Moving to Plan B

I have suddenly realized that my ability to dream up things to knit far outstrips my inclination to sit down and knit them. This has always been true. What's novel is that now I actually do realize it.

I was having trouble finishing the base of the cat bed. Not because it's hard. Precisely the opposite. It's boring. But then it got not-so-boring. I did the decreases and got to the point of casting off, but it just didn't look right. So I frogged it and started knitting again. But it still didn't look right. I finally determined that for it to look right in the wool I was using, I'd have to knit to 12 inches before decreasing. So I did. And now I'm finished that part.

The Cat Loves Her New Bed Already



Next I ran into a problem with my idea for the sides. My idea was that I would strip the colourful kernels from all my Fancy Fur, thus turning it into Fun Fur. Well. That was before I tried actually doing it and realizing how hard it would be. I also nearly killed my cat (accidentally) when she decided to swallow some of the coloured yarn I had separated from the Fun Fur. Luckily the horrid choking noise alerted me to the problem.

Not Using the Fancy Fur for the Rim



So I went out and bought some overpriced Fun Fur. This time I got black instead of red, since I thought it would look better. Only one problem. I didn't have any cheap black acrylic yarn. So now I am using lovely, lovely Maldon from my stash instead. It is really lovely yarn, 75% wool and 25% acrylic, not splitty, not rough. And I am burying it under fun fur on a cat bed! Ah well. That's what stash is for. When you need black, you've got black.

Instead Using Fun Fur and Black Maldon



The Lopi purse seems to be completely on hold, awaiting seaming and felting and the next design decision. The purse in Bernat Felting Wool is my carry-around project, so I'm not worried about that -- except that I'm getting close to the end, where decreasing is needed, and that will require sitting down with some dedicated time and concentration to work on it, since I have to learn something other than k2tog for the decreases.

My latest obsession -- socks seem to have gone by the wayside again -- is Scribble Lace. I have long wanted to work with Matrix (it's on sale at the local store where I buy yarn, which is more of a dry goods store with an emphasis on crafting, rather than a true LYS. Since I already have two balls of Lion Brand Incredible, both in my favourite colourway "Copper Penny" but, alas, in non-matching dye lots. Anyway, all I would have to do is buy a ball of Matrix (or Trellis, or something similar) to try out that combination in scribble lace. I've seen someone's project on Ravelry and it's beautiful!

Rocketsc1ent1st's Scribble Lace*



Another good candidate for scribble lace is the Featherspun. I'm sure it would create the same effect as this pattern shows (same pattern the person used who knitted the scribble lace shown above). I'm not sure what I would use as a second yarn, though. The Featherspun I have is quite a strong blue. Come to think of it, it might not be a great idea for this pattern after all.

Anyway, the second idea I have come up with is learning to dye. I guess because I got that partial skein of natural wool at the thrift store, and I was toying with the idea of doing something to jazz it up.

Boiling it in lemon-lime kool-aid would do the trick, I think.

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* This photo belongs to Rocketsc1ent1st. Without meaning offence, there are other examples of Scribble Lace that I might have chosen over this one. However, the owner of this photo agreed to share it in situations like this, while others have "all rights reserved." Thank you Rocketsc1ent1st for sharing your photo.