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.