By the cat's tongue...

The cat, while cute, is a bit of a trouble maker. Observe what he's done to my So-Called Scarf: See? Perhaps a close-up:He looks all innocent, doesn't he? He would like to say a few words in his defense:

"You know, you've only gotten what's coming to you. You and Dave, you don't make it easy for me around this house. We all three of us know how I love the wool. First I tried to go for the stash, thinking that it would be less traumatic for you if I destroyed something you hadn't yet poured hours of effort into. But then you had to go and cover it up, limiting my access. So I spent some time licking my felted cat bed (which I might point out is way too small for me, hence it now stores my toys), but that just wasn't satisfying enough. I wanted more. And then you left this scarf dangling from a shelf, and what did you expect? Restraint? I am a cat. I do what I want. Plus, it's Manos - lovely flavor, very sheepy. Besides, you never wore this scarf anyway - there was mumbling about it being too stiff, or pooling, or something. So, really I did you a favor by destroying it, right? Right? Oh, and where's my second breakfast? I already finished the one you gave me at 5:00am."

Not that Innocent

First off, thank you for all the compliments on my cardigan! I love getting comments, it makes me so happy, and I'm glad that you all liked the sweater :) Today I'd like to tell you a little story about my darling feline Oliver...
Oliver looks all cute, doesn't he? And loving? He loves to cuddle on the sofa, and he only chews on my hair in the bedroom, and he's been doing that less and less frequently. However, he has developed some annoying new habits...

Dave has been having insomnia, so after we read our nightly installment of The Intellectual Devotional (Yes, we are supremely nerdy, and happy about it. The Intellectual Devotional is based on the religious devotionals where one reads a Bible passage and comments each day, but with topics like visual arts, science, music, philosophy, etc. There is also an American History version that we'd like to get next year.), he usually heads back out to the living room to read until 3:00am while I fall asleep immediately. Now, generally Oliver wakes up and starts agitating for breakfast around 6:00-6:30, but sometimes earlier if he's really feeling peckish. I've been trying to get up and to work earlier, not to mention to my 8:00 pilates class, so the 6:30 thing isn't that big of a problem, especially considering I usually drag myself out of bed grudgingly, feed Oliver, and go back to sleep. And I do mean me, since Dave rarely deals with the hungry beast. Because Oliver only pesters me. Me. Even at 3:00am. When Dave is AWAKE in the living room. Meow. Leap onto my head. Off of my head. Back up. Back off. Meow. Feed me. Chews on my hair. I'm starving. Don't ignore me. At 3:00 in the morning! Eh. Dave? Completely oblivious to all this, although he did feed the cat when I yelled brought the situation to his attention. I'm really not sure why but all of a sudden Oliver is complaining a lot more about not having enough food. He's a bit overweight so we've got him on a lower-calorie food, but we're still giving him more than he really needs. And, look what I had to do to the stash this weekend:
Those are bins of yarn behind the towel, as seen in this post. I've always covered the bottom bins because sometimes the yarn rolls out and Oliver finds that quite intriguing. But, generally speaking he ignores the stash in this form. However, suddenly I've been finding chewed on yarn balls - some Cascade 220 (still in the skein, now with more than two ends) on Thursday and then some turquoise mohair (now with many ends and some thin bits) on Saturday. So, desperate measures were taken, as you can see. Although I miss seeing the yarn I'd rather have Oliver not chew on it and hurt himself, so this is what I've got. Oh, and despite all this complaining, I love Oliver to death and wouldn't change him for the world :) Well, aside from the waking up early!

In lieu of knitting...

Here's a fun Oliver and Dave photo. Dave is convinced that Oliver doesn't like him, or at least not as much as he likes me. One night I caught them on the couch, sitting as far as physically possible from each other: This photo is great - it looks like Dave is giving Oliver the stink eye and Oliver is blissfully ignoring him. Typical cat behavior, I say. Note Dave is wearing felted clogs :)

I have been knitting. I started another stealth project on Saturday, which will be finished and probably gifted soon so I can show photos. I also just finished the heel of the first Anastasia Sock at lunch today and I'll (maybe)be moving on up the leg tomorrow. I'm a bit concerned about it because it's a short-row heel without any increases beforehand (toe-up), and it seems very narrow. I was already worried about it, and now I'm really troubled. The socks are for my mother's mother, and when I talked to my mom tonight she mentioned that my grandmother's feet swell (which I knew) but also that she wouldn't want tight socks, particularly around the ankle. Well. What to do? I'm really torn about this - I might go up a couple of needle sizes to make the ankle/leg larger, which seems like an okay plan since they aren't heavy wear areas anyway. My mother didn't seem thrilled about it, but what I think I'm going to do is just make the one sock for Christmas and make sure it fits. It'd be a shame to make both and have them both be too small. I could see my grandmother acting like they were fine to not make me feel bad but then not being able to wear them, and that makes me sad, so I'd really rather they be right so she can use them. Thoughts? I really think after this I'm just making socks for people with feet my size or Dave's size, so I have a handy measuring device at all times. Since we are a family of (for the most part) small-footed women, there will still be plenty of potential socks to knit...

The "A" Projects

This post is brought to you by the letter A and the number 2, which is how many A projects I've got on the needles. I started the Anastasia Socks for my grandmother last weekend: I haven't done too much yet, but I'm plugging away. The pattern is simple but as usual I haven't bothered to memorize it. It really doesn't bother me to carry the chart around and keep track, plus I hate fixing things, and if I don't get all cocky about knowing the pattern I'm much less likely to screw it up. Dave was unhappy that I exploited Oliver for that photo, but I've seen much worse stuff on cats. Here's a close-up of the sock: The yarn is Socks that Rock Lightweight in Lucy, after Wendy's cat. The picture isn't the best, but the yarn color is pretty accurate.
As promised I also started the Ana Hat, from Perl Grey. I should take a photo of the diagram that came with the pattern - it's quite confusing, and just reading through the pattern makes me wish I'd taken some engineering classes. I'll try to take progress shots as I go so I can show you how this thing comes together. So far I'm knitting a giant rectangle. The yarn is quite nice to work with - it's Fleece Artist Woolie Silk, a 65/35 wool/silk blend. I love the colors (teal - go figure!). But what really should be mentioned here is the row counter, which is vital for this project. I'm one of those people who would rather keep track as I go instead of counting later, and I'd rather not have to carry around something to keep track with (pen and paper), and for this (131 rows) a counter is key. I have an identical one somewhere in the ether of my apartment, but I can't find it for the life of me. I even checked in the sweater-that-shall-not-be-named's bag, but it wasn't in there. So, and this is the good part, Dave offered to go buy me another one yesterday. Of his own free will. I should probably keep him.
Speaking of Dave, we're off to Portland for the weekend. The hat is coming along, as is the sock and the sleeves. I suspect the hat will receive the most attention. It looks like it's going to be cold/snowy/windy/rainy/miserable. I'm looking forward to it. Cyclocross is ALL ABOUT the suffering and bad weather!

Promised Progress...

Well, this post took me a bit later to get online than I intended, but I've had a difficult time finding the motivation to take sweater photos. This baby is tough to photograph with any accuracy whatsoever. Either the color is good or the pattern is good - I went with the latter: This is the back with the two completed fronts. I meant to take a close-up of the shoulder seams (three-needle bind-off is my friend), but that can wait. My concern is that it seems quite wide - I pinned it together before sewing the shoulder seams so that I could try it on, and the fit through the chest is fine, but it's a bit swingy through the back. I'm not sure if that was my rough pinning or an effect of the "swing" in the name. I think only time will tell, and as I'm about 1/3 finished with both sleeves (knitting them at the same time) hopefully it will tell soon. While I was off updating Ravelry, this bit of hilarity ensued: Apparently Oliver was curious about the sweater and when Dave removed him from it, the sweater came along for the ride. Dave called me in with the camera, and another great "Oliver with the knitting" shot was born.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! I lounged around quite a bit over the last four days, accomplished a tiny bit of Christmas shopping, and watched many Netflix movies. I also cast on the final (I think) Christmas present on Friday and it's moving along nicely. I'm making Anastasia Socks for my grandmother, which I'll post photos of once they're past the mid-foot...

Status Report: Mystery Stole 3

Well, after some intense weekend knitting, I've finished clue 2! I realize it's difficult to tell what this is looking like, since it's all crumpled up, but since I'm knitting on straight needles it's hard to stretch it out properly. I know I could do it mid-row, but that makes me nervous, so I'm just waiting until the end to really see it. But, I'm loving it so far, and miraculously I'm quite enjoying the lace knitting. I'm finding it strangly addicting, and I've even signed up for the Hanami Knitalong, which will be starting just after the finale of MS3.
Oliver has been enjoying the lace as well, and has taken a shine to the Zephyr:

So much so that Dave had to ward him off with the extra knitting needle and crochet hook on Friday night:I realize he doesn't look threatening there, but I promise you, he was going for the stole before he got into watching the tv. By the way, Dave was doing that before I got out the camera, I promise! Note that Dave is also protecting the beads in his lap (in the red lobster dish, which was a gift from Amie as part of my Knitters Tea Swap package). Good man. All the right priorities...

Edited to add: Amie reminds me that it's a crab, not a lobster, holding the beads! My bad, it was late and I wasn't paying attention. Amie, I totally agree with you that crab is superior to lobster!

The third MS3 clue came out on Friday, and I'm hoping to get somewhere close to finished with that before the giant clue this week. We have two weeks for this next clue, due to the impending release of the final (sob) Harry Potter book on Saturday. But, this next clue will be over twice as long as the previous clues, due to the extra time, so I don't want to be too far behind when I get it. Melanie says this clue, while long, will be fast to knit, so there's hope!

Happy Birthday Oliver!

Today is Oliver's second birthday! Happy Birthday!!!You were so little when we adopted you at 4 months old. Much smaller than your brother, who was half again your size. We were cautiously optimistic that you would stay that small, even though I had heard that male orange tabbies tend to be sizable beasts...

I knit you a lovely cat bed, which you played with a bit but didn't really understand the point of. Now instead of using it as a toy, you use it to store your toys, which you dig out as needed (Never put them back though, do you?).

However, you didn't stay so small, and in fact now at 2 years old, you're quite a big boy. Not fat. Let's go with big-boned.

You are still inquisitive, although that large cat tree, your birthday present last year, will be going back to Mud Bay Granary, since you've never shown any interest in it whatsoever.

Your size makes you quite good for cuddling,although it can be a bit rough when you sleep on my head. You look quite adorable all stretched out in your elongated kitty pose:

But perhaps you are at your cutest when fast asleep: Happy Birthday Oliver, and may all your days be full of fuzzy mice and catnip!

It's a partnership

Awww...
Say it with me, I am a lucky girl. Observe Dave knitting, with Oliver's close supervision. What's that he's knitting? It's a baby blanket for Kristin, one of his labmates. She's due in early July but we're rushing because she's getting bigger by the day! We're co-knitting this, but Dave is doing most of it because a) she's his coworker, and b) I have many other things I want to knit! I'll try to get some close-ups soon, but basically it's just a striped blanket. We're choosing colors randomly and using each for two or sometimes four rows at a time. This means there are many ends, and they're all on one side. I'm thinking weaving them all in is going to be quite a chore and I'm concerned that they will make that side of the blanket bulkier than the other. Ideally we'll leave them and make matching fringe on the other side, but I've heard babies like to suck on fringe and that doesn't sound like a good plan. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Shannon tagged me for the Seven Random Facts meme, and I promise to get on that tomorrow. I hope I can think of Seven interesting things...If you know me and you have a blog, be warned, because you might get tagged next!