Sock statistics

Pattern: Django by Cookie A.
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted, in the Copper Penny colourway
Needles: 3.0 mm to cast on and 2.5 mm to knit
Related KAL: Summer of Socks, Ravelympics
Status: Done, and it's about time, dammit.
Estimated number of socks knitted in order to produce two finished socks: 3.5
Really? Okay, maybe it was only 3.
Dude, what happened? Oh, where do I begin...I had to frog large chunks of sock #1 several times, partly because I thought I had more yarn than I really had (so I ended up having to shorten the leg), and partly because I screwed up the pattern a lot. It got frustrating enough that I put the sock aside for a while and worked on something else. I think sock #1 took me 3.5 months to finish (including that rest time), while sock #2 took...about 1, 1.5 weeks?
Anything else you feel like saying? I think my gauge was too loose...those socks are really wide.
So what are you going to do about it? Knit something else. Maybe I'll hang the socks on a wall.

Just some photos

The tabby.



The new cat.



And a sunset.

Meow meow

We adopted a cat from Cat City last week.


His most recent alias at the shelter was Frankie, but it didn't really fit him as well as we would have liked, so we'll be changing it again. For the first couple of days we referred to him as New-cat, which of course brought Newman from Seinfeld to mind, and then M came up with Norman. Other possibilities included Fred, Cat-cat, Dude, Hey You, (*tapping on food dish*) Food for Kitteh!, Barney, and (my favourite) Stop Wallowing In Your Litterbox That's Gross. Hmm, I wonder if M would be okay with calling the cat Wally...

Except for that litterbox thing, and my unsureness of what kind of food the new cat likes, and my worries about whether he's eating enough (yes, I do worry even though he has to lose some weight...I don't want another jaundiced cat), he's cool. He purrs when we pick him up, he does the milk tread in our laps, he chases felted woolly toys, and he takes his eleven o'clock crazies very seriously indeed.

For the first couple of days, Chester hissed at New-cat/Norman/Wally, growled at us for our effrontery in bringing this...beast...into his territory, and sulked under various chairs. The new cat did not help matters by trotting around with an air of "Hey, nice to meetcha, what's happening," sprawling in Chester's favourite spots, and sniffing at Chester's backside. They're a lot calmer now, and Chester has resumed some of his usual activities (e.g. lying in the middle of the room wheezing happily), so I think there is hope.

Another road trip

We went back to the Olympic Peninsula for a few days last week. I posted some photos on Flickr. We stayed at Miller Tree Inn in Forks and had a quasi-brush with fame there, as it turns out Forks was used as the setting for the Twilight series, and one (or some?) of the characters live at the Inn (or something like that). There were a couple of signs at the front entrance for Twilight fans, and we saw several people drive up so that fans could photograph the B&B.

We also went down to Rialto Beach (which looked considerably less frightening than when we were there in late September/early October), managed to hike 10 miles in the Hoh Rainforest without being chased off by elk, visited Second Beach near La Push, and stopped at a lavender farm on the way home.

Moth (but not in my yarn)

Warning: if you don't like close-up photos of invertebrates, stop reading after the part about the rabbit. If you do like them, you're in luck. I'll even throw in a banana slug photo at the end.

I sat near the top/back of the stadium at the Mariners Stitch 'n' Pitch on Thursday. The ball players were kind of far away, but the view was generally all right and the sunset was pretty. I finished a handle on my Team Rabobank (and it is Rabobank, not whatever college colours people have been asking me about lately) market bag.




On Friday we went to a farmers' market and I saw my first Flemish Giant rabbit. That's my hand in the photo for scale. The owner said this one is only 1 year old and still growing, and will be about 80 lbs at maturity. The rabbit is already 40 lbs, which makes him almost as big as our cat (kidding--our cat is only 18 lbs).

Edit: After checking out some webpages about Flemish Giants, I suspect I might have heard wrong and that the rabbit only (?) weighed 14 lbs. Does anyone else have more info on this breed? Either way, the critter was huge.



The owner said his rabbits are very affectionate, get along well with the dogs and would play with the chickens if the chickens were into that sort of thing. I had a brief wild thought of acquiring a Flemish Giant as a companion for the cat, but reconsidered after hearing how much they eat in a week. I can't remember exactly what the owner said, but I think there was something about a bale of hay and an enormous quantity of feed (20 lbs? I don't know...), and as things currently stand we barely have enough room for the cat's needs.

This is the part where invertebrate-close-up-disliking readers should stop.

Speaking of big animals, we noticed a moth on one of our screens this afternoon.



It was huge. I tried to find my swatch ruler, but I forgot where I'd left it so I settled for the next best thing.



Chester pawed a bit at the other side of the screen but didn't seem too interested in the moth, perhaps because it remained motionless for several hours.




The cat did, however, seem interested in the (crazy! tasty!) Spam.


And now that you've sat through all of that, here's the promised banana slug photo. It's from our most recent trip to the Olympic Peninsula.

It's late and I'm sleepy

1) I just went to my first Stitch & Pitch and my first Mariners game. Dude, they won!

2) Ravelympics starts tomorrow. I signed up with Team Seattle under WIP wrestling. If I stay up another hour or so I'll be able to finish the market bag I was making for the Tour de France KAL and then tackle the other WIPs with a clear conscience starting tomorrow. So far I have two scarves, a shawl, and two pairs of socks I have to finish.

3) I think I need to join a 12-step program to gain control over my habit of joining KALs that I can't finish. Would this count as a knitalongalong or knitalong-anon?

4) I spent a week at the Tallis Scholars Summer School. It rocked, even if I did go to bed on time (except for the last night) and skipped the late-night beer and karaoke. I foisted the market bag-in-progress on Jan Coxwell the final morning, and she not only held it for photos (for which she gets bonus points because the orange I used was pretty stunning, and not necessarily in a good way) but also proceeded to work on it for several minutes while I was otherwise occupied. Hee!