Christmas Stockings Perhaps?

Don't you envy a cat on a chilly winter's day? They can just curl up in a warm sunny spot on the rug and bask the day away. They can be right in the traffic flow and yet they snooze like a log. The best I can do is reach down and stroke his warm soft fur and tell him how much I love him. And in another bit of cat related news-I am happy to announce that Lexi got her stitches out this week and was declared whole and fit. What I thought was an incisional hernia was actually a seroma( fluid filled pocket) and will gradually disappear over the next week or two. She is feeling her wild oats now that the stitches are gone. I swear she has gone into training for the Daytona 500. She runs around the house and thru her tent at top speeds of catness and just wears me out watching. I tried to get a pic of her this week but she never slows down enough to even use my fancy sports shooting mode.

Well my knitting week has been fun filled and somewhat productive. First of all I finally got the 2nd fuzzy foot off the needles. I took a pic and as fast as I could popped them in the washer. They felted up pretty fast but alas, not very evenly. Just as I suspected in the very dark recesses of my mind, the different sections of fair isle felted differently. And it seemed like the 2nd sock got all the patterns that shrunk more in the round dimension than length. But I went into the project knowing full well I may not get a great end result so how can I pretend to be dissappointed? I kind of think they will make great Christmas stockings for the pets. And of course that led into a new idea for bigger felted Christmas socks for the rest of the family. But not now, not for awhile, maybe not ever!!

Then my 2nd bit of knitting related news. I finally got my pattern for the Saddle Shouldered Aran from SchoolHouse Press. Actually it is really not a pattern just some guidelines and suggestions. And the graph for the cables is handdone by EZ herself and not very easy to read even for a veteren chart knitter as me. So I sat down with graph paper, all my Barbara Walker stitch books and the handout and I planned a sweater with my own cables. I will still follow her body design since it is the reason I even bought the pattern. And the hints included I am sure will help me when I get to the tricky little spots I am sure to run into. Too bad it did not help me get those 212 stitches cast on to a circular needle and get them joined without twisting. I did this twice, got 5 rows knit each time and had to rip out. I was using a long size 7 Addi Turbo circular needle so I could do magic loop. I think that is why I ended up twisting. So I got out an old shorter size 7 circular and cast on and managed to get the join without twisting. Well at least I think. I am not knitting 5 more rows on it tonight if there is any chance in hell that I will have to pull it out. I need a fresh start tomorrow before I even touch the project again. But I do think once I get a little more done that it will be a relatively easy knit and I can have some pics to show next week.

My most cool knitting news has to do with Ravelry. I mentioned starting my Million Sq Afghan last week from a pattern written by the Heathen Housewife on her blog. I got my project entered into Ravelry during the week and never thought anything more about it. Then I got a Ravelry email saying Shelly Kang has added you as a friend!! I was so excited I immediately wrote her back gushing how much I enjoyed her blog and how much fun I was having working on the afghan. She wrote back and actually offered to send me a little package of sock yarn to add to mine. That is so cool and of course I jumped on the offer. I will have yarn from the originator of the project in my project for all time. I just wish I could gotten her some of my yarn to include but she is on the final week of square knitting. I did not get a pic of the afghan this week because I have had to let it rest waiting for more yarn to come in. I have orders in to 2 places and 1 more friend plus Shelly's to come. I hope I get something from that darn postman tomorrow cause I am really dying to get back to knitting on it.

I did mess around in the sewing room this weekend also. I got both my scrap baskets cleaned out and lots of quilt "seeds" cut. DH brought me in a box from the garage he said had fabric in it. One of those things was a little quilt top I must have been working on years and years ago. I just had one more seam to sew in the body of the quilt and the fabric for the borders and back are all there and in perfect shape. So today I sewed the last seam and got ready to cut the borders. I am not sure what I will do with the quilt since it will just be a small baby sized quilt. I just wish I could remember the who, what, where, why and when of that project. My memory is really failing me these days, especially about UFO's. But then again,maybe that is selective memory so I don't feel guilty about the age and number of said UFO'S!!

We had some awesome weather this last weekend, warm, sunny with just a wisp of a breeze. I got great walks in and had plenty of time to knit on the back porch while the cats played on the patio. But today is another story entirely. Windy, cold and misty all day. But even so I saw my first robins of the spring and then later my first Cardinal. So spring can't be to far down the road. So I will be patient, watch the birds from the windows, and bundle up more for my walks. And my comfy porch chair will wait for me when the weather improves a bit.