… but come one, how can I not share my stretching cat with you?!

See also Qussa.nl: Stories from Afar and Up Close

She went outside and looked around as if to say, “What the hell is this?”

The east coast is getting snowed in, and although it hasn’t started here in northern New Jersey yet, I’m already preparing to spend the rest of the weekend indoors with lots of cocoa and some new pattern math.

I was going to keep this whole project a secret, but now I don’t think I will—mostly because it’s too funny not to share. Look! It’s a manta ray!

Heh. Just kidding. It’s actually… a mitten.

A sideways mitten. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided that regular up and down mittens just weren’t good enough, but now that I’m working on this idea I’ve found that I really can’t leave it alone. Still waffling back and forth on whether or not there will be an official pattern, since these are so tricky and the specifics of how to shape them can vary widely depending on hand width, finger length, and other factors. Still, I figure if I take good notes (see above re: pattern math), then I’ll have something to show for it, either way.

You know, I bet knitting sideways mittens for Oolong would be a lot easier.

This is my dad.

He’s a little… strange. He also reads this blog. (Hi dad!)

Without a doubt, he is the most difficult person in my immediate family to gift shop for. My mom will present me with an itemized list of what she wants, how much it costs, where to get it, how to wrap it. My brother is usually happy with a funny t-shirt or video game. But my dad… well, his usual response to “what do you want?” is “I don’t really need anything.”

Well yeah, dad, but what you do want?

Recently I’ve taken it as a bit of a personal challenge to try to find gifts that will amaze and delight him, like the Hamlet bow tie he received for his birthday this year. It was perfect because he teaches high school English and, in addition to spending a lot of time covering Hamlet, he only ever wears bow ties to school. (I’m sure he also spends a lot of time cringing at the grammar on this blog.) In fact, it was almost a little too perfect; I knew I had to go far above and beyond to improve on that. I knew I would have to… knit a sweater vest.

It was nearly impossible for me to keep this a secret. Every time I struggled with something (like running out of yarn) or managed something clever (like the 320 stitch tubular bind off around the button and neckbands, no I’m not kidding, yes it took me four hours, no I never want to do another tubular bind off again), I desperately wanted to blog about it. But—see above about my dad reading this blog. (Hi dad!) And saying anything would’ve ruined the amazement and delight, I think. So I kept my mouth shut. Er, mostly. And I’m glad I did. He was, in fact, speechless, and with luck he’ll get many years of wear out of just a few days of work. There’s nothing better than that.

Actually, wait, there is something better: it’s superwash.

Pattern: Professor Vest by Elizabeth Morrison
Yarn: Plymouth Encore Worsted in charcoal, 4 skeins
Needles: US6/4mm and US8/5mm Knitpicks Options
Notes: Do not be like me and try to attempt tubular bind off on all the ribbing. Save your sanity. Don’t. Do it.
On Ravelry here.

And since you’re always asking me about Caturday, dad, here you go!

My resolve to get some spinning done lasted exactly no point two seconds before I gave in and cast on for some lace.

Of course since it is a) lace and b) silk, it’s going to look like yarn barf ’til it’s done and blocked. Fortunately, it’s knitting up quite quickly, so hopefully I’ll have it finished and blocked in a few days.

In the meantime, I will distract you with—what else?—a cat.

“stay on alert soldier!”

“friendly fire!!! i’m not the enemy soldier!”

“enemy up ahead… stay on alert”

“CHARGEEEEEEEEEE”

“you traitor!!!”

CATURDAY Post some fucking cats!

Gift knitting means I can’t show you what I’ve been working furiously on all week, because someone reads this blog and I don’t want to give away the surprise. But I have a few other tidbits I can share with you…

Pattern: Shiver Cowl by Danido Crafty
Yarn: KnitPicks Gloss DK in Woodland Sage, 1 skein and a bit of a second
Needles: US6/4mm KnitPicks Options
Notes: I made a handful of small mods, mostly because my yarn choice was a little thicker than the one specified in the pattern. I only worked the cabled band to 16″ (small neck!) and then, since the pattern doesn’t specify the ratio at which to pick up stitches, I just picked up one stitch in every slipped stitch, and worked the ribbing on the same US6s to keep it from being too snug. I used four buttons rather than three, because these pretty thrifted ones were just a smidge too small to keep it closed without that extra one.
Here on Ravelry.

There’s also a big, huge, GIANT spindle sale which ends tomorrow—15% and free shipping on all orders. Which means that this spindle:

could be in your hands by the end of the week for less than 25 dollars. Really.

And of course, some Caturday.

your pillow is mine now!

…kitty, since it’s caturday via flickr

Paddy hasn’t done anything interesting lately. Here’s the most boring post ever…

can someone please ‘enlighten’ me?

looking chubby

iz feeling sleepy

This is the old lady’s first caturday and she thinks that you should get off her lawn. There was no Caturday in her day and young kittens had to hike 2 miles both uphill to get any treats.

you noe it is caturday right?

just watching over

smile! its caturday!

just rollin’

is that nom noms?

oh hai!

shiny  lights and moving thing

Here’s Figo kicking Lily off the bed!

Once upon a time, at a sheep festival far, far away, I broke my camera. Specifically I broke the screen, so I could still take pictures with it, I just couldn’t see what I was photographing. This led to a lot of kinnearing and a lot of funny looking shots, until yesterday. Yesterday, when I attempted to replace the screen myself, and now… well, now I can’t do anything with my camera.

Apparently when they say “don’t try this at home” they really mean it.

So tomorrow I get to take the thing over to the local camera shop and beg for their mercy; in the meantime the only thing I can possibly show you is a picture of the sample knit I’m working on, the gorgeous Ivy Wrap in some ultra tasty Buffalo Gold Lux.

Imagine it at twice the length, now—the combination of pattern and yarn is so lovely that I’m just whipping through this. I should have it done before the middle of the week.

I was hoping to have Caturday for you, especially since we have three new teeny tiny foster cats, but see above re: camera, so you’ll just have to trust me that they look like this:

Before work I stopped at the store to get some much needed ingredients to survive all the bullshit, mostly things filled to the brim with sugar or promising me “energy,” and the store was almost empty. Very few customers, stockers and empty boxes littering the aisles, and the checkout clerks were so bored by the lack of business that they didn’t really want to linger at the checkout stands amidst the gossip magazines and plethora of fruity, sugar free gums. In short, it was nice.

There were a few other customers wandering aimless like myself. I happened to pass one such woman on the liquor aisle. Her eyes darted from cheap bottle of wine to cheap bottle of wine, not really focusing on anything, since she was talking on her cell phone.

All I could hear as I approached her initially was, “Uh huh, got it,” followed by, “Uh huh, got it,” and then again, “Uh huh, got it.”

A normal enough conversation, but then, right as I’m passing her, I hear her say into the phone, “Wait, what?! She said what to you? Oh no. No! You tell her this for me, you tell her, you say… GET IN MAH WORMHOLE!”

The last part didn’t come out of her mouth until I had just passed her, the words hitting the back of my head and my ears and causing a chain reaction of surprised hysterical laughter within me so hard that I dropped whatever few groceries I was carrying. The desire to laugh lingered all day, right up until now as I replay it in my mind while typing this.

Damn hamsters are always ME ME ME!

Stephanie W., I hope things improve.

ooo what’s that?

is that for me?

the kitteh grand palace

the third floor does seem comfy

the cubby is a good size too

i like the view from the sky deck

the floating deck

in the shoebox

in the bucket

in the tunnel

in front of the tv

in the beer box

under the kitchen sink