Kittens galore

These little kittens are, well, the cat’s meow? No. I didn’t say that. (They are, though.) You’ve seen Sara Elizabeth Kellner’s freebie Tiny Window Cat once before on my blog. The first one was quite a hit with my little granddaughter. At her mom’s urging (“Did you want to ask grandma if she could knit something for you?”), Evelyn smiled so sweetly and asked if I could knit her kittycat a friend. Oh my. Is that like every crafting grandma’s daydream?

In case you’re thinking tiny might not mean particularly tiny, here’s original kitty cat’s new friends compared to a thimble.

Wild whiskers seemed in order. I have waxed thread in my thread stash and that worked out well.

The baskets are my addition to the pattern. Here’s how I knit them. Cast on 32 stitches, in the round. Knit 9 rounds. Purl 1 round. Knit 9 rounds. Bind off. Fold the basket on the purl ridge and sew the cast on and bound off edges together, wrong sides facing each other. Echoing the construction of the bottom of the cat, pick up 32 stitches along the bottom edge. Work rounds 1 through 5 of Kellner’s pattern for the bottom of the cat, except on rows 1, 3 and 5, work the decreases 8 times around to form the bottom of the basket. Draw together the remaining stitches and your basket is complete.

While on a cat theme. This litter of kitten dishcloths makes a sweet gift for the cat lover in your circle. These are Amy Marie Vold’s PurrPetual Domestic Supervisors cloths. One pattern provides a knitter with four ways to knit the cat.

Mine are knit in Paintbox Yarns Cotton Aran. This set of four used 50 grams of yellow and 50 grams of blue, 30 grams of white, and 14 grams of green. If you haven’t yet tried mosaic (a/k/a slip stitch) knitting, it’s an easy colorwork technique, well-explained in the pattern. You use only one color at a time. Easy peasy and great fun.

New knits for used yarn

Aren’t these vintage bed socks sweet? I was poking around on Abe Books not too long ago, looking for knitting books. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s and, ahem, even earlier, I often knit from patterns in McCall’s Needlework & Crafts. I’d never seen this copyright 1984 hardbound book before. But for $3.50 and free shipping I took a chance that it might have some interesting patterns.

Ta da! Bedsocks!

My new mattress has some sort of air-cooled feature that is chilling my feet down into the sub-zero range. I’ve taken to wearing my wool socks to bed (that was bought from https://sleepessentials.com/product-category/adjustable-beds/ site). Truthfully, it’s 93 degrees Fahrenheit in northern Michigan today and this isn’t a problem at present. But bedsocks sounded like just what I needed.

I knit these in Stonehedge Fiber Shepherd’s wool. This worsted weight worked out perfectly. My toes stay cozy and they’re cute to boot.

My bedsocks used to be something else. A Betangled Cowl. I know. The cowl was lovely and it was great fun to knit. But all those buttons weighed it down and I just couldn’t seem to get it to lay correctly or comfortably around my neck. And it suffered mightily from flopsy syndrome. So I unravelled it. And now I have bedsocks, with yarn to spare.

A perfect fit.

These next worsted weight socks are knit in Berroco Vintage. I see it as a worsted though Ravelry ids it as an Aran-weight. Steve likes worsted weight socks, especially when he’s lounging around in his slippers in cold weather. These are Michele Wyman’s Twinkle Toes socks. Maybe you guessed that I didn’t feel I needed to tell my mate the name of his socks. He’s totally unfussy about colors. This apricot suits him just fine. But I might have been pushing it with Twinkle Toes.

Confession time. These used to be something else too. In its former life it was the Square Deal Scarf. I really enjoyed knitting that scarf. But the width was kind of overwhelming and I didn’t think it likely I would wear it or find somewhere to re-home it. So, the yarn has new life in Twinkle Toes. Plus I have gobs of yarn left for something else.

When I reuse yarn, maybe I take the lazy knitter’s route. I don’t wash the yarn. I just unravel the knitting, ball up the yarn as I unravel, and then I start knitting again. After the new knit is complete, as I block the new knit, is time enough for washing the yarn. Working with the yarn for a second time pretty much irons the kinks out anyway.