The Thrifty Knitter

It looks like the kitten’s going to be okay! They glued up the scary gash and they’re helping him with what looks like a busted pelvis, but she thinks he’ll recover! Yay! Send him good kitteny healing wishes. If someone nearby wants to adopt him, the vet is Carbondale Pet Clinic, 785-836-7212.

I just realized I forgot to post my June sweater.

It wasn’t supposed to be a maternity sweater, but I went a little nuts with the hip shaping, apparently. It’s even too loose for my fat ass (the pictures are forgiving. It actually looks baggier & more awkward in real life).

I also thought the same pattern would be cute much shorter, for a 50s look (I guess that’s where I was going with the July mini raglan, sans puff sleeves, because I had so little yarn):

Even if the bagginess didn’t bother me, it turns out the  yarn does. It’s baby soft & totally passed the neck and face test, but my chest doesn’t like it. Maybe I’m a little sensitve to angora? From now on, I’m stuffing a ball of yarn down my shirt all day before I make any next to skin garments. So this will either go to my next friend to gets knocked up, or maybe I’ll do a raffle or something. I wouldn’t mind getting together a bunch of prizes and doing some raffles to raise money to fund a mobile rural neuter clinic once a year out here.

I’m so bummed by the vast numbers of squashed kittens in the road lately. Yesterday, I was driving Sugarfoot to the vet, and there was really fucking adorable blue-eyed siamese kitten dragging itself across the road. Poor little guy–I guess he must have just been hit. I picked him up and took him with me, but I don’t know whether they were able to fix him up. I thought maybe he wasn’t too bad off, because he wasn’t crying, he was sitting up, alert, just kind of chilling and checking it out with those blinky, unfocused kitten eyes. lt turns out it was worse than I thought when I scooped him up (I didn’t realize at the time, but he had a scary-looking are-those-his-guts? big open wound on his abdomen, oddly un-bloody, though, and his tongue and gums were nice and pink, so maybe not too much blood loss?)–but even if they couldn’t help him, at least he got a little love and didn’t end up repeatedly squooshed or slowly baking in the heat or eaten by buzzards, or bait to squash his mom or siblings as well.  The cat situation is pretty awful out here. Spay/neuter has not caught on and there’s a very 1970s vibe about pet ownership. It’s weird, pet stuff that’s considered kind of uncouth and barbaric is pretty par for the course. Even the attentive, relatively responsible pet owners have no qualms about producing bushels of kittens and puppies, though there are clearly limitless unwanted pets. Anyway, so yeah, I’ve been thinking about trying to come up with something like SNAP on a once-a-year sort of scale. Ron said he wasn’t sure if people would do it even if it was free, so I thought maybe we could get Hill’s or someone to donate free bags of food as an incentive. I don’t know. But it’s worth a look.

I can’t stop knitting raglans! I can’t believe I squeezed this little cutie out of 2 skeins of Vera Videnovich and a little leftover Beaverslide Mulespun. Not having boobs is heaven on skimpy yardage!

I made it to go over a shirt, thusly:

But it looks cute without, so I’ll probably made some more tight little mini raglans to wear as Indian summer sweaters:

That’s a really weird angle (squatting clumsily to fit in the mac cam frame), but you get the idea.

It was super easy. I’ll write up the pattern when I’m less tired and thirsty.

P.S. Guess who’s getting a Prius?

SpinningAthena’s holding a Red Cross fundraiser for the Iowa relief effort. For every $5 you donate, you get a chance at winning a Hanne Falkenberg kit–and non-knitters go into a raffle for handknit socks! Finally, someone has combined charity, gambling & knitting. Hurrah!

If I can quit feeling like a fat turd, I’ll try to get a picture of the whole thing, but I couldn’t seem to get a shot that didn’t make me look depressingly dumpy (which I am, but I don’t want to look at it), so you only get the top of the top, which avoids my problem areas! Ta da!

This is a great pattern (Loop-d-Loop Ballet T). I adjusted the pattern to fit my yarn gauge. The only shitty part is weaving in a bunch of cotton ends (I used 6 50g balls). But it’s a cute top, fast to knit & flattering (when you’re not feeling yucky and self-conscious). The color does nothing for me, but it was a bunch of cotton blend stuff I got on a Webs grab bag a couple years ago & this was a good use for it. Maybe I’ll make a skirt to go with it that will bring out some hidden color that looks better…. I hate dying cotton, so that’s out. Or maybe not. I don’t know? Should I dye it

Maybe I’ll dye it.

Cathy speculating about the wet fiber. I’ll link to the dry beauty shots whent hey post them.

I made them pour all the unexhausted dye into bins of superwash laps. Then I poured over the extra dregs and tossed them in the roaster. I’ll report back when it’s dry!

Spinster’s Club was fabulous! We met at Marta’s place (Alpacas of Wildcat Hollow) and got to spin on their beautiful garden gazebo. It was one of those perfect fluffy cloud days, warm but not hot, with a lovely breeze (but not too windy to spin). The alpacas were gamboling in the pasture. Laura chatted with a mourning dove with her perfect bird calls. Marta even made homemade ice cream. It could have be a postcard for country living.

Laura brought her weird little kick spindle thing, made by the same person who makes the Trixie & Little Joe, but I didn’t get around to trying it.

Marta just got back a bunch of lovelies from the mill, and I had to pick up a few goodies. I got half a pound of Marguerite’s gorgeous cinnamon stick-colored roving, and a quarter pound of the new tricolor, sort of a latte swirl (brown, fawn, and white), to compliment the brown/black/white tricolor swirl roving I picked up during Yarn School.

I’m setting my July goals to finish spinning my 07 floor batts & to spin all my Wildcat Hollow rovings.

I worked on some floor batts (made from the fiber dregs floating around the gym floor) I made during Yarn School 07, and wound the Louet bobbins onto a Woolee Winder bobbin so Jen could borrow them.

Then we went to Jennifer’s shop (we took the VERY scenic route thanks to my appalling directions) and I was totally good and only made a very few extra purchases (some more of the same merino/seasilk colorway, a 2-pronged shawl pin, and some silver angelina).

From one of Jen’s sheep. I will be getting this as soon as I’m a good girl and finish using my Videnovich farms yarn. I do so love the natural colored yarn.

This is the most fiberlicious weekend since Yarn School!

Friday: Settlers Farm (new LYS) grand opening
Saturday: Dye Party Sleepover (thank you for my fabulous Spring 08 Yarn School helpers)
Sunday: Spinsters Club at Alpacas at Wildcat Hollow, with field trip to Setters Farm!

Settlers Farm Grand Opening Weekend!

(I’m kicking myself, because, as usual, I took pictures of stuff and not people! The stuff was just too sexy. I’ll have to get some people pictures on Sunday. I really meant to get a picture of the double-ended knitting of the giant scarf, and Jennifer with her 4-foot knitting needles!)

If you live in the Manhattan/Topeka area, head out to the main drag in Wamego for Jennifer’s (Whirled Yarn) brand new LYS (or is it LYSS? there’s spinning goodness!). Marilyn & I went out Friday & the Spinsters Club is heading out after our spinning circle at Marta’s. Yay!

The store is awesome! Aside from being really beautiful, it’s totally warm and inviting, with comfy chairs everywhere begging you to relax and have a little knit or a spin. Laura Mead from Laura’s Pygoras was teaching spindling. And there’s this awesome swatching bar–a table with cubbies filled with all the yarns the shop carries that you can swatch up to see how they knit! There are also little sample balls of fiber to spin. It’s so nice. She’s got Louet & Babe wheels & the Mach 1.

Now the eye candy:

Entrance & notions wall in the back.

Knitting table & chairs with the swatch bar

A lot of the yarn is displayed in awesome old cupboards & wardrobes. There’s tons of wood and natural light and high ceilings, and lots of space to walk around.

Fiber case. Balls of rovings and tops on the shelves, and drawers full of angelina, dyed locks, little balls of a million colors, and more baskets of rovings along the floor.

Wool and wool/silk dyed colors, silks, and bamboo.

Natural colors, including many local fibers and several from Jen’s own flock!

Two drawers of Angelina (each divider has several shades of that color range)!

Drawers of dyed (local!) mohair, and there’s local angora underneath!

Commercial yarn, and a good selection of hand-dyed (the hand dyed photo was really blurry–I’ll try for a better one tomorrow)

More yarn!

Ceiling!

And my haul! I masochistically deprived myself of my favorites–the black sheep roving–because I have so much of my own right now. Plus for once in my life I was restrained and didn’t try to snake the awesome black shetland Marilyn found. (I am generally terrible to shop with–you have to be fast and/or pushy. It’s an awful quality. Well, for people shopping with me. For me, it’s great!)

And going on upstairs right now: A Good Day to Dye! Dye/Slumber party, a little thank you for my fabulous Spring 08 helpers! And wherever there are spinsters, there are sweets. Cathy brought cookies, Jen brought homemade marshmallows, and Marilyn brought some kind of chocolate raspberry torte thing. Temptresses!

I only picked up this half of the craft room. The other half’s a disaster. Now, I’m off to join the fun!

**SPINSTERS CLUB THIS SUNDAY**

Not enough yarn for the original Flip video outfit, so dug up another Yarn School 07 floor yarn & made this:

Snugly fitted case lets you use the camera with the jumpsuit on but the flap open; flap closes to protect the lens & controls. It’s a bit sloppy due to a combination of lazy craftsmanship in the crochet and problems with the yarn itself (which is why it wound up as floor yarn, I imagine). It’s actually a little nicer in real life, but I didn’t want to go hunt down my camera. And I’m well pleased with the vintage Hello Yarn button, aren’t you?