Mystery

I love waking up to this every morning.

I love having 8 kittens to care for. I love bottle-feeding them, I love snuggling them, I love introducing them to new food, and I love watching them learn. There is a lot to love here.

But there is one thing I do not love. There is this mystery… thing… that has been plaguing my kittens. They seem fine, and then I come back a few hours later to a half-dead kitten. These kittens have been tested for bacteria, viruses, and whatever else the vets can think of. Nothing comes back positive. While I think it’s great that the kittens don’t have any recognizable diseases, it’s really terrible that there is nothing to treat either.

Friday night, just after midnight, Lamb went down. I came in to do the final feeding of the day, which involves Michael making rounds at the litter boxes. When he pulled back one of the boxes, Michael found poor Lambie, cold, barely breathing, and unresponsive to her world (I’ve learned that a veterinary term for that is “obtunded”). The thing is that the kittens make a full recovery by the next day. I don’t get it.

Duck has been looking kind of yucky lately, but at least he has had the decency to warn me that he might crash. He has been losing weight consistently and he’s had very low energy levels. I want to get him into the vet for another vitamin B shot. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to give him exclusive nursing visits with his mother. Theresa does still nurse the kittens, but I try to make sure that anyone who lost weight gets time alone with her. The catch is that she likes to lie on the narrow part of the counter, so I have to hold the kittens up to her to nurse – it’s exhausting!

In addition to the kittens, I’ve had a bunch of knitting and crocheting to do. I’m going to be teaching a few “Mommy and Me” classes at the yarn shop, so I had to make samples of the projects we are going to do.

This is the crochet scarf

and this is the knitted scarf.

I’m also going to be teaching some amigurumi classes next month, but I haven’t gotten to those projects yet.

I embarked on an ambitious spinning project as well. I wanted to spin enough yarn for a sweater, and then make a sweater pattern that will fit me, come hell or high water.

The yarn I came up with is a 3-ply, with 1 ply of a merino wool (the reddish brown color) and 2 of a merino wool/bamboo blend. It came out somewhere around a worsted weight. Since it’s handspun, it’s a little inconsistent, but the inconsistency isn’t terribly obvious. I’m going to knit it on size 9 needles. I tried size 6, but the fabric was just too dense. The challenge at this point is to find stitch patterns that help achieve the shaping I want, but that aren’t so complicated that they will be lost in the pattern of the yarn – it’s a little busy when it’s knit up.  You know, I should photograph the swatches. A project for later, I guess.

So, I have a few mysteries right now. Will all of my kittens survive their stay here? What is causing them to crash like they have been? Will I finally be able to knit a sweater that fits? Will it look good enough that I will wear it? Stay tuned for the answers.

Wandering Obliviously

The Kona post is up. Click here or on June 24th in my calendar.

I’m not myself right now. While I was in San Francisco, my new doctor called, unreasonably panicked about my last thyroid function test. I had just had my dose increased, and it takes about 3 months for the numbers to be stable again. It was only 2 months since my dosage change, and the numbers were too low, so she said she wanted to decrease my dose. In retrospect, I should have handled this differently, but I didn’t really think through the consequences. The doctor wanted to put me on a dose that was lower than I have been on in 5 years. I asked if I could just go back to the dose I had been on previously. No, she said, it would only be for a month and they would call the “emergency” prescription in to the pharmacy in SF. I should have said no, I’ll call my old endocrinologist since I was there in town. I just went along with it, picking up the generic prescription at the pharmacy. That should have raised more warning flags for me, but I apparently ignored them. I have always been told that you should not switch from the name brand to the generic because they work differently. The doctor did not ask what I was taking, and last time I went with the generic I could not get the numbers under control. This is why I prefer a specialist to treat my endocrine diseases – General Practitioners  have no idea what they are doing.

It’s really bad this time, worse than when I hadn’t realized that my disease was progressing earlier in the year. I will ask Michael a question, and he’ll tell me I just asked him that a few minutes ago.  I have no short term memory. I am requiring about 12-14 hours of sleep a day, but sometimes I can’t fall asleep no matter how tired I am. I realized that I can’t focus enough to drive. I picked up some drugs for the kittens earlier this week (more on that in a minute), and I realized that I zoned out a few times on the highway. I couldn’t remember parts of the trip. In the last few days, I have been getting dizzy when I stand up, and last night I actually blacked out for a second and nearly fell on my way to the bathroom. I have to go in tomorrow for a follow-up blood test, and I am going to inform the doctor that I am going back to my previous dose and brand, whether or not she will prescribe it to me. I did, at least, contact a specialist (it takes awhile to get in). I have also decided that I am going to look for a new GP. I will never, ever stay with a doctor who dismisses my input about my body and fails to ask important questions.

Anyway, the kittens. Many of the kittens have had soft stool since I got them. I added canned pumpkin to their food, and it helped most of them, except for Palau. In the end, I took a fecal sample to the shelter. The kittens have Giardia (Jee-AR-dee-uh), a bacterium that lives in the digestive system and causes diarrhea. Humans can catch it as well, but you have to consume the kittens’ feces in order to get an infection yourself. More commonly, if people and cats in the same household contract Giardia, it’s from a common contaminated water source. I am guessing that Tahiti was at least an indoor/outdoor cat and found a dirty puddle to drink from, then the kittens contracted it from grooming after visiting the litter box they shared with their mother.

Now the kittens are on Panacur, and they are much better. They are gaining weight rapidly, and eating a ton of food. I think Molokai will be ready to go back soon, but he is going to have to wait for at least 1 other sibling.

Since the kittens can reliably make it to the litter box, I have started giving them outings. Buttercup, of course, was personally offended that I would let them into her living room.

But Wesley was more content to supervise from the kitchen above.

Getting out of the bathroom is usually a great time for the kittens to explore a bigger space and to get a good run in. They played with an interactive toy:

and Tonga caught it!

They found solo toys:

And Palau found my new jumbo bobbins for my spinning wheel. I’m not sure which strikes me more – how big the bobbins are or how small Palau is.

Palau showed me how he isn’t afraid of the vacuum. Marq, however, seemed to be spooked by anything.

But look at Marqesas’s eyes – is that not neat? (Click to enlarge)

Besides playing with my newly freed kittens/prisoners, I got some knitting and photographing completed. Here’s the Clapotis that I wanted to wear to a luau, but never managed to finish in time:

and the baby booties for the kid with the loose socks.

Despite being incapacitated, I am getting stuff done. If only I had more hours in a day. I’m tired of the insomnia (har, har).

Moving too fast

The world is moving to fast for me. I kept thinking that I had plenty of time to do things, but when I started scheduling all the last get-togethers with my friends and trying to make plans to see and do all the things I need to before I leave San Francisco, I realized that I am not going to be home for much of the remaining time we have here. We have practically 2 solid weeks of travel coming up, mostly business trips for Michael. One of them happens to be in Florida, so we will go see Lane and Jen when we get there. Another trip is to Denver, the same week we are closing on the house (just like we planned). It just feels overwhelming right now. I just thought there was more time. I think I lost  a lot of it due to sickness. Gotta love air travel.

I mentioned in my last post 2 things I needed to do that were the most pressing. I have done neither. To be fair, the Wesley thing resolved itself. I believe that he might have been lonely since the kittens and his parents went away. Every time he got the chance, Wesley hung out in Michael’s or my lap for the first few days after we got home from the house hunting trip. It wasn’t long before the little guy was himself again. The car thing will have to wait until I get home and am <gasp!> foster kitten-less.

We brought Carrot home the day we got back. I called her new mother the next day and arranged her adoption and Carrot was spayed on Tuesday (yesterday). Tomorrow, my sweet Carrot will leave my home for the couple who was meant to have her all along. I kept her tonight because the poor thing hadn’t yet recovered from the anesthesia. Her eyes were dilated and she freaked out around my cats. Carrot couldn’t walk a straight line, and she would lie down next to her toys so she didn’t topple when she reached for them. About 10:00pm she started to become the Carrot I know and love. She jumped onto my lap and rested her head on my heart. I think it must be her way of saying “thank you for taking care of me.” She’s going to be just fine in her new family. Despite the pull I’ve felt to adopt just one more before I leave, I know it just isn’t meant to be. <sob>

I do have the other 4 kittens to distract me from my grief. The boys have all made weight, so I am taking them back to the shelter every day to try to get them adopted. Esme is about 170g away from being ready herself. The only problem: she has ringworm. At least I think it is. It glows under the black light, but other foster parents who looked at it thought it could be chin acne. It really is presenting unusually – there is no fur loss, but there are a lot of dark, crusty scabs like pimples on her chin. Either way, I washed her and they boys with Malaseb and lyme/sulfur dip to hopefully stop the spread of the fungus. I have a suspicion about how they caught it.

It seems a certain Carrot doesn’t understand that she is not a baby and can’t play with the little ones.

The little ones do look great, though. Ernest is fluffy and handsome. Emo has the same fluff and sweet personality as Ernest. Esme still steals her daddy’s heart. And Widget is action man! He really knows his way around a kitten toy.

Over the weeked I had a spinning party. Only 3 of us from the spinning class I took last summer could make it, but we had a great time. As a result of the party, I got custody of this:

(a drum carder) which turns this:

(loose fiber)

Into these (kindly modeled by Carrot, who went all kid-in-a-candy-store on me):

(fiber batts)

which turn into this when I spin them:

I haven’t yet had time to make any more fiber batts, but I have to transfer custody of the drum carder to Naomi while I am out of town, so I had better get to it soon. It’s just that I’ve been busy.

Later that night I went to a party for a friend from my knit group, Celia. She was celebrating her birthday with her father, Jack. I learned that Jack was the Poet Laureate for San Francisco not long ago. That’s kind of cool in my book.

And finally, I finished the dishcloths for my contest winners. The pictures aren’t in the best focus, but you can look anyway. Which ones will you get, Sara and Anne-Catherine? You’ll never know until you open your mail…

Here are the Ravelry links in case anyone wants the patterns:

Kitty Love

Moon Gazing

All Tangled

In bed

I took several photographs of something that happened in my bed this afternoon. Wanna see them?

Serra loves kittens.

Serra’s behavior has improved dramatically since I started letting the kittens roam the house full-time. Sure, the kittens have ringworm. Sure, my cats have been exposed to it now (Serra’s the only one who contracted the ringworm, for the record. Buttercup and Wesley seem immune after 2 months of exposure). Sure, my house is completely covered in ringworm. I’ve decided I just don’t care any more. The more I tried to contain it, the more the ringworm just kept coming back. I would go a whole litter or 2 without getting more of it, but as soon as I took some of the kittens in for their vaccines they would contract it at the shelter. I have had steady ringworm since Patch. These are my last litters here, and most of the furniture exposed to the ringworm will no longer be accessible to the kittens in my new home. The point is that Serra stopped biting me and chewing my knitting since she got babies to care for. Plus, I spend a lot less time bleaching the kitten room these days. It’s worth it.

Since I am no longer obsessing about fungus, I am moving on the better things. I am working on the dishcloths for the contest winners, but I suspect that those are coming with me on the plane Sunday. Maybe I can mail them from Colorado. I am finishing up the kilt hose I started a long time ago.

I also made a swatch for some gloves I plan to make now that I am going to live in a climate where it snows. I am trying not to start the gloves before I have the dishcloths, kilt socks, and a scarf my aunt commissioned me to make for a friend completed. I just know that since it is forbidden, I want to work on it more. I may have to bargain with myself – I can only knit an inch after I’ve met a goal (i.e completed a dishcloth, knit 2 inches on the kilt socks, knit a few inches of the scarf…).

I think the reason I am really so hot to make the gloves is the yarn. It’s a handpainted 100% merino wool  sock yarn from Malabrigo.  It is labeled as #853 abril, but as you can tell, it’s much darker than the website shows for the same colorway. I know this was a test skein, so maybe that accounts for the discrepancy between the colors on the website and my particular skein. Anyone who has touched Malabrigo yarn would know why I want to knit with it.

I sent the itty-bitty kitties to their babysitter today. I am going to drop off the 3 bigger ones at their babysitter on Sunday morning, right before we head out on our plane trip. It seems surprisingly lonely with only 6 cats in the house. Never thought I’d be saying that.

Sprout got spayed today. I thought she would be loopy from the surgery, but somehow I’ve forgotten how quickly kittens recover from early spay/neuter. Sprout came home feeling great! She explored the house, marked Wesley, Serra, and me as hers, and she’s sitting in my lap right now as I write. The incision is tiny, as you can see from these pictures:

I hope that Sunday is the last time I ever see Sprout again. I believe that her babysitter will be taking her to the shelter to try to get her adopted. Now that she can go home on the same day as the adoption, I believe she will be a more attractive choice to a potential adopter. If an adoption doesn’t happen while I am gone, well, we will just have to keep trying when I get back. I love Sprout, and I want her to find her forever home soon.

Delinquent

This may be the longest I have gone between posts since I began this blog. I feel guilty. It’s a good thing I took over 100 pictures this week, because it reminded me of everything I did (it was a lot!).

Over the weekend, Michael, Linnea and I went to the Dickens Faire. I haven’t photographed it yet, but I got a cloak. It is a gorgeous shade of green, and made of a very warm wool. I’ve worn it while running my errands, and so many people have stopped to compliment me on the cloak. I’ve wanted one for years, so I am quite happy! The Faire was lovely, too, but a subject for a later post.

In the beginning of the week, I was knitting and crocheting furiously. I got almost all of the dishcloths completed. I gave 2 of Michael’s sisters pre-Christmas gifts, so I felt less guilty about giving them a 2 dishcloth set instead of a set of 3. It was actually a spilled glass of soda on my white yarn that halted the last 2 cloths, not lack of time.

I finished spinning a skein of soysilk yarn for Carisa. I failed to get a photo of the finished product, however. The kittens supervised my work, and interjected their help when they thought I might need it.

As a side note, there is a very good reason to wash yarn that was hand dyed before knitting with it or before mixing it with other laundry. Get a load of how much loose dye came off when I was setting the twisted yarn.

Michael wrapped a ton of Christmas presents. And no, they did not get sent on time. It was going to cost me $80 to send a box of handmade dishcloths in time for Christmas. The recipients can wait. There will be plenty of dishes to do when the cloths arrive.

I hosted Christmas with Carisa and Ryan at my house on Christmas Eve. I made a turkey, made-from-scratch stuffing, 2 pumpkin pies, 1 cherry pie with homemade crust and filling, deviled eggs, and gravy. The only thing I didn’t make was the canned cranberry sauce.

I got a very nice present from Carisa this year. She gave me a kitty wall hanging that she stitched when she was a small child. I feel special to have gotten something from her childhood. All I got them was a Wii – no sentiment whatsoever. I am hoping that the Wii will be something Carisa and I can use to communicate when I am in Colorado. You see, there is this game called Animal Crossing that we both love to play. When it came to the Nintendo DS, we visited each other’s towns via a Wi-Fi connection. The new Animal Crossing has Wii speak, or in other words, a free phone line!

This week I also took on a pet-sitting job. When the holidays roll around, Carisa gets more business than she can handle. When her schedule fills up, she refers her clients (both established and new clients) to me. I am not a professional sitter, but I don’t mind taking odd jobs like that. Besides, the cat that I took care of was a sweetheart!

In addition to all the aforementioned events, I started weaning the bottle-feeders this week. Ernest and Emo went right for the wet food. Every day they eat more food and less milk. Widget prefers the bottle, but he will eat wet food if I mix it with enough milk. Otherwise, he spits the food back out after I spoon it in. Esme got sick and threw up yesterday and the day before, so I am giving her a break on the weaning. She hasn’t lost much weight and her hydration is good, so I am not as worried as I might otherwise be.

At some point during the week I realized we may have to start roaming around naked if I didn’t do some laundry. Carrot was happy to help.

As usual, I got a little sick this week. On the bright side, for the first time in many years, whatever I’ve been sick with has not been respiratory and nothing has settled in my lungs! This is a HUGE deal. I’ve been to the ER with a severe respiratory illness every winter since I moved to San Francisco. I am so grateful that it has only been fever and lethargy. I am also thankful for my bed-mates – they know how to make a mommy feel better!

The bottle-babies have been great, by the way. I switched to a new formula, Pro-Biolac, and they have not gotten diarrhea. Well, Esme had a little, but it was when I had to switch them back to KMR for a few days while waiting for the new formula to arrive in the mail. I am totally sticking with this new stuff – it keeps the diarrhea away.

All the activity has really made me insane. I was heating up the bottles for the babies one night, but I was also in a hurry to accomplish the million other tasks on my plate. I forgot that I washed the pan in which I heat the bottles earlier that day. More importantly, I forgot that I did not refill it with water before placing it back on the stove. When I put the bottles in the dry pan, they melted to the bottom just a little bit. Ugh. I ruined the bottle and the pan. You would think this could be solved by putting the bottles in the microwave, but doing so breaks down the milk proteins and leads to the dreaded diarrhea. The extra effort is worth the benefit.

Finally, I took Sprout, Lady and Carrot in to get vaccinated and to look for adopters on Sunday (I plan to go in all week and keep trying). It was a long day – really, a long week – best summed up in a picture:

Dyed in the wool

Meet New Baby and Grapevine:

These braids are the product of an afternoon spent with my spinning friend, Naomi. I had no idea what I was doing when we started – I picked some of my favorite colors and just painted away. I wish I could have stayed longer – I really like what came out of our experimenting!

I painted Grapevine in neat little stripes, all in the same order: dark purple, burgundy, emerald green. Again and again I did this, leaving a small white space between the colors to allow the colors to bleed a bit. Naomi showed me how to wrap it up, and then she placed it in a pot she purchased specifically for steam-setting hand painted yarn. After about 30 minutes had passed, my beautiful yarn came out!

After the controlled excursion with the first 4 ounces of fiber, I wanted to be a little more… unusual. Naomi and I took 3 colors – sky blue, pink, and gunmetal grey – and dabbed them randomly over the white merino wool. There was no rhyme or reason. It kind of looked like a hideous mess. After we heated it up, however, I got a sight to behold! I’m rather proud of New Baby.

The process was way easier than I thought it would be. I forgot to bring my camera, but Naomi was nice enough to lend me hers and post the photos before the end of the night. What a gal! So, how easy is dying?

1. Soak the fiber in cool water for at least 5 minutes, but the longer the better. Some even recommend soaking the fiber overnight. As I understand it, this process opens up the cuticles of the fiber, making it more receptive to the dye.
2. Mix the dyes. We put 2 cups of water, a tiny bit of a Jacquard dye, and “some” (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup?) of vinegar into a mason jar. I should point out that these are acid dyes, so the vinegar is crucial in getting the dye to set.
3. Start a pot of water to boil. Make sure that the pot has some sort of steaming rack.
4. Line your counter top with newspaper and plastic wrap. This serves 2 purposes. First, it protects the counters from getting all dyed-up. Second, it gives you something to wrap the painted fiber in when you get to the appropriate step.
5. Squeeze as much water out of the undyed fiber as you can. Wrap it in a towel and stand on it for best results.
6. Lay the fiber on the plastic wrap.
7. Paint the fiber in whatever manner you choose. Naomi and I did some of the work with foam brushes, and some with these applicators that look like condiment bottles.
8. Wrap the fiber with the plastic wrap.
9. Put the package on the steam rack of the pot. Be sure the water is boiling before putting the fiber in.
10. Wait about 30 minutes (give or take).
11. Remove the fiber from the pot and let it cool.
12. When the fiber is cool, rinse it with water until the water runs clear. If you skip this step, your hands may be covered with dye when you try to spin the fiber, or anything you launder with the finished product will get stained from the loose dye.
13. Squeeze as much of the water out of the fiber as you can. Put the fiber in a pillow case or a garment bag.
14. Place the bags of fiber in your washing machine (top loading only!). Turn it to the spin cycle to get the remaining water out.
15. Let it dry.
16. Admire your work. Photograph it. Give it a name.

This, my friends, is fun with fiber!

Disappearing time

Lately, time has been getting away from me. Tomorrow becomes 3 days from now, and the world doesn’t seem to even slow down in between. One day my kittens are well, and in no time they get sick (or the opposite happens). What happened to the days when I was a kid and tomorrow took forever to get here? I could use a few days like that now.

I think what sucks up my time are the kittens. There are 4 that require a lot of monitoring and care. Endora makes incremental improvements to her weight, only to slide back to where she started by the next morning. At least at this point she is no longer on daily sub-q fluids. I do give her a dose of Nutri-cal just to get some dense calories into her body, then I experiment with ways to make her want to eat more. She was attracted to dry food for awhile. Fair enough – I made sure it was available to her. She still lost weight, though. I tried giving her a better (to her) flavor of kitten food – I think a salmon and some other sort of fish flavor. That worked enough to keep her from losing weight, at least. Today I mixed in a little Trader Joe’s Tuna for Cats – now this, she loves. I am just hoping that it keeps her interested enough to start getting bigger.

The bottle-feeders (Carrot, Rocko and Zia) love the Tuna for Cats as well. They don’t eat much solid food at this point – it’s mostly KMR, 3-4 times per day. They take a few bites of wet food after they get the bottle. Meanwhile, Tabby gets very jealous that the babies get a bottle and she no longer does. If I sit on the floor to feed a baby, she climbs into my lap and tries to swat the baby out of the way of the bottle. I have to take the tiny ones out of the room or feed them standing up.

When I’m not feeding babies, I let the bigger kittens out of their room to hang out with the family. It turns out that they are all into my spinning right now. Patch loves to play with my roving. Tabby and Pumpkin like to sit in my lap and watch. Endora likes to run across the treadles while they are moving. In their own way, they are all helping.

Despite all the hard work, and the time black hole, I know that I am appreciated. The bottle-babies purr for me when they get the bottle. Pumpkin and Patch give me kisses. Tabby runs to see me like I’ve been away for weeks.

And Endora?

She’s my biggest cheerleader of all!

Shedding Season

Shedding Season has begun. I am generally pretty lazy about brushing my adult cats, but during shedding season it becomes imperative that I remove all the dead fur. If I don’t do it, I have to clean up hairballs. I choose brushing since it is a good way to spend time with my cats. Plus, I gathered the fur from the brushes (which look just like wool cards) and stored it to spin. I am not planning to make a cat fur item, I just want to experiment.

As far as spinning goes, I finally got around to finishing my wheel today. There was a spot on the treadles that I missed entirely, and I had to work on the footman that I found after I had finished the rest of the wheel. This, of course, means that I won’t be spinning for awhile. Sigh.

I picked today to finish the wheel because I have a knitting deadline coming up, and I didn’t want any spinning projects sitting around tempting me. I am nearly finished with the baby dress for the baby shower on Sunday. I have completed the front and back, and I am now working on sewing it up and adding the sleeves and neckline. I am not going to get all arrogant and say “Oh great, this will be finished way early,” because I may find myself in possession of a few bottle-feeders soon. I got the call today while I was napping (I think I have a mild version of the flu), and I have to work out the details tomorrow.

I don’t believe I have given a comprehensive list of my current kittens. Who do we have now?

First, I have been reunited with Endora and Tabitha. They did not have names before my camping trip, but once they came back to be with me I took the opportunity to name them. The tabby kitten is Tabitha, aka Tabby or Tablet. We chose Endora because it makes a great fall name – Tabitha’s grandmother on Bewitched (wow, that was a long time ago…). The other 2 in that litter didn’t make it, or I’d probably have them, too.

I also have 2 of the temporary kittens from the great pre-camping kitten swap. One of the temporary foster parents named the little boy Patch, and we called the little girl Pumpkin – also great Halloween names that go well together! These are two of the sweetest kittens ever. Patch loves his people, but he loves to purr even more. Pumpkin likes to sit at my feet while I prepare her food. She’s a chubby little thing!

At least some of the kittens have diarrhea now. Poor Endora is on a downward weight spiral, so I know that she’s one of the affected. I know not all of the kittens are ill because I found a few normal poops in the box. Still, I started them all on Amoxi paired with probiotics. I have decided that any time I use antibiotics for kittens, I will start sprinkling probiotics on their food- no sense in letting all the good bacteria go with the bad.

It’s rough right now in the health area of fostering because all of the late season kittens tend to be a little sicker than the earlier ones. The moms are usually on a second or third litter, and they just aren’t up to producing healthy kittens. I wonder if the emaciated moms are easier for the feral cat trappers to catch? I mean, they have to be starving from feeding and growing all those kittens, and the traps are baited with food. I should ask someone about that.

Let it go

I made yarn! I think it took me something like 12 hours altogether, but I have about 190g/535 yarns of worsted weight, 3-ply wool yarn. It’s a little scratchier than I like, but the scratchier yarns are easier for a beginner to work up.

I made this yarn in a colorway that I am not find of. The reason is, I want to be able to give it away or sell it. I have a hard time giving up yarn. If I continue to make yarn, however, it will overrun my house. I won’t be able to knit all of it, and it will be wasted just lying around. I think I am going to make a supply of yarn and open an etsy store. I may be new to spinning, but this is one thing that I am really good at, so I have grand ideas for my spinning future.

I’ve also spun something that I think I want to keep for myself.

It’s the merino/tencel blend I got from Urban Fauna. I had a hard time getting the hang of spinning a fiber like tencel, but it just took a few inches, maybe a few feet before I caught on. It’s very fine. I’m not sure if I am going to make this a 3-ply yarn or a 2-ply. I like 3-ply because I understand it wears better. However, 2 ply is easier to spin and it could make a very nice yarn. I think I’ll just get started on a second bobbin and see how I feel.

At long last, a decision I have been putting off is demanding to be addressed. On Tuesday, Wisteria made weight. She is technically adoptable now. The thing is, I can’t bring myself to let her go. I loved her from the moment I first saw her. Shoot, everyone does. She is so pretty, so unusual, so fluffy… Wisteria also has good manners. She is polite to Buttercup and doesn’t press their relationship. She and Serra have a jolly time playing together. When Wisteria is out of the kitten room, I never have to worry where she is – I just look down to my feet.

The thing is, keeping Wisteria would be a big deal. She would be the first foster kitten I ever kept. I would have 4 cats – that’s a lot of attention to give. I wouldn’t have the bandwidth anymore to keep a long-term foster kitten if something came up. It’s one more mouth to feed, one more cat to haul to the vet. Right now, Wisteria is a lot of work. It’s one thing when the kittens are generally contained in the kitten room. If Wisteria were to become mine, I’d have to let her out. She wants to play with me late at night. She needs to be protected from Buttercup. She is terrible at keeping her hind-end clean, and I have to do it for her (I really hope she learns to care for it herself soon).

This is agonizing. It makes parting with my yarn seem very easy in comparison. I thought about the idea of trying to get someone I know to take her, but all my friends are cat people with plenty of cats already. I’ve parted with another cat who I loved as much once before. Her name was Margo (I’m sure her new people have changed it by now). She was this shiny black mom cat with intense orange eyes. She had the same quality that I love in Wisteria – a bright, shining outlook on life. She was self-confident, happy, and affectionate. I still think about Margo a lot. I hope she isn’t a cat who was abandoned (or will be) when her people lose their house to foreclosure. I have no way of knowing.

I have a little more time to meditate on this. My brother and his family will be here in just 2 weeks. We are leaving town to go camping, so I either have to return Wisteria then or adopt her. I am hoping Moonlight will be ready by then, too.

In the meantime, I have continued to knit the baby dress. I’ve added some pink stripes and spots for interest. I was stupid, however, and left the project at Carisa’s house last night, so I can’t work on it today. I’ll just spin instead.

The saga of the wheel

It arrived on Friday, just like Jamie and Blas said it would. I dropped Michael off at an appointment and rushed to Urban Fauna, excited as a kid on Christmas morning. Parking is really hard in San Francisco, but the spot right in front of the store was open. Blas had already confirmed that all the pieces were there and had the box waiting at the front of the store. He even carried it out to the car for me!

After getting the wheel, I picked Michael up and went home. I emptied the box, laid out some paper and got to oiling all the parts. It took a few hours to do, and it just happened to be one of the hottest days in San Francisco ever.

Well, I thought it was all of the parts. After the Danish Oil dried overnight, I carried all the parts upstairs from the garage. Michael and I set about assembling the wheel, when I realized that I couldn’t find a part called for in the instructions. I knew right away I must have missed one in the box. How dare it hide from me!

I chose to assemble the whole thing anyway, with the one unfinished part standing out. I’ll get some of my spinning fix, then finish the wheel and let it dry another 24 hours. I tell you, this is torture. I want the wheel to last for a long time, so I need to make sure it is properly finished. I know that the moisture in the air and the temperature changes can permanently warp my wheel, but how much can it do in a week’s time when the wheel lives indoors?

It’s not like I don’t have knitting and crocheting to do. I am only about 1/3 of the way through the baby dress, and I am making steady progress on the Crochet-Along afghan. Plus, I just got 2 video games to work on: I just topped off my collection of The Sims 2 expansions with Apartment Life and started feeding another obsession with Spore. I also have a daily game of Agricola that I play with Michael and whoever else happens to be over that day.

My knitting group has finished the last of the hats for Kristy’s hat project. The monkey in the corner is just adorable. Carisa sent them to Kristy on Thursday. Does anyone know the total number we made?

One more thing – I think I found another avatar to use somewhere – probably here. How perfect is this? It came from a pair of pajamas. It might have come from the kids department at Target. I also might have purchased a matching one for my niece who is coming to visit in a few weeks. I’ll never tell.