Alongs, Those Cats

D is for…

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Disjointed, which is what today’s entry will be.

D is also for Diablo II! At the beginning of every winter, I get sucked back into Diablo II for at least a few weeks. My character is a level 78 Amazon named Chrystabel… and it would be best not to ask how many hours of my life have been lost getting her to level 78. Let’s just say I could’ve knit several Alice Starmore sweaters or become fluent in Spanish. At the very least, I should obviously have knit poor Chrystabel a sweater and some leggings – like most female video game characters designed by men for men, she’s a bit nekkid:

Tangent: Chaos is not a big fan of Diablo II because I do not make an adequate lap while playing. He much prefers knitting.

And D is for… Diablo, brother of Chaos.

Tangent: Note that Diablo had Very Large Feet as a kitten. They both did. Not surprisingly, they both became Very Large Cats.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the fairest cat of all?”

Olympic Knitting Tangent Update: I am in the home stretch on my sweater – I probably have less than 20 rounds left to knit. I should finish things up tomorrow. Thursday at the latest. I’ll post a picture then.
Contests

And the winners are…

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Danielle and Peevish!! I know, I know, I said there would be one winner. But there were just so many more great captions than I expected to receive… Thanks to everyone who participated – your very funny captions definitely improved my crabby, crampy weekend!

To select the winners, I numbered the captions and used this random number generator to generate two random numbers. Danielle and Peevish, if you could please drop me an email with your mailing addresses and some of the colors and types of knitting you love…

Oh, it seems Chaos would like a word with you all:

“How could you guys say such things about me?! I am stunned, and, well, shocked at the
things some of you were suggesting! Please send tuna to help ease my pain.”
Festing, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I don’t spin

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These are the people I spent my afternoon with:

If you’re astute, you’ll notice that they have spinning stuff. You might be thinking, “Chris, you don’t spin. Why did you spend your afternoon with some obviously lunatic spinners?”

A good question. Yesterday I realized that June of Two Sheep lives in Minnesota, only an hour south of Minneapolis. I mentioned in her comments where I lived, and June invited me to a monthly gathering of spinners at Creative Fibers, which is only about 10 minutes from my home. I wanted to meet an actual blogger who I hadn’t already known before I started blogging, so I headed over to Creative Fibers, Olympic knitting in hand.

Here’s June, prepping some cotton for spinning – check out the gorgeous sweater she’s wearing:

I spent an enjoyable afternoon listening to incomprehensible fiber talk, admiring lovely yarn being spun, laughing a great deal, and getting quite a bit done on my Olympic sweater (a very few more details on my sweater progress over at the Team Midwest blog).

Update: It turns out that I met a second blogger yesterday: Kerry of Furballs!

Chaos continues to be fascinated with my decoupage forms… Moments after this picture was taken, Boobzilla was knocked to the floor and much wrestling ensued. So much for redirecting his attentions…


“Mom, I think they make this stuff out of catnip!”

Thanks for all the fabulous captions, which have provided many smiles and giggles these past few days. Remember, even if you couldn’t think of a funny caption before, you have until 6 pm CST on Monday!

Contests

Contest!

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I’m a little crabby and a little crampy (why, yes, these are directly related) and a little chilly (it’s -3F here right now) this morning. You are all going to be much funnier than me today, so please caption today’s picture in the comments.

Caption comments made before 6 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, February 20, will be numbered and then I’ll use a random number generator to pick a number. The prize will be (you’ll never guess… really… never in a million years…) yarn! (What?! You guessed?!!)

Progress update: Sweater body to armpits, one sleeve done, and about 15 rows left on the second sleeve. Tonight I’ll finish the second sleeve, attach both sleeves to the body, and begin knitting the yoke. However, I’m going to lose quite a bit of knitting time this weekend… Details to follow on Sunday or Monday.

Get captioning! I need a giggle this morning.

Randonymity, Those Cats

In which I attempt to redirect his attentions…

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For those who were curious, here’s the mini dressmaker’s form that Chaos found so intriguing yesterday. I picked it up Tuesday for a little decoupage experiment after the Knitting Olympics. (Does the word “decoupage” give anyone else a total flashback to ’70s craft projects?!)

Something very cool and serendipitous happened yesterday. I was over at Pink Rocket’s and saw that she’s opening a store in the very near future. I left her a comment, asking if she’d take an order for a black cat softie. Then I went down to get my mail and found a box from Pink Rocket… Meet “Girlfriend”!!

“Wow, she’s pretty cute. But she doesn’t smell quite right…”
“Mom!!! She’s taking over!!! Mom!!!”

I think she’ll settle in just fine…

Thanks again, Pink Rocket!! I spent most of the evening just grinning at Girlfriend as she stalked along the top of the cds… while I wasn’t knitting away on my Olympic sweater, that is. Body done up to the armpits, sleeve one done up to where it will join the body, and sleeve two about 6″ along. And I think a bit of pinot noir really helped on the gauge issue… at least I didn’t care so much about it!

Alongs, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I actually post a progress picture

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Here’s my progress as of Monday evening – body done up to the armpits and first sleeve about 1/2 done. I’ll warn you that this is not a particularly photogenic project – look! Black blobs on the carpet… but wait? Where is the black blob? Hmmm…

The sleeve and I have have gone a few rounds of ripping. (Carole had warned me of hubris and offending the knitting gods in the comments on Sunday and she was so right.) I knew I didn’t want the bellshaped sleeves in the pattern, but I didn’t think through what I did want until I had cast on, sealed up the hem, and knit merrily away for a while. Finally, denial just didn’t cut it anymore. Rip rip rip, refigure the numbers, and off we went again.

Tonight I go home and take a hard look at the gauge on that sleeve compared to the body gauge… I’m thinking that, because knitting the sleeve is sort of like knitting a sock and I knit my socks tightly, my gauge on the sleeve is too tight. It might be mandatory that I drink wine while knitting the sleeves – what do you think?

Oh, I tracked down that missing blob:

“Go away. I haven’t forgiven you for that incident earlier. It’s not my fault when you lead me into temptation.”

Update: Go check out Gale’s pictures – she went and saw the care packages getting packed up for the Red Scarf Project! Thanks for letting us know, Norma!
Contests, Those Cats

In which I receive a prize

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I recently won lost a contest over at Knitting on Trial, but I was so persistent that Christine awarded me a prize anway. The prize arrived Saturday – a cute dachsund card, a lovely skein of Opal, and a very fun skein of Sockatta. Thank you, Christine!

Christine included a present for Chaos without even realizing she’d done so – tissue paper. Chaos loves him some tasty tissue paper.

“Oh, this yellow is simply scrumptious!”
“That’s too bad, all you got was yarn.”
“Tissue paper makes me itchy, but it’s so good!!”
Alongs, Knitting, Those Cats

In which I have some setbacks and an alarming realization

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Jeanne has posted her pictures from Friday night! Head on over and check them out for a slightly different perspective on the evening – or if you’re morbidly curious what I look like when slightly tipsy and being menaced by the Bugman.

First, the minor setbacks of yesterday. I briefly left my Olympic knitting unattended and returned to find it partially off the needles. Hmm. A puzzle. I wonder how that happened. No culprit was in sight.

“Bwah-ha-ha!”

The sweater was easily returned to the needles. However, about 16 rows after changing to a new ball of yarn, I discovered that the extra skeins of yarn I ordered are nowhere near being the same dyelot as my originals. A dark and dramatic line was readily apparent. Argh. So I ripped back to where I’d added the new ball (losing about 2800 stitches in the process) and switched to one of my original skeins.

In the process of removing the sweater from the needles, I learned the source of a mysterious “drag” on the cable of my circular needle – some small nicks, similar to what one would expect from sharp little fangs. Hmm. A bit of work with some buffing emery boards took care of that.

But… Here it is, nearly Day 3 (I’m not even 48 hours into this) and… I’ve reached the armpits of the sweater. I’m about to start knitting the first sleeve. Oh oh. It appears that I’ve radically underestimated the time it would take me to knit this sweater.

Alongs, Festing, Knitting, Those Cats

There was baleful glaring last night…

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But only from the Malevolent Bugman… Jeanne swears it’s something I bring out in him. She also swears that he’s warming up to me. Hmm.

“You will submit to my will, puny human. Go get me some Kitty Kaviar and be quick about it.”

First we got comfy in our sweats and readied our cameras.

“Chris, if you post this picture on your blog, I might have to kill you.”

We loaded up on wine and snacks.

I was settled in with a cat on my lap – truly, all the comforts of home.

“Don’t be honored by my presence – it’s because you’re sitting in my chair.”

We watched about three minutes of the opening ceremonies, found ourselves wondering WTF, and switched to Shrek 2, The Princess Bride, and Pitch Black. We did manage to switch back right in time to see the torch lighting extravaganze.

“Let me know when they’re going to light the torch.”

And at the end of the night (around 2 a.m.), we both had respectable progress to show.

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.