Sunday, June 11, 2006

 

my cat is spoiled

Graybaby, the alpha cat in our house, has lately taken to kneading select skeins of yarn, leading me to believe (as I have long suspected) that she is, in fact, descended from stuffed animals and her mother was made of yarn. GB is especially fond of the finer German sock yarns and Rowan's Cashsoft DK. Let's face it: baby's got class.

Instead of a stern scolding, I decided to make Graybaby her own blanket so she can knead up a storm and perhaps let the yarn that costs $8.95 a skein live in peace. When Rebecca, Mr. Cupcakes, and I went to the Webs Tent Sale, I found an excellent deal on Tahki's Panda yarn. Only $20 for a bag of 10 balls. Sweet! No, it's not made of cashmere (or panda) but it is a very soft polar fleece.


Using the Slipped Diagonal Rib from Barbara G. Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, I made up a blanket of three panels, each 34 stitches across on size 15 needles (a.k.a. 10cm, a.k.a. Lincoln logs--crazy big, but so fast). There are only 54 yards in each ball so I wasn't really sure how much length I was going to get, so I just knit up three balls per panel, using the 10th ball to finish off the pattern repeat each time. I used the yarn left on the 10th ball to sew the panels together and crochet along the ends. This blanket is a zoom-zoom-zoom knit.

The final measurements are 26" by 37." A good baby blanket size and a GREAT Graybaby blanket size.
I thought about making fringe, but Graybaby's mortal enemy is the pom-pom, which she is sworn to destroy. I had a feeling fringe would get the old pull-eru from the jaws of my sweet baby cat.

The reverse is a bit of a snooze but still knead-worthy.

Of course, when I wanted to take a picture of the blanket, all the cats, who have spent hours lounging on the blanket over the past two weeks, recoiled at being forced to sit on the blanket. They cried and ran away like I was putting their delicate, Fancy Feast-fed paws on burning hot coals. The only way I could get a shot was to wiggle a ruler under the blanket and put Graybaby on the hunt.

And she rewarded me with this ghostly image:

This cat takes care of business in a flash, I tells ya.

Coming up next: more socks! You fall asleep! I go to North Carolina and try to figure out how to stay in Carrboro forever.

Kidding, Connecticut...you know I love your icy June winds. And you make pretty good pizza.

Comments:
i wish we all could live in carrboro forever!!
 
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