Four Kitties on a Windowsill in B'klyn...

So I haven't been blogging because I've been insane with the teaching. That doesn't mean I haven't had time to take pictures of my cats.

For your viewing pleasure...

May I present Sawyer:



Sawyer is lying in his snuggly bed--an empty wooden wine box with a pillow and covered in an old blanket--but if you look kind of closely, you can see a peek of a blue, grey, orange, and seafoam blankie; six 7 x 9 swatches I made as practice before I dove into the world of "serious" knitting. It's ugly as sin, but his favorite thing to cuddle with (besides sitting between me and my husband and showing us his belly). I want to bite him, he's so cute. Supercute!

In sock news, I'm done with the gusset and working on the foot...I'll post pics of that tomorrow. Meow!

Sock Dilemma

I'm sort of freaking out about my socks for several reasons--first and formost is I really, really don't want to screw these up and I'm terrified that I'm going to. I know, I know--no one has ever been killed over knitting (that we know of at least), but still. In the grand scheme of my stuff, this is pretty big. I need to figure these socks out!!! Not to mention that I only brought the socks along with me today and if I don't figure out what to do about them, I'm going to have to bust a mission to Knitty City before I head home to buy some new yarn (and needles, since I don't have any except the dpn's I'm working on) so I have something to knit on my way home--and since it's an hour commute, I need a knit fix. Help!!

Here's the deal--I'm using a pattern I got from Spunmag.com and honestly, all was going well until I started scratching my head about turning the heel. I've already done this part:

This portion is worked flat in plain stocking stitch.

Knit first 27 stitches. Put remaining 33 stitches onto a holder.

>> Starting with a purl row, work 21 rows of stocking stitch,
slipping the first stitch of every row. The right side is facing for
next row

This is where I get confused:
>>RS: Knit 18 stitches, SKP, turn

If I have 27 stitches on the needle, and the pattern calles for me
to knit 18, SKP, and turn, what happens to the rest of the stitches
on the needle? Do you think I'm supposed to keep going w/ knitting
after the SKP?

This is the next step:
>>WS: Slip 1, purl 9 stitches, p2tog, turn
Same thing here--do I continue on purling after the p2tog? and then
turn? If I'm supposed to end up with 11 stitches on the needle from
decreasing, I think this is what is supposed to happen, but I'm not
sure.

Here's the rest of this part of the pattern:
>>RS: Slip 1, knit 9 stitches, SKP, turn
>>Repeat last two rows until all stitches have been worked. Ensure
right side is facing for next row. 11 stitches remain on the needle.

If anyone wants to see the full pattern, it's available here:
http://spunmag.com/article/060421socks

In lighter, non-obsessing knitting related stuff, how cute does Sawyer and Helena look all smushed into one basket??

Grendel reads blogs...

He hasn't figured out how to type yet though...

Off to the ASPCA in a bit. I'm bringing a couple of old blankets that we have in the house. They need them for the kittie and dog beds. I also started making really simple kittie blankets--14 X 12 inch blankies. The first one is in plain ole' garter stitch, but I think I'm going to keep making them and trying out stitches and patterns I want to try (and it's a great way use up left over bits of skeins and whatnot). In these cases, they really need to be acrylic so they can stand up to the crazy amount of washings the ASPCA does. It would be nice if they gave the blankies to the kitties when they get adopted, but I suppose I don't knit fast enough to replace them. Soon though ;-) That just gave me an idea--if anyone is interested in knitting or crocheting blankets for the cats and dogs waiting for adoption at the ASPCA, let me know. If one knitter/crocheter/yarn enthusiast can help, imagine what a bunch of us could do!

Grendel, the scarf model

I made scarves for my mom and my mother-in-law for Christmas. They were my first attempts at knitting, and overall, I think I did pretty well--especially since I was dealing with that weird fun fur stuff that is so hard to work with. I knit them both on 10 inch 9 mm/size 13 needles. And I know it'll piss some knitting purists off, but I bought funky looking purple aluminum needles simply because they look pretty. It made knitting more fun so I don't care if my aluminum needles offend people!

Here's Grendel sporting the scarf I made for my mom; I used almost three skeins of Lion Brand Fancy Fun Fur in Stained Glass:


A close up of the scarf:


Here's Grendel sporting the scarf I made for my mom-in-law; I used two skeins of the Moda Dea Fur Ever in Black Gem:


A close up of the yarn:

Kitties!

One of my favorite X-mas projects was the stuffed kitties I made for my boss' two children, Miles and Lena. They came to visit him one day recently and being absolutely adorable, I couldn't resist bonding with Lena who was wearing the cutest freaking pair of Vans I've ever seen--hot pink with black kitties on them; now there's a kid after my own heart. Anyway, since I'm the cat lady and they both like cats, I decided to make them a couple of their very own...and this is what I came up with:


I used the Lion Brand Tiny Teddy Bear pattern with a few changes to make it look like a kitty--mainly the ears and the tail are different.

How do I know they like them? Lena's been sleeping with hers since she got it. :-) If that's not enough to make you feel warm and fuzzy, I don't know what is.