I'm finally up to date on reading old Knitlist messages and they had an interesting discussion on knitting guilt. I never feel guilty for knitting fortunately. I have a relatively clean house (as clean as it can be with all these pets) and plenty of time that I'd prefer not to spend on housecleaning. I think the key to keeping a house clean with the minimum amount of work is to be organized and reduce clutter. I have friends with cluttered houses who spend hours and hours cleaning each week and I can never really tell. I purposely don't have a lot of furniture and decorative doodads and everything has a place. Of course moving a lot helps you get rid of stuff also.





DH wants to get me an Ott-Lite for my birthday and it is definitely about time because there are already many knitting tasks (like seaming) that I've given up doing at night. I'm off to look at all the different styles and see if I can find a sale somewhere. Here's a photo of the view I look at from my knitting spot on the couch. The Russian olives have leaves on them now finally.

Bunny Fun Felted Rabbit

I am a huge admirer of Katharine Hepburn's work. She always played intelligent, fearless women and Bringing Up Baby and Philadelphia Story are two of my favorite movies of all time. She will be greatly missed. I'm hoping they'll rerun some of her movies this week in her honor so I can knit while enjoying her talents all over again.




I have received word from Jackie at HeartstringFiberArts and Bev Galeskas at Fiber Trends that I can use their designs for my rabbit shelter knitting project (Jackie's Knitted Bunny from a square and Fiber Trend's Bunny Fun felted rabbit - photo above). I'm impressed with the nice responses I've gotten from the four designers of rabbit-themed patterns and how happy they were to let me knit some of them in honor of Flip the big black wonderbunny.

I also received a note from John & Hillary Benish at Alderson Hospitality House. Here it is verbatim: "Dear Nanette, Thank you so much for the donation of yarn and materials for the women at the prison. We know they will occupy idle hours, learn skills, and give back to the community. Gratefully, John & Hillary."

If you would like to donate yarn or magazines or patterns (any kind greatly needed including partial skeins of any fiber yarn) to be used by women prisoners to knit for various charities, please send it to The Prison Yarn Project, Alderson Hospitality House, P.O. Box 579, Alderson, WV 24910.

Norwegian Selbu Star Gloves

Every now and then a knitting project comes along that I really enjoy and that works out really well. These are the Norwegian Selbu Star gloves from Knitting in the Nordic Tradition by Vibeke Lind (page 112) done in Country Garden DK made for DH. They are my favorite FO of 2002. They are soft and warm and I really like the way they look on DH.



One of my pet peeves is the way glove patterns have all four fingers start on exactly the same row. I've never seen a hand that looks like that so I changed the pattern so that the gloves will be more anatomically correct. You can see that the pinky starts right at the end of the hand pattern but that I did extra rows of black to accommodate the other fingers.

What will be my favorite FO of 2003? So far it is St. Enda but the year isn't over. Could be Malin, could be something else I haven't even started yet. I'm finally past the ribbing on Malin and am really getting into it.

It seems I spoke too soon about the fires in Albuquerque being out - tonight they started again in several places (arson) along the bosque and are bigger and threatening homes and livestock. We're far away on the other side of the Sandia mountains so no smoke here yet.



I did get a little work done today on Malin's ribbing. I do really enjoy using Cascade 220 for textured work and am going to buy some more for another Starmore sweater soon. I am also on my third bunnies & carrots hat. I'm still working on my handspun cat fur scarf and it is really going to be pretty. I've also tried to spin some of Snickerdoodle's fur and can get something halfway decent from his short fur if I use a spindle. It isn't a great yarn but is certainly durable enough to make something to remember him by. I may make a little bell and then do the same with some of Flip's fur I've saved. I think it is kind of neat to have something tactile to help remember a beloved pet.

Currently the beautiful bosque along the Rio Grande river is on fire (they suspect fireworks). I think it is contained now but all those beautiful centuries-old cottonwoods are gone. And in a tree-deprived place like Albuquerque that is really a loss. We used to enjoy walking there and visiting the Rio Grande Nature Center where they had to evacuate a lot of rescued wildlife tonight. Fortunately no occupied homes burned but I should really close the windows because I can smell smoke.



I'm amazed at how much more time I now have. I guess I was spending several hours a day tending to sick Flip. I'd like to adopt another special needs rabbit (disabled or chronically ill) that needs more attention one day but not for a while. I think maybe I'm going to like all this extra knitting time and we'd like to do more traveling to see all our friends in Colorado.



I've been impatiently waiting for my Sweaterscapes landscape socks pattern book so I can start an intarsia project. Now I'm also noticing a craving to do some real Fair Isle. I may order the Shetland 2000 to make the Ron Schweitzer Pine Forest vest pattern or perhaps the new Kirman sweater kit from Nancy's Knit Knacks. Kirman is knit on size 1 needles though and I'm not quite sure I'm up for that right now. Isn't it pretty though? I really like the colors and it is a decent price also for a sweater kit with that many different colors.



Jack the cat is thoroughly sick of all the focus on rabbits and feels only extra-large cats named Jack should be discussed from now on. Our cats aren't outdoors cats but I put him outside to take his photo with my outdoor only camera.

Here's a bag I made years ago from Euroflax Linen. Patternworks included the pattern free when I bought the yarn and it was called the French market bag. Boy is Euroflax strong - we've loaded this up with heavy library books many times and there is no sign of fraying.









I need to get to work on the bottom patterning of Trondheim. Then I'll have all that boring plain solid color stockinette for mindless knitting for an upcoming trip to Colorado. I'm still doing the Malin bottom ribbing (I'm working on both front and back simultaneously) but finally have the concentration skills back to finish that up and get started on the main patterns of the body.



I started the Blackberry Ridge pet socks in some stash Country Garden DK and I've decided to duplicate stitch the rabbits this time. The main color for the socks was on sale at Smiley's Yarn and is called "shrimp". A truly odd color. I'm using this charity knitting to try to get rid of lots of odd colors in the stash.

I had an email conversation with the Chapter Manager of the Colorado House Rabbit Society where there are hundreds of pet rabbits awaiting adoption. I asked her about ways I can help the shelter bunnies from afar and she asked for bunny-themed knitted items for their gift shop, auctions, and fundraisers. Now that I can do. If any of you know of any rabbit-related knitting patterns of any kind, please email me at nanetteb@compuserve.com.



I've already contacted several pattern writers for permission to use patterns to knit and send to the CO HRS. I was lucky enough to receive permission from Anne Bosch of Blackberry Farm to knit and donate the rabbit socks from the Pet Socks Pattern and from Barb Telford of Woodsmoke Woolworks to knit and donate her adorable bunnies and carrots hat. Barb also said I could use her other patterns for this purpose so I may also be making her bunnies and carrots baby sweater once I order the pattern.



While searching for more rabbit-related patterns to knit, I chanced upon the most interesting web site called VIP Fibers. They have a whole page of free knitting and crochet patterns for your handspun pet fur HERE including a knitted picture frame. VIP Fibers is a business with 4 employees that does custom pet fur spinning, knitting & weaving. There is a gorgeous Persian cat fur woven pillow. They also sell yarns so this is your big chance to buy a skein of Cocker Spaniel yarn.



Here's my first attempt at the bunnies and carrots hat in Lamb's Pride. As you can see there are tension issues with my stranding efforts between each rabbit. This weekend I made two more versions of this hat and I've decided not to strand but instead to leave long floats instead. I figure long floats really don't matter in a hat as much as they would in mittens or socks.