Monday, April 22, 2013

4KCBWDAY1 The House Cup

It's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week again!



A bit like Harry Potter, but not quite, this year’s Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is split into 4 houses. Don your favourite knitted or crocheted hat and let it guide you to which house you will be in.


The House of Bee: Bees are busy and industrious, but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest.

The House of Manatee: Manatees are gentle, calm and cuddly. Relaxed and unflashy they represent the comfort and soft side of knitting and crochet.

The House of Monkey: Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting.

The House of Peacock: Peacocks take something good and make it brilliant. Buttons, embellishments and a bit of sparkle prove that perfection lies in the details – like a Peacock's Tail.

Which house am I? Aspects of the House of Bee fit me. I sometimes flit from one interesting project to the next. Without necessarily seeing a project through to the finish. Like all those designs I haven't written up the pattern for yet, like these shawls:




The House of Manatee isn't a bad fit either. I like traditional, oversized, comfy sweaters like my Irish Fisherman's Sweater.


But the pictures above show which house I fit best in: The House of Monkey.  "Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting." That's me. There's no such thing as too many cables in a first knitting project:


Complicated lace: bring it on.


 And don't forget that finicky picot cast-on.


 Fair Isle: a pattern that repeats would just be too easy:


Yup, that's me, always wanting to try a new technique. The more complicated, the better.


Friday, April 19, 2013

RIP Tuft




Tuft
February 14, 1996 to April 12, 2013


He was a good cat and I miss him terribly. He'd been in decline for the last year, not eating enough and a bit wobbly on his feet. His vet hadn't been able to find anything specific wrong with him, he was just old. Last week it reached the point where he was miserable so I had to say goodbye to him. It was a really hard, but I know I made the right choice, not prolonging his misery.

The last week has been rough. My apartment seems so empty without him, I find myself looking for him when I come home. And I keep running into his adorable face all over the internet. See, I'd used the picture above as my avatar on all sorts of sites: Ravelry, Craftsy, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, I keep logging in somewhere I haven't been and his little face breaks my heart all over again.  It seemed like a good idea, having a single picture that would identify me across various platforms, but in the last week I've been regretting it. I'm replacing Tuft's photo with various photos of my knitting designs, because I just can't take seeing him everywhere.