FO Catch Up

I have been knitting, though right now even though I need to do Christmas stuff I feel unsettled with my knitting. I guess I keep thinking of what I need/want to knit and don't really want to work on my current project(s). This happens with me from time to time.

Anyhoo, last night at Knit Nite I finished my third Christmas gift. These are Olympian Socks for one of my SILs. Started November 1, finished the 25th. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill in spring frost, stuff I won from Heddy. I've never knit socks for either SIL, this Christmas will be the first. Details on these socks and more pictures found here on Ravelry.

I had a moment, we'll say, with these socks. I had the first sock done and on the fancy new sock blockers that I got NovaKnitter to order for me in her KnitPicks order. (I got medium and large!) Anyways, I got the first sock out to count the little mock cables to make sure I made the second sock the same length. I was done the gusset decreases and proceeding down the foot of the second sock when I noticed that all was not well with the second sock. After your twelve rows of ribbing for the cuff you're supposed to do a round of purl, a round of knit, and a round of purl again, then go into the pattern. Well, I forgot to do those three rounds before the pattern. I couldn't bring myself to rip all that work back, yet anyone that knows me knows that something like that drives me insane!! Then Hubs was like, "Who are they for?" and "You can't give her socks that have a mistake in them." Sooooooo, I finish the sock and tink backwards. I probably should have tinked back one more row, but it's close enough. Then I picked up my stitches and knit the cuff "bottom up" so to speak. Yes, I am incredibly anal, I can't help myself. If they had been mine I probably, probably would have left it. Probably.

The boys also got new felted clogs. The Littlest One's are Patons Classic Wool in leaf green and forest. His are the child extra large from this pattern. Started these on November 16, finished the 17th. Ravelry details here.

The Oldest One's are ladies medium (he won't be ten til January, and he has the same size foot as me!) in Patons Classic Wool too teal and leaf green, this pattern, of course. Started his November 13, finished the 15th. Ravelry details here.

And lastly I forgot in my mass of pictures from the last post to show some artwork that a friend of mine had done for me years ago. He went to my mother's to get a picture of Simba and Nala so he could do a charcoal drawing of them for me for Christmas one year. He must have done this over 10 years ago cuz I've been at the store for almost 11 years, and I know I had this framed when we were in our old spot on Main Street and J did the framing. I think next month is our 10 year anniversary in the spot where we are now. Anyways, the type of guy that he is he couldn't do anything serious! Simba is the smoker, Nala is the wino.

Then a few years later he did Pumba for me for Christmas. I know the pics aren't the greatest, I took them at night with no flash. It says, "So... how long have you had this.... EAR fetish?" Ever since Pumba was a baby he had a thing for sucking on my ears. He still tries to do it, crazy thing. He likes to sit in that position a lot, too.

Happy knitting!

Tribute to Simba in Pictures

*****Warning: Very picture heavy post!*****

First off, I want to send everyone a big thanks for your kind words and understanding with the loss of my Simba. I still have a snivel(s) every day. I think, though, where I've known now since the spring that he had cancer and wouldn't be here much longer it made it a tad easier. Just a tad. It was still probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. I had hoped to get up one morning and he'd, y'know... and not have to make that decision.

Unfortunately, last Saturday I did have to make that decision. I got up, and he was in the bathroom. He looked at me and gave a weak "meow", and there was all kinds of gooey weird stuff in the corner of his eye. It was almost like he said, "It's time." I immediately broke down and got Hubs to call the vet. We took him down a couple of hours later. Hubs stayed in the car with the boys, and I took him inside. I stayed with him while they did it, I couldn't leave him to go with strangers. He meowed maybe twice. The vet gave him the needle, I was absolutely bawling my heart out. I held his paw, and he stared at me the entire time, told him I loved him, and he was gone. The vet said the eye stuff was secondary, caused by the cancer. I did hear the vet tell the assistant that Simba had a huge cancerous lymph node tumor. (And it was HUGE. It was way bigger than a grapefruit, I should have had it done a month or two ago.) Anyways, I heard him say that he was skin and bones, the tumor was just eating away at him. I felt guilty for not doing it sooner, but he hadn't seemed to be in any major distress. (Since he's been gone I haven't filled the food dish nearly as often, so I guess he was eating more than I thought.) I figure this last go off if the tumor was removed he would have been lucky to weigh three-four pounds. Anyways, I always said as hard as it would be that I wouldn't let my animals suffer. So now I'm sure he's having a blast, back to the kitten days, no more tumors, no more pains. He'll be my cat again one day.

So now that I've got myself crying again, we'll get to the pictures. Most of my pictures of the cats are 35mm, so at work today I went through the baby books and scanned some pictures to share (I don't have a scanner).

This first one is him, Nala, and their three siblings with their Momma, Poopa. Nala is the light colored kitten on the top right, and Simba is right beside her. The other three kittens looked just like Simba only thing they had tails. Simba and Nala were the only two bobtails in that litter.

Simba at 6 weeks. They both had blue eyes at first, but they changed. Shortly after I got them I was getting ready for work one morning. I had on a long skirt, one of those broomstick skirts that were in style in the 90s. Anyways, all of a sudden I felt searing pain in my leg. I lifted the skirt up to see pretty much what you see in this picture -- Simba looking up at me with all 20 claws stuck in my bare leg! One of his back legs had slipped, so I had a cut about 12" long from those razor sharp kitty claws. I reached down, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and took him off my leg. When he was little if you weren't watching he'd climb up your leg if he wanted your attention and some loving. When he got older he would just sit at your feet, then you'd hear, "meow", and he'd jump from the floor to your shoulder. As soon as I'd hear his meow I'd bend over a bit so he'd have more room to land and not dig me if he slipped.

This picture is enlarged and framed in my hallway. I had a bath and came out to find them like this. Everyone said I must have posed them, but I didn't.

Christmas 1996

He loved to lay under the Christmas tree. Had to put unbreakables down low cuz he liked to play with them. You can see Nala in the back. In March of 1997 he nearly died. He had urinary tract disease. He had a couple of trips to the vet for needles and medicine, but he totally blocked off. I was working on a Sunday morning, and he hadn't peed all night though he had gone to the litter numerous times. I called the vet, and my parents took him down for me. When they went to get him at my apartment he was laying on the kitchen floor. When Ma picked him up it must have put enough pressure on his tract to dislodge some of the crystals, and he peed all over the floor. (The vet said that was a good thing and probably helped save his life.) He had emergency surgery to clear the crystals. He ended up hospitalized for over a week. I'll never forget when I went to visit. They had a collar around his head, but the little bugger got around it and was licking the catheter. So they cut an xray up and made a bigger one. Then the little bugger got his back foot up and started kicking the catheter, so they had to tie his feet together! He had a few flare ups after that major incident, I had to really watch what he ate. But the past few years he had no troubles at all.

Simba also like to watch tv. Here he's watching Coronation Street and exercising at the same time!

Whatca lookin' at?

All of these pictures so far were taken when I had my apartment. (Except the one with their Momma.)

Here he's watching Benji the Hunted. He was also fond of Theodore Tugboat, and he really liked the movie Babe.

None of the cats go outside. Back in the summer of 1997, Simba and Nala got to go on an adventure. First they had to go for a drive for about 10-15 minutes, then up a lake in a speedboat (they were in cat carriers, of course). Then they got to spend the day roaming around on a very small island where a friend and his brother were building a camp. Nala didn't care for her adventure. She mainly stayed under the camp (C was convinced he was going to have to tear the floor up to get her out, but she came out eventually on her own). Simba, however, loved it. Unfortunately my camera got wet, and half or more of my pictures didn't turn out.

This is from Christmas 1997 when I moved to my first house. He loved to play with those blue satin balls. I had a set of six that were especially put on the bottom for him to play with.

This would be from November 1998 when Pumba came along. "Come on, play, Lazy!"

"I'll get ya no matter if you want me to or not!"

He warmed up to Pumba a lot more quickly that Nala. Nala never really did care super loads for Pumba. She actually still hisses at him a lot, but she does seem to be a bit nicer this past week since her brother isn't here any more.

This is the last photo I took of Simba, back on September 18. The tumor was on his left side, so you can't see it.

And he came home on Thursday. The urn is just a small white ceramic one. I may find a really nice picture of him and make a label for on it or get a nicer urn, undecided yet.

My next post will have FOs and lots of knitting content, promise.

Happy knitting!

Simba

My dearest Simba, April 24, 1996-November 14, 2009:

I can't talk about it right now, my heart is broken. RIP, little boy, and hurt no more.

Colorful Clogs

I missed work on Monday and Tuesday cuz the Littlest One was home sick. He really probably could have gone yesterday, but since today is a holiday I thought I'd keep him home, and he could go back to school on Thursday. So I hope to be able to work tomorrow to make up for some of my lost hours, and I am supposed to work Friday til one, but maybe they'll let me stay a bit later. I've noticed on my Facebook lately that a lot of kids are home sick, and apparently some of the classes in the schools have half or more of the kids missing. The Oldest One said yesterday that one of the grade three classes only had four or five kids in it Monday and Tuesday. Anyhoo...

Since I've been sequestered I've had a lot of time to knit. I made this pair of clogs yesterday. Yes, they were started in the morning, knit off and on through the day, and finished up and felted in the evening. Usually I knock off a pair in two days, this may be the first time I actually knit and felted a pair in just one day. The blue pair is a ladies large, two skeins of Navy Patons Classic Wool and one of Too Teal. Used this pattern, of course. Ravelry details here.

This pair was started on November 8 and finished on the 9th. These are ladies medium and used two skeins of Patons Classic Wool in That's Purple (discontinued colorway) and one of That's Pink. There was a small amount of pink and teal leftovers, and there's some navy and that's purple, should be enough to make some kid-sized felted mittens. Ravelry details here.

So today is Remembrance Day. Of course any morning the kids can sleep in they don't, and mornings they have to get up I usually have to fight with them. I think this afternoon a nap may be in order. (I always say that but never end up doing it.) I have two more pairs of clogs to make sooner rather than later, one pair for the Littlest One, and one pair for the Oldest One. I also have some Christmas gift socks on the needles I want to work on today. I think the clogs may wait to be started tomorrow.

Happy knitting!

One

One year ago today we went and picked up the little puff of fluff that is Maggie Tibbles (among many of the other names she's called). Now she's still quite small, but she's not-so-puff-of-fluff and definitely evil when you aren't watching! But she's my baby, and I wouldn't trade her, I just have to put her in the kennel when no one is home. Even for just five minutes. (Evilness happens in the blink of an eye!)

She definitely knows how to play the cute card. If she's been bad and is in trouble she pours on the cuteness and the charm, that's for sure. Coincidentally, today is also my big brudda's birthday. I won't say how old he is cuz it makes me sound too old. (He's almost ten years older than me.)

I finally finished the dresses from you-know-where! What a relief to get these done! I made grape juice dress first, and that one wasn't so bad. The blue and green one.... that was a different story. I had the front almost done, and I realized that it was longer than the first dress (they are both the same - size 2). I had no idea what went wrong cuz I always write down my rows. In the meantime I found a mistake in one of the seed stitch panels, probably four inches up from the bottom, of course, so I ripped it back to there. (No one would probably have noticed it, but that's all I saw when I looked at it.) Upon reknitting the front it was still not working out like the first dress, so I gave up and just modified the number of stocking stitch rows after the seed stitch panels end and the armhole shaping begins. The back of the dress... I knit that, and when I went to seam the sides together I found that back was about an inch longer than the front. Grrrr!!!!! So a ripping I went, the seed stitch panels seemed to end an inch longer than the ones on the front of the dress for some reason. I couldn't find what I did wrong, so I modified it yet again, and finally got the darned thing finished. All the details are on Ravelry here, along with more pictures.

Seed Stitch Panel Dress

from Bernat Cool for School

Bernat Jr Jacquards in Grape Juice

Bernat Baby Jacquards in I'm a Big Boy

both size 2

started Grape Juice dress on Oct 9, finished the 18th

started I'm a Big Boy dress on Oct 21, finished Nov 7

size 4mm needles

size 3.5mm needles for the armhole bands and neckband

Must go finish supper. I think the Littlest One is getting sick. He complained he has a sore throat and was freezing a little while ago. His voice is froggy, and now he's asleep. He felt hot, too. There's a lot of H1N1 going around here now, so I'm sure it will all come our way. The province got shorted on the vaccines, so only certain people can get the needle. None of us qualify yet.

Happy knitting!

The New Ride

Well, new to me. And yes, I need some hubcaps. My Ram is no more, gone bye-bye. We did a lease return cuz the balance if we wanted to keep it was still big bucks. Also, it was a super gas guzzler (a hemi, after all), and I don't really need a truck. The camper doesn't get hauled anywhere, and the only thing it really got used for was hauling leaves to the compost yard. This is a 2000 Ford Focus wagon that is paid in full, so no monthly vehicle payment (except for Pete, of course), it's only a 4-cylinder, so gas is like nothing compared to the beast, and insurance will be a fair bit cheaper. (Even though it really wasn't too bad for the Ram.) It will be nice to drive something that $20 of gas will last longer than 5 minutes in.

It had all season tires on it, but there was a set of snow tires, so I got B to put them on before I brought it home. The all seasons had nice rims. Pa said he'd get me a set of hubcaps, but if he doesn't soon I'll grab a set. Hubs said I should get some spinners and pimp it out. I'll have to get used to a car again. I've had 4x4 trucks since the summer of 2003. Also this is the first used vehicle I've had since we had gotten our first new vehicle, a 2003 Dakota (the truck before the Ram, my favorite one I've owned so far), so I will miss warranty work, that's for sure. Oh, well. The difference in price, insurance, and gas makes up for it, I guess. In a couple of years we'll get something newer. For now we just want to cut back some of our expenses. I found some paperwork on the car today, and it looks like it only had one owner before me. The interior is in excellent shape, not a mark on it, don't think it was smoked in, and the former owner had extended warranty on it. I think he really looked after it well.

I started a new sock yesterday. These are another pair for Christmas. They are Olympian socks knit with Cherry Tree Hill in spring frost. Ravelry details here.

Happy knitting!