The Undeserved Cat Toy!
Jan. 20th, 2012 02:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melredcap(crossposted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
knitting)
Recipe for a grouchy Mel:
1. Be ill. (This is always a good start. Some sort of icky crud that combines stuffed-up sinuses with an oogly stomach should work.)
2. Start knitting something small and complicated. (Socks, perhaps - so much for me not really liking handknit socks, hah - something toe-up in self-patterning yarn that you really like, trying out a simple pattern.)
3. Have the cat 'help' by stealing your wool, the sock toe in progress, the wool again, a different ball of wool, one end of the circular needle, the wool again. Complicate this by being in a bunk bed (my Fortress of Solitude in my study, used when hubby is snoring or I'm ill enough to be grumpy), so that the cat can leap down to the floor and get a minute of uninterrupted scragging time with your wool before you can retrieve it. This is a great game from the cat's point of view.
4. At some point during stage 3, you're not sure when, have the cat chew through some of your wool. Don't notice this until the chewed spot is four rows down in the pattern and you're about 1/4 of the way into the sock foot.
5. Notice the chewed spot. Poke at it cautiously with one finger. Have half the sock disintegrate into yarn ramen.
6. Swear.
Recipe for a cheered-up Mel:
1. Decide you wanted to change something about the sock anyway.
2. Unravel the ramen-ed sock toe and rewind the wool, while sternly eyeing the cat who is crouched at the end of the bed looking cute. Decide she looks really cute.
3. Remember this free pattern that you wanted to try out anyway.
4. Knit the Undeserved Cat Toy...
...which looks like this.
Knit with suspiciously pre-chewed-looking sock wool oddments, stuffed with fibrefill.
Observe the innocent-looking kitteh. (Please note that almost everything in that picture that is NOT a cat is something that she's swiped to play with.)
Approximately 0.25 seconds after I tossed her the toy. It's in there somewhere.
Blurred action shot of kitteh playing fetch! (I never taught her, honest - she just does it.)
"Throw it again, mummy!"
knitting)Recipe for a grouchy Mel:
1. Be ill. (This is always a good start. Some sort of icky crud that combines stuffed-up sinuses with an oogly stomach should work.)
2. Start knitting something small and complicated. (Socks, perhaps - so much for me not really liking handknit socks, hah - something toe-up in self-patterning yarn that you really like, trying out a simple pattern.)
3. Have the cat 'help' by stealing your wool, the sock toe in progress, the wool again, a different ball of wool, one end of the circular needle, the wool again. Complicate this by being in a bunk bed (my Fortress of Solitude in my study, used when hubby is snoring or I'm ill enough to be grumpy), so that the cat can leap down to the floor and get a minute of uninterrupted scragging time with your wool before you can retrieve it. This is a great game from the cat's point of view.
4. At some point during stage 3, you're not sure when, have the cat chew through some of your wool. Don't notice this until the chewed spot is four rows down in the pattern and you're about 1/4 of the way into the sock foot.
5. Notice the chewed spot. Poke at it cautiously with one finger. Have half the sock disintegrate into yarn ramen.
6. Swear.
Recipe for a cheered-up Mel:
1. Decide you wanted to change something about the sock anyway.
2. Unravel the ramen-ed sock toe and rewind the wool, while sternly eyeing the cat who is crouched at the end of the bed looking cute. Decide she looks really cute.
3. Remember this free pattern that you wanted to try out anyway.
4. Knit the Undeserved Cat Toy...
...which looks like this.
Knit with suspiciously pre-chewed-looking sock wool oddments, stuffed with fibrefill.
Observe the innocent-looking kitteh. (Please note that almost everything in that picture that is NOT a cat is something that she's swiped to play with.)
Approximately 0.25 seconds after I tossed her the toy. It's in there somewhere.
Blurred action shot of kitteh playing fetch! (I never taught her, honest - she just does it.)
"Throw it again, mummy!"
