Cathunt Ended, Pet Found in Family Room

Owners of Little Kitty experienced a variety of emotions - relief, amusement and annoyance - upon finding the lost pet in their family room. Lynette and Karl conducted an extensive cathunt on the grounds of their postage stamp-sized estate after realizing the ACME Windows contractor had left 3 windows open in the house while replacing them.

The sly cat, aka "Pie Face", has a history of sneaking out of the home unsupervised. Little Kitty was adopted from Happy Tails Pet Sanctuary, a rescue organization, in 2001. She had been with her cat foster parent for only one week before being returned to Happy Tails because "she did not play well with others". Little Kitty has a microchip embedded under her skin for identity purposes but she is under strict orders to stay indoors at all times. She has never lived outside.

She was found laying calmly by the sofa in the family room. Her recent whereabouts were unknown.

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Thanks to all of you who provided tips on how to hold double-pointed needles. I've figured it out! It's really easy! I experimented with the shorter needles too, in Bryspun flexibles and Brittany birch. Shorter is better. Ha! That's the first time I've ever been able to say that. I picked up the Bryspuns last year as a substitute for cable needles. They are faster than the wood or bamboo. The sock is coming along, but slowly. Last night I seamed the sleeves to my Shapely Tee, but I don't like the looks of one of them so I'm going to frog it tonight and redo.

In response to Cyndi's question about the plane from Oregon - yes indeed, that was the shuttle. No one gave me any weird looks while I was knitting so I figured it was OK. Hey, it can't be any worse than sleeping. And Stephanie, my friend thanks you for the German sock pattern. That was a good find.

I've finally figured out the Bloglines thing. I'm subscribed to everyone now which is a good thing, because I was falling behind in reading everyone's blogs. Oh, except for Sherry! I can't figure out how to get the feed from your site. Thanks for all the nice comments about the pictures. They mean a lot to me. I think I'm doing the wrong thing for a living - I've always wanted to be a photojournalist instead. This is that outlet for me. Although I once made the mistake of telling Karl that keeping a journal was easiest when I had a lot of angst. Boy, he's never let me forget that. He asked if this blog was my way of dumping all my angst.

Last thing: what are your favorite sock yarns? Have you knit with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport? Go ahead, enable me!

A Tour of Ft. Bragg and Mendocino...Yarn Shops

"You know you are at risk of becoming an obsessive knitter when you plan your vacation around yarn store locations" - Yarn Harlot, At Knit's End.

I have been away. Last Friday, I took a much-needed day off and my motley crew of friends spent several days in Ft. Bragg and Mendocino, California. We rented a lovely house located right on the bluffs in Ft. Bragg and had a perfect view of the ocean, a blazing sunset, whales spouting and fishing boats coming home after the day's catch. This was literally a few hundred yards from the house. My friend McGinnis almost had a heart attack because he thought I was going to fall off the cliffs while taking pictures. Unlikely. When I'm in that mode, I am invincible. One "feature" of the bluffs was that it was a favorite spot for abalone divers. In the mornings we would see them park by the cliffs, dive and then haul up their catch. And then they would give us a show of removing their wet articles of clothing. They entertained us with many moons.


We hiked a really nice trail through Russian Gulch State Park to a waterfall - the day was overcast with a bit of fog, all the flora were wet with raindrops. After that hike, we visited the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens where again we walked to more bluffs like this one with wildflowers .

There was a "secret" vegetable garden that had the most amazing purple-headed broccoli I had ever seen, plus the rhododendrons were in cascading and luscious bloom.


But what about the yarn stores?? YES. I dragged my friends to 2 of them. Navarro River Knits in Ft. Bragg was such a wonderful surprise that I practically swooned when I saw the store (or so I was told, anyway). I was expecting a small shop tucked away in an alley. Instead, it was in a renovated historic building - The Company Store - and featured a variety of Australian and New Zealand yarns. They even had some merino/possum blends. The store owner was friendly and informative. The second shop was the Mendocino Yarn Shop. This cozy store next to the post office was just filled floor to ceiling with yarn and books. My friend Conny picked up a handful of to-die-for skeins of Rowan because she decided she would go ahead and knit socks...you know, for the heck of it even though she'd never done it before. Conny, who is German, has to get a sock pattern from her sister-in-law in German because the English patterns are confusing. I thought this was interesting; I'd never really thought about the translations, but knitting patterns, even in English, are rather cryptic.


Speaking of socks, I started my first pair over the weekend. These are just practice so I'm not even going to post a picture of them yet, but I'm using a beginner's pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple using lightweight worsted. I'm doing OK, but I'm not crazy about 7" DPNs. I had practiced with some 4" DPNs on the plane back from Oregon last Thursday and they were much easier. I now have a small stash of sock yarn too. My yarnmoire is bloated. I just cannot justify buying any more yarn or needles. At least for the next day or two. I stopped working on Diane for the time being, but finally finished the neck of the Shapely Tee. That's coming up for April, I decided. I should be finished this weekend if not sooner and it will be available for your inspection by then! In the meantime, my question to you: how do you hold your dang DPNs comfortably without feeling like they are poking in every direction but the one that you need??

Just Another Weekend

Saturday was a beautiful day in the Sierras. We packed up our snowshoes and headed up to our favorite snow hiking spot - Icehouse Reservoir. Take Highway 50 like you're going to South Lake Tahoe. Just where the highway becomes 2-lane, there's a road to your left. That's Icehouse. It winds up the mountain until it opens up to the vista above, and then you can see the reservoir. We haven't camped there yet although there are a number of campgrounds, tons of trails and several small lakes. Silver Creek is the main river and we plan to go back there with our fishing poles to catch some trout.

I'm not in terrific physical shape anymore, as evidenced by my lack of breath and enthusiasm trudging up the trail. Plus I was cranky as I needed a nap. As soon as we got to our stopping place I promptly lay down on a stump and took a 20-minute snooze. I was much happier after that. My snowshoeing form was out of sorts...



Can you say "Charm School"?

I brought my knitting with me as usual but didn't get a chance to do anything with it. Diane is coming along but that's about it. I'm starting to get a little nervous because it's already the middle of April and this tank top is still not that close to being finished. I might just have to knit a scarf or some other small item to fulfill this month's requirement.

After what seemed to be an interminably long time, I finally received something knitting related in the mail - 3 skeins of Manos for My So-Called Scarf and 5 skeins of Cascade 220. I also picked up Pursenalities and At Knit's End from Border's. I've only read a few entries from At Knit's End but I can already tell it's a keeper! I was giggling to myself. I have more needles coming from Webs as well as some Noro from Knot Another Hat. The Iro was less than $10 a skein, everywhere else it's almost $20. Plus there's a 10% Knitter's Review discount. Ooooh....I just took a look at the site and they've added several Cascade yarns...

*sigh*