And now for something…

… completely different! That’s right! You heard me! No whining today, not moaning about the hour – it’s 10am! – and no bewailing my lack of tea! I’m enjoying a day off and the exclamation mark! Hooray!

While I gather myself together and try to dispel a little of the cloud of euphoria I am feeling in order to think clearly, please enjoy this post from Hyperbole and a Half. It is so funny, I actually cried.

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Right, now that everyone is feeling as silly as I am – and by everyone I mean my five readers – I will post my latest crafting triumph: a knitting pattern I made entirely by myself which actually looks like what it’s supposed to be.

This is Rupert - Mum rescued him from the bin when she was a little girl. He was recently refurbished into the fine creature you see before you now, after having been without a head for the better part of two decades.

And this is the tiny sweater I made for Rupert. I am told it would also fit a child. As I don't have a child to hand, I don't know what size of infant you could put in it - one about the size of the bear, I guess...

Because knitting patterns read like gibberish to me, I will publish this one in plain English, with links to any techniques you might need to use. I am, however, presuming that anyone who wishes to try this already knows how to do the basic knit and purl stitches. If you don’t, there are many very good instructional videos on youtube, or you could bribe someone into teaching you. I find that chocolate, or the threat of a temper tantrum are usually good incentives.

The bold instructions tell you how to make the project exactly as I did, whilst everything else provides in insight into the demented ramblings of my brain and how I came up with this pattern. The plain text also offers suggestions as to how you can alter the size to suit your own needs.

Front and Back

Step one: Untangle the cat from your wool. I used very thin wool for this sweater – it was hand spun on the tiny Danish island of Fanø so I don’t actually know what gauge it is. Or if wool comes in gauges. Anyways, you could probably substitute this for something soft and expensive if you wanted it for a small child. Here is a picture of the wool next to a biro for scale:

The picture quality is not great. The cat kept headbutting the camera.

Step two: select your needles. I used size 11 because I am apparently still living in the knitting stone age. In fact, when I went to Germany the other day and tried to buy straight needles which weren’t tied together like mittens, I was told in a very discouraging voice that, “We don’t use those any more!” The internet tells me that old UK size 11 needles mean 3mm ones in modern talk, or US size 2. Have a look at the wool you buy though – most yarn comes with a tag that tells you the size of needle that you need.

Step three: cast on 82 stitches. Some very cunning people might have noticed that my sweater is very wide… I would advise you to first cast on 10 stitches, knit about 10 rows and then measure how wide this section is. Then measure your bear/offspring/potted plant and figure out how many you should cast on from that. To make a slightly more proportionately correct top, I think I would cast on 72 next time instead.

Step four: rib stitch 10 rows in your first colour. For those who aren’t familiar with rib stitch, this link offers a very nice explanation. I used the 2×2 method, but you could use whichever you feels looks nicest, as long as the number of stitches you cast on is divisible by the number of stitches you choose to rib. I kept things as easy as possible by picking even numbers throughout – I’m not much of a one for maths.

Step five: change to your second colour and stocking stitch 10 rows. I like stripes. A lot. For some reason though, I’d never tried them before this project, thinking that knitting two colours would be super-complicated. It isn’t – it’s about the easiest way in the world to make a really simple project look professional. All you need to do is stop using your original colour of yarn, and start using the next without casting anything off. This tutorial is very good. If you don’t know how to do stocking stitch – knitting one row and then purling the next – why not take a look here. As the site says, cloth made in this stitch does tend to curl, however once you sew the sweater parts together, this ceases to become an issue and even made the collar of mine look pretty stylish.

Step six: change colour to your original and stocking stitch 10 further rows. You can cut the yarn, leaving long tails after each join, but I chose to carry mine up the side of the knitting. I don’t know if this makes it neater or not, but it gave the cat less to grab hold of, and me less things to tangle up.

Step seven: repeat steps five and six until you have 8 stripes, not including the rib stitch. Or you could keep going until your front/back is as long as you need.

Step eight: cast off. If you’re like me and mostly make scarves, casting off only comes once in a blue moon. Here is a good ‘how to’.

Step nine: repeat steps one to eight to create the back of the sweater.

The Sleeves

Step one: cast on 60 stitches. Or if you knitted a 10 stitch sample as described in step three of making the sleeves, cast on however many you feel are appropriate for the width of your bear’s/child’s/1976 Buick’s arms.

Step two: rib stitch 10 rows in your first colour. Again, for those who aren’t familiar with rib stitch, this link offers a very nice explanation.

Step three: change to your second colour and stocking stitch 20 rows. If you would like longer sleeves than the ones I have made, all you need to do is measure how fat one of your stripes is on the main body pieces of the sweater. As these are 10 rows each, you can add or subtract however many rows you feel are necessary, either before or after the detail.

Step four: change to your original colour and stocking stitch 6 rows.

Step five: change to your second colour and stocking stitch 2 rows.

Step six: change to your original colour and stocking stitch 2 rows.

Step seven: change to your second colour and stocking stitch 10 rows. Or however many you decided you would need to make the arms long enough.

Step eight: cast off.

Assembly

Step one: fold the sleeves vertically in half so that the wrong – rough – side faces outwards and stitch together along what were the sides of your knitting. You should now have two tubes. Lay to one side.

Step two: lay the two main pieces of the body on top of one another so that the smooth sides are touching with the rib stitch at the bottom. At the top of this sandwich, overlap the red strips and stitch the side edges together, making sure not to join any of the purple. This overlap will form the shoulders of the sweater. Making it easier for you to push Rupert’s/your child’s/Dr Zoidberg’s head through the wide collar. If you prefer, you could join the shoulders conventionally, stitching along the top edges of the fabric and leaving the desired amount of space in the middle for the collar.

Step three: figure out where your cat/mother-in-law/OCD housemate has put your sleeve tubes and bring them back to the project. Form a T shape using the main body as the vertical line and the sleeves as the horizontal. For a neat finish, you want the seam of the sleeves to be at the bottom so that they’re hidden when Rupert puts the top on.

Step four: sew the sleeves to the main body, and then stitch the open sides of the front and back sections together, finishing your sweater. Reverse this, so that the smooth sides are facing out and the rough facing in.

Step five: spent 5 hours blogging about how you… oh wait…

Playing with the Camera…

This is a bit of a scrap-book entry. Whilst dutifully procrastinating, I found some pictures I took, as well as an old notebook full of little bits of writing that don’t really fit anywhere. I thought I’d share the best of them.

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She is winter and woods, frosty mornings and cloudy breaths. She is the dying light you cherish simply because you know there will be no more. She is endings, she is fading, she is cold and without heart. And because she is this, because she is hopelessness and loss, she is fragile. She is beauty.

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It was 7.30 when everyone convened to eat. Pit tossed herself absently into an armchair and rubbed her hands together as Ivy emerged from the kitchen.
“It’s not bread and jam,” Ivy said as she noted Pit’s expression of expectant glee. Pit looked confused until Nathan appeared with a tray of crusty bread and bowls of hearty chicken broth. Phelan fell on the fare indiscriminately, years of fighting for food bypassing everything Iris had tried to teach him about ‘proper manners’. He did, however, pause long enough to splutter that the meal was, “Bloody good,” through a mouthful of bread. The gusto with which he attacked the soup was compliment enough for Ivy though, who blushed a little as Phelan scrambled for a second helping.

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Homemade

I’m a great one for homemade items, as I imagine you’ve realised from my rants about mass-produced Christmas presents and the various crafy pictures I post. Yesterday though, I was watching Channel 4′s ‘Kirstie’s Homemade Home’, and was suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to go rumaging round charity shops and antique shops in the search of interesting items.

I can’t tell you exactly what I found yesterday because it’s a present for someone, but after I got home, I looked it up on ebay and discovered that my 110 year old version was less than half the price of the brand new, mass-produced import. I was so thrilled with my purchase I had to share it with someone but as the only person online was the person the gift was intended for… here we are.

Speaking of homemade things, Artemis made me a present last night. She fetched me a big, juicy mouse and let it go in the dining room. Then, when she couldn’t get it out from under the book case, she howled a lot and made S- do it. When he did managed to remove all the books on the bottom shelf, hastily try to mouse proof his computer cables, Artemis decided she wasn’t all that interested in eating the mouse afterall and went to devour some of the Pets’ Kitchen food she usually turns her nose up at. Dutifully, I set out across the field at midnight in my dressing gown, half dead mouse in hand, to dispose of the body… Her majesty is now snoozing happily on S-’s side of the bed.

P.S.  If anyone knows anything about when to plant fruit bushes*, suggestions would be much appreciated. I have a gooseberry, raspberry and blackcurrant bush waiting to go in.

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* Not from seed, because I’m too lazy. From Homebase ’3 for £10′ pots.

acceptable losses

Artemis and I are both crying for Saffron. Mummy cat is trying to find her, and I’m sobbing because I know she never will.

Yesterday morning we took the kitten down to the Animal Health Trust to determine how much brain damage she suffered at birth. We also wanted to understand the reason for her seizure and find out if she was in any kind of pain. After a thorough examination by a very lovely pet neurologist, Saffron was anaesthetised and placed in an MRI scan. We waited until 5.15 to hear the results.

Saffron has multiple reasons to seizure – the underdeveloped brain we originally suspected, an inflamation of the meninges*, and hydrocephalus**. The MRI showed that both ventricles had swollen to approximately four times their original size and though the excess fluid could possibly be drained, the damage done is irreparable. She would never regain her peripheral vision, making trips out of doors difficult at best, and she would never regain her equilibrium. Likely, she would never learn to use the litter tray – her tiny addled brain unable to make the connection between the smell there and what she’s supposed to do.

Whilst we thought of giving her back to the CPL to let them find someone who would be willing to take her on, warts and all,  we decided that the kindest thing to do would be to have her put to sleep. Giving her anti-seizure medication every day is one thing, but cleaning up the carpet daily is another entirely. On top of that, she really struggled to come round from the anaesthetic after the scan and I’d rather just have done with it than put her through all kinds of operations and have her die anyway.

It’s heartbreaking. And now we have to tell the vets. Or rather S- does. All of my courage seems to desert me whenever I think about speaking to them on the phone and my mouth goes dry. I haven’t a clue, at this point, whether Saffron even survived the night. The logical part of me thinks it would be better if she just passed away in her sleep, but I find myself hoping against hope that the antibiotic drip she’s on has magically cured her. I want S- to tell me that the vet has called to say I can go down and collect my happy kitten, that I’ll bring her home – bouncing and bald – and that she and Artemis will begin their usual play-fighting.

But it’s a fool’s hope. That’s all it ever was. I’m starting to think like my dad on this – why have pets if they ultimately make you so utterly miserable?

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* Cat meningitis.

** An excess of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles/cavities of the brain

Skitty kitty…

My cat had a fit about an hour ago.

Saffron just started running around in circles – which normally I think is hilarious – then fell over and began convulsing. Which is not funny. She got up after a second, unable to use her back left leg and with her left eyelid drooping a little.

I spoke to the vet who said not to move her tonight and bring her in tomorrow so I’m just watching and waiting, trying to keep the little madam calm. She doesn’t want to be quiet though – she wants to play and bite my fingers and eat huge quantities of food. Which is wierd because she usually doesn’t do those things. Her eye is still a little closed, but the more she tries to eat my slippers, the better her back leg starts to work.

Since her behavior has suddenly become what I think of as normal from a young cat, I reckon the fit was just her teeny kitten brain resetting but we’ll see at the vets.