Because I know you so all want to hear about my kitties and their issues instead of reading posts about fiber. Truth is I already had these photos, and didn’t feel like shooting more at this time of the morning. So you get an update about Guy and the Litter Box.

This is funny, my boyfriend was out of town last week, Tuesday thru Saturday. From Tuesday thru Sunday, Guy was the perfect example of a Litter Box trained cat. No accidents, not even in front of the box. I couldn’t have been more proud. I bought him sparkley toys, got them
all out from under the stove whenever he whapped them under it, played with him, gave him belly rubs, he was a happy kitty.
ETA: James and Guy get along just fine! It occured to me Guy might see James as the Alpha cat around here, and when he was gone, Guy was in charge. Guy hangs out with me alot of the day, while I dye in the kitchen, he’ll snooze, or play with his toys. He and Chuckie are practically my shadows!

Then Monday rolls around, and it’s like the flood gates opened, I’ll spare the details, but it was ugly. I’ve been working on finding a solution from all of your helpful suggestions.
Monday afternoon I ditched the old box, bought 2 new covered boxes, all filled with fresh litter, and I left the lid off of one, incase he’s more comforable doing what he does that way.

It seems to be working, but we’ll see. I called the vet, just to get their opinion, and they asked me to bring in a sample, so they can test it just in case. A sample. Right. How do you get a cat to pee in a cup?! (I’m kidding, I think that idea is damn funny though.)

He may have his problems, but he is the most photogenic cat I’ve got. he looks great in every light, and is just waiting for his closeup. How’s that for a segue? Cat pee to cat photos!

I’ve been playing with dyeing silk, so photos tomorrow! Or later today if I’m feeling ambitious.

Filed by Julia at 10:45 am under Meow Mixers
17 Comments

Way back in Maryland, I was walking around all the barns full of equipment, and fibery goodness with Jenn, repeating, “I will not learn to weave, I don’t need to learn to weave, I will not!”

It appears I am a liar.

I started classes on Saturday. I’m excited to learn to weave, although at this point I can’t see myself having a great love for it. I’m just curious about how it all works, so I looked into some art centers around here for classes, and found a good one, reasonably priced, over 9 saturdays.
Classes are at The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
a fun place, I’ve only been to once before. The studio is not all that little, but it’s so crammed with floor looms, you’d never know it. There is stuff everywhere. Cones of yarn here, warped looms there, it’s nuts.

There are 5 of us, one lady has already had the beginning class, so she’s working on what she had started, then there’s me, then there’s 3 guys about my age. I had no idea what to expect, demographically speaking. So I was a little surprised that these particular guys would be spending all these saturday mornings learning to weave. Turns out they’re all going for a masters in art education, and are taking this to fill a requirement. I think the instructor’s happy to have at least one fiber nut, with a good background for all things fiberly. She’s cool, and has that scattered, “loves what she does, hard not to have everything she knows pour out all at once, while trying to teach basics” way about her. I can relate. So, I wound my warp, but didn’t have time to get it on the loom, and by the looks of all the little wirey thingys each strand of warp as to be threaded though, is no light feat.

There are so many options and combinations to decide about. I worked out a nice asymetrical pattern of stripey warp. In tweeds. mmmm.

The idea is to have 3 to 4 squares of woven fabric, as a sampler of patterns and fiber combinations. So I’m excited for the next saturday, but don’t worry, I won’t be dropping any loot on any looms any time soon!

Filed by Julia at 2:22 pm under Weaving!?!
13 Comments

So awhile ago I was clicking through blogs, reading bits, and someone, I’ll never remember who, had spun up some lovely green fluff into lovely barberpole yarn. I do remember it was BFL from Amy Boogie, and Spunky Eclectic. I think I found it through a link at Cara’s. There’s no way to know.
Anyways, long story short, I wanted to spin lovely green barberpoles of yarn too. So I dyed up 4oz of wool top, and I spunspunspun. Took about a week of on again off agian spinning. I plyed it in one sitting. For those interested, one sitting is equal to 2 CSI’s, a couple of South Parks, maybe a Law and Order, and the tail end of some movie. Give or take. I plyed it all onto one bobbin. That bobbin was jam packed. 4oz on a little Joy bobbin is a full full bobbin-
It was a struggle toward the end, but I was sooo close!

The original plan was to end up with two almost even skeins out of 3ply. Then I just wanted to see it all as one huge honkin’ skein, so there you go. 4oz, about 360 yds of light dk weight yarn.

Now whatever is it to be? I originally wanted some socks, but the thought of this pretty stuff wearing out as socks brings tears to my eyes. So for now I’m just carrying it around with me everywhere I go. I’ll think of something, I love to knit with my handspun, but there’s usually such a little bit of it, besides socks, I never know what to knit with it. Hmn.

ETA: I keep forgetting, if you love pretty drop spindles, go here. I found this on another link from another blog I can’t remember. I can’t get over how incredible her spindles are. Handpainted!, and would you look at the “Birth of Venus” whorl! Awesome.

I’ll be updating the shop with a bunch of yarns early next week, so get on the mailing list to be notified!

Filed by Julia at 9:25 pm under Spinning
20 Comments

Thanks everybody, for your similar cat pee stories and suggestions! I have alot of options to try now. They were all at the vet recently, and everybody checked out fine. This is something he’s been doing for awhile now, and I reached my limit. Today I did what any good kitty parent would do. I bribed him with his favorite sparkly toys. No accidents yet!

Now for my little announcement! For the last ten evenings or so, I’ve been working on a little shop of my own! Yay! Se ya Etsy! So today is the debut trial run. I’ve put lots of pretty yarns and rovings up, and hopefully everything runs smoothly. I’d like to send a super sized Thank You out to Dave, whose been wonderful and gracious in answering my questions about setting up shop, and offering advice. Thanks Dave!

I have a suspicion that this cart program my allow multiple sales of stock that don’t actually exist. That’s the reason for the trial run. I’ve done alot of testing, and can’t get a positive read one way or the other, so if any backorders happen, I will fill them ASAP!
So, go, have fun, take a look around, and if you see anything goofy, or find something doesn’t work, let me know!

Now go forth and shop!!

Filed by Julia at 6:13 pm under Shop!
20 Comments

See this cat?
This adorable, seemingly harmless, cute little cutie of a cat, that’s cute? Sleeping peacefully in a sun beam?

Well he’s a fucker. I almost murdered him today, and I swear to jebus I will not be held responsible for my actions if he pees outside the litter box one. more. time. ARGH!

Knitters, does your cat(s) do this?!? I have 4 cats, and he’s the only one that ever does this. There’s no pattern to it, either. It’s sporadic, he doesn’t do this all the time. I can’t figure it out. First I thought the box might not be clean enough to his standards, so I made a point of scooping 2x a day. Then I started adding fresh litter every couple of days, instead of once a week. He poops in the box, no problem there. He loves the litter, and is always the first one in when it’s fresh out of the box, even if he doesn’t have to go he’s scratching around in there. I’m about to go buy a whole new litter box, maybe a bigger one. This is so irritating.
Today was the last straw. I went to get my flip flops from the other room, nowhere near the litter box, and they were wet. I though maybe I had a leaky water bottle in my purse, which was on a side table above them. Nope, no water bottle. *sniff* Cat pee. There’s only one cat that does this. Worse, he didn’t pee on my flip flops on the floor. He peed on the side table. 3 feet above the floor. Purse is soaked. Canvas draws of the table, soaked. Floor all wet with half dried pee. I’m pissed. Really pissed.
I clean up, wash the floor, remove everything from the draws, detatch and handwash them, and my purse. Still pissed. Worse? He peed in front of the little box too. Agian. ARGH.
Suggestions?
I think maybe I’ll switch back to decaf this week.

On a much, much brighter note, I’ve had a little project in the works all this last week. If all goes well today, I’ll be unveiling it tomorrow. Cheers.

Filed by Julia at 1:39 pm under Meow Mixers
24 Comments

Jack. Rabbit. Slims. I made another one.

This is the Rabbit from a Debbie Bliss Noro book, book 2, I think. Knit flat on Susan Bates US 3 circs. Don’t judge me for buying knitting supplies at Joanns. I like their pointy tips. I knit him with the sparkly pink yarn I spun from Stefanias sparkly pink roving. Can you think of a better purpose for sparkley pink yarn? Exactly. He has no eyes because I couldn’t decide where to place them with out having him looking stupid or creepy.

In the book, there is also a bear. I have knit the bear too. He is much, much more complicated, with twice as many pieces as the rabbit, and no real finishing instructions. If you’re familiar with Debbie Bliss patterns, you know how that goes. The rabbit is a breeze. I knit it all in 2 evenings, then blocked them, and seamed it up last night. Fast knit. I think that when you’re knitting with yarn you spun yourself, knitting goes very quickly. I have a ton of yarn left over. I could knit another one. I don’t need two though.

There have been some yarn aquisitions over here, I did a great swap with Mama-E. My yarn for hers. If you haven’t seen her Cyber Fibers by now, go check it out immediately! The bluish one is Coleen, and the green and pink one is Mermaid. I keep petting them. Very pretty stuff.

I have also been spinning, but that can be fodder for another day. I don’t know what else. How’sa bout a picture of my impossibly cute nephew, Louie? Okay.
I think that quite fits the theme of today’s post too, No?

Filed by Julia at 7:07 pm under FO!,Knitting
11 Comments

I’ve put a few skeins of Vesper sock yarn up at Etsy- Get it while you can!!

Filed by Julia at 3:10 pm under Get Your Yarn!!
2 Comments

Well that wasn’t so bad. I changed the banner, and the colors, which is what I really wanted to do anyways. Knitting and Spinning content later…

Filed by Julia at 4:30 pm under General
16 Comments

I have a FO for you. It is most definately NOT the Sunrise jacket, I have one more cuff to reknit and a button to sew, then it will be a FO. This is the bunny from LMKG, for my neighbors adorable baby girl.

This was a fun knit, even though I started it 4 months ago, and finished this last weekend…
I love knitting toys because the construction is so differant. With sweaters you’ll always knit some form of 2 sleeves, a back and a front, but toys are fun, and a great way to use up bits of yarn.
Specs:
Yarn: 2 skeins of Rowan cashsoft dk in main color, yarn used double through out. A bit of a darker pink for the inner ears, and the embroidery, and a very small amount of blue calmer for the eyes, and center of the flower.
Needles Addi US 6′s for the whole thing.
Mods and Comments: This thing knits up in no time, but I always take forever to get around to seaming and finishing up, toys always require great attention to the detail. Also, the cashsoft makes a much, much firmer fabric than the alpaca called for. I realized this when I knit and sewed the ears on, they just aren’t as floppy as I would have liked. I also added the initial, and the flower on the bunny butt, cause it I wanted it to be girly. It’s finished height is a tall 10 inches or so, I didn’t swatch, cause well, with toys, it doesn’t really matter.
I’m happy to have it out of the WIP bin. Yay!

This weekend I’m going to attempt to change the look of this here blog. I’m a bit nervous, so if you can’t access it, or it looks wrong, it’s because I fucked it up really, really badly, and have no idea what happened, and am curled up in a corner somewhere. Or I got fustrated and threw my powerbook across the room. Anybody out there with experiance editing wordpress templates? Pointers would be helpful here!! Wish me luck!

Filed by Julia at 12:24 pm under FO!
28 Comments