Things I love

1. Autumn, and late October in particular. Breathing the finally cool, dry air is like drinking wine.

2. A crisp, neat cast on, the beginning of a new project, off to a nice start.

3. Knitting lace, in all its glorious, pre-blocked, bumpy silliness. The first pattern I tried with this yarn was all wrong. This one is exactly right, and watching the colors change means I can barely stand to put it down.

Mistakes, easily noticed, easily fixed

While making the latest Window Cat I got cocky about the pattern and failed to read carefully. As soon as I got ready to stuff the head I noticed that one ear was misshapen. A quick read of my knitting and the pattern, and it was obvious I had just skipped all the knit rounds between the decrease rounds. I picked it out and re-knit it properly.

I finished a pair of anklets last month and said I didn't care that one was an inch shorter than the other, since they were for me. I finished a pair of baby bootees and noticed I had made one two rows shorter in the instep than the other. No one will notice, I said. If there had been anyone around to hear  me, I would have been subjected to the family's Test for Aliens - I was clearly not myself. (And no, I'm not explaining the test - everyone knows aliens monitor the internet.)

Yesterday I sat down and evened out the anklets, and re-knit the short bootee. Symmetry rules.

 

Anklets: leftover Berroco Sox, my standard anklet pattern

Bootees: leftover Knit Picks Stroll,  Stay-on Booties - frankly the best pattern I know, since the garter stitch construction means they'll fit practically any baby foot out there.

Another Window Cat

A family friend who admired George while he was under construction lives with a cat, so I offered to make a tuxedo-cat homage to said cat. Nope, he said, I'm going to be difficult. I want a calico cat.

Challenge accepted. It turns out there is a person who dyes yarn in cat-colorways, and donates the sales proceeds to cat charities (also dog colorways and dog charities - the Dalmatian is killing me). Perusing her shop made me want to knit All the Cats. Each colorway comes in a variety of weights. I'm still thinking about a Lilac Point Siamese Cat lace shawl.

Yarn: Ancient Arts Fibre Craft's Meow Yarn in Calico Cat DK
Pattern: Sara Elizabeth Kellner's The Window Cat
Mods: I knit the tail flat instead of in a tube, lined it with fiberfill and a chenille stick, and seamed it up, giving the tail a little pose-ability.

Lap Blanket

The last of the charity knitting for this go-round. Instructions were for 8x8" squares, yarn was Red Heart SuperSaver mammoth skeins, one in a royal blue that loved the camera, one - slightly smaller - in a soft variegation of greens and purples. Size 8 (5 mm) needles, H crochet hook.

I got nearly-10 squares of the variegated, and easily 10 squares of the blue. I used the blue to add the last inch to the last variegated square and placed that square on the center edge so it would look deliberate - you can just see it on the right edge of the photo below.

With all of the variegated squares finished, I attached the blue squares in strips by starting each one from the side stitches (the garter ridge bumps) of a variegated square. When it came time to bind off a blue square (unless it was an edge), I picked up the side stitches from the next variegated square and did a Kitchener variation of  "(front) as if to knit, as if to purl, (back) as if to knit as if to purl" which resulted in a garter stitch, seamless-looking connection.

I connected the strips by just running the yarn up through the side stitches and cast-on/bound-off stitches alternately. I finished with a row of single crochet with an extra chain at the corners.

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.