Knitting By Glow Stick - It Can Be Done!

I wish I had brought my camera tonight... not that it would have done a lot of good in the dark but it would have made a fabulous picture.

Here's the story. My fifteen year old daughter, Ryan, got invited to Pump It Up for her friend Shelly's birthday. Pump It Up is basically a big gymnasium with inflatable toys on a grand scale and party rooms for after you bounce, slide, and tumble your way to exhaustion. It's actually a lot of fun. The grow-ups are encouraged to play too and some really smart person even put a drinking fountain in each  room. Ryan beat me on the obstacle course.

One of the things they do to make it even more fun for the teenage crowd is turn off all the lights. They give each kid, and adult, a glow stick necklace to wear and then turn on one lonely overhead black-light. Then the music gets louder and the laser show starts and you can't see much. More to the point, you can't see well enough to knit. This will not do. But I am a clever knitter and if there is a way I will find it.

They'd given me a glow stick too. I broke the seal, shook it up and made it into a necklace. It didn't have a lot of light but when I lay it right over the top of my needles I could just make out the yarn. I was knitting socks. My double points were Knit Picks Harmony size 2, not a light color it turns out. The yarn was better, it had flecks of white in it so some of the black-light glow made it easier to see. First I hung my glow stick over my wrist but that was to far from the tips of the needles for me to see. Then I hung the glow stick of off the needle I was working on. That was better but I dropped a stitch while I was knitting around the glow stick and it was like having and extra needle in the way. I had to go out to the lobby to pick up the dropped stitch. Eventually I landed on a solution. It was elegant and ridiculous, but it worked. I put the glowing necklace in my mouth. I had to lean a little closer to my hands but it put the light just where I needed it. You couldn't actually see the needles, you had to go on faith that they were there. I finished half the foot and started the toe decreases. Ryan's friends and the other parents think I'm crazy.

I am happy I got some sock knitting done.

Yes, the cat really is trying to pick his teeth on my double points.

Ryan actually tells me that her friends like me a bit because I'm nuts and paint and knit and bake. She sometimes feeds them my cupcakes and spent a good part of yesterday experimenting with my acrylics to make Shelly's birthday present. I'm so proud.

Everyday Should Be Knit In Public Day, and Homeless Pets Need Love Too

This is going to be part public service announcement and part random this is what I'm working on now post. Just so you know.

I've started volunteering at Homeward Pet, a no-kill animal shelter here in Woodinville. I love it. I do laundry, answer the phone, feed cats, clean litter boxes and pet more cats. It's just like home! Some day I will graduate to walking dogs. I love kitties. I've always wished I could do more for the ones that don't get adopted. All our pets are rescues. So, now I go in two mornings a week and help out. The staff and other volunteers are very welcoming and friendly, and they do me the enormous honor of eating the cupcakes and cake I bring in after a bout of stress baking. This is a much better thing than having me and my diabetic family eat it all.
Now for the cute cat pictures, here are mine.

Bugaboo stalking the driveway.

Pixel on the cat tree.

Annabelle does not like having her picture taken.

Pixel came from the Humane Society nine years ago and he is still our largest and most cuddly cat.
Bugaboo was part of a litter of five kittens my daughter Ryan rescued from the parking lot of our apartment complex four years ago.
Annabelle and Temperance are both from Homeward Pet.
Bobbie, our ever patient three-legged dog is from PAWS in Lynnwood. He's always happy to have his picture taken with my knitting.

Temperance is only 4 pounds at two years old.

Bobbie under lace wash cloth.... thinks his Mom is nuts.

I also have made good progress on my socks and went to Snohomish and picked up some knitting projects from Country Yarn. Expect Sock Monkey pictures soon.

Happy Halloween!

Joyful Hallows!

Merry Samhain!

Here's a bunch of cat pictures. Sorry no knitting content today.












Why do cats like to sleep in the sink?













Kitten in the kitchen. Isn't she to cute.













This is Crystal. My beautiful hairy white menace. She's gone. I lost her. She hasn't been home in 10 days. I'm hoping one of our neighbors took her in and loves her as much as I do. I like to think that she is safe and warm and happy and not part of some coyote's digestive system.




OK not a lot of knitting content.



I have to finish Ryan's socks by tomorrow so she can take them to Fall Encampment this weekend. This is the second sock! It's not as bad as it looks, I just need to do the toe.

I still need to block my shawl and I need to finish Quinn's sweater before her next growth spurt so she can wear it for more than two minutes. Girl grows way to fast. At least I finished the back, now I need sleeves.

What was I thinking

Just because your work is getting ready for an audit is no reason to not blog. I am a bad bad knitter.

Warning: this will be a very long post, and it will have many pictures. Go get some coffee.

This is my baby sister Quinn. She is to darn cute for words.

This is the blanket that I made for my Mom for her last birthday. It's hard to tell but that is actually a big mitered square blanket done in an ombre dyed boucle. It's also very soft. You can tell how much Quinn appreciates it.



Mom and Quinn just got back from a trip to Oregon to see the family. Mom tried to get some good shots of her and various baby cousins in some of my hand knits but she hasn't gotten all the film developed yet. Yes, she still uses a regular old film loading camera. Sigh.

She did send my the first lot online though. Go Mom!

My favorite picture is of Quinn watching the cows. She has this total fascination with cows. She even tries to walk up to them and pet them. Mom says it is damn funny to watch. Like a chase in slow motion. Quinn walks up, they take a step or two back, Quinn walks up, and so on. Apparently it's funny watching a toddler herd cows across a field.

In other news.

I finished my shawl! It is not blocked yet to show off it's true beauty. That lump in the back of the picture is actually the top of my husbands head. He was kind enough to hold it up for the picture. My husband is also a large man so the distance between his outstretched arms is 72" to give you an idea of size. It should block out nicely.

I don't think I'm going to dye it after all. It's just to pretty.

I also just had to torture my cat. He's such a lump. This is his "What the hell do you think you're doing monkey?" look.

I started a new sweater for Quinn. Here's the front. It's done in Lion Brand's Organic Cotton, dyed pink, so not so organic anymore. They have the pattern free online. I made pants to match too.

I'm still working on the back but it is the serious boring knitting only good for standing in lines or watching tv, all garter stitch to the neck.

We got a new kitten. Her name is Rio, because I had to fish her out from under a Kia Rio to bring her home. My cat Sentry found her and would not come in the house until I went and got her. Probably just as well, when I got there she was hiding from a family of five raccoons.

This is her snuggled up in between my knee and Sentry's butt.

We have nicknamed her Raccoon Bait. She's only about seven weeks old.

There is lots more to tell but I have to get back to work.... My lunch is over, that's always so sad.

Picture Day (Catching Up)

I rembered to bring my cable with me this time. Go me.

So here are a few pics from the last 2 weeks or so to prove to you, me and everybody that knitting has in fact occurred. And there are some cute cat pictures too.

Here's the finished top section of the Icelandic Lace Shawl.

Here's Pixel being totally unconcerned that he is interfering with my picture.

Some goodies I took up to my Mom. That yellow thing in the middle is actually a very cute baby sweater that I wrote the pattern for myself. I'll get pictures of Quinn actually in it soon. Hopefully before she grows out of it.

Here's some sock progress. Yes, I know they are not identicle socks. But I really like how self striping yarns make fabulous fraternal, twin socks.

And last for this morning, my fierce new knitting bag. Which I'm using as a purse, because mostly what goes in my purse is knitting anyway.

It's suade. I love to just pet it.

Knitting With Cats

Or perhaps it would be more acurate to say knitting around cats, because cats do interfere with your knitting. So here are some simple rules I have found that help me cope with catly interference.

1. Your cat loves you, and he will express this love by laying on you while you are knitting. Especially if he can manage to lay on the yarn ball and or a strategic corner of your project making it neccessary to move him before finishing or starting a new row. There is really no way around this one. Your cat has the upper hand here. You love him, and would never lob him across the room for snagging your very delicate and complicated lace shawl. He will also feel free to sleep on any pattern, book, or charted design you're working from. Making it neccessary to shuffle the cat from your knitting, off your lap, off your pattern, off your working yarn ball and hopefully off your couch. He may or may not get the hint at this point. Sometimes I resort to locking him out of the house or briding him with catnip.

2. Your cat loves your yarn, especially if it is expensive or impossible to replace. If you bought a silk/mohair yarn on a special trip to Portland for half price, because they don't make that size skein in that colorway anymore, that is the yarn your cat will want to make his very own stuffy. Fortunately this problem has a simple solution. Bag it, box it, or stick it in a cupboard. If you have an open work basket, shove it under an endtable or lock it in a closet. Never under estimate the yarn thieving abilities of your average cat, or you will wake up with yarn balls strung a round your dining room table, into the living room and down the hall to the laundry machines. Ask me how I know.

3. Completed or semi completed knitting projects make perfect cat beds. If your project is complete and just needs to go in the wash this isn't as much of a problem. If your project is still on the needles and becomes you cats favoritest place to sleep, there by knocking stitches loose, and making you swear a blue streak as your try to pick them all up again, it's more of a problem. But then you really can't blame the cat for sleeping on afgans you made for sleeping on in the first place.

4. As far as your cat is concerned yarn is a toy. You love yarn. You love the way it feels, how it flows through your hands and on to the needles, the texture, the color, and even the smell. So does your cat. Only he likes to bat it around your whole house and pack it around like a dead rat. If you're very unlucky he also likes to eat it, or at least chew on it. How do I know this?

I have yarn loving cats, all four of the little beggers. Pixel, Crystal, and Bugaboo all love wool. I cannot even count the number of times I have had to start a new ball of yarn because they've gnoshed through it, usually in mid-row, usually while the little darling was laying on my lap. Sentry, on the other hand, likes cotton. Only he likes to eat it. Now actually digesting yarn is bad for cats. It won't go through and you have to have the vet surgically remove what ever won't pass. This scares me a bit to think that my yarn could kill my cat, so when I see him snacking and he has a big ol' strand of yarn hanging out of his mouth I pull it out. I once pulled 2 1/2 yarns of dishrag cotton, dripping kitty spit and all slimy, out of him mouth. Yuck. I do not have pictures of this and I don't ever want to do it again. I keep my cotton locked up now.

5. If you blog about knitting your cat will become obsessed with walking on your keyboard. The picture says it all. It once took me five minutes to figure out that the reason a page wasn't loading was because he was laying on the esc key.

6. Who ate my double points? Cats have a hard time resisting wooden needles. Who can blame them, so do I. I however, do not chew on the ends. I now have two sets of double points that used to have five needles a piece and now only have four. Darned cat. Again the solution is to hide them from your cats. I have special bags for my needles and after they're bagged I put them in the cupboard. So far this has worked, because I'm a needle snob and I'll be damned if I'm going to use aluminum needles because of the cats.

I hope you've found these rules helpful. Or at least entertaining. I'm sure there will be more catly interference with my knitting and I'll need to come up with more rules. But my cats and I have reached an understanding and if they claw up my shawl while I'm blocking it I refuse to be responsible for my actions.

Lace knitting: the Shawl Saga

This picture should be titled 'I Love My Cat and Will Not Kill Him'. He knows this, of course. He also knows that he is a black cat and I am knitting a very delicate white shawl. If he did not kill mice for me and keep my feet warm at night I would wang his little kitty head against a wall.

Sigh.

As you can see, around the cat, I have been working on my shawl. I've progressed to the last panel of lace that forms the center of the triangle. It sits right around the top of the shoulders and the base of the neck.

I'm not sure I like it. The lace is formed by an alternating K3tog (knit 3 together), k1 p1 k1 into the next stitch, row and plain knit rows. Because of the decreases you end up knitting the 3 (k1 p1 k1) stitches on the next pass. The resulting lace looks a bit like moss stitch with holes in it. It does not lay flat, because it's kinda fancy garter stitch.

It's not an amazingly difficult pattern, it's just time consuming. The K3tog's are touchy and you have to be really careful to not lose a stitch or split the yarn or only knit 2 out of 3. (Of course some of this is my fault for knitting super slippery alpaca lace weight yarn on super slippery Addi Turbo's. But i will over look that.)

I just don't know if I like the look of it. It looks OK in the magazine picture, but is somewhat distorted by the drape of the garment. So I'm left with questions. How will it look in real life once it's knitted up? How will it look once it's blocked? If it's ugly will my hair be long enough to cover it? Well, probably, my hair goes past my waist. Will it look good enough to not need long hair?

And most importantly, can I keep my cat off it long enough to even answer these and other facinating questions?

(Que dramatic music.)

Cat interference, roughing the yarn

As promised, here are some pictures of my cats getting in the way of knitting, or at least getting in on the picture taking.

This is Pixel, showing his enthusiasm for for the mesh bag I was working on a couple weeks ago.

And Bug-a-boo laying on some hand dyed yarn. I was trying to show the color variations you can get using food safe dye stuffs. He thinks that means a ready made bed or a quick game of chase the skein. He also likes my giant Wobbly Circles Tote.

Pictures!

Ok, the camera is toast. Whatever the kids dropped it in killed it. But the card, she is beautifique. My computer at home choked on it but my computer at work had no such worries. Yeah!

As you can see my cats love my knitting. Now I can blog in color.

More images and stories will be forthcoming. I've got a whole bunch of pictures of my Yarn Crawl through Portland and dying and cats interfering with knitting and more....