Mossy Cottage Knits

Minimal Cat Talk. It's Safe To Come In.

(Sunday: Closed comments due to spam. Will post again soon!)

First and foremost, a smack on the forehead to me and a thank you to all the brilliant readers out there who said, “You dork. Just remove the hair trap when you get out of the shower!” So simple a solution, and yet so elusive for me. I’ll blame it on the depression. (Hey, this depression thing could come in handy!)

Since I had to retrieve the hair trap four times this morning during the mere fifteen minutes it took me to get ready for work, it is now temporarily elsewhere, out of reach of the bad, bad kitties.

(Only other cat note of the day, for those of you who are sick of reading about B & J: Although no serious harm was done to cat or human, I have learned that you can’t see black cats in the dark. Oh, and, so far, Benny has remained off the kitchen ceiling.)

As if the Blanket Squares of Universal Love and Support (all of which I got to hug in a big pile on Monday so I can tell you personally the current count is 44 and they are all gawjus) weren’t enough, unbeknownst to me (well, beknownst now, since I’ve had this for a few weeks) while I was at the funny farm, the Ferals were working on this gift for me, each person knitting a few inches of it:

Although the color of the photo is pretty spot-on, it doesn’t do the look and feel of the wrap justice. The unique dark- and light-teal variegation and subtle thick-and-thin of the yarn make it look as if it were knit out of sunlit tropical sea water. And talk about soft and warm! Fuggedaboudit! And it’s long, so you can grab the ends, wrap them around yourself, and snuggle in. Janine, who participated in making it and bestowed it upon me while I was staying with her, will tell you that I didn’t take it off for hours, and even wore it to the in-patient hospital session the next day. The weather’s a mite warm these days to do much snuggling in it, but I think we will become inseparable come fall and winter.

Thank you, Evelyn, who, as I understand it, spearheaded this, and all the Ferals, for this remarkable, unexpected and comforting gift, and the sweet card!

Despite the one vote from my sister for my second choice, "Honora"—to which I gave a lot of weight and thought—the winner is "Maisie". It just fits.

The pattern for Maisie comes from the book “Compassionate Knitting,” a copy of which now resides on my bookshelf (purchased through Alibris, with more paid for S&H than for the actual book; go figure). To be honest, unless I had seen a finished doll in the flesh—or in the stitch, as it were—I wouldn't have been tempted to knit one because the photos in the book are small and vague and all about twee angels and fairies and I’m not into the twee. But Maisie just cries out for a companion (no, not that kind), so maybe there'll be a Honora or a Paloma after all!

The interesting thing about the doll pattern is that it’s knit flat and shaped. The arms and legs are then rolled into tubes and seamed on the bottom and inside, respectively, and the body is rolled into a tube and seamed at the back. The head is knit by picking up stitches around a hole worked into the body. Heck, even I could do that!

Lastly, a picture sent to me by Big Sister of my nephew and the family dawg, Tanner, watching TV. I love this.

While Nephew's look of rapt attention is genuine, and Nephew most likely will stay put, don't be fooled by Tanner. He's on the lookout for anything vaguely animal-shaped that appears on the screen, at which point he will leap up and try to bite it, the net result being the loud clank of dog teeth against the glass and an unsightly trail of dog slobber. Needless to say, Big Sister and Brother-in-Law try to discourage this.

Posted by Ryan at July 23, 2008 02:43 PM