Knit One, Purr Too

Mmm...pumpkin

On our road trip, we drove about nearly 2000 miles in 5 days on our way to and from Seattle (with a few scenic detours involving a lot of rain. A LOT of rain). Luckily it wasn't all wasted hours, since some of that driving was up I-5 and frankly there's nothing remotely interesting about driving up I-5, because I discovered that I really *can* knit while riding in a car.

Did I bring those two unfinished sweaters to complete? Um. No. I did, however, bring a skein of the Omaghi Filati Wonderful and got started on my side-to-side v-neck cardigan.

I'm making pretty good progress on it. I 'talked' Azzie into sitting still long enough to let me take a picture.

I love this yarn. The mohair gives it that soft fuzzy feel. I worked on it up in Seattle and my little 4-year-old niece kept coming up to give the ball of yarn a big hug because it was so soft. I'm thinking if there's any left over after the cardigan I may have to make something for her.

Finished cat beds

Somehow I managed to finish the third cat bed before we left. I tossed them into the wash, felted them, and left them to shape and dry for the five days we were gone.

So here they are in all their felted, formed glory. Each of these was done with about 2 1/2 skeins of Gjestal Naturgarn wool. Sebastian's helping me 'demo' the blue one.

More cat beds

Continuing the trend of finishing things, I got the wool for the second and third cat beds I'm making for the Petfinders cat bed knitalong, and got cracking. I cast on for the first one Sunday evening and finished it up by Monday night. The second one was started Tuesday and I'll take it with me on our road trip and should have it finished and ready to felt by the time we return.

I love the colors for these beds. The one with the blues and purples looks like grapes and berries, while the greens give that back-to-nature feeling. Can't wait to see what they look like when they're felted and done!

As I mentioned, we're leaving on a five day road trip tomorrow morning, bright and early. I intend to bring the green cat bed to finish, as well as some stripy wool blend yarn I got a while back. I have insane plans to try to whip up three little cardigans for my niece and nephews by Christmas. I have no idea if it's even going to be possible, considering that November is NaNoWriMo (which I am doing for the third time because I really need to repeat this insanity more than once, apparently), there's that pesky day job that gets in the way of prime knitting time, and I'm signing up for a 15 week class in Photoshop. But I figured what the heck, it can't hurt to try. Hopefully I'll have some progress pictures to post when I return.

Baby blanket - complete

I've decided that October is the month for me to finish things. I whipped through the third skein of baby yarn and finished the baby blanket for my friend this afternoon. Wove in all the ends and now all that stands between this and wrapping paper is a quick run through the washing machine (to remove a small chocolate pudding stain. Perhaps next time I should not attempt to eat dessert while knitting gift items). Thank goodness it's acrylic yarn - washes and drys without worry.

I'm so happy with the way the pattern turned out, and the blanket is so very soft and huggable. I hope she likes it. Better yet, I hope the baby likes it!

Knitters cook

While skimming through some other knitting journals today I noticed that more than a few mentioned Elizabeth is collecting recipes from knitters to compile into a Knitting Bloggers cookbook. It's fall, which means that I start getting in the mood to bake. So what better way to kick off the baking season by submitting a few recipes of my own to a fun cause?

I sent Elizabeth some of my favorite recipes for fall - Pumpkin Bread, Garlic Roasted Sweet Potatoes, and Apple Cinnamon Sweet Potato Muffins. I'm looking forward to seeing what all the other knitters come up with! So if you've got some favorite recipes to share, send them to Elizabeth and help her get this recipe book going.

Score!

Last craft night my knitting-enabling friend showed me an email she'd been sent about an estate sale coming up. The important thing about this estate sale, however, was that it was the estate of a former weaver, and there was going to be, among other things, a whole lot of yarn for sale.

I had a tea in San Francisco to get to today and the timing was going to be tight, but there is no way I could pass up on an estate sale full of yarn! So I talked my carpool buddy into stopping by on the way down to San Francisco, and after a moment of being a little lost, we finally found it.

It wasn't just a sale with some yarn. It was a sale of yarn, yarn, and pretty much only yarn! Cones of yarn in every color were spread neatly over table after table! I admit I even did a little squeal of excitement as we drove up.

Despite the sheer volume of yarn, I did manage to restrain myself (if only because most of it was too thin for regular knitting). First I dove into the free box, and managed to score a sizeable pile of a blue-grey colorway in about half a dozen balls. Then just as I thought that might be the only thing worth getting for a knitter, I spied a few shelves in the back of the garage and there I found the rest of my purchases.

Here we see it cleverly displayed on my kitchen floor, using Sebastian (on the left) and Azzie (on the right) as models to show just how big those cones really are.

I have no idea what *type* of yarn these are - they weren't labeled - and some of them are pretty dusty. But all this lovely blue was free, and the rest only cost me $11!