Quick Cat Update

Cat is at the vet's office now.  She may not need surgery after all.  She is still broken, but it seems that with cats, surgery doesn't necessarily make it all better and we knew before I took her this morning that she wouldn't heal any faster with it than without it.  She was lucky in that her pelvis was broken in two places (in half?) but not in the weight bearing parts of it.  She can still walk - and does - albeit not very well or comfortably.  They are saying that as long as she can urinate and defecate that keeping her quiet and letting it heal on it's own may be the best thing for her.  They did some blood work to make sure the internal organs are alright, another x-ray to double check an iffy spot on her bowel, gave her more pain meds (she was due at 9 and it took an hour an a half to get in to see the vet) and generally checked her out.  They are going to give her an enema and shave a patch of fur so she can have a fentanyl patch for constant pain relief instead of oral meds every 8 hours.  They suggested that we wait a few days before deciding if she needs surgery or not.  Meanwhile, she escaped the closet confinement this morning because she really wanted to be on the bed with her girl, so we have to rethink that.  I guess I will keep the closet room as part of her area, but I've also arranged to borrow a gigantic dog crate (large enough for a bed, litter box, food, etc) from a friend.  She'll use that when we need her to stay confined and when we go to the beach because we won't be able to leave her home with a sitter unless we find someone to stay in the house and that's cost prohibitive.

I may know more after I pick her up from the vet, but it may be a few days before we know if she needs or is going to have surgery.  Right now, she's ok, not great, but ok and that's a good thing because it could have been so much worse.

Crafting is not always fun . . .

Girl Far From Home and I have spent the day crafting but it wasn't the fun kind of crafting and it wasn't for a fun reason.  First we spent an hour or so running around town for the supplies.  We got 4 yards of tulle - we could have gotten by with 2, but we figured it's cheap and we'd rather have too much than too little.

Then we got two tension curtain rods.  The one on the right is the kind that twists out and is very sturdy.  The white one on the left is the spring kind that you use for cafe curtains - not so sturdy but just what we needed.

Then we dug out the sewing basket and started sewing.

We stretched the tulle between the two rods and sewed a little casing on each edge - one on the top for the more permanent tension rod and one on the bottom to hold the spring tension rod.

Why did we need this?

Because sweet little Cat went out and got herself hit by a car this morning.  Her hip is broken.  She needs to be kept as still as possible until she can get to the vet for surgery.  They said it might heal on it's own if we keep her crated for 6 weeks but I can't see that happening.  They also said it's going to be very expensive surgery - I'm guessing in the well over $1000 range since my friend Tina said her dog's hip surgery was quoted at $2400.  I can't afford it but I can't really not do it either now can I?

We set the little lady up in the bottom of Girl's closet and we knew that the window screen that we had to bend to fit in the doorway wasn't going to be practical.

So now we have this lovely little screen that lets air and light in and doesn't let the poor broken little kitty out. I think she could probably escape the ends if she was in better shape, but she's just not moving that well.  I'm thinking that we have to take her back to the emergency vet this evening because she hasn't gone potty all day and they said if she didn't, she had to come back.  I just hope they don't want to keep her there until Tuesday because I would hate that and so would the Girl.

Happy Birthday . . . again and again!

Someone in this house turned 15 a few days ago.  We didn't actually see her on the day she turned 15 because she left the house at 7 in the morning and didn't get home till almost 11 that night.  But we had presents ready anyway . . . just in case!

There were more presents than this, but they weren't all in the same pile at any one time.  The money was a gift from her 'Uncle Mike' (who is not only not an uncle, his name is not Mike, but that's another story for another day).  He was her by coincidence - arrived the same day we got Girl Far From Home back home and stayed about 5 days.

This is the big reveal . . . .

Ta Da!  A foosball (and air hocky and ping pong and bowling and chess/checkers and backgammon and something else) table which she asked for several years ago but not till after her birthday.  It's a used table, but it's a nice one.

Even her travel gnome wanted to play - I tried to tell him that sitting in front of the goal on the foosball field was not a good idea . . . eventually we will figure out how to get him out of the ball slot.

Someone didn't get to play and she wasn't happy about it.  She kept bringing us toys while we were playing and whining at our feet.  Didn't work.

Eventually, and over the course of the next several days, she opened the rest of her presents.  The last ones were opened today (Sunday) and her birthday was Thursday. 

A couple of books (always good in her mind), a game, a fushigi ball (don't ask).  There was also a lovely Kiva Gift Certificate from Aunt Dena.  I had just gotten one from Uncle Mike as a belated birthday gift and spent it and Girl Far From Home had just relent all her Kiva Money so it's been a Kiva kinda weekend.

This may have been the favorite - the complete fifth season of Doctor Who!  We are all going to like that!

And finally today (just 3 days late) we had the cake!  It's yummy - chocolate with chocolate filling and chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles.

Got her!

And a ton of junk too!

What on Earth?

The first is the before pic, the second is the after. Any guesses as to what it is?

Long Distance Knitting

Bringing Girl Far From Home home for the summer, last trip for a while. Making progress on the Embossed Jacket.

Truer words were never spoken

This is the gift that keeps on making me smile . . .

And this is the knitting that keeps on making me smile.  I love the idea behind this sweater.  I love the construction of this sweater.  I love the knitting of this sweater.  I love the colors of this sweater.  I love the textures in this sweater.  And I think I'm going to love the outcome of this sweater project. 

This is the back - more than halfway done and I just cast on Saturday afternoon.  Actually, I cast on Saturday morning but then I realized at dinner time that I had knit the first purple section wrong so I had to rip and reknit.  This is Anna Zilboorg's Embossed Jacket.  

Next I plan to make her Allspice Vest with leftover bits of wool I have around here (because I have tons of leftover bits and that is the perfect pattern to use them up).  I need to make a sloper before I do that so I need some help measuring myself.  I'm hoping Dena will come help me because she's my sister and who better to help measure you than your sister?  Probably I will have to settle for Girl Far From Home who will be Girl At Home by next Monday.

Manic Monday

First off, I finally finished Mom's purple and red silk azalea pins.  They will go in the mail, along with Dena's Nostepinde, when I get around to it.  Hopefully, they will get to her house before Mom does.  I think I am completely over knitting silk azaleas.  I think I might be over knitting with mawata - at least for a long while.

This is a Pretty Thing (by Yarn Harlot) that I started to make.  It's almost halfway done, but I ran out of yarn. I knew that there might not be enough yarn left in this ball, but I was hoping.  Since the object of this endeavor was to use up the leftover yarn, I will not be going out to get more of this yarn to finish this thing - it will just get ripped back to nothing and the ball of yarn will go into the box I take to class for beginners.  I've started another Pretty Thing in some handspun alpaca and it's already a bit farther along than this one.  

These three photos are of the Estonian Patent Stitches sampler.  I somehow lost mine (I think Dena has it) and felt like I really needed to make a new one.  I want to use some of these stitches to make myself a vest using the sloper instructions that Merike gave me.  The vest will have to wait for a while though because I've fallen in love with a new project and can't take my hands off it.  More on that later.

This book came in the mail - I ordered it when I ordered my Mother's Day Wii game.  I like it.  It has lots of little motifs in it that I think I can probably make.  I've seen a ton of things tatted from this book on Anika's blog and I love them.  When I went to order the Wii game, I was going to have to pay $5 postage.  If I added this book to the order, it was slightly less than $10 more than the game alone.  I figure the book cost me less than $5.  

The book is spending some quality time in my knitting bag because that goes everywhere with me.

I moved these guys down to the new knitting room.  I'm accumulating a lot of knitted things in here.  I like it.

This is the inside of my new knitting bucket from Erin Lane Bags. It's very roomy - that is 5 skeins of Galway worsted - which are pretty big skeins.  Those 5 skeins are the new project I'm working on and absolutely loving.  More on that later.  (Did I already say that once?)

The Bucket Bag was a very last-minute, impulse buy at Stitches South.  Dena and I were actually leaving the convention center and turned around to go back and look at the bags.  We saw some of this cute sheepy fabric at the information booth when we stopped to ask if they'd found either of our bracelets.  The girl told us where she got the bag and we had to go check them out.  As if I hadn't already spent way too much money, I had to have one and this is the one I got.

I just love the knitting sheepies.  They are all knitting different things in different colors.  I love the way this bucket is completely lined and has a little loop to keep your yarn under control.  The only thing I would change is the handle - I would like it to have bigger handles.  That's only because I'm not used to carrying bags in my hand - I always toss them over my shoulder.  But it works ok and I love the size of this bag.  It is big enough for a good sized project without but not big enough to hold everything I own - so it doesn't weigh a ton.

And best of all, it's embroidered with the cutest saying  . . . . .

Tatting Exchange

The Tatting Forums arranged another exchange - this time for bookmarks.  I just love tatting bookmarks - they are the perfect size project for me.  Any smaller and I feel a bit like I'm just messing around.  Any bigger and I will surely make an unfixable mistake before I finish.  My exchange partner was Happy Bluebird again (I'm lucky, her, not so much).  

First, she sent this lovely card.  These are all pictures she took in her own back yard and yes, they are all bluebirds.  I would love to have that many bluebirds in my yard - but I have too many trees.  I am seeing more and more bluebirds in Georgia tho - they love the front yard at the school and there are a bunch at the park near our house.

And this is the bookmark Cindy sent.  I love it - it's so simple and so pretty.  I love how it looks simple but elegant.  And I really love the addition of the butterfly on the tail.  I may not have bluebirds in my yard, but I have more than enough butterflies with the Fritillaries on the passion flowers to make up for it.  

This is the bookmark I sent to Cindy - it's Mary Konior's Black Magic done in Lady Shuttlemaker's Undersea Garden in size 20.  I started another bookmark and made a mess of it.  I tried a second pattern and couldn't quite figure it out.  So I went back to Tatting with Visual Patterns because it never lets me down.  I think I did better on this Black Magic than the first one I made, so I must be improving.  It was fun to make too.

For a card, I just took a blank note card and glued some little tatted bits on it.  Actually, I had Miss M glue them on, but I tatted the bits for it.  Silly, I know, but I needed something to protect the bookmark on it's journey.

(Sure hope blogger is back and stays back . . . )