A Really Long Post

This post was originally twice the current length. Seriously. Apparently I thought I was so important that I needed to say much more. The first version of this post was a description of all my trials and tribulations with Morrigan (so far). But I decided that it would be too boring for anyone not making Morrigan. I considered not publishing the post at all, but thought that those 15 or so of you who are knitting Morrigan might actually want to read what I have to say. So I present a two-part post: Part 1 is general interest and Part 2 is obsessive compulsive ramblings about Morrigan.

Part 1: Finished Object: Baby Bobbi Bear

Pattern: Baby Bobbi Bear published by Blue Sky Alpaca
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca Sport Weight (100% baby alpaca), natural white, 3.5 hanks and scraps of natural light tan
Needles: 5.5 mm (US size 9) DPNs
Comments:
• Drew gave me the kit to make this bear. I love love love the bear, the yarn, the pattern—EVERYTHING!

• Like S t a c i before me, I ran out of yarn. S t a c i had graciously offered her extra yarn, but I didn’t take it because I wanted an excuse to visit Twisted Yarns. I had never been to that store before and I thought that it was time to go. While I was there I picked up yarn for another Baby Bobbi Bear (did I tell you that I love this pattern?) and I stumbled upon the most gorgeous shade of Silky Wool that I had ever seen. (Click the link! See the pretty yarn!) I bought it with the intention of making the Twisted Yoke Cardigan from the latest Interweave Knits, but now I think it is destined for something else.

• I have not yet determined if the cats are a threat to Bobbi. I haven’t had the courage to allow Bobbi to sit out unsupervised. So far Scout has attacked Bobbi’s ribbon and Cleo has licked Bobbi. Was Cleo getting a taste of Bobbi for future feasting? I don’t know and I don’t want to find out.

Part 2: Morrigan “Errors”

Things happened as I was knitting the body of Morrigan. Everything worked out fine for me, but I went through a lot of charting and mathing and thinking and discussing and waffling to finish the body of the sweater. (This is the real reason why it took me so long to get from the armpits to the shoulders on Morrigan.)

After all that, I was pretty sick of Morrigan and I jokingly said that I was thinking about turning Morrigan into a vest. I really had no intention of making a vest. In fact, I’ve started the sleeves. But anyway, onto the business at hand.

If you are looking for tips, hints, or errata for Morrigan, you have two choices: Easy or Convoluted.

Easy:
Other than the teeny-tiny error that I found in Chart B, the instructions for the body of Morrigan are completely correct. Do not follow the correction to the side chart that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Convoluted:
Part 1: The Side Chart “error” and its ramifications
I posted the Side Chart corrections on the No Sheep for You KAL. It just so happened that the person who tech-edited the pattern saw my post and commented on it. Apparently, the “error” was in the original pattern but the tech-editor didn’t realize it was an error. (Which is completely fine, the pattern still works, the error really is just a matter of esthetics.) But here’s the rub: The tech-editor worked out ALL the stitch counts from the armpit up with the “error” in there! What’s the problem? If you correct the “error” in the way that I posted your stitch counts will not match the stitch counts in the pattern.

Okay, I’m highly math enabled. I can rework stitch counts, no problem. Thankfully, I decided that I would work out the stitch counts BEFORE I started any “error” correcting. With the help of math, a diagram that I built in Excel, and a careful study of the photos in the book, I noticed something interesting about the “error” and my possible correction. Look at the photo. Along the shoulder seam there is a column of twisted knit stitches. Very elegant, don’t you think?

That column of stitches is Chart F in the pattern. If I corrected the “error” I would not have that nice, strong column of stitches next to my shoulder seam. Instead, Chart C (that pretty cable next to the column of stitches) would be right up next to the seam. So I had a dilemma: Fix the “error” as my anal retentive side said or ignore it to please my artistic side. I chose to ignore the “error.” (gasp!)

Part 2: The error that both there and not there
I should pause for a moment to tell you that as I was working through all these error/no error issues, I was corresponding heavily with the tech-editor. She’s a saint. I think I love her.

In our email conversations, she noted that when you finished working all the armhole and neck shaping, you would have three more stitches on the back shoulders than you would have on the front shoulders. However, one must have the same number of stitches on the front and the back to do a proper three-needle bind-off. So, Ms. Tech-Editor told me, she had worked in decreases on the back shoulders to get rid of the extra stitches. I checked my math, confirmed what she said, and went on my merry way.

But then I got an email from someone else who was making Morrigan. Janis had surged ahead of me during all my mathing and charting and futzing. She was up to the shoulder shaping already and had a question about what she believed to be missing markers. Somewhere in the back shoulder shaping, the instructions say something about knitting to a marker and turning. The marker indicated one side of the back neck shaping.

What Janis didn’t realize (or forgot) was that the markers for the back neck shaping were placed on the VERY FIRST ROW of the pattern. Janis had placed markers all around her Morrigan and didn’t realize that back neck shaping markers were different from all the other markers on her needles. Anyway, I didn’t email Janis back immediately because she emailed me at night and I didn’t check my mail until the morning. So she emailed Jenna, too.

So by the time I did check my mail, I had the original question from Janis and a forwarded correction from Jenna in my in box. (Jenna also took the opportunity to point out that someone was beating me on Morrigan.) But wait! It gets more exciting!

Jenna ALSO didn’t realize that the back neck markers were already placed! So in her correction, she added a line right before the back shoulder shaping instructions saying to place markers X many stitches from each side of the back. BUT what I immediately realized was that the originally placed markers were not X number of stitches away from the sides. In fact, the original makers were X+3 stitches from each edge.

You see what’s happening, don’t you? The whole time Jenna meant for the number of stitches on the shoulders to be the same. The markers placed in the very first row are placed in the wrong place! Each marker should be placed 3 stitches closer to the center of the work.

But if you do this, you should not do the decreases on the back that get rid of the extra stitches because the extra stitches will not be there! If you move the markers to the corrected positions and do the decreases, you will end up with 3 fewer stitches on the back shoulders than you have on the front shoulders. (Whew! did you follow that?)

So what did I do? I moved the markers and didn’t do the decreases because it made much more sense to work it that way.

If you managed to read all of that: Congratulations! Sorry it was so long, but you know what it says at the top—I use too many words to describe what I’m doing.

Boing! Thump!

Did you hear that? That was me jumping on the bandwagon. What prompted this fit of unoriginality in me? Well my friend M and his wife H surprised me by having a baby. Now I say “surprised” in the most tongue-in-cheek way. M and H have produced kids like clockwork: every two years in June or July a new addition to their family. The first four kids are a girl, a boy, a girl, and a boy. Last fall, I was talking to M on the phone (they live in Austin) and I jokingly asked if H was pregnant. He said yes. Then I teased that baby #5 would most certainly be a girl. (M and H never find out the gender of their children in utero.)

Well, M and H had baby #5, a girl, in mid-July. From their track record, I knew that this would happen even before H got pregnant—it wasn’t a surprise at all. But for some reason, I chose to ignore the impending arrival. When I heard the news about the new baby, I realized that I needed to knit something. Fast.

So for M and H’s newest bundle of joy, a February Baby Sweater and a Vine Lace Baby Hat.

Pattern: Baby Sweater on Two Needles (actually, I used only one circular) by Elizabeth Zimmermann and Vine Lace Baby Hat by Sandi Wiseheart
Yarn: RYC Cashsoft DK, color 520, 3 balls
Needles: 3.75 mm (US 5) for the sweater and 3.5 mm (US 4) DPNs for the hat

Comments:
In complete lemming form, I paired the hat with this sweater after seeing it on Guro’s blog. It just reinforces the fact that I could not think for myself on this project.

The sweater pattern is not difficult. It should have been knit in a few hours with no problems. However, this is me. I made an easy sweater hard:

* After knitting four or five rows, I decided that the front edges would looks so much better if I used a slip-stitch selvedge. So I ripped and started over.

* After knitting a few rows past the first increase row, I decided that the increases looked better on the wrong side of the work. So I ripped back to two rows before the increase row and increased on a wrong-side row instead of a right-side row.

* Apparently, my mind decided to take a vacation when I started the second sleeve. The sleeves start by casting on 7 stitches on each side of each sleeve. I managed to do this properly on the first sleeve. But I cast on stitches only on one side on the second sleeve. That’s right: I followed the directions correctly THREE TIMES and then screwed up on the fourth time. Rip, rip, rip.

But all in all, I’m happy with the project. Despite all my foibles, I still managed to finish the two items in three days. Cute, fast, and PINK! Thanks for having a girl, M and H!

Finished Object: Bunny Blanket Buddy

What do you do when you are sick of working cables on both right-side and wrong-side rows using 3.25 mm (US 3) needles? Well, you make something out of fluffy novelty yarn on ginormous needles, of course!

Pattern: Bunny Blanket Buddy or Blanket Bunny Buddy or some combination of those three words. Available for “free” from the Lion Brand website. (Actual retail cost: the personal information that you don’t want Lion Brand to have)
Yarn: Plymouth Heaven, 100% nylon (and 100% fluffy!), color 12 (yellow), 2 balls. Plus scraps of Rowan 4-Ply Cotton for embroidery
Needles: 6.5 mm (US 10.5) and 5.0 mm (US 8)
Notions: A little polyester fiberfill
Recipient: someone’s baby

Comments: I chose this pattern because it looked easy and kinda cute. But, much to my delight, I discovered that the pattern is very, very clever. The bottom part (from the neck down) is pretty straightforward. The most exciting bits are when you cast on and bind off for the arms. (More on that later.) But once you get to the neck—hold onto your hats!—all cleverness breaks out.

The head is double-knit! You knit the front and back of the head at the same time, creating a “pouch” to stuff later. The ears are shaped and attached to the top of the head using short rows! After stuffing, the top of the head is gathered like the top of a hat! So there is NO seaming at all. How nifty-keen is that?

I’m so pleased as Punch about this toy. I thought it would be boring and mindless, but it turned out to be an interesting knit and super cute. I knit up the toy in a couple of hours and then spent almost as much time embroidering the face. Artistic I am not.

Helpful Hints:
• The pattern doesn’t say to WRAP AND turn when working the short rows. So I didn’t. Bad idea. Wrap those stitches to prevent holes. You don't even have to bother picking up the wraps because they will just disappear in the fluffiness.

• This kind of fluffy yarn is quite bulky and does not have much stretch. Therefore, when you cast on and bind off for the arms and ears you must choose your methods wisely. Traditional cast ons (like knitting on or the cable cast on) and bind offs can yield very stiff edges. I used a backward-loop cast on and a lace bind off and my edges are soft and flexible.

Finished Object: Birthday Socks

Pattern: Started as Alison’s ankle socks, changed to Laura’s intuitive socks, and finally morphed into variations on a heel by Joanna
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM in unknown colorway, 1 hank
Needles: 3.25 mm (US Size 3) DPNs
Comments: I had 10 g of yarn left over, I suppose I could have made taller ankle socks instead of these little footie-style socks, but I didn’t know that until I finished and by then I wasn’t about to rip the socks (again).

Who wears wool footies? I guess these seem terribly impractical, but I’ll probably just use them as bed socks.

You can see the pretty short row heels and toes here.

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

It all started when Valerie showed me Cookie A’s socks. Now, as you know, I don’t get excited about socks, but I do always appreciate a beautiful knitting pattern—even if it’s a pattern that I’m not likely to knit. So was the case with the Cookie A patterns—I loved them.

A few weeks later, Tania mentioned that she could get printed versions of the Cookie A patterns at a discount through a co-op. “Hmm,” I thought, “printed patterns.” I don’t have a color printer, so I don’t like to purchase patterns that are primarily available as downloadable PDFs. So, I asked Tania to buy the Millicent and Twisted Flower patterns for me—just so I could have them and admire them. Certainly NOT so I could knit them.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago. A package arrived bearing enough RED sock yarn to knit Millicent. Apparently, Valerie and Sarah have decided that I must start knitting socks. They are ignoring my constant “ho-hum” attitude toward socks. They are obviously conspiring against me. I’m sure they hate me. Okay, maybe they don’t hate me. If they hated me they wouldn’t have sent such luscious yarn in the most perfect shade of red. I love the yarn. Thank you Val and Sarah!

Don’t worry Debby, despite all this sock and sock-yarn action, I’m not going to abandon the Apathetic Sock Knitters Club! Knit on! er… Apathy on!

Finished Object: Scout Sweater

What can I say? Knitting blog readers have discriminating tastes. With so many blogs out there to read, it’s easy for one to ignore boring blogs. So I’ve noticed.

So, as a desperate attempt at lighting a fire under my blog readership and as a pathetic plea for new readers, I present the following:

Pattern: Doggie’s Kitty’s Soy Silk Sweater from Men Who Knit & the Dogs Who Love Them, size XS
Yarn: SWTC Karaoke, 50% Soy Silk, 50% wool, 1 ball, color 281 Bloom
Needles: US size 8 (5mm) and size 9 (5.5mm)
Modifications: Obviously, I used only one color of Karaoke instead of the three specified in the pattern. The mod that I should have done was to shorten the length of the collar. The collar doesn’t lay flat on Scout. I’ll keep that in mind for the next sweater that I make for Scout.

Pattern Errata: In this back view photo you can see that there are four distinct sections in the sweater: ribbing around the neck, an eyelet section, a reverse stockinette section, and a long ribbed section. This is identical to the sweater shown in the book. However, the instructions do not include the reverse stockinette section. Instead, it has a panel of stockinette set off by purl ridges. I could have made the sweater either way, but I thought the reverse stockinette added more visual interest.

The chest area of the sweater has some lovely shaping between the legs. If you follow the shaping instructions in the book for the X-Small size, you will end up with a front that is much too long. To correct for this, I omitted six of the eight plain rows that are knit before the shaping starts.

Comments:

Before any of you start accusing me of drugging Scout or having a stuffed cat, look! She moves! Here she is playing with a purple bunny toy. Not the greatest photo, but it proves that Scout is alive and alert. I would never hurt my baby Scout. Scout loves me. She loves the sweater that I made for her. She is more than happy to wear it and have her photo taken.

I started knitting this on Thursday night and finished it on Friday afternoon. While I was knitting it several people questioned my sanity and doubted that I could ever successfully put Scout in a sweater. And when I say several, I mean several.

Knittyheads Valerie, Barbie, Theresa, Miko, Sarah, Karen, and Bean* all called me crazy and gave me strange looks. (As much as one can give strange looks over the internet.) Of course, some of them started by encouraging me to make the sweater, but as soon as I actually started it, they began saying that I was insane. I think they wanted me to make a fool out of myself. I showed them!

Houston SnBers Meredith, Kelly, Amy, S t a c i, and Drew* all doubted that Scout would stay in the sweater for very long. But as you can see, Scout wore the sweater for THREE different photo shoots. (The first photo shoot was before I weaved the ends in. I asked Scout to try on the sweater before I cut the yarn. She was so obliging.) And in fact, after the second photo shoot, she wore the sweater for 45 minutes before starting to try to squirm out of it.

Getting Scout into the sweater is not very difficult. Getting her out of it is much more of a challenge. The difference may have something to do with the fact that I put the sweater on her when she’s sleepy, and by the time I take it off, she’s wide awake and a little bit annoyed. Or perhaps she just doesn’t want me to take off the sweater. Maybe she really likes wearing it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

*Note another ploy for getting people to pay attention to my blog: linking to lots of other blogs.

Baby Aran and Ruffles: Two FOs for the Price of One

I finished two projects last week but never got around to blogging about them. I guess I was distracted by the bobblectomy. Without further ado, I present a sweater and a scarf:

Baby Aran


Pattern: Heirloom Aran Baby Set (but just the sweater, not the hat) from Interweave Knits Spring 2004, size 12 months
Yarn: Rowan 4-Ply Soft in color 370 “Whisper,” 100% merino wool, 191 yards per ball, 3 balls used
Needles: US size 3
Recipient: Nephew Loganberry
Comments:
1) I didn’t do any modifications to this sweater. I didn’t even use a 3-needle bind-off for the shoulder seams because the sweater has saddle shoulders.

2) You’ll notice that Scout is not modeling this sweater. Putting a cat into a pullover and getting her to pose for photos is much harder than draping a cardigan over her back. Unfortunately for Scout, I still tried to get a torture modeling photo anyway. Yes, that is the only photo that I managed to take before she started trashing around. I had to get the sweater off her FAST.

3) I still need to find some good buttons to put on the button placket. However, I find the button placket position to be a bit weird.

See button placket.


See saddle strap covering up entire button placket.


Uh, aren’t you supposed to sew buttons onto the button placket? If I did that, the saddle strap wouldn’t sit straight. I’m confused. Should I sew the buttons right where the placket meets the front of the sweater? Is the placket there just so that one doesn’t have to sew the buttons right on the top edge of the front?

Ruffles

Pattern: Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style
Yarn: Handmaiden Silk Maiden in Berry, 50% silk, 50% wool, 300 yards, 1 hank
Needles: US size 7
Finished length: 56 inches, a decent length for a “decorative” scarf
Cat: Scout (I love it when she cocks her head like that)
Peter’s Sarcastic Comment: “Wow, it looks so warm!”
My Comment: I washed the scarf and now I wish I hadn’t. The yarn became much more drape-y and my nice tight fusilli spiral is now floppy. *sigh* But I still love it because it’s soft and curly and red.

Happiness is . . .

. . . meeting your friends for the first time.

Last night was a spectacular night at the Central Houston SnB. I finally met two Houston knitbloggers who I have been dying to meet: Drew The Crochet Dude and Elizabeth of a Mingled Yarn. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me to take photos. Perhaps I’m not a dedicated enough knitblogger. Some day I will learn to drag my carmera wherever I go.

Drew had a surprise for me: he brought the final proofs of Men Who Knit & the Dogs that Love Them so that I could see them! The book is amazing. I can’t wait to get my own copy—I’m sure that some of the dog sweaters could be made Scout-sized.

. . . Fuzzy Feet!


Pattern: Fuzzy Feet by the fabulous Theresa available at Knitty
Yarn: Patons SWS in Natural Plum (70% wool, 30% tofu), two balls
Needles: US size 11 DPN
Comments: I purposely tried not to have matching stripes on the slippers. I figured that if I tried to make them match and they didn’t match I would be much more annoyed than I would be if the stripes didn’t match at all. But look! The stripes tried as hard as they could to match up anyway.

The texture of the felted fabric looks sort of like I knit with boucle yarn. I suppose it’s the unfelted tofu soy part of the yarn. The soy part certainly didn’t interfere with the felting process. This stuff felted fast!

Some random photos:
Prefelting:

On Scout:

Yes, her paws are really in the slippers. After the last post of Scout some of you to accused me of having a stuffed cat and/or drugging poor little Scout. However, neither is true. Scout just helps me out with these photos. Sometimes. She didn’t want to put on the Fuzzy Feet at first.

“STOP it Mommy! I have teeth
and I’m not afraid to use them!”

A Nip in the Air

Well, grumpy blogging didn’t go over too well, now did it? I’m over my whininess and am bouncy and cheerful as ever. Now I’m just busy as heck with work--I have a “another freelancer flaked out on us and this was due two weeks ago so could you bail us out now” project. Yes, much fun. But at least it’s work. Anyway.

The other morning, I woke up and felt cold. “There’s a nip in the air!” I told Scout. So, Scout and I scurried down the stairs to look at the thermometer. Burr--54ºF! Is it really true? Obviously, it must be time to make some winter accessories. (For now, we’ll forget that it warmed up to nearly 80ºF later that day and then went back to summer for the rest of the week.)

So what’s on deck in my knitting line up? Well, I have some nice yarns in the stash that have been waiting to be knit up. First up, Some beautiful Silk Maiden (50% merino 50% silk) in the Berry colorway from Handmaiden Yarns. I bought this yarn a few months ago from Yarntopia with a plan:

Yup that’s the much overdone Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style. Yes, I’m well aware that it’s a bit of a cliché and that it’s boring as all get-out to knit. But I’m knitting it anyway because I always wanted a fusili scarf. Something about the corkscrew that’s so whimsical that I can’t resist it. Sure it won’t keep me warm, but who cares? It’s cute and I live in Houston. At least I’m using my knitting backward technique to save myself some aggravation.

Next, a furry hat that will clash nicely with the curly scarf. I guess I won’t be able to wear the two items at the same time. I’ll be making Wendy Bernard’s Last Minute (not) Purled Beret with this pink fluff. The pink fluff is the 100% bunny yarn that Valerie sent me earlier this year. I’m not going to turn the hat inside out because I don’t want a purled hat. I want a knit hat.

I’m hoping that this project doesn’t turn out to be a disaster. First of all, angora is not known to be a resilient fiber so it may not have the “spring” needed to make a good hat. Second, I don’t have that much yarn and frogging is not so easy. But I’m going to try anyway because I don’t know what else to do with the yarn and I want a beret, dang it! However, if it’s not looking good for the beret team after I work the ribbing. I may abandon the project.

Finally, I need some new Fuzzy Feet. The first pair that I made wore out and my feet are cold. I have some Patons SWS that I think will be perfect for the pattern. I knew that this stuff felts, but I wasn’t sure how much. Being the brilliant person that I am, I knit up a swatch, carefully measured it, and tossed it in the washer. Still being a brilliant person, I decided to let the swatch go for the whole cycle so that I could see the “maximum” felting. I wanted to be able to figure out exactly how big to knit the Fuzzy Feet so that I could have well fitting, THICK slippers when I was done. So what’s the “maximum” felting that can be done with Patons SWS? More than you would ever want for a pair of slippers. Believe it or not, that wad used to be a 5 x 5 inch square. Now it’s a blob x blob inch square. Uh. I guess I’ll just have keep an eye on the felting process. Let’s hope that I don’t screw that up.

Why wasn't Scout in that last photo? Because she was too busy playing with her fish from MonkeeMom! "Hi MonkeeMom!" says Scout. "Cleo really loves the chicken-feather toy that you gave us!"

I thought I said that I was busy!

Three posts in three days? How did I ever find the time? I have a lot to cover today so grab a beverage of your choice and get comfortable. Or simply skip reading this altogether if I’m boring you.

Topic 1: Thanks
Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement on my “help me!” post. I managed to finish all my expected work by Thursday afternoon and put out a small fire on Friday morning. So, I’m almost completely ready for our trip. I even have my knitting on my TSA approved knitting needles and a print out of the TSA rules just in case I have to convince a TSA employee that my needles are not weapons.

Peter also thanks you for all the good wishes that you sent. The bar exam is over and Peter feels confident in his performance on the test. Of course, I was not worried--this is the guy who got the second highest score in the nation on the CPA exam a few years ago.

And to those of you who got to my blog by googling “bar exam Alaska,” no one here took the Alaska bar exam. And even if I had, I wouldn’t be blogging about it.

Topic 2: More Thanks
Thank you also for your kind words about my Go With the Flow tank. I’ve worn it a lot and it’s very comfortable. I know that I knit it quickly, but I wasn’t knitting anything else during that time. And I realized that I wouldn’t be able to knit the tank while I was in Alaska because it was knit on non-TSA-approved needles. So, I wanted to finish it before we left. And heck, it’s mostly stockinette.

For those of you who asked about the shoulder seams, I’m planning to prepare something about it just for you!

Tara, cabling with this cotton did not hurt my hands. The yarn is so fine and the cables are so small that the cabling process did not seem much different from cabling with wool. However, Cotton Fine is very splitty and cabling with out a cable needle required extra care.

Topic 3: Flower
Here’s a flower for Helen. She’s getting married and wants to have a knitted flower bouquet--isn’t that a nifty idea? Helen has recruited fellow Knittyheads to help her with the flowers. She picked the Lilies pattern from Knitty for her flowers.

The flower is cute, but I found knitting it a bit fiddly. The pattern is clever, but the short rows were not fun for me. At least it knits up quickly. I have enough yarn for at least one more flower.

Topic 4: Bye!
We’re leaving for Alaska tomorrow! We will be gone for a week and a half. I’m not sure how much email access I will have during that time because I refuse to take my laptop on the trip. I want to be blissfully unconnected during my vacation. So, instead I’m looking forward to being buried under emails and unread blog entries when I come back!

While I’m gone, Monkee will be leaving the Houston area to begin her higher education in Dallas. I leave it to all of you to tease her mercilessly keep an eye on her for me. Make sure that she packs a toothbrush.

Lions and Tigers and Bears...

...or just one tiger.

Pattern: Tiger Cub from The World of Knitted Toys
Yarn: Opal Tiger sock yarn obtained in a swap with Susann and Jawoll superwash sock yarn in ecru
Needles: US size 2
Notions: Polyester fiberfill and stick-on goggly eyes

Modifications:
1) I worked the legs, tail, and ears in the round to avoid seaming.
2) I made the tail much longer than the pattern stated. It looked too stumpy so I kept going.
3) I used self-striping tiger yarn instead of changing colors to get the stripes.

Comments:
1) I love the way the stripes turned out--especially because I didn't have to do anything to make them happen.

2) I'm not so happy with the way he looks. I think the legs are too big and the nose is too pointy. After working this tiger and the panda before, I'm very suspicious of the patterns in this book. I don't think the published patterns were used to make the models in the book. I think the models were made and then the patterns were written to reproduce the animals in the simplest way possible. Or I'm just very bad a finishing stuffed animals and making them look cute. But I like the reason in which I blame someone else for my disappointment.

Peter's Comment: It looks like Cleo!

So I tried to take a photo of the Tiger with Cleo. She was okay for the first few shots and suddenly:

See Monkee! The tiger that you rubbed all over your face last night had been in Cleo's mouth! And Scout's too, but I wasn't able to snap a photo because I had to rescue the poor tiger from her.

Small Diversion

One of the women that attends my SnB is getting married next month. As a gift, the rest of us are making her an afghan. Each knitter is responsible for making a 12 x 12 inch square for the project. Last night, I sat down and made my contribution.



Moni is continuing at a good pace, but the miles and miles of stockinette is starting to wear me down. Part of the reason why I started on Elspeth was to give my hands a break from all that small-needle stockinette. I do like using small needles, but after hours of knitting with them, my hands start to hurt. So, now I switch between the two projects so that my hands don't get tired. However, I find that I have to restrain myself from just working on Elspeth exclusively. The simple lace pattern is much more interesting to knit.

Speaking of Elspeth, I am not having the problems with the pattern or chart that other knitters seem to be having. The chart makes sense to me. I don't have problems with stitch counts. Everything is fine. So if anyone out there is having problems with this pattern, remember that stitch markers are your friends.

Random cat photo:



Elly is at the top, Cleo is on the right, and Scout (the star of this blog) is on the left.

Kittyville Noch Einmal

Over the weekend I made a second Kittyville hat. I'm giving it to my SIL Tracy for her birthday. Tracy used to own two black cats, but now she and my brother live in a rented house and their landlord won't let them have pets. I was going to make her a black hat, but I hate working with black yarn, so I chose a dark heathered charcoal instead. I think I did a better job placing the ears on this hat:



Yarn used: MC Plymouth Galway Highland color 704, CC Plymouth Galway color 114
Needles: Two circular US size 9

This hat was the first object that I have made with Plymouth Galway. Very nice yarn! Soft, good yardage, lots of colors, and wound in a center pull ball. Galway may become my standard worsted weight yarn.

Meanwhile...
Progress on Peter's sweater is continuing. I'm working both sleeves at the same time. I need to work fast. Peter's birthday is April 17th and I decided that I wanted to give it to him as a present. I love giving myself deadlines.



Guilty of Conspicuous Consumerism
I finally gave into temptation and ordered a fancy blocking board. The towel-covered bed is no longer good enough for me.

What a deal!

Last weekend, I was browsing around in a Barnes and Noble store and found a 2005 Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar in the 75% off bin. Including tax, it cost less than $4. Normally, I don't like buying pattern books without seeing the patterns first, but I figured that I was bound to like a few of the patterns among the hundreds of patterns in the pack. (And before some smarty-pants tells me that there are 365 patterns in the pack, let me say that Saturdays and Sundays are combined as one "day" and some patterns are spread across two days. So there!)

Well, I was correct--there are several patterns that I like. But, of course, there are several patterns that I know I will never make. For example, all the sock patterns. I don't knit socks. The only exception was the pair of Fuzzy Feet that I made as an experiment.

So...if anyone out there wants the sock patterns, I would be happy to mail them to you. Just let me know your snail mail address and the patterns are yours!

Kittyville

I decided that I really needed a hat. So, I made myself a kittyville hat! I finished it in two days.

The main color is Bernat Denim Style color sweatshirt and the contrasting color (in ears and pompoms) is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. It's sort of a waste of Cashmerino, but it is the only pink worsted weight yarn that I have and I don't have much anyway. Just the leftovers from Wavy that I made for Laura Z.

I wasn't thrilled with the fiber content of the Denim Style (acrylic and cotton), but the yarn is soft and I really liked the color. I thought the gray and white would make me look like my two tabby cats. So you decide! Do I look more like Scout or Elly?
Here I am:

Here is Scout:

Here is Elly:

My other cat, Cleo, is not a tabby but she deserves make an appearance in my blog, too.

Panda ?

I received The World of Knitted Toys for Christmas. I decided to try a panda bear. It knitted up quickly, but finishing took forever. For me, finishing stuff is not nearly as fun as knitting. Oh well, I'm not terribly pleased with the end product. The corners are too square. And his legs seem awfully long. Maybe next time I'll try something with fewer parts.
Here's the funny looking Panda: