So what have I been up to? Well, in the last couple of months I did manage to finish up Wanida, which I gave to my SIL for her birthday.

Pattern: Wanida by Cookie A's Sock Innovation
Yarn: Sundara Yarn in Candied Chrome

I've also been doing a lot of pet photography, which has been so surprising and so great. And fun! There have been a lot of puppies - YAY - and Labs and English and German pointers, strangely. I say strangely because I don't think I've ever met one before this year, and now I see them everywhere. I have some more appointments coming up, including a couple of horses and a Shar Pei which I am SO excited for because I've never ever met one. Their folds should be interesting to photograph. The one thing my portfolio is seriously lacking however, are kittens. Where are the kittens?!

Anyway, here is a little collage of some of the new friends I made the last two months, in no particular order. But the puppies do get to go first!

I've also been doing some people photography - weddings. I did my first wedding back in March and had to be practically strong-armed into it. When I hear things like, "If you can make cats look good, then you should be able to make people look like supermodels," I want to run screaming for the hills. Nothing could be more dangerous than comparing yourself to a cat. For one, I tend to find cats to be infinitely cuter than most humans. And for two, cats are SO MUCH EASIER to photograph. But maybe that's just me. In any case, these potential wedding clients force-fed three rounds of martinis in me before I said yes.

And wouldn't you know it, I had a blast. Subjects who sat when you said Sit! and stayed when you said Stay! How refreshing.

Since then I've done several more as a second shooter, plus one rehearsal dinner on my own, to see if wedding photog is something I indeed wanted to get into seriously (forgive me if you've heard all this before on the other blog!). The world needs another wedding photographer like it needs a hole in the head, right? Can I possibly bring anything new to the table?

I don't have the clout at this point to dictate the kind of wedding I'd like to shoot, but I definitely definitely very definitely have a kind of wedding that I'd love to shoot, and be my niche. My ideal wedding would be intimate backyard, barnyard, in a forest, under a tree, beachside affairs, with a lots of DIY details and flair, tons of flowers, candles and booze. And somewhere around 50-100 people...

...I'm pretty much describing our own wedding 7 years ago, which we had on a tiny island off Puerto Rico. It was perfect - a super fun, 3-day affair with close friends and family, wonderful in every single way. Except for one thing.

What it comes down to now is me redeeming my poor choice of a photographer by shooting my own wedding. Because oh man if I could do ONE thing over again, it would have been to sink 90% of our budget into hiring the perfect photographer. I didn't because it wasn't worth the expense. And this coming from someone who has always loved and appreciated good photography. I am seriously the worst consumer - I would hate to get myself as a client!

So if anyone is planning a small wedding this year or the next, give me a shout!
Email me at
fatorangecatstudio *at* gmail *dot* com

Last but not least, I'm still doing Bunny&Veebs photography. The latest craze are action shots - not easy to do in indoor lighting I might add. But I have the greatest subjects ever and oodles of patience. You have no idea the hours I've spent amusing myself in this way. Those guys, they'll do just about anything for a single morsel of kitty treats. Love them!

So that's it! Thanks to any readers who are still visiting this site! xoxo

Coming back out to scarf model part-time has proved detrimental to Bunny's full-time job as House Sheriff.

Here we see him having some words with his brother, for some unknown infraction (Veebs probably deserved it, whatever it was). Any more lip out of you and the sheriff is going straight for the jugular.

However, we can plainly see that Veebs is no longer intimated. For Bunny let Mommy wrap him in silky mohair.

Perhaps the neighborhood squirrel will show respect to authority more appropriately.

Dare he so brazenly steal AND consume a nut while looking straight into the eyes of the merciless sheriff?!?

Why yes. Yes he dares.

Sorry I did this to you Bunny.

VanBuren's New Year resolution was to play more. Get active, move around some, rediscover his inner kitten. I took him up on it and volunteered to help him train. We started light with a toy his grandmother gave him for Christmas - an uncontroversial plastic ball with a little bell inside.

Veebs stood at the bottom of the stairs while I rolled the ball down. The idea was for him to extend his arm and catch it. Work on his reflexes/hand-eye coordination.

The only part of his body that moved were his eyeballs.

We tried another tactic to see if it would be more enticing - me rolling the ball up to him. Again the idea was for him to catch it.

He did not catch it. He did not catch on.

Perhaps it was just too much stimuli, or he was shy, or he wanted to play on his own terms. So I left the ball in front of him and crept upstairs, leaving him to his own devices.

A few seconds later...

Score!

I'm having myself a grouchy little Christmas.

Honestly I have never felt this grumbly about the holidays in a really long time. First has to do with the fact that it has come much too quickly. YES I KNOW I say that every freaking year but this year I have felt it more than ever. My birthday is around this time, and it felt like only 2 days ago that I said to myself, while slathering sunscreen and drinking one seabreeze after another, Whew! I don't turn 90 for another half a year! And now here I am at the cusp at 90 and I don't know how it happened nor what was accomplished during the time leading up to now. Must drink less.

Second, it has not snowed. Not really. A little last week, for a few minutes, and it all melted on contact. Ironically I am not a huge fan of winter - well I take that back, I'm not a huge fan of LONG winters - but I would say an old-fashioned snowstorm would do me good. Especially as we neither have a long driveway to shovel nor a car to de-ice. So bring on the snow I say. I want it. I want it all.

I am SO grouchy that I was going to forego making the annual Cat Calendar this year. For the last 6 years or more, I have made a 12-month calendar of the boys which I give out as part of the Christmas gifts for my mother and father-in-laws, my sister-in-law, a few other cat-crazy friends. Because it really does take a special brand of crazy to want a calendar of other people's pets. Honestly though, Bunny and Veebs are so well-loved and revered in our little community, owing to their sunny dispositions and winning personalities, that it's not hard to understand, if you're insane for cats, why their pinups would be so popular.

I only skipped one other year because my nephew was born, and I assumed that he, a human being, would take precedence over feline relations. I assumed my sister-in-law would want to make a calendar for him. I assumed my mother-in-law would have wanted a 12-month calendar of her first grandchild. Oddly that was not the case.

My parents received a calendar for only one year, because my mom laughed at it and called me nuts. How dare she! So she's been off the list.

I wanted to skip this year only because I have had no time. You know how long it takes to try to pick out 12 photos from a 12 million, especially when your cats are so goddamned photogenic?! So I told Duck that No, I would not be making a cat calendar this year, and, well. He yelled at me. He said, AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A PET PHOTOGRAPHER?! Well, I would be pet photographer if I had a real portofolio site or ecommerce site or business cards ready, which hasn't yet happened (need more time, and/or personal assistant). So fine, instead of getting any headway in that department, this weekend was dedicated to making...

The "10 Year Anniversary" shout-out refers to 2009 being their 10 years of being with us. It was in 1999 that I brought them home from the animal shelter, all the way out from Sudbury, MA where the two of them shared a cage for 6+ months. Sudbury is a good 30 minute plus drive from Boston, and I and my nostrils remember as if it were yesterday when Bunny puked and pooped his guts out in the car ride home. I had always meant to give him a bath afterwards, but I think after 10 years of shedding, he's as good as new.

Other calendar names from years past have been:
Baxter & VanBuren 2005: A Year in Fur
A Tail of Two Kitties: The Baxter & VanBuren 2006 Calendar (not particularly original, I'll admit)
It Was a Very Good Year: The Best of Baxter & VanBuren 2008

In addition to the usual suspects of recipients, I think I'm giving a calendar to our financial advisor, who has never once failed, during meetings or phonecalls, to inquire after Bunny and Veebs. Cat lovers unite! Except he keeps calling Veebs "Buchannan."

Pattern: Wedge scarf by NorahGaughn
Yarn: Sundara Sock Yarn in Roasted Persimmon over Green Papaya
Needles: US2
Mods:I changed all p2tog's to k2tog's

Started this scarf in Beijing and finished it while somewhere over the North Pole (direct flights from the Far East to the East Coast are awesome). It's for Duck and the color looks fab on him.

It also looks fabulous on Bunny, as all scarves - and ribbons - are wont to look. So, it is with much shock and sadness that I announce Bunny's early retirement from scarf modeling. He has decided to become a full-time Liaison to the Squirrels. We wish him all the best.

Little stinker.

I know it's getting cold out there when the boys start squeezing themselves into tight spaces. The less comfortable they look, the more comfortable they are. I walked into the office this morning and found the following pile-up:

Bunny is comfy, really. He was purring as I took this photo. Or maybe what I heard was his last breath  getting slowly pushed out by VanBuren's weight.

They really bug me sometimes. I spent all summer long shooing them off my office chair which is a cat fur magnet that no amount of vacuuming can dislodge, off the pile of papers on the desk, off the couch where they don't belong. I try to make their beds as enticing as possible but you'd think I had lined them with tin foil instead of yummy, plushy pillows.

Now suddenly they can't get enough of it. Now they're nesting. Happens every year. Cats are so weird.

Well. Summer's officially over. I've given up hope of having those final few days of unexpected, uncomfortable heat before I started pulling out the sweaters - I HATE pulling out the sweaters - but it looks like it's not to be. Haven't seen the sun in days, and tomorrow October comes. Already! As much as I like wearing my handknit socks, I choose you, flip-flops. I choose you.

Here is one last homage to summer, when we let Bunny out on the roof, supervised. His pink rabbit nose went into overdrive smelling all those outdoorsy city scents. I think he had a nice time up there. As did I.

Bunny wears the scarf I made using Sundara Yarn Fingering Silky Merino in Winter Skies.

For the first time in known history, he was not a very cooperativemodel. The photoshoot disintegrated very quickly.

Bunny is so mad that even from this blurry shot you can tell that green fire is shooting out of his eyes.

I'll get you next time, you wascally wabbit!

In case you haven't noticed, I love photographingBunny. That cat has an endless supply of downright uncat-like expressions. The one expression which he excels at beyond any others is the one I call Most Hateful Disdain.

It looks like this:

Now 99% of the time Bunny is a total lovebug. He likes to sit in your lap, he likes to purr in your lap, if you bring your face close to his he will smear his little wet nose all over your forehead most lovingly, and then attempt to kiss you by licking the corner of your eyes (I don't let him of course but he always goes for my eyes and I'm like WHAT THE HELL you WACKY CAT).

But the other 1% of the time that he spends giving me the most pissed-off looks are the ones I like best. So much material trapped in such a little subject!

I mean he is just so full of soul-crushing ennui here that he's silently crying.

Save me from myself, he says. Save me.

And then there are his moments of intense brooding where he gives Darcy and John Thornton a run for their monies. Or moneys. Not sure which.

He is plotting how to push his Lennie Small of a brother down the stairs and make it look like an accident.

(Do you like all my literary references? Heh.)

He took it upon himself to block my scarf for me. I didn't even have to ask. See how perfectly aligned his body is. What a professional.

His oversized underside is smothering this:

There is a slight cabling boo-boo on the right which I guess I am pointing out to you so that you know that I know it's there. The stitch is again from my Japanese stitch dictionary. The yarn is Sundara Yarn fingering silky merino in Winter Skies. My first time! I'm using size 3 needles. Probably could have gone bigger for a lacier scarf.

Although the current size is conveniently sized for effective cat-blocking.

Putting ribbons to good use however has not.

This is Bunny and Veeb's favorite Aunt Mouse. My dad got her one weekend when my mother wasn't home to say no, he called me up to tell me about it, described how skinny and wiry she is, so I told him he should name her Mouse.

Ten years later Mouse has gained a couple of gray hairs and more than a couple of pounds. She's got cow udder for a gut. From other angles it looks like a peach. Or a baboon's behind. Or a giant hooha.

Despite the advanced age and weight, Mouse is still the greatest nemesis to mice, gophers, and the two frogs that live in the little koi pond out front. She's being sent to her cousins in DC when my mom moves to China next month - they have a huge yard filled with other playmates so I hope she'll be happy there and not try to walk all the way back home. Although she could use the exercise.

We're definitely a little more worried about this one.

This is Mocha. She's a poodle and she's eleven years old. I call her the World's Saddest Puppy because she spends about 80% of her little dog life waiting for my mother to come home. When she goes out for errands I try to distract Mocha from the window with a rousing game of cards or a belly rub or a dog treat. But she was never a playful dog - tennis balls bounced acrossed the yard unchased - a belly rub from me is about as welcome as a bath, and a dog treat doesn't last 5 seconds long enough for her to forget that there's a window with a view that she has to get back to. I even try talking to her, interjecting her name every three words so she'd look at me. But her focus is 100% on mom.

So now the question is, do they bring the dog with them to China and risk her not making the long and scary travel plus the long and scary month-long quarantine? Or do they leave her with friends and risk her dying of a broken heart?

If I could take you Mocha I would.

Three years is a long time to wait by the window.

I'm doing some research online, but if anyone has some first-hand experience traveling with pets overseas, I'd love to hear it!

I made Chevron Scarf - in the same fashion as the first one - for a friend's birthday, using the remainders of Sundara Yarn's Bartlett Pear (made entrelac socks with it), and a skein of this Koigu in a colorway that is both beautiful and craptastic, depending how far you stand. I really am not sure whether my friend is going to like the color combo. Us knitting insiders know that for the Chevron Scarf, the more the colors clash, the better (er right? I think?)...but will she feel the same way?

Lookit all the pretty colors.

I asked Bunny, always the most willing and photogenic fashion rabbit, to model it for me.

I think it'll do. As soon as I remove all the cat hairs.

We all have a preferred sleeping position. I like to sleep on my side with my palm under my cheek. Duck likes to sleep with his arm thrown over his head. Veebs likes to sleep onhis back.

But I think Bunny's favorite sleeping position takes the cake. Have you seen anything so unorthodoxed and cute at the same time?!

I've stalled big time on my knitting because I've reached the yoke for the Rambling Rose cardigan and now it's much less knitting and much more wrangling. And crying.

The right front panel is joined with the right sleeve is joined to the back is joined to the left sleeve is joined to the left front panel. That's what, about one trillion some-odd stitches squished on a needle with 9 strands of yarn - kept wound in small balls - jangling and twisting like windchimes in a hurricane and it SUCKS. I suppose I could/should make the balls of yarn smaller but I feel it wouldn't make the process any more manageable. The whole yoking was a bad idea. Fine so you don't have to seam later, but seaming is a small, TINY price to pay for not having to knit back and forth - no yoking in the round, this is a cardigan! - and deal with the all that yarn getting all insane all over your lap. Nightmare.

Here is a shot of Veeb's humungous backside to make everyone feel better.

Bunny found a pink ribbon today.

He demanded that I tie it into a pretty little bow around his neck.

Then he made me take a million photos of him with the bow, even though I told him that the one I just took was good enough.

But he got angry so I could not but comply.

What a little diva.

and especially a Meowwy Christmas!

The living room, in the new place.

Furnishings that used to spread out over 3 rooms - so luxurious! - are now stuffed into one. Notice that eyesore of a basement couch and TV stand? Some of them will have to go eventually.

But this chubby little guy is going to stick around to enjoy the view.

All in all, we're adjusting to city livin' pretty well. Even though there's like, no storage space. (One bike leaning against the piano, one against the kitchen wall). Ah so you win some, you lose some. I think I'd take a overstuffed room with a view over closets any day.

My own little angora factory. It never runs out.

This is cute little Bunny Bunniton's ugly side. He sheds easily, he sheds enormously and he sheds daily. Year-round, non-stop, even in winter but oh so much worse in summer.

Owning such a loose-follicled Bunny such as this one is not for the faint of nose. Unfortunately he doesn't understand this and absolutely hates it when you sneeze. If he's nearby and you're feeling even the slightest tickle coming on, he will know and he will hop hop hop fast away and out of sight before your first achoo, and not before shooting you the most LOATHSOME of glares. One of these days I'll have to get that look of his on camera. I have never seen such pure, human hatred out of any pair of eyes than his.

Sometimes though I will use that to my advantage. When he is insistent on sitting in my lap, and I am insistent on him not, I'll just feign a sneeze coming on, and watch him run off faster than a cheetah on wheels.

Poor Bunny. I should not be so mean. Luckily I am not allergic to him, and even if I were, I'd do everything it takes not to be. Like Duck has. Now with enough over-the-counter medication and mandatory exposure, his eyes swell only half-way shut, his nose clogs in only the left nostril and he hardly turns to me anymore to say, "Let me die."

His previous owners must not have had such fortitude. They must have sneezed violently all the time, they must have laughed cruelly at his unusual tail, and in the end what could you do with such a defective cat but to send him away? When he shoots me that dirty look and runs off like that, I try not to take it personally. He's just afraid he might be going back to the animal shelter.

OK, all ye members of Club Knitterly Letter Swap. Two things:

1) If you have not received a letter from your initial pen pal yet, please send me an e-mail (scroll to the very bottom of this page), and please type "KLS I didn't get a letter" in the subject.

2) If you have received letters and would like to write another, e-mail me and please type "KLS letter savior" in the subject.
- You do not have to be in the swap initially to be a letter savior, so those who missed out in the sign-up round can sign up to be a letter savior now.
- HOWEVER please be prepared to write and send a letter within a day or two of receiving an address, which I hope to send out tomorrow at the latest. There will be no two-week waiting period for this.

****

I wish I had more to say, but I have not knitted very much in the last week. The reason is not a loss of interest, but a demotion in priority. Knitting - and maybe blogging - will have to take a backseat for the next couple of weeks more. Which is ironic because, ready to start fresh in a new home, I bought a new domain name for this site two weeks back. Now there's no time, and no content. Bleh.

So for now I leave you with photos from this weekend. Turns out I wasn't the only one rejoicing in the glorious spring sunshine.

La la la! So happy to be outside.

"And I want more tuna now!!!"

Happy Holidays and see you in 2007!

Stage I: Omniscience

Stage II: Doubt

Stage III: Alarm

Stage IV: Vengeance

Well, they're gonna have to. I tried to knit something else, I did. A fast and easy pattern, but I was bored. I just didn't have the motivation to knit it, even though the sock yarn (Socks That Rock) are fast becoming my favorite. So I ripped out what I started and soon there will be another Pomatomus in this world. But for a man. Pomantomus. Heh heh.

Only 10 more days or so til we leave Santa Fe.

I have to admit I am starting to miss home a little. We went to see The Departed (aka The DePAAAHted. GREAT MOVIE by the way) recently and I can't believe I'm saying this but the Boston accents made me all homesick. The indescribable, almost unbearable, barely imitate-able unless you're from Boston, Boston accent. I thought about the state trooper and the city cop who live on either side of our cul-de-sac. They're accents are SO THICK and SO HORRIBLE, I always giggle and wretch at the same time when I hear them talk, but I miss them.

Those crazy Bwohston Myassachooosetts cwawps.

And I miss the boys.

Even if they may not miss me too much.

Guess what I did just now, in this here 10000 degree heat with no air conditioning to speak of so that I have to retreat into the cool but moist basement where I can smell the mushrooms sprouting?

Kooch! I picked up my long-abandoned Kooch and started fiddling with it again!

To go from exclusively knitting on size 1, 2, 3 needles since March to knitting on size 10 overnight must surely be the CRAZIEST thing I've done all year! My hands were like, mmmmmGAAH! Knitting...with lumber...it...hurts...

Well, that's about all the knitting content I have for you this week. I will now fall back on us fellow knitters' usual blogging crutch and fill the rest of this white space with content about...my cat. You're in for a special treat though, because today I don't have just any ole cat pictures, I have a thrilling exposé on my cat and his little Oddity. With pictures.

Exhibit A: Bunny from the front. Normal and cat-like by all accounts.

Exhibit B: Bunny from the back.  Sweet baby jesus what IS that?!

Perhaps an aerial view will help us understand better:

Or maybe a collage?

Do you see? That is Bunny's claim to fame - the crunchy, stunted, malformed tail! If you were ever a first time guest at our house, you'd have to touch that tail before I let you in. And when you touch it, I mean really really touch it, because you'll have no choice, I'll totally make you do it, you'll find that the base of his tail is a ball of unpleasantly twisted bone, as if someone took his long, normal tail and just jammed it in like it was an accordian.

But of course no one did that. By all accounts, he was born that way (we got him and his brother at a pound). It doesn't hurt him to have his tail like that, although it does get him into trouble that normal cats like his brother Veebs, with their luxuriously long tails, don't get into. That thing is like a grappling hook!

Bunny's tail nub has been documented to:

1. catch in the handles of plastic bags. The faster he runs, so louder the plastic bag.
2. close doors as he walks by
3. catch on yarn, which are attached to needles and the precarious beginnings of LACE, and travel off the couch, across the entire living room and up 13 flights of stairs
4. catch on the cables plugged into the desktop CPU. As Bunny struggles to escape, he pulls the CPU about 5 feet across the floor like a strongman and all the USB cables attached bend 90 degrees. (That must have really hurt the poor rabbit. Sad face.)
5. swivel 'round and 'round at the base when he's mad.
6. brush under Veeb's nose and flick his face as he walks by.
   I need to catch that on tape sometime, because hahaha there's such a human look of disgust on Veeb's face when he gets slapped by that quasi-tail.

So that's our little Bunny with the curious tail. If there were ever Mütter Musuem for felines, I'd totally have him on display. Next to that jar of Veeb's perfectly BCB's.

"Ew."

I started on another sock, bad, undisciplined me. I thought I'd do an anklet version of the "Bed Sock" from Knitting Vintage Socks, and try a tubular cast on. I can see why people get giddy at the sight of tubulars. It's so clean, so mesmerizing, so clever.

I don't like this sock pattern though. In fact I don't think I much like anything in this book, except for "Child's First Sock," and that's only because it looks like Pomatomus, with smaller scales.

That's all the knitting I've done in the last 24 hours. Kind of hard to update every day or every other day when you accomplish too little to report on...

...so here is a completely unnecessary picture of Veeb's famed BCB's (Bi-Colored Ballz).

Veebs, ready for his early physical.

A couple nights ago I was relaxing on my parents' bed, watching TV and knitting (another) Pomatomus sock, with Mouse the cat alongside keeping me company. Every now and then I'd stop to show her my sock progress and she seemed duly impressed.

"Cool huh, Mouse? Don't you wish you could knit?"

Then I left to go to the bathroom.

"I gave it a whirl while you were gone. Bored now."

I was gone for maybe two minutes.

So disrespectful.

The cat basket is situated sort of behind my desk, right, and at least 6 times a day every day one of the cats is trying to squeeze himself into the basket that's already occupied by the other. Sometimes there's a violent coup; other times a happy kitty marriage.

Just before round 5 began, I decided to record their quest(s)(s)(s) for the basket, and move over Dawson Leary! I've got myself an Oscar-worthy video (viewable on Windows Media Player or Real Player). It's really funny. Perhaps only to me. Ha ha ha. I've watched it like a hundred times already.

Watch this heartwarming film

Turn your audio ON for optimal viewing. Otherwise it's just cat p'nography.

So if cats are missing the sweet tooth gene, why then is my cat's ass so big?

I dare you to find a larger cat bottom than this.

Hee hee I'm always picking on Veebs. Of course he doesn't eat sweets. It's only good ole fashioned Cat Chow that makes him so shapely. And I like him shapely. He's great to cuddle to, to sling around your shoulder, your arm supporting that great big butt as his great voluptuous excess spills over, and he's purring purring purring like a gigantic bumblebee.

But speaking of sweets, this is what we got going on here at Chez Kitty McKnitty. Homemade ice cream!

We've had this ice cream maker for the last 3 summers and this weekend was the first time we used it. Idiots! We made strawberry ice cream and oh my god is it good. All day long I think about strawberry ice cream and how soon it will be til I get to eat some. And on a hot hot day like today it is even more exciting.

So not much going on with the whole knitting thing. The past weekend found me in a RARE mood to clean up the jungle that is our yard, so I ran with it and removed the dead shrubs, de-weeded, even varnished the deck. But yep I think that'll be it. When I'm in the yard again it's to sit in a lounge chair with a knitting project on my lap.

I was so into gardening last year, and now I barely care. Such a shame. I wonder if this time next year I'll feel the same way about knitting? I hope not. As Duck has pointed out, knitting has been my longest running obsession ever.

The pros about being a contractor are many: flexible hours, better pay, no office politics, no pressure of having to be on some "career track." The cons about being a contractor are too few to mention. I'm even ok with paying health care out-of-pocket.

But there is one con that has me a little sore. I didn't get to partake in the company summer outing which went something like this: catered seafood lunch; yachting in Newport, RI; clambake dinner; dj and dancing; hotel rooms for that one too many drink. I am shocked at the extravagance during a non-dotcom era that resembles more like a millionaire daughter's wedding than a corporate outing. Goddamn. I've always wanted to do a clambake!!! And I love sailing! I love Newport! And I love love love to drink free booze!

Also since I missed the outing I missed the announcement that went out telling everyone to stay at home the next day (today), so when I came into the office this morning I was all, "Bueller....Bueller...Bueller...?" Sigh. There is no love for the contractor.

With my sudden free time today I finished Harry Potter.

Blossom's OSW came in the mail yesterday. It was too small for her, she offered to give it away, and I kindly accepted the offer. I too however found that it was too small for me.

But it wasn't too small for a certain fiery-haired beauty...

And I'm breaking my No Knitting For Me, Only Knitting for You vow. I'm disappointed in myself but hardly surprised. I did start on a few baby pieces and they seem to be going pretty quickly, and since it's still blazing hot outside I thought, I could totally squeeze in one more summer piece before the season's over.

So Allegra, I'm comin' back for you and this time I mean to finish you up and finish you up good.

Comparing the width of Allegra to the width of my favorite perfect-fit tank. Look at that!

I started this back in May and have been starting/stalling on it ever since, because I had more than an inkling that it was going to be monster big on me, despite knitting it in the smallest size. But I was loathe to make any sizing adjustments. The pattern motif is too involved and I was too lazy to re-plot. So what does one do when one cannot make one's mind up? Keep on knitting, just keep on knitting! Yes it's too big but if you just Keep On Knitting the piece will magically shrink or you will magically grow to magically fit you perfectly!

Anyway I made my adjustments to the back and cut the width back by more than 3 inches. The adjustments to the front is going to be so so gross, but I'll think about it when I get there. The goal is to finish this within the month. And THEN I will concentrate on baby stuff only, yes. I will.

"I hate you."

This weekend was a hot and muggy one. I continued knitting Celia, while listening to the Red Sox/Yankee game on the radio, while reading Harry Potter. Two years ago, the doorbell rang at 6:30am in the morning, and a grumpy USPS guy hand handed over Book Five and said, "Here's your book," while his face said, "Goddamn you freaks." Remembering that, this Saturday morning I woke up at 5am and flitted in and out of sleep with my ears half opened, listening for the sound of the delivery truck. It came at 7:15 am and BOING! Duck and I were at the front door half-dressed in a split second.

I am loving this book so far. It's not a surprise, but I think her writing style has changed. It's more sophisticated, the flow reads like watching a movie. And our little wizards are cursing and flipping each other the bird. They're all grows up! I for one am waiting for the Ron/Hermione make-out scene.

This weekend I also tried to play Buckaroo with my cat Veebs. Of course I used yarn: Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran in this VERY DELICIOUS shade of teal. It's destined to become a cable jacket from a Debbie Bliss baby book...I hope...if I don't use it for myself...because I'm selfish.

It was like playing yarn jenga.

Veebs wasn't a very cooperative Buckaroo team player. Kept waking up or breathing too heavily.

Happy Valentines Day

Yum.

I just received the pattern for the Angelina Vintage Jacket in the mail, read through it, and now I won't be able to sleep at night. It's done in one piece from the back, up to the neck, then down both sides of the sleeves at the same time, and then down the front.

What.

But look! It's so preeeeetty. 

Tomorrow I'm starting one of the Rebecca sweaters in tandem with the Drapey Shoulder one. I'm getting bored with all the 3x3 ribbing.

Look who's been keeping me company while I've been knitting. I could eat those paws.