At first I couldn’t decide what to knit on the plane. While I was thinking about it I took out the leftover Tonalita and idly knit fifteen rounds of ribbing, then some stockinette, then started to increase for a gusset. I just sort of made them up as I went along, and I wrote down everything I’d done so that I could have some hope of making a second armwarmer just like the first one.

By the end of the flight I’d gotten up to the part where I would set aside stitches for the thumb, decided that I wouldn’t make individual fingers on these due to the thickness of the yarn, and written down what I think will be the rest of the pattern. I could probably finish the first one in less than an hour, and the second one will take about two hours to knock out.

If I were being more picky about the “as I go along” armwarmers, I would put four more stitches into the ribbing to make it easier to get over my hand, even though it’s the right size for my scrawny wrist. I’d spread out the gusset increases over a few more rounds, because I reached the target number of stitches before I’d reached the base of my thumb. But I’m not being picky, because they’ll look totally fine, and I have no plans to write up or publish this pattern.

(Technically, I was the guest in the cat’s house. She’s just a guest on my blog.)

Today’s Feline Friday is brought to you by Keta, small and grey, who lives with my sworn-brother Stephen. Every so often she would look up at me and say “mraaaaaaah.” I’m not sure if that means “give me treats,” or “what the heck are you doing in my house, human?” or if it’s just a friendly hello.

She was very patient about letting me take pictures of her. Here she is showing off her super-fancy Soft Paws, which prevent her from tearing the carpet into small ragged bits. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to apply these to Floyd and Kipling’s claws, but I think I could probably only successfully get them onto Floyd. The claws still need to be trimmed before the Soft Paws go on, and if I can get Kipling’s claws trimmed then he wouldn’t need the Soft Paws in the first place.

Unlike Floyd and Kipling, Keta is happy to sit right beside the fire. (Unlike my fireplace, this one is gas and less likely to startle cats with sudden noises.) Whenever we had it burning, she was up on the hearth soaking in the warmth. I can’t say that I blame her!

Keta’s favourite toy is a small rubber alligator, which she carries around the house with her. It seems to be the only toy she’s interested in, though she did stare pretty intently at my yarn while I was finishing up the Warm Hat, and once or twice considered making a grab for the dangling ends.

Thanks for being a guest cat on today’s Feline Friday, Keta!

On Saturday afternoon I cast on for the Hurricane Hat while sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home, and knit fairly steadily on it through the afternoon and the rest of the weekend. By Sunday night I thought I had gotten far enough to do the decreases, but when I’d broken the yarn and tried on the hat, it was about two inches too short. I guess I’d misinterpreted the pattern where it said “five inches” to mean from the cast on, and not just the patterned part of the hat. Since the brim of this hat isn’t meant to turn up, it needs to be exactly the right height, so I ripped back to just before the decreases. At least the width of the hat was right! I had been a little worried, since I’d done no swatching or anything, that it might have been a little on the small side, but it fits really well. Hopefully it doesn’t stretch out too much with wear.

After work on Monday I got back to it and in an hour or so had re-finished the top of the hat. When I had to join yarn ends, I untwisted the single, split it in two and broke off one piece on either end, then intertwined the two halves and rubbed them together until they stuck. I didn’t bother using any water to felt the ends together as it didn’t seem like the ends would wriggle out at all when they were knitted together. On the other hand, when I wove my final end in I was probably more careful than necessary to make sure that it wouldn’t ever come loose.

The Hurricane Hat pattern is available for free at String in Motion. It is a quick cute knit, definitely suited for the soft stripes of this yarn. It would work nicely with a semi-solid or tweedy yarn as well, but the texture might be lost in a wildly variegated colourway.

I really like the way the purl stitches spiral up into the top of the hat to make the eye of the hurricane, and could see doing a similar swirl motif with twisted stitches or traveling decreases and hidden increases. I get more and more design ideas from nearly every project I knit! Now, if only I had the time to work them all up… though I do seem to be getting faster at this knitting thing. One hat in two days, another hat in three days? (And it would have been another two day hat, if I hadn’t had to re-do the top.) Pretty fast indeed!

I’m happy with the finished hat, but not thrilled. On the plus sides, the swirly pattern is appealing and the colour of the yarn matches my eyes. I think this hat will go perfectly with my gray coat. On the minus side, the yarn was fairly expensive for its quality and it seems like the hat will last only a few seasons before it gets covered in pills. While that does give me an excuse to knit yet another hat in a year or two, I’d rather have clothing that lasts a little longer, especially if I’m going to the effort to make it myself.

The Tonalita yarn was interesting to work with – not awful, but not great either. It’s half wool and half acrylic, spun up into a loose soft singles yarn which is quite soft, but it splits easily and so I had to be a little more careful with it than usual. In some places it was significantly thicker than others, but the differences are almost imperceptible in the finished product. It’s a little thick for the US 6 needles I used, especially when it came time to do the decreases, but I like the way the fabric turned out for this kind of hat. The label suggests a US 9 needle, which would give a fabric with a lot more drape. I barely had to dip into the second ball of yarn to finish the hat, and I’m considering using the leftovers to make armwarmers, maybe with a light neutral yarn for contrast colourwork. There is certainly enough remaining. I just wonder if armwarmers wouldn’t pill up so fast in this yarn, due to the extra wear that they’d see on my hands and wrists as opposed to on my head.

The outside of the ball of yarn is even and smoothly wound, with each strand laid comfortably against the next, but the inside has this fascinating star shape to it. I found myself wondering about the yarn-winding machine, and what sort of movements it would need to make to create this loose star on the inside but a rounded ball on the outside.

It had come to my attention that I’ve never knit anything for my sworn-brother Stephen. When he was living in a mostly-summerish place it would have been unnecessary, but he could certainly use a warm hat now that he’s living in the land of eternal winter. I ran over to Needles in the Haymarket and found some Cascade 220, my go-to hat yarn, in a lovely heathery grey-green. Unfortunately the selection of superwash colourways was limited, so this isn’t a machine washable hat, but Stephen assured me that he would be fine with hand-washing as long as I gave him instructions.

I cast on for the hat while I was waiting for my flight. I knit at the gate, where I met some knitters who were winding balls of yarn. I knit for the full duration of my flight, while sitting next to a woman who used to knit but now prefers crochet. I knit while watching television later that evening, and about 36 hours after I started, I was weaving in the ends of a new hat. This is a speed record for me!

There was already snow on the ground and more fell while I was visiting. I think this expression is, “Take the picture already, it’s cold out here!”

I chose the free Cousteau Hat pattern and made a few adjustments to it. From comments on other projects I knew that the hat comes out large, so I only cast on 100 stitches instead of the 140 called for. I changed the decreases to a simple K2tog, and started doing double decreases towards the top to make the hat less pointy. I should have gone with a K3tog instead of slip, k2tog, psso, and I should have started them sooner – ah well, there’s always next time. Knit and learn, knit and learn!

Of course, when the hat is on, the top doesn’t appear to be pointy at all. I really like how the sections come together in quarters at the top. It’s different from the more spiral decreases that I’ve made on previous hats, and quite distinctive.

I’m seriously tempted to make a matching hat for myself, though the next size down might be a little tight at only 80 stitches, and the fabric might be a little loose if I went up a needle size to compensate. (Or it would fit me perfectly, as I do have a small head, and the hat could always be blocked larger. Besides, it will stretch.) Maybe I would try working the decreases every other row for a more rounded top, but I’m not sure if that would look odd in the way the ribs get cut off by the decreases. It would be worth the attempt, I think, and if it doesn’t come out well then it will be easy enough to rip back and redo.

My name is Floyd, cat of cats. Look on what used to be your slippers, ye human, and despair! (He actually doesn’t really mess with the slippers too much. He just likes to guard them so that no one else can have them.)

He is such a handsome and dignified cat. At least, he likes to pretend that he’s dignified. There is something incredibly undignified about falling off the back of the couch, or deciding that one’s left rear foot has become a mortal enemy.

Kipling is considerably less dignified. What can you say about a cat who sleeps upside-down, other than “awwww!”

He sure does know how to work his cuteness to its maximum potential.

Thanks to my new camera, I was able to get some pictures of Floyd that are more than just a black silhouette of a cat against a blurry background. Here’s my sleek and handsome cat-loaf sitting by the front door, pretending that I don’t exist. It’s better than running away and refusing to have his picture taken!

Floyd has actually been very lovey lately, which is a nice change from his previous emo-cat behaviour. He likes to sit on my lap when I’m on the couch; there is no convincing him to sit next to me the way Kipling does. I think this is just fine except that it’s very difficult to type with his head draped over my wrist and his paw covering the spacebar. I also have a hard time knitting with him in my lap, because he hasn’t yet learned to leave the yarn alone.

And, marvelously, he’s been better-behaved through the night. A few nights ago I had to evict Kipling from the bedroom at 04:00 when he had an attack of the crazies and started building a fort with the surplus sheets at the bottom of the bed, but Floyd stayed with me, curled up against my side, and snoozed quietly until my alarm went off.

Because he was so well-socialized as a kitten, we can do all sorts of torturous things to him like pick him up and snoogle the daylights out of him, as demonstrated here by friend Stef. He just sighs, puts on a long-suffering look, and lets us do whatever we need to do. I can even trim his claws by myself without assistance! Even his rare baths usually go smoothly, though that’s better managed with two people involved. He might complain about it and give us the cold shoulder for an hour afterwards, but he rarely argues (and he never turns down the treats afterwards). For all his quirks, he’s growing up to be a great cat.

Kipling, on the other hand, is not at all fond of being picked up and snoogled. Have you ever seen a cat look so worried? We’re trying to teach him that being held is a good thing. With gentle patience I think he’ll eventually come around.

Progress on the Dancing Cranes stole comes in fits and spurts. I neglected it over the holidays and came back to it with a vengeance in the last few days – this picture is already several rows out of date!

Each 300-stitch row takes me about half an hour, so it feels like a real commitment to make myself sit down and work on it. I don’t like stopping partway through a row. But once I get started, I want to keep going for hours! “Just one more row…” has kept me up past my bedtime more nights than I want to admit. I like the yarn (even if it sheds a bit while I’m working with it) and I’m really enjoying watching the pattern form. It’s not a very complex lace pattern at all, and I’ve gotten it in my head firmly enough now that I can put on music or YouTube videos while I work. When I first started, I wanted total silence and concentration, but now some background noise is fine.

Each 28-row repeat will use up about one ball of the yarn. The pattern calls for three repeats and I have four balls of yarn, but I probably won’t make a decision about doing the fourth repeat until I’m closer to being finished and I can see what size the stole is coming out to be. If I decide to stop at three repeats, I have the thought to pick a lace stitch and an edging from one of the dictionaries and make up a one-skein decorative scarf (a scarflet?) to wear at work.

On Saturday, Pirate-Husband and I stopped at Knit and Stitch = Bliss in Bethesda. He was in search of a bulky-weight yarn for weaving his utility strap, and I was looking for a skein of superwash Cascade 220. Neither of us found what we were looking for, but I did find this Trendsetter Tonalita that just called out to me and demanded to be my first yarn purchase of the year. The colours are very ‘me’ and I love gradients in yarn. The Tonalita is an aran-weight singles yarn, 52% wool and 48% acrylic. It’s supposedly non-feltable but I still wouldn’t want to toss it into the washing machine, as it seems a little on the delicate side. At first I was thinking of making armwarmers with it, but then I decided that a new hat would be even better. My Manos hats are showing their age and the Winterlude Hat(tm) is too warm for anything but the coldest weather, so I thought a wool blend would be just right for a medium-warm hat. After some searching I settled on the Hurricane Hat pattern, which can be found free at String in Motion. A more complicated pattern wouldn’t show up well against the colour changes, and I really like the purl swirls of a Hurricane, especially the way they come together at the crown of the hat to form the eye.

Sometimes it’s difficult to take pictures of yarn without a cat getting involved. Fortunately for him, Kipling was more interested in the wrist strap dangling from the camera than the yarn! I spent a good amount of time over the weekend playing with the new camera and learning the ins and outs, and I’m quite pleased with it and the quality of pictures. I had fun trying all the different settings, and I think I took more than a hundred pictures. For the first time ever, I even got some good shots of Floyd! I’ll post them later this week for Feline Friday.

I suggested that Pirate-Husband might have more luck finding a reasonably-priced bulky washable yarn at a crafts store. The first place we tried didn’t have anything, but I did get a replacement pocket measuring tape for the one that died last week. Then we went to Michaels and found Lion Brand super bulky Wool-Ease in burgundy, black and gray. We knew that one ball of burgundy and one of gray would be plenty but we weren’t sure how much black he would need, so we bought a few extra knowing that it could be returned. While we were at the store, I bought a small hole punch that’s exactly what I need for making the right-size holes for jump rings in stitch marker charms. That’s going to be my next non-knitting project! Now I just need two pair of tiny pliers, and I’ll be ready to go.

On Saturday night Pirate-Husband followed the advice from Eadwyn’s comment last week to make new heddles and warp the loom, and by Sunday evening he had finished his new strap. It came out to be almost exactly ten feet long, and used up almost a full ball of the black yarn, since it was the majority of the warp and all of the weft, but there’s plenty of the burgundy and gray left over. The yarn was a learning experience for him. Since it’s not smooth like the crochet thread he used for the first project, it was much harder to get it to slide through the heddles. On the other hand, the super bulky yarn weaves up super quickly, and the finished product is exactly what he wanted! Sometimes yarn is like that, I told him. Sometimes you just dislike the yarn but love the finished product (like everything I’ve ever knit in cotton). That’s a lot better than loving the yarn but hating your finished product…

Maybe I will ask him to make a matching or coordinating strap for me. Hmmm!

Unfortunately, all the pictures I tried to take for this post came out horrifically blurry. Oh cats, why won’t you hold still for me? Don’t you know how many people wish to admire you?

Fortunately, my incredibly talented sister the Ninja drew an adorable portrait of Kipling, so this post isn’t completely without pictures! She is having a sale on toony-style pet portraits this month. If you’re interested, you can read more here, and see some pictures of her border collie Finnegan looking ridiculous while playing “catch” with snowballs.

Unfortunately, Kipling’s sensitive stomach is acting up again, so he’ll be visiting the vet next week. We’re not sure if it’s just stress from having bunches of people in the house over New Year’s weekend, or if it’s something else. Floyd has been turning into a nine-pound Napoleonic bully about the litterbox, lying in wait for Kipling to step out of it and then pouncing. That probably doesn’t help much, either, although I can’t blame him for being annoyed about the smell. My ninja-sister (who knows a *lot* about pet care and nutrition) suggested adding a little bit of canned pumpkin to their food, and I started that this morning. I was afraid that the cats would turn their noses up at the new taste, but both of them dove right into their breakfasts and happily nommed away. Floyd doesn’t need the pumpkin, but since the cats switch off on their bowls, I’m putting a little bit into each dish. Hopefully it helps, because the next step for Kipling might very well be an expensive biopsy to find out what’s wrong with his innards.

Fortunately, I got a new camera, and that means there should be much better pictures on the blog from now on. It’s a Canon SX230HS, which is one of their medium-level point-and-shoots. It’s a lot more complicated than my last camera, with all sorts of scene settings and facial detection. It even has modes for aperture priority and shutter priority, which I didn’t expect on such a small camera. And, friend Stef is going to lend her DSLR to me for a while, since she isn’t using it very much at the moment. It’s a Canon T1i, very similar to the one I’d buy if I won the lottery, so I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to learn how to use it properly, and to taking non-blurry pictures of the Dynamic Duo. Especially Floyd – I realize that I don’t write about him nearly as much on Feline Friday, but he’s so hard to photograph. Having a better camera should help with that.

Several years ago, one of my friends in the SCA gave me an inkle loom. I bought a couple of books and swore that I’d learn to weave, and then… well, I didn’t. This past summer I picked up a set of cards for tablet weaving, which can be done on the same loom, and re-promised myself that I’d learn to weave. Pirate-Husband seemed interested too, so over the holiday weekend we warped the loom for our first attempt at weaving, and then got to it!

On Friday night I read through the instructions about warping while Pirate-Husband picked the colours and pattern that he wanted to use. We made a bunch of heddles, and then I kept track of the pattern while he did the warping. We used size 10 crochet thread for the project, and the balls of thread were too large to fit through the heddles, so we had to wind some off. First we tried using my ball-winder, but the ball collapsed in Pirate-Husband’s hand twice and we lost a lot of time to untangling. Eventually we did some math and wrapped the warping yarn around the shuttle, which was time-consuming but worked much better. We got so into it, and so determined to finish, that we didn’t realize how late it was getting. Even though he would have started weaving right then and there, we decided that three o’clock in the morning was a good time to stop and go to bed.

Inkle weaving creates a warp-faced fabric, one in which you can’t see the weft threads at all except for a tiny bit on the selvedges. Since the sides of the pattern we chose were brown, we used the same brown thread for the weft, and it comes out to be almost completely invisible. He got started on Sunday night with the football game, and was making such good progress with the weaving that I asked him to slow down and leave it unfinished to show my parents, who were coming over on Monday for the afternoon and dinner. I knew Dad would get a real kick out of the loom and seeing us weave, and I was right. Pirate-Husband wove through the afternoon while we all watched. We had a good discussion about the meditative nature of hand-work like weaving and knitting, and how much better we feel when we’re being either meditative or creative, but both at the same time is an extra good thing!

It wasn’t long before he was done, and pretty soon we we’d cut the band loose and were tying off the fringes. The strap has 67 ends; it came out to be an inch wide, and nine-and-a-half feet long. I think the total time was about ten hours, but the next piece will definitely go faster as we won’t have the same troubles with the warp tangling – and we shouldn’t have to make more heddles, either. A thicker piece could probably be done in half the time! He is going to use this piece as trim on SCA garb, and of course we’ve already made plans for several more projects. I want to make a piece that I can sew d-rings to and use as a belt with jeans, one to use as a much longer belt for my SCA dresses, and then I want to try fancier designs with tablet weaving. Pirate-Husband wants to make a heavier utility strap in simple dark colours that will have a multitude of uses.

It’s only a few days into the new year and we’ve already learned a new skill. How cool is that?

It is the final Feline Friday of 2011!

Kipling is snuggliest in the mornings.

It’s my favourite time to spend with him.

This is the official end of the year tallying-up post!

Incoming fibre in 2011:
33.5 ounces fibre acquired at Maryland Sheep and Wool

Outgoing fibre in 2011:
Er… I spun a little bit. Not a lot. Way more came in than went out.

Incoming yarn in 2011:
7 skeins of Red Heart for my first crocheting project
1 sock yarn for Michael
3 Lang Merino DK for Winterlude-inspired colourwork hat and armwarmers
1 skein sock yarn at Rhinebeck
2 balls Patons Kroy Socks FX
5 balls Sugar ‘n Cream for washcloths
1 ball Serenity Sock Weight in navy for heels and toes on socks
4 balls Elann Silken Kydd for shawl
—
24

Outgoing yarn in 2011:
1.5 – Baby Surprise jacket
2 – Michael’s Fleeps
3 – Winterlude Hat ™
2 – time traveling Jaywalkers
7 – Hexagon blanket
6 – Sweaters for the twins
1 – gave a ball of sock yarn to Mom
1 – white washcloth
1 – blue washcloth
1 – argyle washcloth
1 – greens washcloth
1 – Quick Relief socks
—
27.5

There are some fair amount of leftovers from the hexagon blanket and the twins’ sweaters, unfortunately. On the other hand, the leftovers may come in handy for swatching, experimenting, or knitting little toys. Still, more yarn went out than came in, and I’m pleased with that!

The Year in Knitting (and Crocheting):
2011 Projects

Favourite project:
I think that prize would have to go to the Winterlude Hat(tm), for being the only thing I knit this year of my own handspun. Between the wool and the fleece lining it’s a super warm hat, even if I think I made the lining a little on the small side. It stays on just fine when I tie it under my chin!

Least Favourite project:
Unfortunately, it was the Presto Chango sweaters. I am a little sad that I didn’t put as much love into my niecelets’ sweaters as I wanted to. Had I used a different yarn, I might have felt differently about them. The pattern was great, but the KnitPicks Swish and I didn’t get along very well.

Patterns Published:
None. But I have ideas! Many, many ideas…

For Next Year:
I know it’s a mistake to make too many resolutions, so here are the things I *want* to do, and if I get some of them done I’ll be happy!
- spin more
- knit something with handspun yarn
- design and publish two new patterns
- try a new sock architecture
- finish Napramach and the Stripy Socks
- finish the Dancing Cranes stole in time to wear to a wedding
- cast on for fancy cabled knee socks
- use up more yarn and fibre than I purchase
- get some stock in the Etsy shop

It’s been cold here on top of the mountain, and we’ve been setting the thermostat low to keep the electric bill down. With the chimney freshly swept, a brand new cap installed thanks to Pirate-Husband’s handiness and skill, and a sky threatening snow, I thought it was the perfect time to light a fire. (Even though this does very little to warm the house past a three-foot radius around the fireplace, there’s still something about a roaring fire on a cold night that’s quite comforting.)

Kipling had no idea what was going on. He sniffed at the new fire for about thirty seconds and then wouldn’t go near it again. I tried to convince him to sit with me on the hearth, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Even after the fire had been going for an hour and was putting out significant warmth, he stayed up on the coffee table looking from a safe distance. After about two hours, he realized that hey, it’s *warm* over there! and moved closer to the fireplace.

Sir Not Appearing In This Post, AKA Floyd, wouldn’t go near the fire either, even though I asked him to just pose in front of it for a moment. For the sake of a picture, of course. He said that he would do no such thing, turned up his nose, and stalked away. What kind of crazy cats don’t like sitting near a warm fire on a cold night? There really is nothing like it; I’ll sit on the hearth if they won’t! And I’m certainly not complaining that the house smells of woodsmoke now, either.

When I lit another fire the next day, Kipling didn’t hesitate to sit near it. It’s good to know that he’s got a few brain cells in his spotted head. Floyd, on the other hand, still hasn’t figured it out. He slept on the couch the whole time the fire was lit. Silly cat!

Once upon a time, I had two wool sweaters – one in solid blue, and one in an all-over colourwork pattern. In the style of their time, they were rather boxy and unfitted, but they were warm and wool, and I wore them to do things like shovel the driveway or go ice skating. One sweater was lost to the washing machine (“But I washed it on the gentle cycle!” he said. “It hasn’t shrunk that much, maybe you could– oh.”) and the other has worn thin.

I went looking in the stores and online for new wool sweaters, and quickly found that the only place to get an affordable, 100% wool sweater is… in the men’s department, and those wouldn’t be too flattering on me. Sweaters that are sold in lady-shapes are cotton or cotton-blend or altogether synthetic, or they’re expensive and cashmere. They’re not meant for shoveling snow or ice skating at all.

Since I can’t buy what I want in a store, I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to get new wool sweaters I’m going to have to knit them myself. I’m not sure if I really want to knit a sweater, and I’m also not sure if that’s my perfectionism talking (Ack, a fitted garment? That’s an awful lot of time and yarn for something I might get wrong…) or my lack of desire to take on another larger, non-portable project while I’ve got that lace stole on the needles.

The management would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. It has been too dark by the time I get home from work to get good shots of anything. Hopefully this situation will be rectified over the weekend. But it is still Feline Friday, and so here is the latest about the Dynamic Duo:

One morning this week I woke up with Kipling snuggled up to my chest. At ten pounds he’s a little small to spoon with, really, but he was trying. And he was also mashing the top of his head into the underside of my chin. “I love you!” *headbutt* “I love you!” *headbutt* “I really really love you!” *wet nose and headsmoosh*

Pirate-Husband often filks songs to or about the cats. The latest goes something like this:

Don’t stop the feeding
Hold on to that fee-eeli-iiine
Kipling wants kibble
all the tiiiiiiime

I’m sorry. That’s going to be a terrible earworm. It was for me; I couldn’t get it out of my head, so this morning I tried to work out the rest of the song.

Just a spotted cat
living in a mountain house
he walks the hallway rail going back and forth

Just a small black cat
playing with a furry mouse
He’ll pace the other cat going back and forth

Two cats in my living room
roll in catnip and act like loons
in a second they will steal my seat
They’ll meow on and on and on and on

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Kittens waiting, sitting by their dinner dish
their pink mouths meowing in the niii-iigght
Sunbeam kittens, living just to take a nap
Hiding, somewhere in the night

Please don’t kill me.

The “Black Paw of Death” is one of Floyd’s favourite games. I think it’s one of Pirate-Husband’s favourites, too.

Happy Feline Friday!

It’s been a hard year in many ways, but I have so much to be thankful for.

Pirate-Husband. The amount of work that he has put into the house in the last few months is incredible. Scrubbing, sanding, washing, staining – the logs look amazing, and the house is more ready for winter than it’s ever been. Okay, so we still have the scaffolding on the porch, but if the weather holds out we’ll be done with that soon too. I am so grateful that he has the knowledge, skills and ability to take on a gigantic project like refinishing a log house. Not to mention, he’s a heck of a good cook. We eat better at home than we could in most of the local restaurants. Last week we had new friends over for dinner and they were seriously impressed with our crepes manicotti and crockpot cobbler – and I thought it was just a normal sort of weekend meal! Also, he takes the garbage out and does the laundry. Those seem like small things to be thankful for, but I really appreciate them.

The cats. Losing Aubrey started the whole year off on the wrong foot. Kipling isn’t really any kind of replacement for my kitten, but he’s pretty awesome in his own right, and he’s a perfect companion for Floyd. They are always together, whether they’re playing or sleeping. Floyd is coming around to be fairly cool himself; he pretends he doesn’t want any love but every morning I wake up to find him curled up against my stomach. Unless they’re sleeping, both of them follow me around the house wherever I go, and make sad kitten-faces when I go somewhere they can’t follow. And to think, I was afraid that they wouldn’t like me at all. I had nothing to worry about.

My blood-family, too large to appear all in one picture, but here are the two newest members of the clan. I have a big family and we’re kinda spread out across the world, but when we need each other, we’re there with no questions asked other than “what can I do to help?” Some of the hard stuff this year has brought us closer together, and I’m thankful for that even though we had to go through the rough times to get here. I’m going to see a bunch of the far-away relatives for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and I can’t wait!

My sworn-family. (Here we are at one Winterlude or another!) I don’t even know how to begin to express how much the three of them mean to me. They fill a place in my heart that I didn’t know was empty before I met them. They love and accept me for who I am and at the same time cheer me on to become an even better person. I would do anything for them, and I have no doubt that they would do the same for me.

I’m thankful for my job. (These are the monkeys who live on my desk, since there is no way to get an interesting picture of my office.) Sure, I have to get up early for it. Sure, it’s a long drive to work and home again every day. But it’s a good job, and I like it, and I like most of the people I work with too. This year I got to learn how to use Illustrator, which I’ve wanted to learn for years, and they sent me to a JavaScript class just ’cause I asked, and to a conference in Florida. Overall, it’s a pretty fine job indeed.

And of course, since this is a knitting blog after all, I’m thankful for my knitting and crocheting and spinning skills, for my stash of yarn and fibre, for my spinning wheel and spindles and drum carder, for the knitter friends I’ve made, and for Ravelry, without which this would be just a little hobby instead of one of the defining aspects of my life. I’m so excited about the projects I’m working on right now, and for the designs and ideas that are percolating in my head! I have so many fibre-ish plans for next year, including my first for-sale pattern, blending some batts on the drum carder, getting some stock into the never-used Etsy shop, and at least two projects made with my own handspun yarn: a hat and a pair of armwarmers.

And maybe I’ll finish some of those projects that keep lingering on…

There is absolutely no progress to report on the Dancing Cranes stole. I spent Wednesday after work configuring my new computer (yay, new computer!) and so didn’t have time in the evening to knit. Last night when I sat down to put my two rows on I completely misread the chart and knit, then painstakingly unknit, about 80 stitches. Unknitting the SSKs was not particularly enjoyable, but eventually I’d gotten back to my mistake and worked forward again until I realized that my eyes were crossing from tiredness. Since sleepy lace knitting is a recipe for making mistakes in lace knitting, I put the stole down halfway through a row and went to bed.

I’ve been thinking about design again! The weather is getting colder and that makes me want to knit cozy warm things. I had the idea for a double-thick fingerless glove/convertible mitten, with colourwork on the outside mitten. Already I’m sketching out how it would be constructed. Both the inside and outside would be worked in DK weight yarn, possibly using different yarns for each. The outside would use a strong and smooth yarn so the colourwork would show up well, while the inside could be made of a softer luxurious yarn.

Happy Feline Friday! Could these two be any cuter?

Yes, Floyd does have bald spots around his lips. When he was a young kitten he had an allergic reaction that gave him horrible skin crusties in his ears and on his pawpads and lips. Poor little guy! We’re still not sure what caused it, but fortunately the crusties cleared up quickly and have never come back. Usually it’s difficult to notice that the fur doesn’t grow well around his mouth; the camera flash reflecting off his skin makes it seem worse than it really is.

If I’m only knitting two rows of lace per day, I’m not going to have much progress on the Dancing Cranes stole to blog about in every entry, but here’s the progress so far: four rows of edging, and four rows of first repeat of the lace pattern. On the wrong-side row I discovered a mistake I’d made on the right side, and had a moment of gratefulness that I was able to read my knitting and know how to fix the error, because there would not have been any unknitting of nearly 600 stitches to repair the problem. It was fix it or move on. Fortunately it was a simple fix; I’d missed the second stitch of a SSK and all I had to do was pass that stitch over. Whew, problem solved.

The yarn is so light and airy; when I pull a new length from the ball it floats back to the table like down instead of just falling. It’s also, as I mentioned, almost completely unforgiving. I keep noticing as I knit how the mohair fuzzles work their way in and around each stitch, which is why unknitting more than a few stitches is all but impossible. On the plus side, the yarn-ends from where I change skeins are unlikely to work themselves out after the stole is washed and blocked! It does shed a little bit, but I’m hoping all those pieces fall out while I’m knitting and not while I’m wearing the finished piece. I guess the shedding could always be blamed on a cat, if I need to place blame.

More procrastinating with math: If I decide to work four pattern repeats of this shawl, then every six rows is another 5% completed. If I can knit four rows tonight instead of two, the project will be at 10% completion already! Not bad progress, eh? For someone who claims to dislike math and numbers, I sure do a lot of figuring out stitch counts and percentages complete…

I had planned to cast on for the Dancing Cranes stole on Friday night, but the discovery that my size 7 needles were regular blunt-tipped circs and not Addi Lace needles gave me pause. The last time I tried knitting lace with blunt needles I nearly gave up on lace altogether, and I have no desire to repeat that experience. Saturday was a day for hunting down needles! I went first to Knit and Stitch = Bliss in Bethesda, but they didn’t have the Lace circs in size 7. Apparently they’re going to stop carrying the Lace needles; they aren’t selling well enough to justify stocking them anymore. They did offer me the Addi Click Lace set, but that’s unfortunately at $185 that’s out of my budget right now. Maybe in the future I’ll sell off all the Addis I have to fund the Click set, but for now… no. Later in the day I stopped by Needles in the Haymarket and was lucky that they were still open, even though it was half an hour after closing time. I bought the very last size 7 Lace needle they had in any length, and it was even the 32″ I needed. Whew! I guess I could have made do with a shorter cable, but I’m sure I’ll be glad to have the length. If not for this project, then for something in the future.

On Sunday afternoon I got out the yarn and my new Lace needle and contemplated casting on three hundred stitches with the yarn held double. I’d never done a cable cast on before, so I had to look up instructions for that before getting started. It seemed easy enough… I cast on the first three stitches three times but the yarn refused to slide free for a fourth attempt, so I cut off those few inches and began again. This time instead of trying to use the right needle to bring the new stitch through, I used my smallest crochet hook. It worked like a charm! After a while I had gotten into the routine motion of pulling new stitches through, and all three hundred stitches were on the needle, with stitch markers at each ten stitches, which were counted three times each just to be sure. The Silken Kydd is really unforgiving of mistakes, which is typical for fuzzy mohair. I shall simply have to refrain from making any mistakes over the next 35,700 stitches or so.

It was some time before I could bring myself to actually get started on the first stitch. I procrastinated by re-doing the math: the stole has a 28 row repeat and calls for three repeats; I bought enough yarn for four just in case. If I work one row per day, that’s one repeat per month, which means even if I decide to do the fourth repeat the stole will be done in mid-March, well before the end of May deadline.

Before bedtime I’d purled the four-row edging and went off to dreamland feeling quite pleased with my progress. The yarn is actually quite nice to knit with, less slippery than I’d guessed it would be and a *lot* more fuzzy. Tonight I’ll find out if I can concentrate on knitting lace while watching Monday Night Football – it’s the Vikings at the Packers, and it should be a good game.

Do cranes really dance, anyway?