Knitting Obsession

Please join me at my new blog, KnitAffinity! I think it will be more user friendly to me and to readers.

Well, I'm not thrilled with Microsoft Live Spaces. I've had one person tell me they tried to comment but had problems. The interface isn't fantastic... And it doesn't look like I can add buttons and other cool stuff on my sidebars. I want cool stuff, dangit! So I'm looking for a new blog home. Stay tuned for the address!

You can still sign up! Head on over to Lolly Knitting Around to sign up and get your button.

I'm still working on my Lombard Street socks, currently finishing up the heel flaps. Around the corner with the heel turn, and I'll be on the straightaway to the toe! Next up on the agenda is a pair of socks for my spine doctor. I got some Cherry Tree Hill in the Java colorway for him, and I just need to decide on a manly pattern. Hopefully something that will go fast too, because man, does he have big feet! Any suggestions??

Okay, this chemo hat pattern from KnitPicks is kicking my ass! I've done short row heels on socks, but the instructions for the short row and wrap section on this cap has me baffled, bamboozled and bumfuzzled. I'm knitting this for the ex-daughter-in-law of a friend of the family. I don't know her, but she has lung cancer, and I wanted to make her a nice hat for when her hair falls out. Can anyone explain to me what the "Short Row Shaping Sequence" is trying to get me to do?? If I don't figure this out soon, I'm going to need a cap too, because I'm ripping my hair out in frustration!!

Yes, I frogged the ribble socks. I just wasn't happy with the way they were turning out. Maybe it's the nature of the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn I was using. Maybe it's my knitting. But it just looked kinda "messy". So I ripped them out and started to knit the Lombard Street socks from MagKnits. Much more fun to knit, and I'm loving the pattern! I'm using the same Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in Sage. I'll upload a picture soon, once I get a little further along.

I saw over at Zeneedle that they're having a dye, spin and knit along, that I would SO love to join! I even have the book she talks about,  The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook by Lynne Vogel. But dang, I can't afford a drop spindle, much less a spinning wheel! I'm swamped with medical bills, vet bills, etc.. Between my lupus and my wonky sacroiliac joint, I've not been able to make a whole lot of money. I can only manage about 2 hours a day of transcription. So alas, I'm going to have to sit on the sidelines and watch. What sheer torture! Y'all have fun, and I'll cheer you on as much as I can!

As for grieving over my cat Casey, it is getting a little easier. My sister made me a beautiful memorial picture frame and put Casey's picture in it. And today the vet's office called and told me Casey's remains are in, and ready to be picked up. That makes me sad. It's just a reaffirmation that she is gone. However, I still have two great cats to shower my attention on! Figment, who is my psycho kitty, and Maia, my gentle, sweet shelter cat that I just got last year. Having them around has helped so much!

Well, it's been a horrible last 7 or so days. Last Thursday, 9/7/06, I had to take my 10-year-old Maine Coon cat, Casey, to the vet. She'd been acting kind of funny, and lost an alarming amount of weight very quickly. She went from a hefty 17-18 pounds down to 11 pounds, 13 ounces, in about 2 weeks. She was dehydrated and anemic, so the vet wanted to keep her overnight and give her some fluids. They also did an x-ray. Thursday night the vet called and said they saw a mass on the x-ray, and they wanted to do exploratory surgery. So Friday around lunchtime, that's what they did. The vet called me and said he was in the middle of surgery, but Casey's small intestine was covered in cancer, and it had spread to her lymph nodes. She also had fatty liver syndrome, which occurs when a cat loses a lot of weight very quickly. The body goes into starvation mode, melting fat off the body, and the fat ends up getting stuck in the liver, where it causes problems. So I told the vet to sew her up and let her wake up, so I could see her one last time.

When I got to the vet's office, Casey recognized me immediately, even in the groggy half-drugged state she was in. I held my finger out to her, she sniffed it, rubbed her cheek against it, and started purring. I sat down on a stool next to her cage, and put the front half of her body in my lap, and scratched and stroked her and talked to her, telling her what a sweet, gentle girl she was. I had about an hour with her. Then the vet came in, and with Casey still in my lap, with my arms around her, the vet administered the euthanasia drug into her IV, and she quietly died as I told her how much I loved her.

I have two other cats, and all three are/were my kids. I was absolutely devastated by her loss, and still am, one week later. It is physically painful, like there is a hole in my chest, where she was ripped away.

Oh, but that's not the end of it all. Tuesday night, my mom's cat, Moonpie, started acting odd. She was hiding under the bed in my parents' guest room, something she had never done before. She seemed to be breathing a little heavy too, and was throwing up. I thought maybe she was trying to get rid of a hairball or something, and that we would probably need to take her to the vet the next day. I woke up several times during the night to check on her, and each time, she seemed to be more listless. My mom woke me up Wednesday morning and asked me to come take a look at Moonpie, that she was not doing well. She was laying on the kitchen floor, completely limp, and laboring to breathe. Her front legs were twitching a little bit as well. I told my mom to go get dressed, that we needed to get her to the vet NOW. So we left, and headed for Tifton, where our vet's office is located. Moonpie lay in a kitty bed in my lap. As the minutes ticked by, her limbs and face started twitching more and more, and she started taking a gasping breath every couple of minutes, like people and animals often do just before they die. Then Moonpie had a full seizure, her little body arching and going completely stiff. On the way to Tifton, traffic got completely stopped because a half dozen or so horses had gotten out of their pasture and were in the road. So for a good ten minutes, we were held up, moving literally at a horse's pace, as sheriff's cars tried to round the horses up and get them to move off the road.

Before we could reach the vet's office, Moonpie died in my lap. I even tried to administer CPR, and let me tell you, giving CPR to a cat ain't easy, and it ain't pleasant. Tiny, tiny puffs of air, even as the adrenaline surged through my bloodstream, so as not to overinflate her lungs. Rapid chest compressions, followed by more tiny puffs of air. But it did no good. She was gone. We arrived at the vet's office, and they said doing a post mortem might be a good idea, because she acted almost like she had been poisoned. What they found was that she had a horrible bladder infection that had spread to her kidneys, and shut them down. The poor girl did die of poisoning, from her own body. She was 15 years old.

So that's why I haven't posted. I have been knitting, as that has given me something to do while I deal with the grief of all of this. I finished my jaywalker socks (pic soon, I promise!), and have started the Ribble Socks in Socks, Socks, Socks by Elaine Rowley. I'm using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Socks Nearly Solids in Sage. I'll get some pics when I'm a little further along.

Yes, really! I'm a noob. It took me awhile to get with the program, but here it is.

I started knitting less than a year ago, sometime in November, 2005. It was the Yarn Harlot herself who got me started knitting, unbeknownst to her. I started reading her fantastic books, and I had to be a knitter!

 My first project was a simple moebius scarf from Cat Bordhi's A Treasury of Magical Knitting. I was hooked. So I made a couple of easy hats. Then I discovered Cat's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles, and socks became my passion. I haven't knitted anything but socks since! I'm a slow knitter, so I'm only on my 7th pair. My first pair of socks, I knit one at a time. Unfortunately, one came out longer than the other, and I discovered knitting TWO socks at once at Socknitters, and have been knitting socks in this manner ever since. I've only knit cuff down socks, but it's getting about time to try some toe-up socks. I've read about the Turkish cast-on, and will probably try that method. Any advice on heel-turns, heel flaps, etc?? Please feel free to advise in Comments!