Cat Attack

Cat Attack
Originally uploaded by Speller Photies

This is a typical day at our house. NPR blaring, husband spouting facts, yarn everywhere, animals looking guilty...

Tabitha has taken to seizing balls of yarn, or in this case bits of knitting, and running around with them in her mouth and then looking all innocent.

Cat

We have adopted a cat. I realize that this has nothing to do with fiber arts, except perhaps that cats like to play with yarn. You can see Wurlitzer playing with yarn here on the right. The tabby is her housemate Tabitha who has not come to lve with us. Yet.

How we came by this cat is a long story. She used to belong to one of John's colleagues and she needed a new home. Her name is Wurlitzer. She is smallish, black, about ten years old and very affectionate.

We had wanted a cat for a while but were worried that Sophie would chase a new kitten and if she caught it, she would probably scare it to death. But we felt sure that Wurlitzer could stand up for herself. She has claws and she knows how to use them. She has nice fangs that show when she hisses menacingly. She can move fast and jump high.

Wurlitzer came to live with us on Friday. We set her bowls and litterbox in the basement where she could shelter safely beyond the cat door, free from canine interference. And indeed she spent most of the first evening hiding among the boxes in dark cupboard, barely visible. When Wurlitzer was in John's arms, Sophie hid behind my chair, observing her from a safe distance.

But by the second day, Wurlitzer came out to explore. We are feeling as if we are living in the midst of a Wild Kingdom documentary. She and Sophie get closer and closer and closer to each other and then Wurlitzer arches her back, makes her hair stand on end and, if necessary, hisses and Sophie goes away. We studied the ways they held their ears and tails for a sense of what they were communicating to each other. They stare at each other for hours on end. Or Wurlitzer will stroll through the house and Sophie will follow, her ears up, her tail wagging, hoping that Wurlitzer will want to play. But Wurlitzer is not even slightly interested in playing. Wurlitzer is interested in drinking out of Sophie's water dish and sampling her dog food and Sophie just looks on from a distance, hoping that NOW Wurlitzer will be so grateful that she'll want a frolic or at least won't look so hostile. Above is a pic of Sophie in motion (as she often is) with her "see how cute I am, you know you want to frolic with me" look.

I think there have been some skirmishes which I have not witnessed. For instance, yesterday a.m. when I was coming downstairs, Wurlitzer was dashing upstairs with Sophie in hot pursuit. A nap under the bed followed for Wurlitzer. Both yesterday and today, I have come home to find that Wurlitzer has completely disappeared. Yesterday I looked everywhere (including in the dark closet) for her, worried that I might have shut her inside a cupboard or someplace worse (the dryer, the dishwasher) or failed to see her slipping out the door when I went to the office. But eventually she sauntered back into view. Dogs rush up to greet you when you come home. Sophie skids on the front hall carpet, every single time and then dashes, nails clicking on the floor boards, for the back door. Wurlitzer cooly strides through sometime in the course of the evening, when she has a moment.

When she is not in hiding, she is usually sitting on my lap or on the convenient shelf created by my breasts and shouler, kneading gently, purring loudly, occasionally turning around so I can inspect her tail. It is a little hard to type or to read or to knit with a cat glued to you but it is very nice.

Now we have to decide if we want to adopt her former housemate Tabitha...

Offering of Scarves

This is a project our congregation is starting but I've had people from outside the diocese of Missouri (okay, my sister) offer to help out so I am posting it here in case anyone else is reading this and might be interested:

Calling all knitters and crocheters throughout the diocese of Missouri to participate in an offering of scarves to be presented and blessed at Diocesan Convention and wrapped and given to the clients of the Free Hot Lunch Program at Trinity Church in St Louis on the Sunday nearest to Christmas.

This is an opportunity for individuals and shawl ministry groups to share the warmth of Christ's love with others by praying for the person who will receive your scarf.

Scarves should be 7" by 60" and made of washable wool or synthetic fibers. Please subdued colors like navy, dark green, grey, black or tweedy combinations. (The idea is to have them all look pretty similar so that there are no fights or disputes among the recipients.)

Here is a suggested pattern for knitters, based on the prayer shawl ministry basic pattern:

Cast on an odd number of stitches which is a multiple of three. On each row, knit three, purl three until the end of the row. If you prefer, you may do basket weave, a cable, plain garter stitch or whatever will make a warm finished product.

Here is a suggested pattern for crocheters, based on the prayer shawl ministry:

Chain as many as needed for desired length. Chain 1, turn, single crochet in each of the stitches to end. Chain 3 and turn. Double crochet in top of each single crochet. Repeat this row 2 more times. Chain 1 and do 1 row of single crochet to end. Chain 3 and turn. Do 3 rows of double crochet. Repeat pattern to end (1 row single, 3 rows double) End with 1 row of single.

Again, if you prefer another pattern which will make a dense warm finished project, please use that.

This project is inspired by the Prayer Shawl Ministry where you can get additional patterns and suggestions for praying and meditating as you work with your scarf.

Please send your scarves to diocesan convention with your convention deputies on November 21. If possible, please let us know how many you expect your congregation will be able to contribute.

If this drive is an amazing success, we could branch out to other food pantries and/or youth in detention… if not this year then next!

For more information, including advice on how many stitches to cast on and what kind of needle to use, see your local needlework expert or email rector (at) saintmarks-stl.org

To download this document as a Word Document please click here.

No More Magknits

Help! When I went this evening to look at the instructions for decreasing on the Odessa hat again, I found this:

Not Found

The requested URL /feb06/patterns/odessa.htm was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

When I typed in the URL for Magknits, I found this depressing news:



Dear MagKnittersThis email was sent to MagKnits designers from March and April as well as the magknits newsletter list at 5pm GMT on 8th April 2008

I am really sad to have to tell you that we are no longer going to be publishing free patterns on MagKnits. This has been one of the most exciting web ventures I have ever been involved in, I am really proud of the site and of what I managed to develop over the 4 years of running the magazine.

However, MagKnits has always been a huge investment in terms of time and effort and to date hasn't actually paid me any kind of salary. The advertising has always just about covered the cost of the payment to tech editors, designers, web hosting and other sundry expenses. This was not a problem while I had the free time and while I was enjoying the work.

However, over recent months my workload in other areas has increased dramatically leaving me less time for MagKnits. I had hoped that by combining Yarn Forward Magazine and MagKnits at the beginning of this year we would be able to continue with the site but it is now apparent that this is not going to work.

Lou and I have thought long and hard about what kind of action to take, and as hard as it is for me to give up MagKnits I know that it is the right thing for us to do. The amount of negative feedback we have been receiving has hugely increased this year and to be perfectly honest there is only so much of ourselves that we can give to the site. Someone made a comment about us earlier in the week that we would be stupid to run a business that didn't pay us a salary, this made us sit back and think "Yes, you're right. We would be stupid to carry on giving so much and getting little in return."

The copyright on all of the patterns published by MagKnits remain with the designers so they are all at liberty to publish the patterns elsewhere, perhaps on their own blogs. We will be publishing free patterns on the yarn forward website and would love to hear from any MagKnits designers who would like us to consider a pattern previously published on MagKnits for publication on Yarn Forward magazine.

Unfortunately giving up the site means that we will be giving up the server space so will be unable to transfer the archives over as they stand. We aim to have some of the archives rebuilt into the yf website in the future but will need to negotiate with each designer before this can happen. We'll keep the notify list updated with progress and free pattern links.

Thank you for all your support over the last 4 years, you've been great. I really mean that.

For more information please contact either Lou or myself on magknitsATyarnforwardmagazine.co.uk but note that although we may not be able to reply to you immediately, we will get back to as soon as is possible.

Warm Regards

Kerrie

Amazing knitted things

Here is a link to some amazing knitted and crocheted objects. The R2D2 Beanie is fabulous, the knitted vegetables are lovely. The disected frog is a wonder. The two photos which I assume are photoshopped, of yarn in a landscape are lots of fun.
I am currently working on the Baby Pinwheel.
I am using up Lion Brand Homespun (yes, I know it is annoying to work with but it is soft and fluffy and I have a lot of it) in stripes. Every other stripe is an offwhite color (Deco)because I seem to have more of that than of the pastelly other colors.

Noro Silk Garden Striped Scarf

Here is John, kindly modeling the finished striped scarf. He plans to take it to England with him. I thought it would remind him of my warm love but apparently he wants to wear it to annoy his mother.

Noro Silk Garden Stripes

Inspired by a link on runawaypenguin.blogspot.com to this gorgeous scarf http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/2007/04/noro-scarf.html I have started a Noro stripes scarf. The idea is that you do two row stripes of alternating Noro colorways, using an 1x1 rib. Jared of Brooklyntweed used three colorways of Noro. I think I am just going to do two since I'm hoping I can persuade my husband to wear this scarf and he is not the most adventurous person when it comes to wearing colors, so the colorway with lots of pink and bright green would probably put him right off. Whereas these two, a black/grey/brown one (47) and a blue/green/purple one (8) striped together might just be tame enough for him to wear it. You can see Noro Silk Garden colors here. I also keep emphasizing the similarity to the scarf of the Tom Baker Dr. Who (number four) which while a stretch seems to be having some influence. Apparently the finished scarf will be subjected to the colleague mockery test, where he will wear it to the organ factory and see how much laughter it evokes.