Winter Is Coming

Or so the voice of Sean Bean as Ned Stark that currently seems to be living inside my head tells me. And surely someday, hopefully?

As imaginary Ned intoning dramatically has got me to finally pick up the needles again I won't look to hard at what having an imaginary Ned might say about my mental health. Yes, take encouragement where I can find it, that's me.

Have finally finished the purple sweater vest. Well, sort of. I'm not too happy with the applied i-cord edging, the bottom still rolls up a little. So, at some point I'll rip that out and go for some ribbing magic. I just couldn't face it straight away, it had already killed any yay finished buzz I might have had and I didn't want to look at it any more.

I would let you look at it, but it looks stupid when it's not on me and on me it shows off my panza. And I'll do many things, but putting my belly on display for all of the internet is just not one of them.

Instead of actually finishing said vest I cast on for my second ever sweat. It'll have sleeves and everything! Very exciting.

Also, it's a pretty warm gray which means that when winter does get here (imaginary Ned would never lie to me, right?) I'll be wearing the hell out of it.



The pattern is Gavotte, the yarn Caron Spa, their bamboo blend. Definitely can't beat it for the price and I wish my lamp light didn't photograph so yellow so you could see this color properly. So in love with it. As for the pattern, I'm pretty in love with that too. To the point where I'm giving serious thought to making it again straight away out of wool for the three days of actual cold weather, not just what central Texas calls cold weather.

I'm also trying to keep a pair of socks on the needle, but it seems the world has other ideas. First, I was all set to cast on right before my trip to Vegas* when it dawned on me that as a person of brownness, taking the sometimes ok sometimes not knitting needles through security would lead to me in Guantanamo. Mostly because I'd be a giant jerk about it.

I packed them with me, but I really don't know when I thought I was going to knit while in Vegas. I'm not entirely sure I actually slept and as someone who would medal if sleeping were an Olympic event that's seriously saying something.

Got home, started making pretty good progress on the first when one of the needles mysteriously snapped. I really don't know what happened. My best theory is that somehow it's structural integrity was weakened after being x-rayed, pawed by the TSA and then subject to rapid air pressure changes. Or it got knocked around a little too much while in the checked luggage. Something.

I do have a spare set but they're just a touch too short for me to use comfortably. The very pokey tips, which I would usually adore, dig quite irritatingly into my palm. Of course, this means a trip to the yarn store tomorrow and that's something I'll never ever complain about.

The current set of fosters (the furry piranhas of the last post, now returned from the babysitter) think they've discovered heaven with all this yarn out and about. But I've discovered that if I put them in the hood of my sweatshirt they'll happily play with my hair/bandana instead.



It gets a little tricky if I try to wedge all three in there.

* Oh yeah, I went to Vegas. It was Vegas-y and I really don't know what else to say about it. Other than my feet are all busted because of an unfortunate shoe choice (ballet flats! I thought I was being sensible!) and while I very much appreciate the bosses putting us up in the Venetian (oh so swank!) if I ever hear another song from Phantom of the Opera, which they had on loop, my head will actually explode. And it's a damn good thing there's not a Sugar Factory here because I could seriously spend all of my money there and never eat another vegetable in my life.

Tiny, Furry Piranhas

Happy news! Fluff (Sally) has at last found herself a real home. She was dropped off with her new owner yesterday and is hopefully well on her way to settling in.

There's a certain point where a kitten absolutely refuses to put on a good face at adoption events - they're no longer a fun place full of excitement. They have a home and they'd like to just stay there rather than be poked and prodded, thank you very much.

Here's Fluff attempting to hide in her crate:




But now she really does have a home and won't be bothered any more. Yay!

We're not kittenless, though. We have three other fosters, probably about five weeks old. And they're certainly making they're presence known, they're definitely a fussy bunch. They've been on a general antibiotic, a parasiticide and currently are on stronger round of antibiotics. I'm not sure why their immune systems refuse to do their, you know, job, but here we are. Sickly kittens.

Sickly kittens that refuse to eat solid foods as they should. They've been a pain to get off the bottle here's the brown tabby today, clearly making great use of his full set of teeth:




Why is he in an overturned laundry basket? Because they are all incredibly food aggressive to the point that we have to keep them separated during feeding time. While not actually eating much in the way of solids, god forbid something approaches their food. I nearly lost a finger today trying to add more canned food to their plate.

As they come around to this whole eating thing it should get better. Once they're truly satisfied they won't be nearly as desperate about what's theirs.

That day really can't come soon enough.

Lucky thing they're incredibly cute.










You wouldn't think that something so tiny and adorable would in fact be a health threat, but sweet baby jeebus.. My legs have become a road map of scratches from where they literally climb up me to get at food, my hands aren't much better. And I have a pretty fetching set of scabs under my chin where the little black one fooled me into thinking he was being sweet, curling up on my chest only to latch onto my face with gusto.

Prying him off was a real treat, let me tell you.

Happily, they seem to be coming around. This last feeding they ate hard and are now sleeping hard. Which bodes well for keeping my skin whole.