Crafting a Kitty! Slightly creepy progress!

So before the penguin coasters got finished I got stalled by, not one, but two separate projects that came as kits but did not include enough materials.  I'll rant about each of those in their turn, but for today we'll talk about something that, for the moment at least, is actually getting closer to being done. 

I'll give the full details when its finished, but I'm making a latch hook kitty cat stuffed animal.  I was thrilled when I found this kit in the store as the only things I knew you could make with latch hook previous to this were rugs and wall hangings.  I've long been tempted by the Amigurumi books in the knitting and crochet sections of the craft stores, so this was a pretty close project with a medium I was already familiar with.  My "plan" is to buy many of these kits to try to get a grip on how the patterns come together so that, eventually, I can try my hand at making my own.

That's still a long way off though, and for now I'm working on this black and white kitty.  I'd say I'm currently about 2/3 of the way done with it, and am moderately pleased with my progress.

Work began by hooking all of the kitty pieces.  I finished that in just under a week.  This went so much faster than the rug I was working on before this, probably because there are only two colors and there wasn't much counting needed.  I designated this as one of my "downstairs projects" so I work on it mostly while watching TV.  I discovered that marathons of Criminal Minds make for much latch hooking progress.  I traced all the lines I would need for cutting, which was a bit more difficult than I expected it to be, since all of the corners are in empty space and my brain was having a hard time transitioning between the two.

Then I cut out the first few pieces and began assembly.  I've never really done anything quite like this before, so its been challenging but fun.  I had to stitch up some darts, and a few I had to do twice because they didn't lay right the first time.  Some pieces, like the front and back of the ears, go together pretty easily as they are the same shape.  Others, like the muzzle, were challenging because they are not the same size as the piece you are attaching it to and thus you have to ease it into place.  It's supposed to give the animal more shape and definition, but I'm worried it will end up crazy lopsided.

I finished the head last night after fighting with the ears for far longer than I would like to admit.  I think the muzzle is a little crooked and the ears are not quite balanced.  This made placing the eyes an interesting challenge as they look a bit lopsided, even though they are even with each other.  Hopefully I'm just being overly critical of my own work and it doesn't look too bad.  I may be able to squish it around a bit more once I stitch the body together and stuff him.

Today I worked on the front and back left legs.  The directions were actually mislabeled at one point, so I was really confused until I figured out what I was supposed to do.  Tomorrow I'll be repeating the process with the right side of the body, then I'll be able to stitch on the belly and tail and it should start looking more like a kitty and less like some disassembled body parts.