Candy Cane Cozy

I found this cute little pattern at Zakka Life. It only takes minutes to knit up the little square and decorating them is the fun part.

The pattern works with cotton yarn, but I was using wool/acrylic blends and leftover fuzzy yarns, so I found that casting on 22 stitches worked better for me. And through the venture of experimentation, in true Goldilock fashion, 20 stitches was too short, 25 was too long, and 22 was just right. :)

I Can Has Cheezburgers

This is a video clip from my absolute favorite website I Can Has Cheezburgers?. The main page is captioned pictures of funny and cute kittehs.

Feather Dancing Kittens

The tiny one on the end has big, sappy eyes that remind me of Link.


I Can Has Cheezburgers? also has other hilarious pages, some of my favorites are

Fail Blog - pictures of funny, and sometimes hard to watch, failures.
Photobomb - surprises in pictures.
Engrish - the English language gutted.
There I Fixed It - epic backyard MacGyvers.

'No Wrong Side' Bookmark

This little No Wrong Side Bookmark that I found on the Knit with KT website was quick and fun to make. I can't remember which side is which and I can't decide which I like better. What an aptly named project.

Although it was the first time I had ever heard of p3Tog (purling 3 stitches together), the pattern was very straight forward for how intricate it looks. I made these two pretty much back to back, but I didn't feel like I got to the point that I could just knit along by memory, I had to keep the pattern open as I worked.

Also, I had to keep an eye on what I was doing (while watching TV or in low lighting) because I have a tendency to split the yarn when working with silky yarn, I found that I could see even one stray fiber in this delicate pattern.

The cream colored one I made for my Grandma for Christmas out of Caron Simply Soft worsted weight yarn. I can't remember the exact color, since I used the same skein for Jillian's Cupcake hat and I sent the paper wrap along with the hat for washing instructions. This bookmark came out the thinner of the two, with a draping quality.

The lavender bookmark I made for Toni, a senior I angel through Chemo and Senior Angels. I made it with Bernat Satin which is also a worsted weight yarn, but it came out bulkier than the cream one.

Link has been adopted!

The sweet little kitten, Link, has been adopted from Whiskers, Tails and Ferals. He is going to a nice home with another one of his siblings. Lucky Link, he will be spending the holidays with his forever family.

We will miss Link at our house, especially Panzer. Panzer has been searching for the kitten the kitten this afternoon, calling out to him. He is back to attacking our 15-yr-old cat out of boredom. Maybe after the holidays we can foster another friend for Panzer to expel excess energy with.

Kisses for Link!

Link Videos

Please forgive the quality of video and videographer. I really need to get a video editing program! Though if you are interested in adopting Link, these clips will show you the personality I doubt you will see from a cage at Petco. Enjoy!

Cat on Bag Violence

Fur Ball Attacks

Ends in a Squeak

In this video don't think he cared as much about my hand as he did my face. He was trying to figure how to get to me.

Big Purrs

Please excuse my music playing in the background, though you can hear Link purring too.

Link

This is LINK. He is an 8-week-old male kitten available for adoption through Whiskers, Tails and Ferals. We are fostering him for the time being and wanted to get the word out on this sweet little guy.

Link Facts

He is mostly black with a vivd gray/cream tabby pattern and cream accents on his face. His coat is silky and he looks like he will be a medium haired cat. He eats Purina One Kitten dry food, but he goes crazy over canned food. He is litter box trained and has never had an accident at our house.

Link's Personality

He starts off shy, but really likes to cuddle next to you on the couch. When you rub him on his face and head, he goes floppy in your hands, purring loudly. He also likes his belly scratched when he is in a lovey mood; otherwise, he will attack you.

Link plays with our older kitten (Panzer), though he seems to prefer the attention of people. He is tolerant, yet hesitant of our dogs - staying mostly to the areas of the living room that the dogs are not allowed. When the dogs are not in the house, Link likes to explore and makes toys out of anything he finds. He will play with anything on the floor: a feather, string, fur-covered mice, catnip toys, paper bags, household debris.

These pictures don't do him justice. In person, he has big, round, Cupie Doll eyes.

Donations for Whiskers, Tails and Ferals

Here are a few items I crocheted and donated to Whiskers, Tails and Ferals' Christmas Tree lot to try and help raise money for their cat and dog rescuing program.

Ava Hats

I made these Ava hats from a pattern I found at Hooked On Crochet using Bernat ultrasoft cotton yarn. I like to work with cotton yarn; it has a bit of grab when working with it (I sometimes have trouble with stitches sliding around) and the finished product has a bit of rigidity to it. The pattern worked up really quick and I just love the ribbon accent.

Baby Swirl Hat

I crocheted this newborn swirl hat with Premier Yarns Angel self shading yarn in the color 'Baby Daisy' from a pattern found at Craft Tutorials. The yarn is bouncy and light, but since it is made of two slightly puffy strands wound together, I had trouble accidentally splitting the yarn while working with it.

Also, I'm not too sure that I like the 'sinch to close top' style of hat. I never seem to be able to get the hole closed enough. I actually have multiple unfinished hats for this reason. In answer to the problem, I made a little pompom to cover the remaining hole.

Mushroom Pocket

This 'Shroom' pattern I found at Crochet Me was a lot of fun to make. It's my first amigurumi style creation. Mine didn't turn out as nice as the one in the pattern, but I'm going to try again and make a few small adjustments to the pattern. I'm hoping to figure out a way to make the lid separately and then sew it on, since my trouble was with getting the attached lid to line up correctly. I also think I might add a little filler to the base to help it keeps its form.

Sheep Blanket for Orlando

When I found out that my cousin was pregnant and that the baby's room had a farm style theme, I remembered this wonderful afghan I saw in Family Circle Easy Knitting Fall 2004 magazine. It was the first blanket I had ever knit. I had never changed yarn color in one project, carried yarn on the back side or dealt with different textures. It was way more complicated than I could have ever guessed, but I learned so much along the way.



I worked with llh tara yarn for the apple green color. It's a lovely Cotton/Nylon blend. It slid along the needles like slightly bouncy butter. The black and white yarns were from the back room of the store; no label, no information. They were fuzzy and slippery all at the same time. I wish I had some reference point for those two yarns; I'd like to work with them again.

To my utter surprise, the sheep blanket took two years to make! I may have gotten in over my head in my first knitted afghan endeavor. Now that Orlando is 18 months, it is finally done! Congratulations on your baby boy, Happy First Birthday, and Happy Thanksgiving all rolled into one.

Hat for Jillian

This is a version of the Cupcake Hat found at Slumberland.org. The site has wonderful pictures of the hat, the pattern is in pdf form, and the author can accept paypal donations for the pattern she created.

I made this little hat for another new little cousin-to-be, Jillian. Her room is pink, chocolate brown and tan with a bit of apple green.

I made mine on US #7 needles because I used Caron Simply Soft worsted weight yarn. The flower pattern, in particular, gave me a little trouble in comprehending the pattern. The first flower was an absolute disaster. After making a mess of the first one, I understood what the instructions were and it turned out to be the most fun part of making the Cupcake Hat.

Since I used a vastly different yarn, my pictures don't look exactly like the hats from the original pattern. Actually, my hat resembles the little pink jellyfish from Finding Nemo.

Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh

I got this book from the library and found that it wasn't the exact amigurumi I had hoped to knit. It's nice to try a book out before spending money on it.

The animals, mythical creatures, veggies and fruits were all cute, but not quite what I was looking for. I think size is my biggest concern. I'm looking to make tiny crafts; something smaller than my hand.

It turns out that some of the introductory information in this book was of more help to me than the patterns.

1. Washability. I always get absorbed by the color and texture of yarn and often consider whether it can be machine washed after I have already started a project. Is this amigurumi going to be a keepsake or a toy?

2. Resilient Fiber. Soft, silky fibers don't hold their shape like wool. Wool and wool blends hold a three-dimensional shape a lot longer than other fibers with less elasticity. It's a choice of 'hugging' over 'draping' yarns.

Panzer Bjorn

This is Panzer Bjorn, the newest mess maker added to our home. He's named, ironically, after the armored bears in the story The Golden Compass.

We adopted Panzer from Cat Tales Rescue based in Solano County during one of their weekend adoption days at Petco.

He is highly spirited and keeps everyone in our house, human and animal alike, on their toes.

Panzer helping me with my laptop.

Panzer stealing my spot.