Archive for the 'Pets' Category

Spinning, Kitty’s and More!

Published on June 29, 2009 in Fiberlicious, Pets and UFO. 0 Comments Tags: baby blanket, Sleepy Monkey, socks, Tour de Flees.

tdf_2009_badge It’s been a while, I know, and I really hate that I haven’t really had much to blog about, but as usual my education is getting in the way of my craft. I haven’t really been knitting as much as I would like, but what I have been working on is pretty freakin’ cool! I’ve been knitting the Sleepy Monkey blanket, as the last post said, but I’m *almost* done. I’m working on the border (side one is done, I’m working on side two before the join) and it’s coming out so sweet! I’ve also decided to join the Tour de Fleece! I’m down to one summer class, as I’ve finished two of the three already, and the one that is left is not that demanding so I should have the time to spin, take pictures of the progress, and blog about it. It’ll be my first year doing this spin-a-long so I’m a bit psyched about it. I’ve got some awesomely soft, fluffy, and just overall yummy alpaca fiber that I need to spin up, on top of all the roving I have from the roving club I was a part of and haven’t been able to catch up, so I thought this would be a good way to catch up with it all.

On top of school, there has been other things going on. My house was hit by lightening, which blew up my laptop. This means, of course, that I had to buy a new laptop, so I totally upgraded, got a 17″ HP that does everything I could ever think of! It’s a fabulous machine, and looks so pretty too.

That was me and it at work while I was working and getting everything I needed installed on it, since installing things is loads of waiting anyways, I figured I could load and work. Isn’t it pretty!? I love it! It’s shiny, and the HP symbol on the back of it lights up like a Mac (didn’t get a picture of it but will do so). So, for the millions of questions I’ve gotten, we rent the house, it’s not ours, therefore insurance doesn’t cover because we don’t have renters insurance, and in truth, if we did have renters insurance, I could have purchased about 300 of these laptops for what I would pay monthly for the off chance that something like this happens. What I am going to do is part off the parts of the old laptop that does work on eBay to make up for the purchase of the new laptop.

I wanted to save the best for last. Get ready for über cuteness. We found a tiny, itty, bitty kitten in our backyard. She was so tiny she fit in the palm of my hand. She’s a little bigger now, but still über, über cute. We first thought it was a boy, so I was all for naming her Ernest Hemingway. I have a reason for this. She was found in the wheel well of the boat, and she’s a tuxedo cat with a mostly black face and white whiskers, so she looked like an old man. I thought old man, boat…..Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway! But then we found out that she was a girl, and the man vetoed Ernest Hemingway and named her Socks. So here she is! This picture is from when we first brought her in…

Cocoa and Onyx were super weirded out at first, but now they’re dealing. Cocoa and her are actually becoming fairly good friends. They spend the day together, playing together. I get home and they’re both waiting by the door for me. I open the bedroom door in the morning and they both run in together, and then I caught them doing this one day,
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This was a clear indication that they were becoming friends, because before Cocoa wanted nothing to do with Socks. Nothing. Socks would walk by and she was snarl and swat at her, but now they wrestle and play.

Once Tour de Fleece starts, I should be blogging on a more regular basis, and I’m going to try and start blogging a little more regularly anyways, so stay tuned!

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New Look, New Knitting Content

Published on February 23, 2009 in FO, Knitting, Pets, Rockin' Sock Club and UFO. 0 Comments Tags: FO, Knitting, needles, shawl, socks, UFO.

As you can tell, I changed the look of my blog. I’m still going to tweek it some, but for now, this’ll do.

I finished some socks! Actually, I finished two pairs of socks! Firstly, I finally finished the Summer of Love Socks. These fit nice, and they’re cute little socks to wear around, especially with a pair of Mary Janes. I don’t know why it took me so long, because in truth they’re incredibly easy to knit up, and they don’t take very long. The longest part is the lace, and after that it’s a breeze.

Even though these are super easy socks, I messed them up. As you can see from the one on the right, the toe is not quite right, but in truth, I don’t care. I only ever show off my socks when they’re in shoes, so nobody’s going to see that I messed that u, so please don’t look at this sock. If I get frustrated enough later, I’ll redo the toe, but I redid this toe about 3 times and still messed it up. The error was totally my error and my not paying attention to what I was doing with the stitches.

Another pair of socks I finished were the Leafling socks. These socks were fabulous to knit! I can’t explain to you guys what a dream these socks were. Firstly, I usually don’t like knitting cuff to toe because I like to be able to try on socks as I go and I’ve found that knitting toe up is easier for trying on purposes. You get a true feel for how it’ll fit that way, but once I cast these on, I could not stop! The pattern is awesome, the way the heel was knit is awesome! I truly liked how easy the heel was to knit, without the dreaded picking up of the stitches along the gusset, nor the short row heel that always leaves extra space so it gets all poofy in shoes. I had none of that with these socks! Love them! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THEM! I’m probably going to knit a whole army of these with some of the other yarns I have laying around the house that I really should start using up instead of buying more yarn.

Here’s a quick close up of this sock. This ridge was made with a series of k2tog and picking up stitches, and because of these methods, you get a great ridge in the middle, and great little bumps that makes the leaves. It took me about a week to two weeks to finish these because it was one of those knits that you wanted to find out how it was all going to work. Since it was a technique I’d never used, getting to the next portion of the sock was a fun and exciting thing.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged much of anything, but that’s what happens when you’re a full-time stepMOM, when you’re a full-time student, and when you do everything that I do in a day, which I really don’t understand how I get everything done. My last knitting related post I asked you all a question regarding this fabulous yarn I’ve had sitting around the house for practically a year. I decided to use it. I’m turning it into a Lace Leaf Shawl from the Evelyn Clark Knitting Lace Triangles book. I know this picture of it is HORRIBLE beyond words, but I took it with my phone real quick. I’ll have to take another picture a little later showing the actual lace and how it’s coming out. I think since the pattern is a simple leaf motif that it’s coming out nice, but I would love a critique. If you think the lace is getting lost because of the colors, let me know.

Lastly, I know you can’t really see it in the picture of the shawl, but I was finally able to pick up something that I’ve always wanted! Let me introduce MY NEW NEEDLES! I’ve been wanting this set for a long time now, and I finally had a little extra money to be able to afford the set. Oh.my.Goddess are these needles sweet! They’re pretty, they’re sharp, they don’t snag, and I actually think these are faster than my Addi’s. These needles are FABULOUS beyond words!

I would like to leave you all with my Cocoa and I having a quick conversation. I promised some of the girls from my Stitch n’ Bitch that I would record and show her talking to me, so I thought I would share with you all. Hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think of the new look .

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Devil Cat

Published on December 15, 2008 in Pets. 1 Comment Tags: cats.

This is Yoshi. She is my mother in laws cat and she’s can’t keep up with the cat any longer, so we decided to take her in to see how she would get along with our Onyx and Cocoa. This is the mood Yoshi was in last night:

I don’t know what’s wrong with this cat! She’s always been anti-social, but not like this! So I thought I would share this great little clip of our “Devil Cat”. Did anyone else notice this cat’s head spinning?

BTW, the bald spot on her back is because her hair became so matted (notice how big she is, she weighs like 26 pounds!) that it was just easier to shave it then try to fight with it.

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Impossible cat!

Published on February 15, 2008 in Knitting, Pets, Rockin' Sock Club, Spinning and UFO. 2 Comments

So last night as I was trying to finish off my knitting and my sweet little kitty Onyx just wouldn’t let me. She decided to sit down right on top of my yarn so that it had to pass under her as it was being knit into the Grasshopper sock that I’m desperately trying to finish. It was really frustrating. So after fighting with the cat for a while I had the brilliant idea of asking my wonderful man to snap a picture.

As you can see, she was not very happy about being bothered from her soft resting space to have a picture taken of her, or to allow me to knit my sock. This is the reason her nickname is grumpy.

As for the sock, I have 5 rows left to bind the thing off. Only 5 little measly rows before it’s completely done and I have no time to do it until later on tonight because of work. Stupid work always gets in the way of my knitting! I also did a little spinning last night before dinner. I didn’t accomplish all that much, but I did get back into the groove of it. It had been a while since I picked up my spindle, and it’s definitely like riding a bike. Once you get it, you just get it and your fingers do what they need to do.

Coming in 3 days….

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Two Birds With One Stone

Published on September 19, 2007 in FO, Knitting, Pets and Rockin' Sock Club. 1 Comment

As promised, here’s the pictures of my finished Inside Out Socks. I don’t know why or how but they don’t look exactly the same. It seems as if I did the cables different on each. I’m not too concerned. It gives them character. They’re currently soaking in my bathroom sink in some wool wash and they’ll be blocked tonight on the sock blockers, and I guess I’ll see what happens from there.

Now, I have a little cat story to tell. We decided to put a bird bath in the backyard a couple of months ago. It’s been filled with water every day and still we see no birds going to it….ever! I think we figured out why today.

(click to make bigger)

(Disclaimer: My boyfriend doesn’t exactly know how to work this camera to it’s full capabilities, so most of the pictures he’s taken come out blurry, like this one.)

That’s Onyx in the bird bath. It’s no wonder I never see any bird there!