2012AdventCalendarScarf Day 22

Hello!

We have finally decorated our tree.  We used to have a plastic tree.  Well, we used to have a real tree, for years and years until we got our little cat, Selena. 

She was born in the summer, and came to us on Halloween.  Our friends' parents live on a ranch in Montana, and they have lots of cats, but they are all OUTDOOR cats, working cats.  None of the animals on the ranch are "pets."  The cats' job is to keep down the rodent pests.  Selena was not interested in an outdoor lifestyle.  She snuck into the house every chance she got.  When Mrs. Kelley went to sit on the sofa, Selena was asleep on a cushion.  OUT went Selena.  When Mrs. Kelley went to read after supper, Selena was on the chair.  OUT went Selena.  When Mrs. Kelley went to bed, Selena was asleep on the pillow. They called us and said, "Do you want a pet?  Because we have a kitten who is determined to be a pet." 

Selena quickly found our heater vents.

She was fun and silly.  The only problem was that she loved to climb.  She was up in our trees more than she was on the ground.  This was a real problem when we brought a tree inside.  She knocked the Christmas Tree down at least 5 times the first year.  We had to get a fake tree.  But, the kids never liked it.  Last year, a strand of the lights on the fake tree would not light.  After trying new bulbs all along the string, we just couldn't figure out what was wrong, and decided to get rid of it.  This year, we bought a real tree again, one of the perks of living in Washington State is that we have lots of choice with many local Christmas Tree farms.  And the Doc put a hook in the big beam in the living room, and roped the tree to the hook.  Selena is about 11 years old now, but she still loves to climb, and she is still a very silly cat.  She has not even looked at the tree.  It is amazing.  If I drop a piece of fluff on the carpet, both cats are all over it.  What's that?  What is that new thing on the rug?  Is it a toy... etc.  But, a tree, a large tree suddenly appears in the living room, and they don't even care.


We will leave it tied to the hook just in case. 


On to the 2012 Advent Calendar Scarf by Kristen Benecken, aka wollkistchen on Ravelry.

The pattern today is another fairly easy one, with no difficult stitches.  It does involve a lot of stitch marker shifting, if you are the kind of knitter who uses stitch markers.  I am. 

I had to shift my markers on rows 1, 3 and 5  the irritating way.  By that I mean that you can't complete the repeat without removing a marker.  So I would knit up to the last stitch, take off the marker and usually bite it, knit the stitch, place the marker, and begin the repeat again.  At least it wasn't the kind where you have to either k2tog or ssk and one stitch is before the marker and the other after it.  I hate that.  you have to slip the stitch, remove the marker, then place the marker back on the left needle before you can do anything.  That gets fiddly for me.  But, I am still not secure enough to just remove all of the markers, and go by counting and reading.  I need my markers!

On rows 7, 9, and 11 you have to shift the markers the other way.  This is my favorite kind of shift.  I like to keep an extra marker handy.  I knit up to the place where the marker SHOULD be, place my extra marker, knit the next stitch, remove the old marker, and set it next to me.  Then I finish the repeat, place the marker, knit the first stitch of the new repeat, remove the next marker, and so on.  This feels faster to me.  It probably is not, but somehow I have the illusion of speed.

Here is today's pattern:

2 days left.
Peace.
Yours,

f1bercat
shaping the planet with Day 22

2012AdventCalendarScarf Day 3

Left - Honeycrisp, Right - Pink Lady

Good Morning!

I woke up late again because of my darling cats.  Muffin got the great idea to go outside at 3 am.  Of course, Beena had the same idea (only about 1 minute later).  But because Beena is small and has short fur and it is COLD and rainy, she only stayed outside for about 5 minutes.  When Beena wants to come in, she knocks on the door.  We have french doors that lead from our bedroom to the back deck, that have floor to ceiling windows on either side of them.  So Beena has many possible windows to scratch at or actually stretch up on her back legs and knock.  

Well, Muffin stayed outside for about 2 hours, but she didn't leave the railing on the deck that is right near our bedroom (as far as I could tell).  Now, when Muffin wants to come in, she usually just sits patiently outside the door and waits for someone to notice her.  This is not true for the door by the TV room in our basement where there is a window with a screen.  When Muffin wants to come in down there, she leaps up onto the window screen and hangs suspended on the screen, outlined and backlighted in a hilarious way.  But, since there are no screens on the windows to our bedroom upstairs, she sits and waits patiently.  Usually, the first person to notice her is Beena.  Beena, being a good older sister, comes to get someone with meows if you are in the kitchen, and brings you to the door where Muffin is waiting.  When I am in the bed sleeping, Beena jumps on me and hits me until I get up.  Really.  Also, she has started a new thing where she hits my face.  With her claws just slightly out.  Last night, Beena knew Muffin was nearby, and told me so about 5 times.  

Unfortunately, Muffin did not want to come in yet.  So I got up repeatedly from 3 - 5am, opened the door, waited for Muff, gave up, and then got back in bed and dozed until woken by Beena in my face to repeat the action.  Really, this happened.  Of course, right now, both cats are in my bed sound asleep.  THEY don't have a lace scarf to knit.

Finished row 8, and have to take a break for Weight Watchers.  I kind of want to skip to stay home and finish this section of the scarf, but I made a promise that I would attend EVERY week possible, and really I am making good progress with my weight, so I will go to the meeting and then pick up when I get back.

I'm back, down 2 lbs =), but EEK!  it's noon and I'm only on row 9 of 33 rows!  Time to get a knittin'!

I finally finished knitting at 6 pm.  Wow, this took me forever.  Why?  you might ask.  Well, I was cruising along at about row 26 when I noticed that I was not seeing the YO at the beginning of each repeat.  This pattern ends each repeat (on the odd rows - which is the pattern row) with a YO.  I hate that.  It is a pain to YO and hold it in place while slipping my stitch marker.  In fact, I often forget to put that YO in.  It is a very easy fix though when you are knitting and purling back.  When I noticed that I had not seen a YO in a while, I was almost at the end of the row.  Well, again, it is not too difficult still to fix that problem.  You just pick up the yarn from between stitches 2 rows down and then knit it.  But, as I looked closer, I noticed that the right leaning decreases (K2tog) were missing too... or, EEK!  on the wrong side of the repeat.  I had knit two odd rows with no even row between them three rows back.  Tink tink tink.  I knit backwards until I had a fully correct row, and began knitting forward again.  Then, wow, when I started the final row, Row 33, I noticed THE SAME THING.  Ouch.  Luckily, this time I only had to tink one row.  I guess I was feeling good about finishing and just got ahead of myself.  I am using the tail of my cast on to signify the right side of my scarf, but now, I am thinking of having a special stitch marker as the first one.  I got 2 sets of really nice stitch markers from fellow Gryffindors this term.  I think I will use one of them.

Anyway, I finally finished today's section.  This is what the pattern looks like:

And, this is what the whole scarf looks like now:

I get to take a break for dinner (very yummy meatloaf), and then Chockelet and Hvrdmnky are coming over to spin.  Skeinherder can't make it (boo hoo).  After they leave, I will get going on the spacer section for tomorrow.

Peace.

Yours,

f1bercat

shaping the planet with day 3 finished.