A FO and a WIP

That's the FO ... the rectangle scarf.

And here's the WIP ...

A fingerless mitt for a 7-year-old.



That's it!

Owl Booties!

Aren't they cute? They're big enough to go over a baby's shoes. And baby's shoes are always clean, right?

These Owl Booties were fairly easy. The only tedious part was putting the beads on, and that's just my irritation with threading tiny objects, I think.







I started another project:

The Tied Rectangle Wrap from 60 Quick Knits for Cascade Yarn.

This isn't Cascade (though that is my favorite yarn!) ... it's my own spun yarn. It's hard to tell in this photo, but it's yellow and orange cable-plied Merino.

The Bohus, which needs longer sleeves, has undergone some painful surgery. It required two plastic needles, waste yarn, a size 00 knitting needle, and no cats anywhere near me for an hour.

I found the end of the purple, where the colorwork ended, and tediously unknit the colorwork from the purple. I used the plastic needles and waste yarn to pick up the live threads, and the 00 knitting needle to pick the stitches apart.


Not too difficult, just painstaking. Now I'm going to add a few inches to each sleeve and figure out the best way to re-attach the two ends.


It's almost depressing, how good I've gotten at tinking. 

You know what's really sucky about all this? I tried on the Bohus, and it doesn't really suit me. In hindsight, I don't think it would suit anyone with breasts. In the future, I hope to remember that when I see a certain style of sweater modeled on a flat-chested woman ... I need to consider how an actual chest will effect the pattern.

 Not even an A cup, am I right?

The top part is a bit snug, but there's plenty of room in the rest of it. I'm going to block the top part, and see if that helps. I do have big-ish shoulders, which affects the fit of most things I knit for myself.

In other news ...

Edgar broke the first Christmas Tree ornament of the year. Even though all the breakable stuff was hung up high.

I fussed at him, but I can't be too mad at him. I think the ornament was taunting him. Look at the expression in his eyes ... he was clearly defending himself.







Thanks for stopping by!

What a boHussy!

I am sooooo close to finishing the Bohus ...

Just the button bands and general tidying up. There's about 2" of rolled fabric in the front to be dealt with. Edging, tuck in the ends, find a fastener for the front ...

Oh, and find some way to magically make the arms 4 or 5" longer. 

I figure I have two choices; either pick-up-and-knit from the medium-purple cuff down a few inches ... or steek the sleeve cuffs, snip them off, pick-up-and-knit from the dark purple part of the sleeve, then re-attach the colorful sleeve end.

What do you, the viewers at home, think?

A: Knit 4 more inches of medium-purple seed stitch border on the bottom of the sleeve cuffs

B: Steek the sleeve cuffs, snip them off, knit more dark purple, re-attach cuffs.


I honestly thought I'd be working on this all winter. Once I saw how close I was to being done, I promptly looked for new projects.

Owl booties! So cute! If you look closely, you can see the first owl head.


Don't worry, the finished product won't have peppercorn eyes.


Maybe.







And I've been spinning. I finished the lovely purple merino, but I don't know how much there is of it.

It's lovely! I'm very happy with it. I think it will have to be a shawl. Something that won't get pulled or tugged too much, because I spun the merino very lightly.


I wanted a big fluffy warm effect.

More of the mixed fiber ... very itchy stuff. Don't know what I'll do with this, but it won't be something worn next to the skin!

And I put my plastic tree up.


I don't like a lot of decorations, as you can see. I like just white lights and a few red splotches.


I crocheted the white garland thing years ago. And over the years I've knitted or crocheted little things to put on it...

Ribbon candy ...

Bells and stockings ...















It isn't very sophisticated, but I am frugal, and I have a lot of yarn.

And cats. I have a lot of cats. Styrofoam balls with knitted covers do not shatter on the floor when a cat bats them off the tree.

Don't forget to stop by Tamis Amis for WIP-Wednesday!

Went on a Binge

A spinning binge, that is.

These were partly done already; maybe a half-bobbin of each color. Then I stopped spinning for months, because handling wool in the warmer months in a barely-air-conditioned home is just not fun.

Yesterday, I started looking through my Ravelry groups, the spinning and spindling groups, and I was bitten by the spinning bug. I settled down at the long-neglected wheel and spun until I had finished off the purple merino, which I bought at at the 2011 MD Sheep and Wool ...

100% merino from Yarn Barn of ... Kansas? Hard to see the label, and of course I don't have it now.


Several blogs ago I posted about this yarn; I am plying it as a single with a strand of purple crochet cotton. It's beautiful, it looks very wavy and plush. I'll post the finished pictures soon. It's not easy plying thick singles with thread, but it's such a pretty effect.



The yellow and pink was purchased at the last S&W.

I spun the yellow up almost immediately, on spindles, but used the wheel for pink. I finished up the whole thing yesterday, but still have to ply the rest of the pink.

I'm making arm warmers for a Christmas gift for a 7 year old.

Since my socks always wear out at the bottom of the heel, I'm switching to giving arm warmers as gifts.

Here's what the bobbins look like next to an intrusively curious tuxedo cat.

And finally, I Trindled a bunch of Alpaca-wool-Angelina blend. Fiber by Little Barn.












The big Bohus is about 40 rows from being finished. I fear it will be too tight under the arms, so I'm going to have to unseam it there and pick up a few rows to make it looser. I don't know how it will work, though, and still fit in the armholes. It's that, or completely undo a dozen rows, separate the five pieces, and make everything a titch bigger. I really don't want to do that!

 Coraline and her mother Momma Girl enjoy a cozy warm snuggle

And winter has finally settled in over Baltimore. We've been extraordinarily fortunate so far, with temperatures in the 50s (13C-ish) during the day and barely freezing at night. But today it's only in the 40s (5C-ish) and blustery.

Coraline's baby picture. This coloring is not unusual in this neighborhood, where there are a lot of stray black cats and stray orange cats.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Bohus and More Bohus

It's hard to believe that's a sweater, isn't it? Keep that picture in mind for when it's finished!

I decided it would be easier to work with if I started the seaming, instead of finishing the colorwork on the collar. Right now it is hard to do anything with ... it's impossible to turn it around to start a new row when it's in five different pieces! It just flops and tangles itself up.

That, and while it was in five different pieces, it seemed as if I'd made the back longer than the fronts ... this worried me so badly that I had to stop and pin it down and make sure everything matched!

I think the sleeves will be a mite short. Otherwise, the dimensions look okay.

I got out my favorite book of finishing techniques ...

And got to work.

To me it seems counter-intuitive to seam on the right side, but that's the way to do it for side seams.

It amazes me how the seam just vanishes.










Except for the lighter color, where decreases made it hard to find the right spot to insert the needle (I make the clumsiest decreases ... it's embarrassing).



I know it's not even (the light part where it joins) but I can live with it this way!









In other news, this past weekend I ran my sixth 5k for the year. I normally post stuff like this on the fitness blog I share with my two friends, but I am so pleased with myself I wanted to add it to this blog as well. Six 5ks! Last year I mostly walked just one 5K. Before that, none. This year I've done two in Columbia; two more sponsored by my workplace; one in nearby Catonsville; and one in Gettysburg (it was too hot for me to run much of that one). I have one more scheduled for 1 December with my running friend from the fitness blog (who just finished her 2nd half-marathon and I don't know how many 5ks this year).

I didn't do very well for my age group, but I beat Miss Pink Shirt and Ponytail, who appears to be quite a bit younger than I am, so I got that going for me. 

Petunia reminds you to stop by Tamis Amis for Work-In-Progress Wednesday!

Cat Mat -- 90 Minute Project!

Modeled by Petunia. 

I've blogged about these before. Just simple squares made out of 3 or four strands of inexpensive acrylic yarn, crocheted or knitted into an oblong. I put them outside in the boxes I set out for the strays, or donate them to a shelter.

 I have a lot of acrylic ... some I bought, but most was donated to me (whether I wanted it or not; "oh, you knit, here, have this yarn! I've had it for years.")

 The mats don't have to be too big, just enough for a kitty to curl up on.









Here, Coraline demonstrates:

 If you look underneath her, you'll see one of the mats. They get dirty fast, but since they're acrylic, they're indestructible.

 She's not evil, really. She just wasn't happy with being woken.

The lights are just 60-watt bulbs in metal clamp-lamps, attached to an Ikea outdoor table. It really helps them keep warm and cozy in the winter.

The mats aren't necessarily pretty ...

....but the kitties that use them are!


This is Spot. She is not a stray, she has a home, but they don't provide her with a warm box to sleep in, so she stays at my place at night.

She wouldn't move so I could put the mat down.

She looks a lot like Petunia, doesn't she?

See Spot. See Spot Glare

I used size 17 needles for this mat ... 12.75 mm! I don't like knitting with them much, but the project sure goes fast!













I really wanted a finished object for Tamis Amis' Finished Object Friday ... my Bohus won't be done for weeks yet! So I knit this mat up in about 90 minutes or so.

Don't forget to stop by Tamis Amis for Finished Object Friday and warm snuggly kitty love!

Sweaterus Interruptus

I was all set to put the sweater on one needle for the colorwork yoke section ... when I realized I forgot to buy a long circular size 9 needle. Never mind that All About Yarn, my LYS, is almost within spitting distance of where I go for yoga classes every Sunday ... and I even considered going to the yarn store for no other reason than to go, this past Sunday ... but, I was feeling strong and virtuous after yoga, and denied myself the visit, for fear that I would buy more yarn. The visit in which I might have remembered that I need a 36" size 9 circular needle.

In any case, one sleeve still needs 12 more rows of armhole-shaping. I'll do that tonight, then perhaps tomorrow I will run into All About Yarn with my eyes closed and exact change in hand and ask the nice lady to get me the needle and not let me buy anything else nomatterwhat. I have enough yarn and unspun to keep my busy for years, right? Right.

Thank you everyone for the commisseration comisseration  sympathy and well wishes for my lingering illness, which I am halfway through an antibiotic course for. Despite the hacking and coughing, I managed to score a personal best in a 5k this past Sunday (yet walking up a flight of stairs nearly kills me). My running friends were off doing the Rock-n-Roll half-marathon in another city, so there was no one to take a picture for me to post ... so just imagine me there. I did great.

I don't really have anything else to post about knitting, so here are some cute animal pictures. 

Petunia, Molly, and Edgar

The green fabric on the middle right is my legs ... I'm under all this cattery

Georgie Girl was jealous

I'm not a very neat housekeeper, and I don't have a problem with clutter, which is why my pictures are never House Beautiful-worthy.  But as you can see, we are comfortable and happy with it. And it amuses me no end that if I set a cloth or towel or any fabric down, it will immediately attract cats.

Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to stop by Tamis Amis on Wednesday, for WIPnesday!