Cat attacks water-filtration

National Geographic visits my dining table, in a battle of demon-cat versus filtered water.

If you look closely, you can see that Mack is actually trying to unhinge his jaw a la predatory snake in order to swallow the water-filtration pitcher whole.
However, as this attempt was not successful he decided to consume the water-filtration system one nibble at a time, beginning with the flap that covers the pour spout.

Craftster's Summertime Anklet Swap

I also participated in a swap on Craftster.org and made some anklets:

Anklet Swap #1
Assortment of blue/purple beads with matching earrings.

Anklet Swap #2
A simple macrame knot with beads interspersed and an interchangeable crochet flower or butterfly.
They arrived safely and hopefully the recipient liked them!

I've been busy, sort-of...

I haven't been doing much knitting or crocheting recently, just slowly plodding along on "I Do" (knit in the round without purl rounds...so far so good) I have made a lot of jewelry though...All the below were made as going-away presents for friends, since I will soon be moving out of the city and back to good ol' NC for med school...

Vine Anklet


Assemblage necklace


Retro bracelet

Green Lariat

My latest obsession is making jewelry. Mostly because I found all these cute charms qat Metalliferous and I wanted to do something wth them. I present: my first "assemblage"--not terribly creative, as I pretty much just looked at my doodads and stuck on whichever green ones I could find, plus a bonus brass pistol. I'm pretty happy with it, though. I've been really into green lately.

My new organizer!

$3, from the evil-yet-irresistable Wal-Mart. It's got two bonus organizers on top. Much better than the shoebox and fruitcake tin I was using before.

The Thousand-dollar Kitty.
In non-craft-related news, I've been having a heck of a scare involving my big orange baby who's living with my parents.
Yesterday my parents called to say the cat was at the vet because she couldn't eat or drink anything--every time she'd try she'd vomit it back up immediately. The vet couldn't figure out what was wrong with her--her labs and x-rays were normal aside from showing gastric dilation. Anyway, long story short, I've been horrendously anxious for the past two days and we ended up spending around $1300 on all the testing and endoscopy to do what?
Remove a 3-inch piece of grass that had gotten stuck between her nasal and oral areas.
So now we've become one of those crazy families that spend large amounts of money on their pets. But how could we possibly have done differently? If she had cancer or some geriatric degenerative disease, I would consider just putting her down to avoid a drawn-out suffering. But this--she was otherwise healthy (albeit very hungry). How could you say no to this face?

This kitty was the first pet I ever got that didn't live in a cage or tank. She meant so much to me and still does. Look at us both as awkward young-uns:

I'm such a softie.

AAARG.

Ugh. No picture because I got a whole pattern repeat into I Do before I realized I'm stupid. I glanced at the instructions and read them as "decrease at the end of each pattern repeat" rather than "decrease at end of last repeat of each round." If I had stopped to think, I would have realized that my interpretation would be ridiculously wrong considering the rest of the instructions. So...I ripped a lot on the train. Uuur!
I'm also seriously HATING the purl rows of the repeat. I'm considering doing version 1.1 using only knit. Maybe I'm purling into YOs wrong...and the p3tog is a pain...altogether taking too much time and effort--I feel like I'm doing to break my needles doing them!
Let's see how tomorrow's train ride goes...

Motorcycle Earrings

Made from:
-Sterling silver "add-a-bead" hoops
-Mixed tiny glass beads
-Pewter motorcycle charms
An easy project. I just wanted to make something immediately out of these adorable motorcycle charms I got today.

Huzzah!

Good lord.
I didn't go in to work because of a doctor's appointment, so I stopped by Metalliferous and blew $50 on jewelry findings and beads. And I was being VERY VERY good.

She did what?!

Yes, I started yet another WIP. This time it's another Vegan Fox in more regular-fox colors. I'm using the same yarns as for my Arctic fox. The Bernat Fur Out has a flammability recall, but that was only for garments made wholly of that yarn (yuck!), and I liked how it really enhanced the texture of the piece. I'll just warn the recipient not to lean over candles while wearing it.

Oh, and since I'm prioritizing the fox and hallowig (gifts) the poor Adrienne Vittadini Lace & Ruffle Cardigan is getting put on hold. Sigh. I SO want to work on it!!!

Hallowig Progress

modeled by photo tree, inspected by cat.

I'm doing the bangs and crown of the hallowig using the magic loop with Denise needles. While I love this technique, I don't know if the Denises are quite the ideal needles to be using--the yarn gets caught up on all the joins.
See! I AM knitting, not just playig with feral cats!

The Blog for my Crazy Cat Lady side

What's this?!


I've got a new project. One that doesn't involve yarn. Check it out at
feralproject.blogspot.com

I am totally nuts.

Works in planning

This is me, playing with yarn for I Do. I have some Patons Cotton DK left over from Cleo that I think should be just enough for this project. I hope. But since I just cast on for Hallowig and that's a priority, I'm not going to start this yet!

Hallowig?!

Oh, no! I cast-on for Hallowig! It's a little too early for Halloween, but I have a friend who could use one.

New FO Gallery

I just reformatted my Finished Projects into a gallery of sorts. Check it out!
Unfortunately, for some reason, the table formatting is causing a huge space before each table. I really have no idea what is causing this and I'm just going to ignore it for now. Will you please do the same? (Or, if you have helpful suggestions, please send them my way!)

Happy Birthday to me!

Goats
To celebrate my birthday, we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival @ the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Fleece Festival at the Prospect Park Zoo.
Despite our missing the sheep shearing *sniffle*, I had a fantastic time.

Prarie Dogs
We fed goats, learned how to spin wool using a drop spindle, pretended to be prarie dogs, walked over lily pads, I hatched out of an egg, and a wallaby hopped across our path.

Wallaby
Then SO made us all a big italian dinner and we ate lots and fell asleep on the sofa.
Oh, and last night I had the best dinner EVER at Bouley. Run, don't walk. (But try to have someone else foot the bill ;-)