strap from 1.0 and this time made sure to really anchor it both on top and bottom with tons of stitches that, frankly, look like monkeys may have sewn them. Whatever.

This time was a success as far as the look I was after and durability. Sadly, though another design issue quickly became apparent. The leg piece was just too long and narrow and the kitten didn't seem to want to be confined that far down. But this time I did manage to make it all the way down the block to my best friend Angie's house for a quick game of, "Guess what's in the bag!". But I carried him home in my arms, and the carriers were never actually used again. Interesting that they ended up being saved for all these years.

My First Time

Okay, I can't say for sure that this is the first thing I ever made from fabric all by myself, but it is definitely the earliest example I have of my hand sewing technique. (It hasn't gotten too much better!) I was 9, and I had just gotten a new kitten, a white little fuzzball I named Pegasus, after the mythological winged horse, and I wanted to take him everywhere with me. He was too big to fit in my pocket like some rodent pets I had owned in the past, so I used a the leg from some jeans my mother had made into cut-off shorts to fashion a kitten carrier. So ahead of my time! Everyone has a version for their little dogs now!

From the big ugly green sewing basket that used to be my great grandmother's, I managed to find some different colored threads and stitched this masterpiece...freehand if you can believe it! In an early show of personality, I purposely misspelled cat with a "K" so the name of the bag would match my initials, K.K. The bag didn't serve its purpose very long, as the hand-sewn carrying strap turned out to be no match for the weight of my kitten. (No kittens were harmed though!) The strap was reused in the new improved 2.0 version.

The Curse of Eclectic Taste

Some of us are just born with it. It isn't much of a handicap if you're ridiculously wealthy. However, if you are like most folks and are living a life of mostly-just-keeping-the-bills-paid, it can be extremely frustrating.

When my personal sense of style first started to whisper to me that the unspoken but universally accepted late 70s/early 80s public grade school "uniform" of an Izod shirt and Jordache or Calvin Klein jeans was perhaps not all there was in the world, the clothing and accessories I could find at the stores were, for the most part, not especially appealing. And often not in my price range. Not to mention the fact that I am shorter than average and not junkie-skinny. Oh the years I endured ill-fitting, well, everything! And I began to realize that I just didn't want what everyone else had. I wanted more. I had no choice but to try and make it myself.