Addition and Subtraction

Your favorite knitter/foster parent/blogger/insane do-it-yourself-er is finally back. The whole floor, trim, and most of the touch up painting is done, done, done. I feel so much better now.

I had a serious case of start-itis near the end of the flooring project. I think the stress and chaos of living in a construction zone made me want to escape, so I just kept starting new yarn projects. I even obsessed about plans to make a crocheted sock – my mind was racing with thoughts about how to construct the thing and how exactly I wanted to do the ribbing – to the point that I had to get out of bed one night and start crocheting. I guess when a muse takes notice of one of my ideas, she won’t let it go until we get into action. I think it would be most helpful if we took inventory of what is on the hooks and needles again.

Knittin’

1. Crocheted Sock – I am going to turn this one into a class. Unlike knit socks, I consider crochet socks to be an advanced beginner project. Yes, the hook is small (but you could make a worsted weight sock with a slightly bigger hook), but you only really need to know how to single crochet to start a sock. In my class I am going to teach skills like increasing, decreasing, and even how to crochet to fit. Socks are really great for teaching technique.

2. Mr. Greenjeans Cardigan – I really need to start layering now that I live somewhere it snows. It seems like a cardigan is the easiest way to get started.

(All of the following will be Ravelry links)

3. Two-in-one socks – I tried this technique, but it was so slow going that I had to admit I hated it. I separated the socks and began knitting them separately. I am much happier now, but I did learn that my gauge is much tighter when I knit double-stranded.

4. Robert’s Boot Socks – These are going to be much like kilt hose, but at the same time more plain. Robert is my brother in the Marines. He wanted a good pair of thick socks for hiking, and he really liked the pictures of some kilt hose I made in the past, so he asked for some. The thing is, I started it using Cascade 220. Somewhere after I made the first 20% or so of the first sock, I realized that I should have used a superwash yarn because the hiking will most likely felt the things. Does anyone know if Cascade Superwash comes in khaki?

5. Cat Couch – I started working on this project for the cats again when I started teaching classes. I really owe them something nice, and I now I’m starting to owe them lots of nice things for neglecting them. I am such a bad mom.

6. Beaded Deep Space – This is a Christmas project for a friend. I do hope to finish it for this Christmas, but it may have to wait for next. The long floor project robbed me of quite a bit of time.

7. Colorado Gloves – I am actually thinking of turning these into mittens or fingerless gloves. I realized that the fingers make it way too slippery to wear the gloves while knitting or driving, and they wouldn’t be nearly as warm as mittens.

I also took something out of my project list recently – the Earl Grey socks. I know now, without a shred of doubt, that I am allergic to alpaca. Sometimes when I help a client at the store, my throat starts to itch and then swell up. Every single time I ask the client what fiber she is using, it turns out to be alpaca. I was seriously crushed to learn this because alpaca fiber is incredibly soft and warm – as a matter of fact, it would make a great winter blanket. In the end, I rehomed this project and some unspun alpaca fiber to my friend, Julie. I know she’ll take good care of it.

Kittens

In the time when I was absent, the kittens continued to grow and change. Goose made weight, and I had to return her earlier than I expected. She is incredibly friendly. Too friendly. Every night since I got the Twilight kittens, she got to sleep with us. In the middle of the night Goosie would wake up so happy, purring and rubbing her face against mine and Michael’s. While it was perhaps the sweetest way to wake up, it was still waking up. Multiple times a night. I was a wreck.

I was completely flattered that Goose loved us so much.

Lambie is still with me. She had a lesion on her muzzle that looked suspiciously like ringworm. Since the shelter I currently volunteer for puts kittens with ringworm down (they are working to change that policy, just slowly), I had Lamb’s spot checked. What a mistake. She is still with me because the test came back positive even though the lesion cleared up within 3 days. As anyone who reads my blog regularly should know by now, no ringworm has ever cleared up that fast. Ever. While the vet agrees with me that it is probably a false positive due to cross-contamination, they have to wait until Lamb has a negative test to release her for adoption. The test takes 2 weeks for a negative result. I am leaving for a trip before that test comes back, so I was distressed. Fortunately, the shelter vet has a plan – they’ll treat her with lyme-sulfur and put her up for adoption with a note that she was possibly exposed to ringworm. It means she will be in a cage by herself, which makes me really sad. However, she is a black kitten. Nice as she is, people are superstitious about black cats, and the older she gets, the less adoptable Lamb will be. I cannot stand the thought that my baby will be overlooked because her coat is the “wrong” color. You could do a lot worse than Lamb. Lambie loves to give kisses, and she really loves yarn-based cat toys. And face it – she’s beautiful.

That Duck character – well, where do I begin. I’ve loved other foster kittens. I loved Carrot, who found a perfect home right before I left San Francisco. I knew when her new mother started to speak to me that Carrot was meant for her, the only person good enough for my baby. I loved Margo, a black momcat whom I fostered long before I started this blog. She has bright orange eyes, and she used to pull your face to hers with her paw so she would kiss you. She also had this pure joy that you couldn’t help catching. I loved Roman, the first foster kitten that I really had to fight to keep alive. He died in the end, but I thought if he lived that I might not be able to let go. I also loved Gareth, who survived Panleuk with some brain damage. He didn’t seem to have a good flight instinct when a situation was dangerous. He also couldn’t figure out simple obstacles like glass doors. He got into my entertainment center once, through an open glass door. The other door was closed. As Gareth tried to get out of the closed glass door, he started to panic. He threw himself against the glass, not noticing that there was  a way to freedom just inches away. He also panicked if he was alone. It was heartbreaking to realize what he was going through. I would have kept him, too, if a woman hadn’t come along who inquired about him, left the adoption center to really think through what she was getting into, and came back completely prepared to love him the way he needed.

Duck is like the others I’ve loved. He’s handsome. He has a very gentle personality, and nothing really bothers him. He has the innate joy that Margo had. I went through a lot to save him. On October 1, Michael took Duck to the shelter. At 4:00 that afternoon, after his neuter surgery, I adopted him. That’s right, I adopted my first foster kitten. I managed to resist the charms of 183 kittens, only to be suckered in by Duck. Save for a fight he started in his carrier the moment I signed the papers and handed over the adoption fee (Duck was recovering from the anesthesia, and we think he’s a mean drunk), Duck has continued to be the same, wonderful baby cat he always was. And now he’s mine.

The Twilight kittens are all still alive. I truly thought that Renee, at 197g and at least 3-4 weeks of age was going to die, but she is still alive. She’s still tiny, but she is bright and friendly and gaining weight, just a little at a time. Edward and Bella are alive and thriving, as are Jacob, Emmett, and Rosalie. Alice is struggling, but I think even she might survive. She looks awful, but she gains just a little weight most mornings. There will be more photos of them in the future, but they won’t be with me much longer. When we leave town, the kittens are going to other foster homes. They are off the bottle, so the healthier ones can go to any foster home. The little ones will need special care, though. These poor kittens came to me with giardia (I know, what a surprise). When the meds didn’t clear up the infection, the doctors found clostridium in their stool. This is another disease that people can catch, but not as easily as they can catch giardia. You might know other forms of clostridium: botulism, food poisoning, and tetanus. It is also responsible for lethal hospital infections, under the name of clostridium dificile. I think this may be what killed so many of my bottle-feeders in San Francisco. Luckily, there is a treatment – an antibiotic called Amphoral. I think I like that drug, given that it seems to save lives.

So, I believe that you are now caught up. If there is something I missed, please mention it in the comments so that I can be sure to update everyone. Feel free to raise your expectations to the previous level

A few good days

The last two weeks are a long story, but I’m going to try to catch you up.

My lovely little Island family has gone back to the shelter. All but Palau had made weight, and more kittens came in that needed a home NOW, so I traded my big kittens in for smaller, younger models (like a man with a mid-life crisis). Palau was so close to being ready that the shelter decided to put him up for adoption anyway. The vet tech/foster coordinator who took the kittens in confirmed that Marquesas was indeed deaf, and they put a special note on his kennel card. All done.

So, I took home 4 new kittens. These kittens are of the tinier variety, still nursing on a surrogate mother. I have no idea what happened to the real mother, but the new mom seemed not to notice that these children did not belong to her. The new mom’s name is officially Melba, a name that I just don’t like for some reason. We had to rename her.

The morning after I brought the new kittens in, I weighed them to be sure that they were getting fed. In fact, the mother cat has been so good with those kittens. They are so incredibly clean. They kind of hated me, hissing whenever I reached my hand into the carrier. These little kittens felt no need to have human intervention.

A few hours later, I got a call from the shelter. The foster coordinator asked how my kittens were doing, and could I take 4 more of the same age? I missed bottle-feeding, so of course I said that I would be there as fast as I could. After my dentist appointment, anyway (I had 4 fillings, all between the teeth – ugh).

When I arrived at the shelter I was given a box full of kittens with the cutest names – Duck, Goose, Chicken, and Lamb. They were kind of scraggly looking, not at all like the kittens that came in with the surrogate mommy. I figured there was no way that the mom cat would take 4 extra little ones, so I prepared myself to bottle-feed. The kittens peeped and cried the minute they saw me, so I knew that they hadn’t been with a mommy in quite some time. My heart went out to them.

Upon our arrival to my house, I showed the mom cat the 4 new babies. I was prepared for her to reject them, so I offered them one-at-a-time, careful not to frighten the existing litter. Mom greeted each addition with a bath and a little help going to the bathroom, then allowed each one to nurse with the existing litter. All told, this mother cat has accepted 8 kittens who do not belong to her. Deciding that she must be a saint, we changed her name to Theresa (as in Mother Theresa).

A check 24 hours later revealed that Theresa just didn’t have enough milk to support 8 kittens. The new kittens looked as clean as could be, and Theresa was clearly keeping up with their bathroom needs as well. She just couldn’t produce food fast enough. I cheerfully broke out the baby bottles and started to supplement the kittens’ diet. Hey, mommy cat is doing the dirty work, and the least I can do is keep the babies fed. Deal.

This is Theresa and 3 of the original 4 kittens.

We’ve renamed these kittens to fit (sort of) with the newer kittens. The siamese kitten in the front is Pegasus, the grey one one the left is Sylph, and the grey one on the right is Chimera. The missing kitten (I think he’s behind mom) is Griffin.

These are the other 4:

Chicken

Duck

Goose

and Lamb.

This poor mommy cat has a lot of work to do!

For about a week, everything was great with the kittens. They were all gaining weight, albeit slowly. Goose started eating a little wet food on her own. It was starting to look like it was going to be an uneventful litter.

Until.

Pegasus threw up an entire stomach-full of milk on Tuesday. I planned to give her some Pedialyte in a few hours, after her stomach had a chance to settle. When I went back to the kitten room to check on her, Peggy wasn’t getting up with the other kittens. I woke her up, and she was wobbly on her feet. It became apparent that she was going to crash soon. I called the shelter to warn them that I was bringing in a crashing kitten. I gave her fluids and rubbed a little Karo syrup in her mouth to bring her out of shock. Her gums were so white, I was sure that she was on her way out. Michael drove us the nearly half-hour to the shelter. I was so sure she wasn’t going to live.

The staff rushed Pegasus to the back. I waited nervously in the lobby for news. A doctor came out, and I prepared for the worst. “Can you come into this exam room, please?” The vet asked me. After she closed the door, the vet asked me to describe the events leading up to the crash. I told her the story, then offered the fecal sample that the kitten so generously left in Michael’s hand when I thought she was in the active stages of dying. The vet’s first guess was that the kittens has Panleukopoenia – Parvo for cats. That would be the worst diagnosis ever. I’ve had the disease in my house before I started keeping a blog. It’s usually lethal. Because the virus can live in the environment for a long time, the shelter would shut down my fostering operation.

But the fecal test came back negative. As a matter of fact, the doctor could find nothing wrong with the kitten, other than the obvious symptoms. She gave Pegasus a vitamin B shot, a little more fluids, and some more Karo syrup. They asked (as if I would say no) if I would be willing to take her home over night and care for her since they didn’t have the capability in the shelter. This meant that I would have to feed Pegasus Karo syrup every 2-4 hours all night long until her recheck in the morning. I agreed without hesitation.

Peggy slept all the way home. I watched her breathe, terrified that at any moment the gentle rise and fall of her chest would stop. As we pulled into the garage, the kitten snapped back to life! She hissed and growled at me, but she was alive and angry. I tried to keep her in a carrier with a heat disc in it, but it became clear that the kitten wanted food and feline company. I let her have a special nursing session alone, then laid her in a pile of warm, sleeping kittens. I kept checking on her, waking up every 2 hours that night without an alarm.

I brought Pegasus back to the shelter at 10:00 the next morning. “I have a surprise for you,” I told the vet. I then produced a completely normal kitten. I brought in a few others to keep her company as well. The doctor took Pegasus around the back rooms, marveling at how a kitten who was so close to death yesterday could be so normal today. Because of Peggy’s incident yesterday, and my description of Duck’s too mellow temperament and slight diarrhea, the vet treated him with a shot of vitamin B as well, just to be safe. So far, everyone is just fine and starting the conversion to food instead of milk. I will never understand kittens.

Meanwhile, a yarn craft drama began to unfold for me. On my way to pick up the second group of kittens, I heard a story on NPR. The idea of the story was that someone thinks it best to live as if every event in life was neutral rather than good or bad. Personally, I have a wide range of emotion and I cannot imagine being so neutral all the time, but to each his own. The story went like this:

A man has a ranch, and his horse runs away. “That’s too bad,” say the neighbors. “Maybe,” replies the rancher. The next day the horse returns with 7 new horses. “What good fortune,” say the neighbors. “Maybe,” replies the rancher. The next day the rancher’s son tries to ride one of the horses, but he falls off the horse and breaks a leg. “What bad luck,” say the neighbors. “Maybe,” replies the rancher. The next day the government comes by to draft the son for the war. Because of the broken leg, they reject the kid and he gets to avoid the war.

That day,  I had planned to meet a group of knitters I discovered on Ravelry. I only met them once before at a yarn shop, but they seemed nice enough, and quite frankly, I needed to get out there and meet some people. I hadn’t slept since the day before, but I knew I was getting over the hump and heading toward a daytime schedule (which I have kept for about 10 days now, most of them good days, but a few were bad and I had to sit on the sofa all day). I walked into the bookstore where they were supposed to meet, and searched for knitters. There was not a single person in the store holding yarn or any other knitting related paraphernalia.

Thinking that the knitters may have wandered over to the yarn shop in the same plaza, I left the book store and headed over. When I opened the door, there were no customers inside. The shop girl behind the desk asked if she could help me. I explained that I was supposed to meet some knitters, but it appeared that no one but me came. I wouldn’t recognize any of them without knitting in hand, so I was pretty sure I got stood up. “Well, you can knit with me,” the shop girl said.

We spoke for awhile, and the girl told me about the various knitting groups that came to socialize at the store. “We have Crochet Club on Thursdays,” she said. I then explained that I had just gotten my Crochet Master’s Certificate (if you can’t brag to the yarn shop, who can you brag to, after all?) and this stopped her cold. “Really?” she asked. “Would you be interested in teaching crochet?”

The next day, I went back to the store to hang out with my new found friend. Her manager arrived shortly after I did, and the shop girl excitedly told her about me. Not longer after that, a customer entered the store with a knitting problem. “Let’s see what you can do,” said the manager. After spending quite awhile reworking a pattern with the customer (her gauge was off just enough to make the pattern difficult), the manager seemed satisfied that I had the skills required to do the job.

The last few days have been filled with designing classes and making samples of the projects for those classes. What seemed like would be  a day of misfortune became the day that I got officially employed in the field of yarn craft. Maybe there is something to that story after all…

Kitten Party in SF

I had no idea how busy I would be when I got to San Francisco. I mean, sure, I knew I wanted to see a lot of people, but it’s gotten to the point where I get up in the morning, run all day meeting people and working (yes, I had a paid job one morning), then we get home and I fall asleep like I have narcolepsy. Not that I’m complaining.

I got off the plane on Thursday, dropped my bags at Carisa’s house, and immediately got on the bus to get to the Animal Welfare Commission. That went way overtime, so we missed the Scottish Country Dance class we were planning to attend, so we went out to dinner with our dance friends instead. I did all of this having slept only 2 hours the night before (I had insomnia, and I spent till 6:00am looking for Michael’s contacts) and 1 more hour while our plane waited on the tarmac to take off.

On Saturday morning (I am aware I skipped Friday – I’ll get back to that later) many of the girls from my knit night met with several other knitters we did not know for World Wide Knit in Public Day. The group was much smaller than last year because it was really late before anyone realized that no one had officially organized the meet-up.

Despite the late planning, people came from far and wide to hang out with other knitters. I thought for sure that I was going to be the one with the longest commute, but it turned out that a lady from Barcelona came here on a business trip and decided that she needed to find people of her own kind. She brought out her crocheting and sat amongst us, home in a strange country. That’s what I like about yarn craft – it transcends nationality.

One poor knitter discovered that the sweater she was knitting in the round was actually a mobius. Way to frog!

On Sunday I met up with Kilala and her mother.

On Friday I went to the shelter to visit with my old friends from the foster group. Toni was there feeding her kittens, as usual.

But Toni had bigger plans. She decided to host a dinner party welcoming us back. A dinner party at Toni’s house is really a kitten party. You see, Toni takes more kittens than I ever could. She has more space than my apartment did – there were kittens everywhere at Toni’s house.

One of the poor babies (top right) had a very scary accident while we were there. I was in the kitchen helping with the meal when another foster parent came through asking for Toni, a very concerned look straining her face. I noticed that she was holding a limp, white body in her hand. I learned later that the kitten decided to jump off the sofa, which is usually no big deal. However, in some sort of freak accident, the kitten landed in such a way that put him into shock. Witnesses said that the kitten took a few steps after the jump and suddenly collapsed onto his side. One of the party goers had a good friend who happens to be a vet, so she called to get any medical advice we could. Within a few minutes the kitten had responded to a small dose of Karo syrup (to get his blood sugar back up) and was able to lift his head. We kept him on a heating pad and several people checked in on him on a regular basis. By the time we left, he had gotten up to look for a meal. I guess he’ll be OK.

The party wasn’t all tragedy. I had gone to the shelter on Friday and met Toni’s bottle feeders. Michael and I went to work of course, feeding the babies so their mommy could properly host a party. One of those bottle-babies must have had a rough life before she got to the shelter. Going by her developmental stage, she had to be at least 3 ½ weeks old. She still definitely wanted the bottle, although she couldn’t seem to keep suction on it. The thing is, she is tiny! She is very skinny, and her eyes are placed so far apart that she resembles a space alien. They called this one Thumbelina.

Is she not the tiniest, cutest thing ever?

I can’t wait to get bottle-feeders at my new shelter.

Completed

Last night (or perhaps the wee hours of this morning, if you want to be precise) I finished all the work for the Crochet Guild Master’s Program! I just have to wait for them to send me the address of the person who is to review my work.

I cannot believe how hard I had to push myself to finish. It truly wasn’t hard to do, I just had absolutely no desire to measure gauges and label swatches.

The kittens have completed their fostering as well. I am taking them back to the shelter at 3:00 today, and I am proud to say that they have all made weight and they are all MUCH healthier than the had been. Gwen and Lance still have a little eye yuckiness, but other than that, nothing. Whew!

I am glad to have all this done given that we are leaving tomorrow for our multiple trips. We were feeling badly at first that Michael would get an entire month off of work and we weren’t really going anywhere. When we added the San Francisco trip, it felt much more like we were really using the copious vacation time.

Despite how much felt like I’ve accomplished in the last week or so, I feel like there is still so much to do. I still need to pack for both trips (we’ll have the snorkeling gear and such in a bag waiting for us when we get back from SF for the whole 1 day we’ll be home), I need to disinfect the kitten room this evening, and I have a ton of laundry to wash. To top it all off, my camera is dying, so I am probably going to need to get a new one, preferably today before we leave.  If you look at the picture above, you can start to see why I need to replace the camera: the picture is grainy despite being on the highest resolution,  and if you notice in the bottom left corner, there is a black shadow. In many of the pictures it shows up on the top right as well. The problem is that the lens cover isn’t opening like it should. I’ve dropped the camera a few times, and I think I’ve just finally done it in. Sigh.

I need my camera in ways many people don’t. I take lots of pictures on all of my trips, and I have to take pictures of all my foster kittens (since I don’t get to keep them, I need something to remember them by). I use it to remember things. I’ve also recently learned that I should be photographing work that any professionals do on my home. That’s a story that I just don’t want to get into now, but don’t worry, the bathroom is fine, it’s an entirely unrelated project that I am having trouble with.

So, I should go and try to get a few more grainy pictures of the kittens before they leave. I’ll miss them, but I get to see Toni’s kittens when I get back to SF.

The Eye

I thought for sure that Lance was going to get off without getting as sick as his siblings. He had always been healthier, ate more, and played more than all the others. On Friday, though, that changed. Poor Lance-a-little developed an eye infection. He was a little depressed, still eating but not playing much. He even lost weight.

I started him on Terramycin, but by the next day his eye still looked bad. His third eyelid was red and inflamed, and it stayed extended over his eye instead of receding like it should normally. I began to wonder if maybe another kitten scratched his eye and I was all wrong about the reason his eye was so nasty. The only thing that reassured me was that Gwen also had slightly red, watery eyes. If two of the kittens have bad eyes, infection is way more likely. I resolved that if his eye hadn’t at least improved by today, I would get him a vet appointment.

When I got up this morning (in the loosest sense – I am a late riser), I checked on Lance before getting to my chores. Miraculously, his eye looks better – it’s still red around the rim, but the third eyelid has gone back where it belongs and he can hold the eye open. Thank goodness for that, because I have to return him on Wednesday before we start traveling and I’d hate for him to be in the shelter with an eye infection.

I can tell that the other kittens feel better as well. They have started going through A LOT of food. More telling is the fact that they fight their meds:

In other news, now that Michael is on sabbatical, I’ve had someone to help me get some of the moving-in tasks completed. Yesterday, we painted the office.

before and after

It feels a lot nicer in here, and it will be even better when we’ve unpacked the boxes and loaded the books onto the shelves. The color does exactly what I wanted it to do – it is a relaxing color that seems pretty conducive to work. Woo-hoo, just 6 more rooms and hallways to go! We hope to get the dining room and formal room painted before Michael has to go back to work. So far, so good.

As for the Crochet Guild project, I only have one swatch to go. I am thinking I should remake 1 of the swatches because the edge looks a little sloppy to me, but the other swatches are satisfactory. I just have to measure my gauge on most of the swatches, label them, put them into a binder and answer a few written questions. A few of the questions I was able to answer before even starting the hand work, so I am at least started on that part of the whole thing. It looks like I will have it in the mail before we leave. I just need to work on that baby blanket, and I will still meet my deadlines. Who knew that crochet could be work? Maybe I should paint instead…

Yarn Craft on the Road

For the Memorial Day weekend, Michael and I went to visit my brother and his family in Kansas. I was a little concerned that the kids would have grown so much that I wouldn’t have recognized them, but that seems not to be the case. As a matter of fact, the kids even remembered us (Blaine is 2, so his ability to do so was in question) and warmed up to us right away. I gave Blaine his blanket, but he wasn’t all that interested. He was, however, thrilled that I also brought him a package of anthropomorphic cars. Alexis saw all the yarn I brought and immediately went on a hunt for her knitting supplies. She made me promise to teach her new things every time we get together in the future. Shucks, I’m not sure I can do that…

On this trip, I got A LOT of yarn craft completed. I brought more than I thought I would need, but I seemed to have seriously underestimated myself. I completed a pineapple bag for Alicia on the way down.

I crocheted the entire ball of yarn I brought for Vicki’s blanket by Saturday.

(note how the hand dyed skeins look different in the camera flash. It is not nearly so obvious in real life)

I made 90% of the front for the Shapely Tee on Sunday, and finished the rest in the car and at home on Monday.

I also made 4 swatches for my Crochet Guild Masters project in the car. Oh, and I made a swatch for a pair of socks that I would like to try knitting one inside the other.

This was some serious productivity! I feel good about making my deadlines now. I knew I had to get as much done as possible before the end of this month. I can complete a few things while in San Francisco, but I can’t imagine I will have ample time for knitting in Hawai’i. I will have the plane rides, I guess, and those are very, very long periods of time in which I have to sit still.

There is just one (ok, maybe quite a few) little wrinkle in my productivity plan – tonight I am finally going to a foster orientation at a local shelter! If all goes well, tomorrow I will have

Kittens!

Swatch you doin’?

It’s all about swatches here.

I’ve made swatches for the Crochet Guild project.

I made a swatch (well several, actually) for the Soy Cardi

but no matter how small of a needle I tried, I could not get gauge. Then I remembered that I had another project in my Ravelry queue that also used a dk weight yarn (that’s double knitting weight for the non-knitters. DK is a relatively light weight yarn, but a little thicker than you might use for socks). I checked the gauge on the Shapely Tee, and it was a perfect match. Maybe I was just trying to clean out my queue… yeah, that’s it. The moral of that story is if you can’t get gauge for the project you want to do, choose a project that matches your gauge. With all the free patterns on Ravelry, you can’t miss.

Of course, this doesn’t really help with my self-imposed WIP limit. Ideally I would have taken my failure to get gauge as a sign that I really ought not be starting a new project. Nothing doing. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably even start a Pineapple Bag or 2 for the drive to my brother’s house this weekend. I just have to make sure to complete at least one swatch for the Guild project per day. Oh, and to crochet a few rows of the baby blanket for Vicki. Good thing my knitter’s bag came in the mail yesterday – now I have a place for my ungodly number of projects when I am traveling.

I can only figure that my need to start something new is entirely connected to my lack of foster kittens. I am attending a foster orientation on Tuesday, then I am going to love the crap out of a litter of kittens for a week before we go out of town. I can’t wait, I just miss the kittens so much.

We’ve still been getting visitors like nobody’s business. Michael’s sister, Ami, and her husband, Jarrod, stayed a night with us before heading out to see some other friends who live in Colorado Springs. They may be coming back at the end of their trip, the very same day we return from my brother’s house.

I know of at least 2 more people who want to squeeze in a trip to see us this year, and quite possibly it will be more like 4. I love having people come visit, and we did buy a house with a guest room for just that purpose, but man, there are a lot of people coming our way. Watch, after this year, we won’t see a soul until we sell the house and move on. It’s just the way of things.

So, I am off to keep on swatching. Good thing I have all this travel time coming up  in which to do it!

I’m not sure if I should tell you this, but…

As it turned out, I finished both projects today. First I finished Earl Grey (well, one of them anyway). Michael tried it on, and lo and behold, it fit, to quote Michael “like it was made just for me.”

As Michael modeled the sock for me, Wesley kept rubbing up against Michael’s foot. I’m not sure if it was because he liked the alpaca sock or if he was hoping that affection would win him a trip outdoors (the modeling was done in front of the door to the back yard where Wesley LOVES to go play). I got a few photographs of Wesley with the sock. The cat and the sock are very close in color, and it was kind of neat. The only problem is that Wesley doesn’t photograph well – he almost always blinks! While all of this was going on, Michael started to look uncomfortable. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this…” he started. “It itches.”

We’ve had some question about whether one or both of us is allergic to alpaca. I made an alpaca silk sweater for Michael several years back. As I knit the sweater I had more and more respiratory trouble, but that didn’t alarm me because I was just getting over a case of whooping cough (aka pertussis). I caught that right before the doctors started to realize that the vaccines we were given as a child were wearing off. In any case, I presented the finished sweater to Michael and he loved it. He wore it to work one day even. The problem was, he got sick by the end of the day. His eyes were watery and he kept noticing fur coming from the sweater. “I think I’m allergic to it,” he said. I realized right then that I, too, probably was allergic to the alpaca. I later read online that it is difficult to be allergic to alpaca, so I decided that it must be something the yarn manufacturer used in the finishing process. I’ve since purchased undyed alpaca fiber for spinning and the yarn for these socks. I’ve had some respiratory trouble while knitting them, but nothing too alarming. After Michael had worn the sock for awhile experimentally, his leg stopped itching as well. The jury’s still out about the alpaca.

After all that, I moved on to the blanket. Since the yarn is acrylic, I had no trouble breathing while crocheting with it. My plan was to crochet until I ran out of yarn – I had 5 skeins of the blue and 3 of the blue/white twisted color. The blanket came out an odd shape, but I figure it is perfect for a 2-year-old at nap time. My nephew can sleep on or under it. I have to wash it before we take it to my brother’s house because, as you can see, Buttercup had to test it for me and my sister-in-law is a little bit allergic to cats.

So, I have at least pared myself down to 8 (well, 7½) projects. I have to start on the Crochet Guild project next. I also need to get the other baby blanket done by the time we head out for San Francisco. The baby in question is due on the 13th, and I arrive in the city on the 11th, so I still have some time. The Guild project, however, is somehow weighing on me. I think it’s because if I don’t finish it soon, I will have kittens and travel filling my time and I won’t be able to complete it. Let’s hope I make my deadlines!

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming

I may not have kittens yet, but since Carisa came to visit I have gotten some yarn craft accomplished. I think it’s time for a list of my WIPs (the links are all Ravelry links):

1. Blaine’s Blanket – should be done by Memorial Day
2. Vicki’s Baby Blanket – not for the Vickie pictured in my blog, but one who lives in San Francisco still
3. Earl Grey – I have no idea why I picked it back up when I have other things with a deadline, but I did
4. The Soy Cardi – I had a stressful day and cast on something new.  Just a swatch at the moment – and not the right gauge
5. Clapotis – It’s hibernating, but it’s in progress. I sometimes pick it up and add one row or maybe just a pattern repeat. Weird.
6. Secret Clapotis – I haven’t cast it on yet, but I may have swatched (I’m actually not sure). The recipient is a secret.
7. Cat Couch – a gift for the cats, but I can’t get gauge no matter what I do. Hmm…
8. Colorado Gloves – I haven’t picked these up since the damage to my left wrist. Maybe I’ll get motivated near the end of the fall.
9. Crochet Guild project. This is due in July or I’ve lost the fee I paid for the master’s certification. As soon as Blaine’s blanket is done, I have to do this. It isn’t hard, I just haven’t been inspired to do it.

I think I have a disease – I wanted to stay below 6 projects and now I’m at 9. It has to be the “forbidden fruit” nature of the whole thing. This really is a serious flaw in my character. I have a pill that I have to take 2 hours after eating and 1 hour before my next meal. It’s 3 hours, so it shouldn’t be a big deal, right? If I take the pill before bed, but after dinner, I end up staying up late because I get hungry before it’s even been 2 hours since my previous meal. I wait the 3 hours and then eat ravenously. I studied Biology in college because it was the hardest subject for me in school. I’m not good with rote memorization – I’m more of an “applied-knowledge” kind of learner. I think I just like to prove that I can do the things that I or someone else tries to tell me I can’t do. You think I learned my limits when I attempted the tiling? No way, I fully intend to try again with the guest bathroom. I want to master it. So maybe the defiant thing isn’t bad all the time, just when limits are involved. To quote Elphaba from Wicked : “I’m through accepting limits, ’cause someone says they’re so.”

I believe that sometime in the next 3 days I will finish at least 1 project. Will it be

one of the Earl Greys or

Blaine’s blanket?

Do I want to knit or crochet? Stay tuned for the answer! (And let’s hope I don’t cast on anything else in the meantime)

Edit: update – I totally found something else to make. There was this pineapple bag pattern (free, no less) that was just uploaded to Ravelry. I mean, doesn’t this just scream “Hawai’i trip”? I told you it was a disease.

Painting Takes Forever

I know, I’ve been gone for a long time. Longer than I’ve ever been gone before. It’s reprehensible, and I’m deeply sorry. Several of my regular readers have “spoken” to me on this subject. I do have a good excuse – several, actually.

1. My blog is called “Knittin’ and Kittens.” I have had very little time to knit or crochet, so I really had none of that to speak of. Although I have called several shelters and rescue groups, I have heard back from none of them, so I have no kittens either. I’m a bit shocked by that, actually.
2. I’ve been doing lots of home improvement (I’ll expound on that in a moment).
3. I’ve had about 1 billion appointments with contractors and such.
4. I’ve had to do A LOT of shopping for the house. P.S. I am actually sick of shopping. Holy cow.
5. My cats have had several vet appointments in the last month.

So, I’ve really had all my time occupied, but not with anything that my general readership might be interested in. Well, I guess some might be interested, but these things have very little to do with yarn craft or kittens.

Sara (of the comments) asked me about the bathroom project. Well…

We mixed the mortar (to be placed under the backer board) with the drill. The drill started to smoke, so at some point I had to resort to mixing by hand. I guess the drill just didn’t have enough power for the project.

We laid the backer board on the level bathroom floor after putting the mortar down and combing it appropriately; however, for some reason the backer board was not level after we laid it down. There is a 1/4 inch difference between the height of 2 of the boards, actually. At this point, I figured I didn’t have enough skill to actually do this project, and we called a professional to finish. I can’t tell if I put too much mortar under one of the boards or if Michael didn’t screw it in tight enough. There’s also a bit when we realized that our level tells a different story depending on what side it’s laid on. It’s frustrating, really. Either way, the bathroom should be professionally done on Monday.

We didn’t need a permit to add the heated floors after all. The contractors who are finishing the floor can put the heated mats in without installing a new circuit, so no need for a permit. The catch is that you can’t run a big hair dryer in the bathroom without tripping the circuit if we install it this way. Since I am just keeping kittens in that room, I figured it would not really be an issue while I am using it. Later, we can have that bathroom rewired before we finish the basement (years down the road for that one), so it will not be a problem when/if we have to sell the house.

After giving up on that bathroom, I moved on to painting the rest of the house. Vickie came down from her place in Wyoming to help me paint the living room. It was really nice to catch up with my old friend from middle school. Besides a mix-up where Vickie accidentally painted a wall green when it should have been neutral (it was funny, just like you might see on Color Splash), it went really well and I pleased with the result. I just have to touch up some spots (and organize the room so I don’t look like I live like a pig, even if I do), then I’ll take a picture of the finished room. One room down, the whole rest of the house to go. <Sigh>

(click to enlarge the picture)

I’ve only been able to paint every other day (roughly) due to other things we’ve got going on and because painting is exhausting. I can only get through 1 gallon of paint per day on my own, and I can only sit on the sofa after I’ve done a room. This is going to be slow, but I think it will be worth it. They make it look so quick and easy on TV.

On an almost unrelated note, I’ve seen the most amazing weather here. On Monday morning I woke up and looked through the window in my closet, only to see the back yard covered in a white blanket of snow.

I had an appointment with a contractor that morning, so I was a little concerned. Upon closer inspection, I learned that the layer of snow was not that deep – maybe and inch on the driveway. The snow had stopped falling by that point, so I was not so concerned. I shoveled the driveway in 15 minutes (partly because I had to sneak out and do it before Michael woke up – he doesn’t let me do manual labor), and we were on the road shortly after.

On the way to the appointment, the snow started to come down again, getting harder as time passed. Michael couldn’t drive because his new snow boots weren’t flexible enough to push the pedal. You may recall that I hate to drive. I have not lived in a part of the country that snows since I started getting behind the wheel. I learned something that day, though. I saw several people driving around with a huge pile of snow on top of their cars. Folks, this is dangerous. On several occasions, that snow blew off the top of the cars onto other cars – if it landed on someone’s windshield, he wouldn’t be able to see. Man, how scary! One guy had to pull over because the snow slid down onto his own windshield. I will never drive my car in the future unless I have scraped the snow from both the windshield and the top of the car. <shiver> Safety first.

The thing is, the weather reporters had no idea this snow was coming. That, however, wasn’t the weird part. By the end of the day, my yard went from the winter wonder land pictured above to this:

can you believe that? The grass was even greener than the day before.

Freaky.

So, in general, I have been surviving and trying to find time to do something related to this blog. I am not sure if I will get kittens soon because Carisa is coming to see me on Tuesday, then I am going to Kansas to see my brother for Memorial Day. After that, we are going on a big trip that I thought was never going to happen. You see, I promised my brother I would take him to Hawai’i this year. After we made the plans, he was informed that he was to be shipped off to Iraq. I moved and bought a house, so we all figured that it just wasn’t the right time. However, 2 miracles happened. First, Robert was reassigned. He is moving back to California instead of being shipped out (I’m thrilled, he isn’t so sure). Second, buying a house and moving out here turned out to be cheaper than our lives in the city, so we could afford the trip. So, in June I am taking my brother and his wife on a cruise through the Hawaiian islands! We are terribly excited, but it does mean that I may either not get kittens until we get back or I will only have short term fosters. If I am honest with myself, I shouldn’t get kittens until I am done painting and moving in. I just miss them, that’s all.

I will be in and out in the next few weeks, maybe the next few months. I do not mean to abandon you, my loyal readers. I just didn’t think you’d be interested in what was going on now. I was incredibly wrong, and I will work to rectify that mistake. Please forgive me.