an unreliable narrator

The last two weeks have been a haze of either work related hoo-ha (my assistant got promoted and I've been frantically interviewing to fill his spot before the new year) or running errands after work (one each night) to get ready for Christmas. I've had absolutely no energy for anything. Not exercise, knitting, movies, blogging, or anything. Spanky and I have been basically watching episodes of Modern Family or Rachel Maddow online and hunkering down.

Also, there is this:

This is Rosie. Our next-door neighbor had to move back in with her parents when she got laid off, and she was fostering a few cats for our neighborhood animal shelter, and rather than put Rosie back into the shelter, which is horribly overfilled, she asked us to watch her until she could find someone to adopt her.



She's about 2 years old, polydactyl, loves to play and snuggle, and is cute as a button. She's also really hard to photograph because she is all black (she has white patches on her belly, but they're small, and when she's curled up, she's all black, except for her eyes, which are this deep yellow/orange. Here's her paw with the extra toe:



We want her to find a good permanent home soon though, because our cats don't particularly like her, and Stella can't stop barking at her. So if you know someone who wants a kitty, please let me know! Anywhere in the tri-state NY area or environs. We don't mind driving her if it means someone who'll love her.

Aside from all that jazz, there has been knitting. I'm working on a pair of socks for my mother out of some Bamboo and Ewe yarn that we got at Joann's on my last visit home. They're just plain vanilla socks that I'm using a beginner's sock pattern to do, since they're so plain. I'm up to the toe on the first one. The yarn is pretty standard. I can't feel the bamboo too well, and of course my mom picked out the craziest color pattern ever. But she deserves another pair of socks, and they've been good knitting when I couldn't concentrate on anything harder.

I also finished this:



FO# 37
Pattern: Fibertrends' Ribbons Baby Blanket



This was a really fun blanket that you start in the center and work out from. I did most of the knitting down at my mom's over Thanksgiving, but it took me a while to finish the edging, because I wasn't sure about what I wanted to do.

Yarn: I used the last three balls of Comfort that I had in my stash from the last baby blanket I made, and it was about 600 or so yards, when I really needed about 800 yards of worsted. I thought briefly about buying another ball, but then what color? Where would I get it on short notice? So I decided to just use up all the scraps I had left, and use every last bit of the yarn I had to make the blanket as big as I could. That is why the edging ended up being so variegated.



Needles: Size 7 24" circular and dpns. I wish I had been able to find the size 7 tips from my Boye needle set, because at the end, the blanket was absolutely squished onto that 24" needle. You start the pattern in the center, as I mentioned, and increase through the yarn overs at each end going around. The edging has those cute corners where you increase in the garter stitch, in order to make sure you don't end up with a blanket where the edges curl because they're too short.



The project was for my friend Sarah's baby Charlie. She didn't get to have a baby shower, because she went to the doctor for a routine check-up and he told her she needed to get to the hospital right away. So she had him a few weeks early, and we had to send the gifts, but that's ok, because I wasn't done with the blanket anyway! I had to block it out severely to make it as big as it was, so I wrote directions to that effect on the card to go with the blanket. I love this blanket, and if I had a baby, I'd definitely want one (maybe in different colors, but I was working with what was available). It is so cute!