Monday, December 19, 2005

Secret Santa Spoilt Me

As mentioned before, my knitting group did Secret Santa at our last get together and the lovely Cindy was my Secret Santa and boy did she spoil me rotten, just look at these lovelies:

A sock tote, handmade by
Cindy, just the thing for taking your latest sock project with you wherever you go. I think she should start selling these as they are so handy.

Some lovely little Christmas buttons and an ornament for my Christmas tree, hand stitched what's more!! But wait there is more

These beautiful socks that she knitted for me as well and there are some lovely little cat paw patterns knitted in which doesn't show up in the photo, she had made them with Tabby in mind but now these socks will be in memory of two little cats. Cindy said that she found the pattern on the internet that someone had designed to use in memory of their beloved cat who had died. So a huge big thankyou to my Secret Santa, who is no longer a secret, your lovely gifts are very much appreciated. There was one more thing in my parcel but they are long gone in a family of five who had visitors over the weekend, some divine chocolate fudge YUM!!

Now would you believe it, I was Secret Santa to Cindy so now I can reveal what I had been working on for her, if you know her then you will know that she only wears green in all its delightful shades so that was easy and then she mentioned once that she was really starting to like scarves so together with my favourite stitch pattern in the whole world here is the end result.


Last but definately not least a huge big hug from me to everyone who has left me kind messages about the little kitten, you have confirmed what I always knew that knitters are the most generous, caring people, it must be all that love that we put into our creations. God bless you all and thankyou from the bottom of my heart.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Little Tiger Didn't Make It

I was going to post about our final Stitch and Bitch meeting for the year and about the wonderful presents that my secret santa made for me but as the title suggests the little kitten didn't pull through despite my best efforts. He didn't suck the best and it was rather difficult feeding him, maybe that is why his mother abandoned him in the first place, it is amazing how animals have this sense of when their offspring are too weak too survive.
Rest in peace little Tiger.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Look What Found Us



You may remember a few weeks back our beloved cat Tabby disappeared and that I had promised my kids that after the Christmas/New Year period we would go and pick out a new kitten. Would you believe that a stray cat decided to dump a 2-3 week old kitten in our garage and do a runner, I am sure there is a sign out the front of our house in cat language saying stray cats wanted we would love to take you in, as every cat we have ever owned in this house has been a stray. Well anyway getting back to this little 'tiger' he is being fed with a bottle of special kitten formula, which is a slow process but as in the photo he has taken to the teddy that the kids put in his bed and sucks on that for comfort and the bottle for food only. He may or may not survive but we are certainly hoping that he will. So please excuse my lack of knitting posts as I have found my knitting has taken a back seat to this little fellow until I get him over the next couple of weeks.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Rowan Denim

I borrowed Fishermen's Sweaters by Alice Starmore from the library last year and went into raptures over Mystic, which became a 'must knit.'

It has a beautiful aran pattern complete with knitted anchors and is knitted in Rowan Denim and the pattern requires 25 balls which I thought at the time 'no problem I will find where I can get some from and knit it up.' Ha!! who was I kidding, to buy it here in Australia it was going to cost well over $300 plus postage, so that idea went straight out the window and the book went back to the library. Yes I could have knitted in other yarn but as the jumper was designed for that specific yarn and as Rowan Denim shrinks considerably I wasn't game enough to modify the pattern. So Mystic was going to be shelved indefinately, or so I thought, then I discovered THIS EBAY STORE in the UK. While still being a very expensive yarn, I could buy it for less than half the price of buying it within Australia, including postage from the UK. I showed DH and he said to go ahead and order it if I wanted it, which I did straight away before he changed his mind.

It has arrived and although I am very tempted to cast on, I must finish all UFO's first and besides as Mystic has such a seaside theme it will be a perfect holiday project and being 100% cotton should be quite okay to knit over summer. I have said to DH that it can be my Christmas present this year as nothing else could top Rowan Denim, now only a knitter would say that!!!!