Saturday, December 6, 2008

Bags, Socks and MItts

As I've mentioned before Chief likes plastic. He lives for me throwing a bag on the floor to play with and chew on. Well, now he's started something new. He doesn't just play with them - he is now picking them up, carrying them places to sit on and protect. I'm not sure if this is "just because" or because I cleaned up all the extra bags when I was getting ready for Thanksgiving. Whatever the reason, he is being very careful to keep me away from the current bag which includes carrying it to the bathroom in the middle of the night to sit on.
"What!? It's my bag and you can't have it! - Chief

In knitting news, I finished the Eagle's Flight socks last week and finally got a pic of them. It's really hard to get a picture without showing massively white legs and scaring everyone. As I mentioned last post - I increased the stitches on the last row of the leg (I knit toe-up) so that the edge would not be too tight. This sock fits perfect.


For my birthday Christine gave me a kit to make Cat Bordhi's Flying Carpet Socks. They're made with Mountain Color Bearfoot- Mountain Tango colorway and Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport Yarn- Tahoe colorway. They're made using techniques from the New Pathway for Sock Knitters book and are lots of fun. I have the first sock done but the pictures just don;'t show the cuff properly. Head to the link and you'll see a much better pic!

In other knitting news, I've been pining over the loss of one of my patterns. Back many, many years ago I got Elizabeth Zimmermann's Woolgathering with several mittens in it, including the mitten below. A garter stitch beauty that hugs the wrist, has a mitered thumb and just plain fits and feels great. I made tons of these including the one below that never quite got finished. Fast forward 20 years and I decide to make some more which was prompted by finding this guy when I moved and sorted out boxes of "stuff".

I found the pattern which included 3 mittens but the page with this mitten - missing! I looked, I cried, I emailed Schoolhouse press and got no answer. I put a message up on the EZ group in Ravelry- everyone was interested but no one had the pattern. I've counted stitches on this one and come up with what I think will be close but - there's some special fitting to the mitten and I can't quite see how I did things.
If anyone has this pattern I'd love to hear. I believe it's Woolgathering #6 - Mittful of Mittens. The other 2 patterns include the Norwegian mitten. It's one of the WG that were 8.5x14 paper folded in half.
In the meantime - Chief has decided his plastic bag is safe and decided to join me at the recliner.
Bert? - he's running around jumping on things right now. Oh to be young and energetic!

5 comments:

Toni said...

You weren't discussing what happens to bags when they get recycled around him, were you?

Too funny!

NerdGirl said...

I love that Chief protects his plastic bag from all that would do it harm. It's very endearing in a Horton Hears a Who kind of way. I hope that someone can help you out with that pattern...if I had it, I would send it to you. Your eagle sock is just beautiful...I will have to check your project page in Ravelry to find out what color it is.

Cait said...

Yikes Jill!
Please, please, please don't let him CHEW on them. Those bits could get caught in his intestines and kill him! You wouldn't know the symptoms until way too late. It is like my friend's dauschhound that ate some tinsel. He had been around it for years and years and never bothered with it. By the time he was ill enough to show symptoms, the run to the vet was too late. She lost her beloved little dog. It is the same with people giving their dogs those DAMMNED rawhide bones. Two of my friend's basset hounds had to have emergency surgery and almost didn't make it because the rawhide had become caught in their intestine and had to be surgically removed. $300.00 each dog later, they were allowed to go home with the proviso that Betty would get rid of all rawhide 'treats' in the house.
The best present to give a dog owner is a "Nylabone", bought at any good pet store.
It is all nylon, an inert material and dissolves in the dog's stomach acid when the dog chews on it to keep it's teeth and gums healthy.
Please try to keep the bags away from Chief. I kind of like that guy, my Silver thinks he is as handsome as he is, and Minnie is just over the moon for both Chief and Bert.

Cait said...

P. S. The $300.00 quote was for surgery ab out ten years ago. $600.00 for two dogs surgery now days is just for the anaesthesia?
Betty still gets the shakes when she thinks how close she came to losing her best buds back then.
There are specially made 'tunnels' that are plastic bags from the pet stores to make 'crinkly' sounds encased in fabric so the cat can't get to the bag, but still make the 'sound'.
I personally think he likes the 'warmth' radiating back up to his body from the plastic.
It would be better to get a hunk of Fleece, cut into a generous square of about 15"x15", doubled over and hem-stitched a couple of times at the edge, into a nice pad for each cat to warm themselves on. Fleece is not that expensive for a good heavy weight fleece to make a cat pad. I have a child's small carry-blankie made by "Boo" (a company no longer available to the general public) and my cats love it.
Thanks again for the YouTube flashback in memory.

Cait

Cait said...

PPS
Chief looks to be a long haired Siamese. Siamese are notorious to love to chew on wool and yarn products. My Siamese Sampson had that habit. The vet's solution was to remove his back teeth, which is guess is the way to stop them from chewing yarn products. I couldn't afford the surgery, so Sampson had to go to a better home than mine. We had many years of 'talking' together though. He knew in the morning when he would talk to me and I fumbled with the coffee pot and said "Sam, give me a couple of minutes to wake up, will you?" He would literally sit at the kitchen table and wait for the coffee to get done, then continue his 'conversation' with me. I hated to give him away, but I simply could not afford the surgery, but know that he went to the best home I could have found him. He went to two elderly people that lived in an apartment building that had lost their first Siamese when someone let him out of the building. They took wonderfully good and marvelous care of Sam, and loved him as much as I would have until he passed on to the Cat Heaven to be with Jesus....and to wait for us when we got there.