The Knitting Fiend

When we adopted Cosmo from the Humane Society, we made one thing very clear: He was expected to be a working cat. He told us he was more than willing to work for his keep. So, yesterday, I assigned him his first task: Pick out yarn for my entrelac scarf. And guess what? He picked some great stuff!

The yarn is DK weight, 100% wool, and Cosmo picked two beautiful shades of blue. Inspired by his color choices, I cast on. To the left, you can see what I’ve done so far.

I labeled the “bits”. Bits, 1&2 are knit following the directions for “Section 1″. Bits 3,4 & 5, are the left triangle, center rectangle and right triangle created following the directions in “Section 2″. Bit 6 is the first rectangle following directions for “Section 3″. The magenta line indicates a row of stitches.

In case you want to give this a whirl, here are sort of directions — but notice they aren’t complete! I’ll write the full directions up when I’m done, and I’ll write a calculator so you can vary. (Ok, you know the real reason these directiosn are here. It’s so I can print them out and check as I keep knitting section 2 and 3 over and over again. If they are confusing, please ask questions– then I can fix wording. There may be mistakes! )
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Here’s how it happened: Jim and I “mysteriously” found ourselves on the mailing list for the Downer’s Grove Animal Shelter. On Saturday, while clearing out junk mail and bric-a-brac in preparation for Superbowl Sunday, I “somehow” folded the newsletter open to the highlights describing the pets up for adoption and “carelessly” placed it face up on the coffee table where it sat surrounded by empty space.

Them, can you imagine my surprise when Jim, not 10 minute later said: “Oh, poor Cosmos! Let’s adopt him!” I said, “Sure!”

There was a pause. Jim’s eyes squinted in suspicion as he asked, “Did you put this here on purpose?” My answer, “Yes.”

Jim laughed.

On Sunday, I went to the shelter and filled out the four page questionnaire required to adopt Mo. On Monday, the shelter did their “background check” which involves calling our Vet to make sure we meet the standards required of cat owners. Luckily, we passed! Early Monday morning, the shelter adoption facilitators phoned and told me I could pick Mo up.

Mo hid on and off Monday through Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon, he began to romp. He likes playing soccer with toy mice, and messing up the throw rug in my office. He also likes to jump on laps.

Welcome MoMo!

Look what La of JenLa sent me!!! A Chibi!!!

I was going to use it immediately– but The General decided to take it over for a while. As you can see he loves it.

Since cats outrank humans around here, I had to wait patiently. Luckily, he eventually let me use the Chibi.

I found the unfinished Argyle socks and some blue yarn. ( I wanted to use red, but believe it of not, I found no machine washable red yarn in the house. None!

Fortunately, I did find some rather bright blue. I threaded the Chibi and began to work duplicate stitch. To the Chibi-less, I must report that using a Chibi makes doing this much easier. The bent tip lets me dip into the hole and then poke back up more easily. It’s terrific.

I’ll show close up pictures when I embroider the X’s on the brown-beige and white Argyle socks I’m currently knitting.

Meanwhile, here’s how the finished “black, blue and white” Argyles look. =>

(Truthfully, I’m thinking of picking out the blue and redoing in red. So, for now, there will be just one finished sock while I decide.)