Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians today – I hope your day is full of turkey and family (for some) and sleep and rest (for the others). I personally spent last night sleeping at the hospital wired up to within an inch of my life for a sleep study to see if I’ve inherited the family apnea. So I slept terribly, was home by 6:30 a.m. and crashed for another three hours in my own (delightfully comfortable I will never complain about my mattress again promise) bed. After I got most of the cement out of my hair.

I shouldn’t complain though – I’ve had two great dinners – one here at home with my parents, kids and niece and the other at a friends who is a gourmet cook…more on this in a moment…

First – I owe you a bit of old stuff promised earlier, starting with my trip to Toronto at the end of August.

I went down to visit Wanna-Baa of the comments, but stopped on the way to visit a farm in Port Hope – probably one of the few, if only, shepherds locally with Blue-Faced Leicesters. I have no pictures for you, but the farm was just amazing – there were turkeys wandering around my car in all different colours, a guard goat and the ugliest duck I have ever seen who thinks he is a person and insisted on following us to visit the sheep. Sara had brought out bags of fleece from her spring shearing and I ended up with two BFL fleeces – one is a first year and the other is a third year.

Both fleeces were relatively clean and so far the processing has been dirty but not horrifyingly so…

…than the very adorable alpaca…

There was also a baby donkey and the most amazing dogs – Lori raises Leonbergers – enormous but incredibly gentle. It was a whole lotta dog let me tell you.

Luke, his grammy and a REALLY BIG DOG.

So that’s it for the history although I should shout out a huge thank you to Chriss and Elizabeth for helping me skirt the fleeces and for their advice on how to get them clean.

And while I’m on the topic of fibre…

I seem to have acquired some more…

I participated in a fiber swap on Ravelry. Basically we were split into groups of four and each member of the group sent fiber to another member each month. This month I got a lovely 4 oz present from Lapoli…isn’t it nice???

I’ve also made an early 2009 resolution – I think this will be the year I knit for me. I have been considering simplifying my wardrobe pretty significantly and would love to focus on having most blacks and neutral bases that I can cover with my own knitted sweaters, cardigans, shawls and jackets…

I was so taken with this idea that I promptly cast on some things a bit early…

February Lady Sweater in Mirasol Tupa.

And work on the Susie Hoodie from More Big Girl Knits also continues. I am just about done with the bust increases and will be onto the arms soon which I am really looking forward too…shorter rounds!

Getting organimized…

Something had to be done. I couldn’t pull out a project without having fourteen others fall out of the cupboard. So – big canvas bins for fiber – the white has fiber to be dyed and the blue contains fiber that is up on etsy right now…

And some nice wicker baskets for yarn from current and upcoming projects to show off themselves…

Is it a bad sign when your house and stash start to look more and more like a yarn store?

(Oh and just to revisit an earlier post…all this clean up meant that I took some stuff off the needles…which means I managed to find all those needles I was lamenting about losing…

…not that this stopped me from putting in a knitpicks order…no siree!)

Now last of all…

Wild encounters OR how I pissed off a mother cat and paid the piper for it

Warning – includes photos of my legs that do not include handknit socks.

So I’m at my friend’s place for Thanksgiving and she has a formerly feral cat that arrived on her doorstep looking for handouts, got adopted and turned out to have gotten herself knocked up before they had a chance to spay her.

The kittens were born about 5 weeks ago – four adorable little ones – two black and two tabbies. Like all kittens they have sweet faces and short stubby tails and when they run it seems like their back ends go faster than their fronts.

I am helpless in the face of kittens.

So I am walking towards the kitchen behind a kitten and reach down to pick it up but clearly she doesn’t want interference and takes off ahead of me. I keep going into the kitchen but as I hit the doorway I hear this horrible hissing and feel pain in my leg. I look down and its like a scene from Wild Kingdom. You know the one where the pride of lions is taking down a full sized elephant by coming up behind and attaching itself to its back, claws fully embedded in the skin?

And that’s just one side and the picture is a lot prettier than my leg which is also pretty bruised and there is more on the other side. I WAS wearing pants by the way…

So a few bandaids and some peroxide later I go down to get some dessert. I walk towards the kitchen again and as I hit the door Phoebe attacks the OTHER leg (no kittens were around by the way). Talk about determined overprotective mother!

Those would be puncture marks from her teeth! For the rest of the evening she kept a close eye on me and everytime I moved my hosts had to step in to move her out of the room.

I am certainly none the worse for wear but certainly learned my lesson when it comes to mother cats!

Have a terrific week everyone – I am off for a workshop with Brandon Mably and an evening lecture by Kaffe Fassett at WoolNthings…I should pack my camera NOW so I don’t forget it!!

Damn it…I’m going back to bed.

Tomtem jacket – done! Pics don’t include buttons but I will save that for when the jacket is modeled by its rightful owner…

Pattern? EZ’s Tomten Jacket as described in Knitting Without Tears

Yarn? KnitPicks Bare DK Superwash – hand-dyed with Profast Acid Dyes in coordinating colours

Needles? Boye 4.5 mm straights

Sudden appearance of spacing between lines? Blogger.

Jacket back – love me some hood!

Lastly – a recipe…

Prepare 9×13 baking dish.

Turn to stove and begin to preheat.

Turn back to baking dish.

Voila!

Cassoulet de chat noir

I recommend a nice Pinot Noir.

Now…

Jeanne tagged me with a meme – I have to come up with 7 random things about me (and by the way…I’m tagging Leanne , Renee and Knitting Granny) …so here goes…

1. I really only have one eyebrow – years of diligent plucking and waxing make is seem otherwise.
2. I dislike colour combinations for wierd reasons – black and blue (bruise!), yellow and black (bumble bee!)
3. I usually think I’m thinner than I really am…I have NO idea what this means.
4. I’m not dating right now because it seems like WAY too much hassle.
5. On my right foot, the two toes beside my big toe are the same length as my big toe. This was, perhaps surprisingly, not an advantage when wearing point shoes in ballet class when I was 13.
6. I hate housework…passionately.
7. I have a stunning number of knitting projects on the go right now…which brings me to…

UnFinished Objects (a photoessay)

Lizard Ridge - 1 1/2 blocks (out of…24…eek) in Noro Kureyon. The picture doesn’t do the colours justice at all. Its a fun and quick knit and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something to knit that doesn’t involve buying all the wool at once and who likes a nice sense of accomplishment even if the whole thing isn’t done yet.

I’m flying to Toronto on Wednesday and needed something airplane friendly to knit…so bamboo needles. I decided to cast on toe-up socks from the most recent Interweave Knits. So far I’m really disliking 1. the needles which are grabby and rough and not really sharp enough and 2. the Eastern cast on which ended up being either too tight (I thought the needles were going to snap) or too loose. I left it loose and figure I can use the tail to duplicate stitch over the toe to tighten it up. Apple Pie yarn in the Best Friends colourway.

This is a fun and quick pattern from knitty – Sonnet. Its a neat sideways knit but I am a bit confused about how the photo shows a sweater with a boatneck and the way its knit is going to end up with a square neck? Either way it’ll be nice…but its almost as though its a different sweater. The nice thing is that you use your stitch gauge and input the numbers into the pattern, calculate your cast on stitches and then just follow along. That’s Phildar – a bulky merino that is quite lovely and lofty.

Sigh…I don’t want to talk about this one…but I will cause I’m a sucker for punishment. Its My So-Called Scarf in Berrocco Calico. For some reason I keep forgetting how to knit the pattern. And everytime I do 10 or so rows I end up with the wrong number of stitches.

Two destined for the frog pond…Icarus because its been so long I need to start over. And a discloth that my cat decided to pee on. Good thing I was already unimpressed with it. Apparently he was not too impressed either.

“Someday I’ll have arms…and a pretty dress…and eyes and a nose. I will be a real stuffed animal! And someone will love me and cuddle me!” (the guilt is gonna kill me). Stuffed bear for Madeline who needs something special to snuggle when she’s at Daddy’s house and misses me.

Felted clogs from FibreTrends in Patons Classic Wool – also for Madeline. The first clog was a breeze. The second one isn’t cooperating as nicely.

Sock in SWTC’s Tofutsies – very nice to knit…Yarn Harlot’s sock recipe.

Fairisle from Dalegarn – I am very worried about gauge because my swatching was…um…questionable. Cross fingers. Thats Baby Ull.

Conceptual artwork: “Dropped Stitch” – I had to frog this sock for the billionth time a week ago. We are not getting along right now. Have been discussing this yarn’s lack of commitment in therapy. I understand that this may be out of my control and must come to terms with the fact that sometimes you just have to let the yarn be a skein or ball and not try to shape it into something else.

Defiance (def.) – Doing something as stupid as jumping up onthe balcony railing just because you can.

Final draw is this week and up for grabs are these two skeins of handspun. It is a wool/silk blend (sorry I don’t have the percentages). I don’t know the yardage but I can tell you there is 100 g (3.5 oz) in there and it is roughly fingering weight (give or take a bit of thick/thin here and there). This is spun from this roving. The colours are definitely watermelon-y and this picture isn’t too bad. The sheen from the silk is lovely! If you haven’t won already this month, send your entry email to me at ambergem1969 at hotmail dot com by Wednesday next to win!

Sienna is doing semi-okay – she’s still iffy on the leg and I probably need more anti-inflammatories but we’ll see how things go for a bit.

As for the Afghan from Hell…thanks for the excellent advice – you are all right of course…its just…well there’s the never finished Mother’s Day quilt guilt (it went un-built) of 1992 to consider…

I’ll keep you posted on the ultimate decision.

Madeline and I administered her anti-inflammatory (a nice way to say we botched getting the pill down her twice but finally managed it with a minimum of choking). An hour later she showed up downstairs in the kitchen. This morning she tried to trip me going down the stairs when I was going to feed them. I am so relieved! Thanks everyone for the good thoughts.

Now…I need some advice. Last spring my mother asked me to knit her a funky afghan for the back of her couch.

I hate it. I hate the colour. I hate the yarns I chose. I hate knitting it. I have about ten inches knit and every single row feels like torture.

Still they say that you should knit something for someone that they want.

But…my parents are back after four months in Florida on the 5th of May and there is NO WAY I’m going to be close to done. And frankly, I’m very pouty about having to do this. I don’t tend to knit for others to a deadline. I tend to knit what I like and give stuff away if its appropriate.

So…should I suck it up and knit the damn thing? How should I explain why its not done? Should I just tell her there’s no way?

Finally – how do I manage all the associated guilt?

1. Blogging takes on a life of its own — although it seemed like a diary to start with, the blog itself became its own “thing” very quickly. Like about the same time people started commenting and I realized that I had a small audience out there.

2. Blogging can be a drag — as in “I haven’t blogged recently and no one is going to visit me anymore” Which makes me wonder if I am blogging for me, blogging for others, blogging just because or all three at once.

3. Blogging can be depressing — when no one posts a comment and I wonder if I a) pissed everyone off or b) am so boring it isn’t worth reacting to or c) comeon…it’s your blog! who cares!

4. Blogging can be enlightening — those rambling posts that no one really wants to read through? Those are the ones that seem to feed my soul the best.

I guess that it comes down to the fact that blogging is an inherently social exercise – and like all situations where you put yourself out there for others to see, it contains the same anxieties and successes.

Okay…I’ve bored you all to tears…now the good stuff. I am going to celebrate my 1 year blogiversary with a cool stuff give-away – some stuff will appeal to knitters, some to spinners and some to everyone. Every week this month I’ll post a nifty gift. Anyone who wants in on the draw for it will need to send me an email at ambergem @ hotmail dot com by the deadline. You’ll be assigned a number based on the order I get the emails and then I’ll use this nifty tool to draw randomly.

Email by Wednesday, April 11th for your chance to win this fantastic prize pack worth…okay never mind