random threads

About two weeks ago, I was at one of my LYS, Charlotte Yarn and picked up three 50 gm balls of Schoeller+Stahl “College” a bulky brown, tan, rust wool/acrylic/nylon blend. You’ve seen some photos of the twisted cable pattern I’m knitting on sz 11 Addis in previous posts. Well, after some seaming, there was trial fitting that revealed it was much too big. So unseaming was done, frogging, and reknitting. Second fitting went much better, and there was so I added the edging, decided I like i-cord better than ribbing, frogged the ribbing, and did more i-cord. Completely finished last night. And what is it, you ask?

A sweater for my sweet kitty Emma who has had a lot of her fur shaved off. Inspired by Louise and her Alice the sweater-wearing kitty Chris alerted me to, I perused the online patterns for dog sweaters and came up with a modified version of the dog sweater design here by Lucia Liljegren. I knit a octagonal-shaped piece for the back and then a narrow strip, not as long, for the tummy. Two seams, leaving openings for front paws, and then the trial fitting. Emma declared it was too large. Hence the frogging and reknitting shorter back panel, and narrower tummy panel. Second fitting is shown here, and Emma cooperated well (only slightly pained look on her face).

Here she poses with Lisa Souza’s Sock! in Petroglyph which arrived yesterday in the mail…

However 15 minutes later, after I turned my back, I found this abandoned in the kitchen.

Since those photos were taken, I added i-cord at the neck and bottom edge, and an inch of ribbing on each front leg opening. I had to google for attaching i-cord to a finished item, but found some good instructions at these links:

• The Keyboard Biologist
• The Knitting Fiend
• Knitting Help (scroll down to near the bottom of the page for a video of knitting i-cord and a brief description of how to attach to an edge.)

I tried another wearing of the sweater today and was greeted by serious growling–it is the putting the legs in the holes that she objects to, and she still tries to walk out of it. Oh well, we compromised today and I used it as a blanket for her rather than trying to put in over her head and paws. You can see the cables nicely here (click on any photo to enlarge). But it is darn cute if I say so myself! And so is she!

A medical update: Em has been on the new medication (Trilostane) for Cushings Disease for two weeks now, and we went back to the local vet for a blood test yesterday. Conclusions next week, I hope. She seems about the same, perhaps a bit more subdued the past two days and today she is not interested in her dinner (VERY unusual). She is still interested in my food or any other food (Pounce), so I’m not reading too much into that (yet).