Wild and crazy fur babies!!!!

We have fur babies!!!!  Momo, the little brown tabby is a boy, and completely insane, and Appa the white one with a grey mark on the top of her head is a girl, and completely insane.  Sense a trend?

There were about 20 kittens to choose from, total kitten overload.  After an hour and a half, we finally decided on the two that were healthy, happy, not too crazy, and crawled on us and purred.  There were others that were absolutely wild, not taking those.  We thought we were so smart.

Well, they sure fooled us, cause these two are nuts!!!!  Climbing, wrestling, chewing, scampering, scratching, fur covered balls of crazy!!!

Susan is not happy with them.  Hisses every time she walks past their door.  She has been our almost silent cat.   Yeah, not now.  She is constantly telling us what idiots we were to bring those two home.

But they are so sweet, when they are asleep, and so much fun, the drapes look better with those little pulls anyway, right?

We will never sleep again.

Goodbye my sweet fur baby.

We had to let Miss. Kitty go last week.  Our sweet fur baby had polycystic kidney disease, not a good thing, not at all.   She was never a well kitty, never weighted over 8 pounds, lost weight her whole life.  She was only 8 years old, but it was time.  She knew she was loved, to the end, purred the whole time. We miss her so.  Goodbye my sweet fur baby.

Finally!!!!!

I finally, finally, FINALLY finished "The Hat!!!!"

This hat has been on the needles for decades!!! OK,... no, only about 5 months, but it feels like forever!!!!

K takes piano from a wonderful woman, Mrs. J. She not only plays piano, but also drums and I think something else, maybe trumpet, not sure. She is also a painter. I love Mrs. J, she can take a grumpy teenager and in 1 short hour, using only a piano, paints and paper, send home a cheerful kid. K loves her too.

Well, Mrs. J has seen some of the little things I make and wanted to make something of her own. She was a first time knitter and chose this pattern, Cable Newsboy Cap. Yes, she likes a challenge.

Unfortunately, she had a bit of trouble starting; she cast on and then twisted about 4 times before joining. She made it almost to the first cable before she realized something was very, very wrong.

When she showed it to me, I gently explained what had happened, and worse yet, what had to be done. She just just laughed and decided to give up the sticks and string. I offered to take it home, and get her back to the same point, without the twisting, and she regained her will to craft.

She did an amazing job from that point on. The first time I tried cables, it didn't go nearly as well. She made it all the way to the top and then she realized the pattern she had chosen switched to crochet. O.o

She didn't let it phase her. 30 years of teaching piano to small children prepared her to stay positive, think on her feet, and keep kleenex handy. So she just looked for a similar pattern, found Cabled Chapeau, with only knitting,  and went on.

Unfortunately, the patterns weren't perfectly compatible, and she got to a point where she just couldn't finish. So I said I'd finish it for her.

And then things got ugly. Turns out she is a very tight knitter, and I am a very loose knitter, so when I added the ribbing on the bottom, it was not pretty. It took me three attempts, but I finally got it to look right. I don't even want to talk about the brim. Nightmare!

In the end it worked out, and looks very nice, but what a process.

As always, Kitty approved.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas,... wait a minute,...SNOW!!!!

Hope everyone had a Very Merry Christmas! We had a real honest to goodness White Christmas in Alabama!!!! Over 4 inches and more to come! Just made our day. The last white Christmas here was in the 1960's. Amazing!

K decided presents could wait, so we went out into the wonderland for a few hours.

Susan thought the snow was exciting.

Miss. Kitty liked the fleece snow under the christmas tree much better.

K decided presents could wait, so we went out into the wonderland for a few hours.

Sick day, Knitting and Kitty Mania.

We have been experiencing "flu like symptoms." Well K and I have, Mr. Man seems to just have had a bad cold. Funny, K and I got the flu shot and Mr. Man did not. Coincidence? Hum....

Anyway, in between laying around begging for Motrin and hot tea, K and I did a bit of knitting. I though it was high time she learned to knit on double points so we made little Santa Hat Ornaments! And Miss. Susan helped, of course.

K made the little one with the snow flakes. The pattern for the big hat is by Julie-Bird. I just cast on half as many stitches and winged it for the little hats.

Monkey looks just too cute in his new chapeau.

Oh dear,...



Bad Kitty!



Yes, I forgive you. Octopus and hippo came to join in the fun.




And then Miss. Susan decided she needed to sit for her portrait.



Yeah, she looks sweet, but she is one crazy ball o'fur. Climbs drapes, window screens, clothes hanging in closets, walls. Chews on anything, mostly me and K. She's driven poor Miss Kitty stark raving mad with her wild antics. Miss Kitty keeps giving me this look that screams "Why did you bring that thing home?!?!"

AND WE LOVE HER! She will lay in your lap for hours and let you pet her and cuddle her and roll over on her and all she does is purr. And then, when you're done, she jumps up and attacks your toes. Funny! Right now she's in my lap, purring like a truck, watching me type. Love her!

Hours of entertainment!

This is Lola...

This is Lola when you say "Boo!"

Is she cute or what!

Lola belongs to some friends of ours who have a herd of five Himis, of which Lola is the baby. She is technically part Himalayan, part rag doll, and totally adorable. Follows them around like a puppy. If they don't see her for a minute or two, they start checking closets and drawers just in case she went exploring and got locked in.

I understand she dusts those hard to reach places as well. :)

Do All Kittys Love Cameras?

Cats Do However Like Pygmy Puffs.

Cat's Do Not Like To Wear Scarves.

Playing with scarves, big time fun. Wearing scarves, not fun.

This is K's Gryffindor Roll Like a Scroll Scarf. She made up this pattern for her first try at our nifty Bond Fashion Knitter. She used Red Heart Super Saver yarn in Claret and Gold and put 20 needles in the bed. She cast on so that the edge would be stretchy, I think it's called a provisional cast on.

1) Knit 20 rows in Claret.

2) Knit 6 rows in Gold.

3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until she had 7 more claret and 7 more gold.

4) Knit 20 more rows of Claret.

Add Fringe to ends: 4 10” strands of yarn per fringe. Make 6 claret and 5 gold, placing the claret on the outer edges and one in the very middle and evenly spacing the rest of the claret and the gold in between.

The Fashion Knitter is a one trick pony, it makes stockinette stitch. So the scarf will roll up like a very long scroll . K loved this effect and thought it was very appropriate for a Harry Potter scarf. The finished scarf, with fringe, is about 2 inches wide when rolled and 60 inches long.

If you would like to knit K's scarf by hand, just knit the first row and purl the second, and so on, changing color as indicated above. The gauge turned out to be 4 stitches/inch and 4 rows/inch.

What our cat does for a living.

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And why...

Hide the Bat.

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"Cat Man Do" a short film is by English animator Simon Tofield.

Happy again.

____


She won't come out till the last branch comes down.

Advent wreath

My Goddaughter is a little sweetheart. I try to write her as often as I can, send her pictures and little things. K writes to her Godsister every couple of weeks and really enjoys drawing pictures for her and telling her about her life and times.

For Christmas we wanted to send her an advent wreath kit. K made one from Oriental Trading company last year and we all loved it, especially our cat.

So we got out the fun foam and dowel rods and came up with a reasonable facsimile. I'll send it tomorrow so she can make it next weekend.

Hope, Love, Joy and Peace. And a nap in the sun. What more could you want.

What does your cat do for fun?