This is one of my favorite times of year; the pollen has dropped and been washed away, the days are long and growing longer, and that are moments, like today, when the temperature and humidity are just right.

And it was in what can best be described as ideal crochet weather that I found myself on my back deck.

With the Peace Sign Soccer Ball done, I looked at my have resumed work on the rainbow of scrap yarn crochet cats (aka “scrap cats”) that I have been making using my generous stash of yarn scraps and this free crochet cat pattern.

To begin, I finished most of the crochet work on the blue scrap cat that will be part of the final rainbow, and that not-quite-finished cat can be seen here with its not-quite-finished pink companion:

and even though they need faces and ears and tails, I decided that instead of finishing these cats, I would move forward with one of the four remaining scrap cat “bases,” and I settled on the one I had crocheted with the new (and newly discontinued) Red Heart Super Saver Accent paradise:

Initially I had concerns that the paradise might not coordinate well with the colors that predominate my current scrap yarn ball, but once I began moving forward, the paradise almost had the characteristics of a neutral, playing nicely with the hot red, shocking pink, amethyst, purple, bright yellow, spring green, pumpkin, and even some small bits of pastel leaning colors that had worked their way into the yarn pile that eventually became this scrap yarn ball.

Then, despite the wonderful weather and the increasingly longer daylight, the sun began to set.

I got out my camera, document the day’s efforts, and got this group photo of the cats in their various states of undoneness:

as well as this photo of them standing guard:

I learn something from each project I do. From the soccer ball, I reawakened my pattern writing skills, and while I don’t yet know what I will learn from this project, I know I will learn something, and I will go after that knowledge the only way possible: one stitch at a time.