Houston, we've got sleeves!

These are the sleeves to my Cassidy cardigan, blocking. They will look better when they dry and are on the sweater, I swear.
This sweater is a serious deal for me, as I knew it would be. Not only am I knitting from a chart, but I learned the proper way to do a mattress seam on a sweater, and *gosh* does that ever make a difference! I am actually pretty excited about the finished product!

In other news, we got an automatic cat feeder. It is set to go off and dump out a specified amount of food 3 times a day, so now we don't have to worry quite so much about being home to meet the cats needs.
This is what they all look like when they hear it dump the food. Dexter gets there first, cuz he's a big bully, Mulder usually moves in, and Itchy gets it last. We were worried that they weren't all getting enough, so we upped the amount a bit. Now it seems just perfect.

We hoped this would help to alleviate the problem of herd of kitties running to food bowl because they're starving. And it has. A bit.

Wanna freak out a knitter?

Best way to freak out a knitter is to have a creepy squirmy brown bug appear in her yarn.
I promise it is the fastest way to get said knitter to scream, grab yarn and bust into husband in the bathroom and shake out all the yarn in the tub.
The yarn is now in the freezer, just in case, and all surrounding yarn has been checked.
Googled, and it didn't look like anything other than a small baby centipede that probably crawled in the window.

Snot bubbles

Itchy has a cold. This is him at the vet this morning. He had been wheezing and making sounds like he had a squeeky toy in his throat, sneezing violently and not eating. Not even hissing when I picked him up. So you know that he feels yucky if he's not hissing. So I took him to the vet, the lovely vet that sees Mulder, and he promptly had a violent sneezing attack that made him look like Elvis while blowing snot bubbles. Definately a cold she said. She's so nice.
He got fluids sub-q (under his skin) and some stuff I got to try to make him take. Luckily, he's not feeling well, so instead of landing me in the ER with another tetanus shot and antibiotics, he just blew more snot bubbles at me.

And yes, I did take my camera to the vet for the sole purpose of taking his picture and blogging about it. So??????

Moving right along

Now that I figured out the chart pattern with the help of the lovely Angela from The Knitter's Palette, I am moving right along. I am about 2 inches away from being done with the back!
I believe it is turning out quite lovely. I am using the same yarn I used in the Fiddlehead mittens for my mom, Berrocco Ultra Alpaca worsted weight in Blueberry mix, which is my new passion. Thank goodness my new passion is reasonably priced and available at the Knitter's Palette!

The Sweater Theory

I have always had in my mind that no matter what or how much I knit, I am not a "real" knitter until I can make myself a cozy sweater that I want to wear every day of my life. This theory does not apply to anyone but myself. But until I can make myself "THE" sweater, I have not yet arrived.
Enter sweater class 2010. I have made sweaters, but in my mind, not a single one is 'THE" sweater. None of them can be thrown on without a bit of coordination. So until this year, I was still on the hunt. Knitter's Palette decided to host a make a sweater of your choice type class, and I was in.
First mistake was in the choosing of the pattern. I couldn't just choose one with shaping and seaming, no no no. I had to go for cables, and CHARTED cables nonetheless. I have never worked from a cable chart ever, but shoot, LET'S GO!
Picked favorite yarn. Ordered, bought, wound in a delightful little ball. Get pattern, look over. Decide it's confusing, but decide to wait until class to have a full on freak out.
Go to class. Gosh, this is confusing, but I got some good guidance from lovely Angela, and onward we go.
Second mistake. I went home fully confident I could make the back all by my lonesome. Never should have left the store. Should have sat there and knit until I finished the back because I have now re-knit the same piece 4 times. Partly because I failed to read, partly because Itchy thinks alpaca is awesome, partly because I can no longer count, and finally because I thought I would get fancy and write out the charted instructions so I could read them but still couldn't count so I ended up knitting for an hour and had one less row and one less stitch after ripping it all out.
Put the fucking knitting down...take a step back....
Picked up those needles, pulled out the fucking pattern, threw out my notes, and read from the chart...very very very very slowly.
Mother-f-ing success.
Only 2 hours spent to get 2 rows in.
If I don't get the best sweater out of this I quit knitting.

This little girl was hanging out at work this morning when I got there. She was hungry, shaking, cold, wet, and hurt badly on her back foot. She was also the cutest and sweetest thing on the face of the planet

As you can see, her foot is about 3 times the size of her other foot. Some asshole put a tourniquet on her and almost cost her the whole foot. Her entire paw was sliced open on the pads.

I think there is a special place in Hell for people that neglect or abuse animals.

We called Animal Control, and a very nice officer came and took her along with a coworker to the animal hospital. They won't have to amputate her foot, which they were afraid of, and she might not need stitches if they can help it. The coworker wants to adopt her, but is afraid of the expense. She did hear from the officer (who has rescued and kept 3 of his own dogs) that said the station could impound her for 10 days, then she could come get her at a lesser expense than having to pay all the vet bills out of pocket.

Medium

Did anyone else watch the season finale of "Medium"? I kept thinking to myself, she gets to spend her whole afterlife in her pajamas! Yay!