Handbag Finished

I finally finished the felted handbag I started last year.  It was a combination of two different bags:  Eva Wiechmann’s Not-So-Vintage Bag and her Bubble Bag.  The patterns are from her book Pursenalities: 20 Great Knitted And Felted Bags.  I liked the shape of one bag, and the use of the Noro Silk Garden yarn in the second so I combined the two.  I chose the colors to complement a shrug I knit, but I was pleased to see it complements other clothing I wear.  The fabric in the background I'll use for the lining.

Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

At the end of September I attended the first Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival on the Washington County Fairgrounds.  It was a lot of fun.  The famous New York Sheep Show in Rhinebeck has become too crowded to truly enjoy myself. I certainly did here. I bought all Sliver Moon had of this lovely bulky merino:

I hope to knit a vest out of it.

Holiday yarn had this lovely Flock Sock yarn:

Periwinkle Sheep had this purple sock yarn:

On Ravelry there's a sock with a flower on a stem along the front of the sock and I think it would be nice in this.

I found some buttons for a couple of vests I'm finishing.  One vest is white flecked with purple, turquoise and pink.  Who would have thought I'd find white buttons striped in the same colors?  The yarn came from A Touch of Twist in Pattersonville, NY. 

I enjoyed the display of hooked rugs. 

This was my favorite.

Quilt Show Findings

This fall I went to a quilt show in nearby Clifton Park.  There were a few fabrics I fell in love with and had to bring them home.  My cat Midnight liked them too:

I think the daisy fabric will be an apron.  You can't tell from this photo that the bright fabric from Robert Kaufman on the right has bluebirds, goldfinches, little blue, orange, and swallowtail butterflies, dragonflies, bumblebees, coreopsis and red clover.  I might use it for pillows in the living room.

Cats At Play

Recently I bought a framed print at a local antique center.  I removed the paper it was wrapped in and left it in the hallway for the cats to play with.  At one point I saw Molly underneath the sheet of paper, waiting.  Emily knew she was there.  She climbed up on the half-wall and jumped down on top of her.  Molly shot out from under the piece of paper and stopped several feet away.

Molly And The Vest

I took a nap on the sofa and woke up to see this:

She really enjoyed the vest.

Molly doesn't have an undercoat like her sisters.  She seems to feel the cold first.  I think I may knit and felt a wool cat bag for her to sleep in this winter.

New Buttons

I just received some buttons that I bought on Etsy in the mail.  They were too cute and the price too reasonable to ignore. 

I'm thinking about using them on a dark green vest for the holiday season.

Closet Snuggler

I've wondered why my cats don't snuggle with each other.  I know after introducing a new cat to a household that sometimes the other cat or the top cat doesn't want you to know that s/he likes the new cat.  Why is that?  I found out a long time ago that Midnight was a closet snuggler.  I came home to see this:

I can understand why Midnight wouldn't welcome snuggling with her sister Emily.  Emily was definitely hyperactive as a kitten and tended to jump on Midnight when she was sound asleep.  Fortunately Molly didn't have those tendencies.  She paid attention to cat body language and respected the other cat.  However, she's made several overtures to snuggling that Midnight has ignored.  The other day I turned around and saw this on the ottoman:

Midnight definitely looks relaxed and happy with the situation.  Notice that her tail and body are over Emily's, so Emily was on the ottoman and Midnight came up and laid down beside her.  Hmm.  Let's see what happens when the cold weather comes.

Decisions, Decisions

I think it's my current state of foggy-headed allerginess that makes it difficult for me to decide on my next knitting project.  The instructions for my last two projects needed a lot of revision while in progress.  The first one was finished to my satisfaction.  The second hasn't been finished yet.  I've gotten tired of ripping out the stitches.  I don't want to take the front all the way back, and I don't think I could rip the rows down evenly because the yarn is variegated.  Sometimes, especially when I'm foggy-headed, I just want to sit and knit.

I think I want something easy and fool-proof.  However, I need to have at least one sweater vest finished for fall.  I have two different selections of wool yarn to make striped vests.  Unfortunately I like vests with vertical stripes, the smallest gauge for the selection of yarn I have is 4 sts per inch, and there aren't many patterns that call for it.  When I was at the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, MI, I bought the beautiful Barn Swallow Vest from Autumn House Farm.  Then I found some lovely hand-painted cormo wool yarn.  It was rather pricey and I spent some time picking out just the right colors.  After I returned home, I discovered that the gauge wasn't given on the printed pattern.  I found out the gauge was too small for the cormo yarn.

I have collected a few patterns for sideways knit vests for the yarn I have.  Tonight I finally made the momentous decision to choose the pattern that would enable me to make the vest closest to the one I wanted in the first place.  I don't know if that means I can easily choose another one or if I'll be adjusting the math in the Barn Swallow Vest. 

Or I can finish the vest in bulky dark purple merino variegated and use the knitting worsted version of the pattern, if there is one, to knit it in the confetti (natural with purple, turquoise and pink) yarn from A Touch Of Twist. 

See what I mean?

Cat Bowling

A couple summers ago I grew more potted plants outside.  One time in the hallway I had a collection of empty fruit juice bottles waiting to be refilled with water to use them for drip irrigation.  I heard this funny noise and investigated.  Emily thought it would be great fun to run into the bottles and knock them down.

Catnip Time

I gave the cats some catnip last night. Midnight was already buzzed this morning when I got up. There were leftovers in her blanket that must have gotten her going. The youngest cat, Molly, wanted some more catnip and I gave it to her on the floor. I gave Midnight a little more on her blanket on the ottoman and now she's full of it again, beating up her blanket and batting at her sister. Eventually she'll go to sleep. Molly was funny last night. She didn't go to sleep but she lay in her box dazed and wide-eyed. Emily's dazed now. She just looked at me from her perch on the drying rack.

Cat Graphic

This neat cat graphic by Lucy Rand at http://www.randanima.com/ was inspired by my cat Emily.

My First Shawl

I recently completed my first shawl using the Simple Triangular Shawl, designed by Janice Farrell Pea for Sketched-On-A-Napkin Designs.  I used Cascade 220 worsted yarn left over from finger weaving the leg garters for my ribbon dress, appropriate since I intended to wear the shawl with the dress on chilly summer evenings.  I'm really pleased with the way it came out and it's just the right size.

Calico Cat Yarn

For quite a while I've wanted some calico cat yarn to knit either one of Fuzzy Mitten's cats or the Japanese Good Fortune Cat by Justine Turner available on Ravelry.  I finally had my chance when a local yarn shop sponsored a class on dyeing wool yarn.  Here is the resulting yarn compared to my tortoiseshell cat Molly.

I was attempting to match the color to a calico cat I lost a few years ago.  I think on the whole it came out pretty well, but I should have dulled the color.  It'll probably knit up all right as a toy.