Foiled!

The tree got moved this morning.

This whole escape with Portia was charming, until I got up this morning and stepped in the giant water puddle forming around a drowned sheep ornament. Now, it's on.

To rewind a bit, yesterday after I got home from work I followed a trail of downed ornaments. Portia had decided to skip the fourth and fifth day and leap straight into day six. Two ornaments were in the dining room, one in the living room, another behind the trunk. Then I got ready to feed the cats and saw the piece de resistance:

a floating ornament and another about to get the same treatment. And a cat, glaring at me for not taking the "It's diner time, human!" hint. I fished out the poor bedraggled bear-in-a-bead-wreath ornament (it's upside-down in the picture), squeezed as much water out as I could, and got all of the dry ornaments back up on the tree.

Foolish me went to bed hoping that might be it. No ornament had been taken down twice, nothing had been damaged (miraculously, for if Nico gets involved, his claws of doom usually spell the end), and the remaining new options on the tree were getting slim. I had even brought Frankenmouse back out of hiding as a means of distraction.

This morning? First, the sheep. Then five other ornaments down and out, and we had repeats. Thankfully, a tiny tree is easy to move and in about a minute everything was relocated to a small table (converted antique sewing machine) on the other side of the living room. The table was pulled away from every access point (i.e., the recliner), and Frankenmouse was strategically placed in the middle of the floor as a payoff.

We'll see what's left when I get home from work.

The Twelve Days of Christmas (Portia remix)

Saturday morning, when I woke up and was coming out of my bedroom, I noticed something on the floor in the dining room. Late last week I put up my tiny little Christmas tree and decorated it with ornaments that I figured were mostly cat safe. In my family, when my dad's side of the family got together for Christmas, instead of bows we used to put Christmas ornaments on presents we exchanged. So I have quite a collection of mostly handmade ornaments. Since most of these have made it successfully through my childhood, they've proved their hardiness. I've also collected some other ornaments of a more fragile nature - those stay safely in the ornament box until I have a place to get a real tree and they can rest safely towards the top.

Obviously, I was foolish in my beliefs that the tree would go unscathed. The thing I found on the floor? A stuffed gingerbread man, with beads for its eyes and buttons. The poor thing was soaking wet and a bit worse for wear (now that he's fully dried out, I need to reattach his eye, mouth, and a button). The rest of the tree looked okay, and I though nothing more of it.

Sunday, I find two ornaments stashed behind a trunk I have in the living room. Thankfully both are dry and still in one piece. I start to feel like there's a theme going on.

Monday? I find a mouse (catnip toy) soaking wet on the kitchen floor, after I step on it when I'm still waking up. It gets quarantined on top of the fridge in order to dry out. This particular mouse has recently been soaked several times by Portia's penchant for dunking toys in the water dish. I head off to work hoping that's the only thing I find. When I get home, three bottle caps that had previously been stacked nicely on the counter are now scattered underneath my kitchen stools. And there's a drowned angel hiding underneath the edge of the cabinets. Clearly, Portia has a plan.

So I give you the beginning of the Twelve Days of Christmas, Portia style:

On the first day of Christmas, my playful cat gave to me a soaking wet gingerbread man.

On the second day of Christmas, my savvy cat gave to me, two stashed ornaments and a soaking wet gingerbread man.

On the third day of Christmas, my brazen cat gave to me three purloined bottle caps, two stashed ornaments, and a soaking wet gingerbread man.

To be continued?

Jasper Diamond Hoodie

Today I put the finishing touches on my first sweater, the Jasper Diamond Hoodie. Yarn used is Hobby Lobby's I Love This Cotton in sage; sizing is for a 12-18 month old. A friend from undergrad, who started as my supervisor when I was in a work study program, just adopted a beautiful baby boy and this sweater is for him. The pattern can be found in Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren. Rengren has done a wonderful job of gathering together and updating vintage patterns, but I had a few problems getting started with this sweater and could have used slightly more explicit directions in a few places.

The button band was the first thing to throw me off, and thank goodness for Ravelry. For anyone else having similar interpretation problems, the button band is five stitches wide. When doing the buttonholes, as written, the pattern wasn't working for me. I kept getting an extra stitch somehow. In the end, I skipped doing the last k1, and that worked.
I found some great buttons at my LYS, which are just plain adorable and also, I hope, help celebrate Dominic's heritage (he is from Ethiopia).

The hood was the second challenge for me, as it was my first try at wrapped-stitch short rows. Rengren includes a helpful description of the process, but I had better luck with the explantion in The Knitting Answer Book, my favorite source for help. During a handy day off from work today for a blizzard I was able to get all of the seaming done and buttons attached. Chris Moose helped me model the sweater, and now all it needs is to be wrapped and put in the mail in order to be on time for Christmas.

Yarn thief

I live with a yarn thief. The thief is stealthy, small, and can fit into tight spaces (as all thieves are wont to be and do). However, this one has four feet and has recently figured out how to get into my closets.

For the past two years, I've known not to leave yarn unattended at any time when it's out in the open - Portia has tried to make off with yarn that I'm actively knitting with, no matter the size of the ball. Counters and tables also aren't safe. Though she knows those areas are off limits, the minute my back is turned or I go to bed, up she goes. Shortly after I moved to my new apartment I forgot about a small ball of yarn which I had used to tie up some boxes. I left the ball resting in the middle of a roll of tape on the back of my kitchen counter when, exhausted, I went to bed. The next morning I followed a trail of yarn through the living/dining room, around a chair and a footstool, and back and forth a couple more times. When I found Portia hiding behind the far side of the bed she looked extremely guilty.

Well, on Thursday, I thought I was in the clear when I wound up the remnants of a skein and stashed it in a box in my storage closet (which is just off of my living room area). I made a quick trip into my bedroom, the lone area of my apartment with consistently good reception, to call my mom and get some pie advice. When I came out, about to get said pie out of the oven, I could do nothing but laugh when I saw Portia proudly sitting in the middle of the dining area with the freshly retrieved ball of yarn (which was bigger than her head). She's starting to take pride in her work - nothing is safe.

Herringbone Scarf

Over the weekend, I was able to finish the first of four (so far) Christmas projects. Since this one has already been given, in time for what might be an interesting winter, I can post about it freely. It's following the Herringbone Scarf pattern. The pattern is fairly easy, once you get the hang of it and consistently remember to slip off stitches (I forgot a couple early on, as my fingers were getting used to the motion). I cast on 35 stitches, and ended up increasing by 2 to 37. Although it doesn't show up, the pattern is on a slight angle - the rows don't go straight across.

The yarn is Lion Brand Homespun, in the Waterfall colorway. While the yarn is soft, and I love the color variation, I found it literally a pain to work with. There's no give, and it has a tendency to split and is surprisingly squeaky on the needles (I have my grandma's Boye Needlemaster kit, and tend to use those or other metal needles). Thankfully, with size 13 needles, this was a fairly quick knit, and my mom was thrilled to get the scarf.

Now it's on to knit the last bit of project number two and find some good buttons to finish it off.

*Portia has figured out how to open the storage closet, so Frankenmouse's days are numbered.

The minor, but certainly not silent, partners

Introducing the feline members of this blog:

Nico, aka Captain Scaredy-Cat, and Portia, aka the Destroyer of Toys. Both cats are rescues, and while they aren't siblings, they were born within a week or two of each other and are both three years old. Most of the time they get along famously, and Portia mothers Nico quite well.

One of the dearly loved cat toys here is Frankenmouse - actually, Frankenmouse the Second.
Before surgery:

And after:Frankenmouse is currently down to one limb and eye (where he originally laid claim to two each of feet, forearms, ears, and eyes). He is currently in witness protection in the closet.

Purrlings?

So purrlings, where did that come from?

Well, I knit, and therefore purl. My cats do a lot of purring, and bestow many a purrling upon me. Add in a bit of nerdy humor, and you've got me in a very small nutshell. Of course there's a lot more to me, and hopefully this site, but we'll get to that. I can't promise frequent postings, but you'll be able to see and keep track of projects I'm working on, or get stories about what my crazy furballs are up to now, and find occasional links to geek humor.

"The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together." - William Shakespeare