The little visitor that walked into our life a few weeks ago has taken up permanent residence. Little Dorrit, as I've named him, had taking refuge in our courtyard under the porch glider. He smelled and was fairly thin, but his playful personality was not affected. After a 13th hour trip to the SPCA for shots, deworming, and neutering, he is now part of the family. Our other two cats still haven't warmed to the idea. His life here has been full of challenges. A further vet visit uncovered an upper respiratory infection and one of our girls took a nip out of his left flank. In spite of these deterrents, he is holding his own and will soon assert himself. He loves to lounge in the sun and play with errant shoelaces.
Since flinging Arwen into a corner I had to reaffirm my ability to knit a satisfactory project. Digging deep into the yarn basket out came an oatmeal skein of Fleece Artist Sea Wool. A second plunge yielded a rich skein of silk and merino in shades of turquoise and celery from indie dyer Impulse of Delight. I was on my way to knitting a pair of Cookies. The Sea Wool is one sock away to a lacy pair of Hedera. The yarn is subtly shaded strands of grey and the lace pattern is easy to remember. I will wear these often. Kathleen from Threads of Time, Ormond Beach challenged the Knead to Knit group to a Monkey KAL. I am the absentee knitter of an undetermined amount of participants. I have only seen Kathleen's in the forum. My Monkey's are no purl and I now understand the popularity of this method. It makes the pattern easy to memorize. No shlepping papers around.
In the spirit of knitting affirmations, another project quickly sprang to life. I had seen a scarf at the local Cocoa LYS. It turns out to be a free pattern on Ravelry. Its a faux braid and the look really appealed too me. It called for a type of mohair, yarn that I did not have. After a brief search on Ravelry, I came across a great deal on Primero from Brooks Farm. Funny, I had visited SAFF twice and always passed up the Brooks Farm booth in favor of other vendors. The skein was a bargain and I had it on my doorstep the same week. I cast on and started cabling long runs of 20 stitches and quickly became impatient with the lack of shape. Out came the needles and the yarn was quickly a large ball of mohair again. Not to be deterred, I poured over possible patterns and settled on Evelyn Clark's Shetland Triangle. This is another easy project that flies off the needles. The body pattern is easy to memorize and the project is small enough to transport. I love the topography that appeared of the back side.
Will I get back to Arwen and sweater knitting? I don't know. It doesn't seem to be something that I have a proclivity for. For now, finishing a couple of Cookies are on my menu.
