Happy Halloween! 

And here is a picture of my beautiful black kitty:

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful,
because frankly I really don't care
what you think."  -- Neko

Beware the Footfalls in the Middle of the Night

You are heavily in sleep, maybe even dreaming about a beautiful place -- a yarn store? a book store? You are suddenly drawn out of that blissful state of sleep by one of the most dreaded sounds for a cat owner. Haack! Haack! Haack! Awwwwwwwk!

You know what happened. It's probably on the carpet -- or in the clean laundry basket -- or the afghan that drifted to the floor in the middle of the night.  The hair ball. You know you should get up and look for it. You are hoping that your spouse heard it too and maybe he'll get up to look for it.  Of course, he is laying there awake as well, hoping you will get up instead.

You want to go back to sleep, but then you realize you have to go to the bathroom. Once you're up, it's over. It becomes your responsibility to locate and clean up the hair ball.  Even if you don't do it now, it becomes your duty in the morning.  He will say, "Why didn't you clean it up when you got up last night." It doesn't work to say, "Ah ha! You were awake!" <<Insert domestic responsibility argument here.>>

So you get out of bed to head to the bathroom when your bare feet steps on something warm and slimy. That's it.  All sense of peace and well-being is gone. Your gross-out factor has been raised to the nth degree and you might just throw up a hairball yourself. You hop to the sink -- which in the dark is quite a feat -- to wash the goop between your toes, gagging the entire time. Still, your spouse sleeps, or pretends to sleep.  I think he might even be laughing.

As you are washing your foot in the cold water (because you can't wait until the hot water comes), a fluffy tail ribs against your other leg.  The soft and gentle meow comes from the black ball reminding you that he is hungry, and after all, you are up, and since he threw up, he now has room in his tummy for more food.

Now I'm wide awake and will never get back to sleep. My foot is cold and wet and there is still a mess on the carpet. My cat is trying to be cute and adorable so I will feed him. My spouse is laughing while pretending he is still asleep. I think the cat is laughing too.

It's a good thing Neko is so cute. My spouse -- not so much.

Another Treat of Living in Roxborough - GOATS

Roxborough is one of those Colorado communities considered the foothills. Because of that, we are always in danger of forest fires. Pike's National Park starts (or ends, depending on your perspective, at the back of our house. It is beautiful but a fire could change everything, and in several mountain and foothills communities, that has happened over the past several years.

A small slice of 400 goats by our deck.

So our neighborhood took the unusual step of protecting itself with goats. Yes, 400 male goats with horns and beards and huge appetites. This week, the goats were moved to the valley below our house and what a treat! They had no interest in the people watching them; they just wanted to munch and munch.  The sound of 400 sets of grinding teeth was amusing, but so was the 'other sounds' goats make when eating lots and lots of fiber.

Moving the goats around Roxborough

And yes, the mountain lion has been in the area and I understand the lion got one of the goats last week. The owners of the goats put up a fence around the area the goats feed in, and during the day, they are protected by dogs. They don't leave the dogs with the goats at night though, because they are too protective. All five dogs would go after the lion and possibly be hurt or killed. The goat owners said they would rather lose one goat to a lion rather than any of their well-trained and valuable dogs.

Neko is not amused with 

all the extra creatures in his valley.

They stayed in our valley for two days before moving to next area.  What was truly amazing was it took only about 15 minutes to move them out of our area. Maybe the goat subscribe to the idiom of the grass is greener.  However, from what I see, most of what they were eating was brown. After all, it is October.

Ken taking picture. I stayed on the deck.

The Revenge of the Double-Pointed Needle

To me, knitting socks has to be done on double-pointed needles. Now, don't go get up in my face about all the other ways to knit socks with circular needles, magic loops or even straight needles. There is no wrong way to knit socks. I learned as a child on double-point needles so it is easy for me to maneuver them. I am sure if I was taught by my mom and grandma to use a different method, that is what I would do. I also learned to knit continental style and that seems to be conducive to double-pointed needles.

However, there is a major problem with knitting with double-pointed needles. Sofas eat them. Needles go through the whole digestive tract of the couch and are dropped out the bottom. (That's all the illustration you need for that.)  It just amazes. I am knitting away in my comfortable blue recliner, watching Peyton Manning throw this ump-teenth pass (yes, I am a big football fan), or the bumbling detective and his brilliant girlfriend solve another murder. My cat Neko is gracing me with his presence in my lap trying to steal all the warmth from my afghan. I finished the stitches on one needle and pause to watch the replay (that was too interference! bad call by the refs), and just as the next beer commercial starts, I look down at my knitting --- and a needle has disappeared! How can that be? I feel around for it and it is gone. I didn't move! I can only figure that the arm of the sofa reached up and took it out of my hand.

And the sofa is not done playing tricks on me yet.

Sometimes -- if I'm lucky -- I find it in the folds of the afghan.  I figure that the needle got caught while being swallowed and was saved.

Sometimes -- if I'm lucky -- I find it stuck behind my ear. I know I didn't put it there.

Sometimes -- if I'm lucky -- I find it between the cushions of the couch. As I grab it from the void, I swear I can hear the couch choke and cough.

But most of the time, it's gone. Success on the part of the sofa. So I have to put my knitting down careful not to lose another needle or stick myself with the three remaining points, kick the foot rest down and disturb my  disturb my precious sleeping cat (who is not that crazy about me anyway), and crawl under the couch to retrieve it. I get my hair caught on the corner and I have stop to pull each strand away individually.  Neko is now sitting on the back of the sofa looking down at me sticking his tongue out. I know he is laughing.

Got it.  Back to the needles.

12-Step Program for Sock Knitters - Step 12

Step 12 – It is Okay to be Selfish.

Now we can all admit it. We make scarves and hats and mittens and even sweaters for other people, but we make socks for ourselves (or a loved one or two).

My Neko Socks - The only way
I can get him to cuddle with me.

Pattern by Donna Druchunas in Kitty Knits

Since socks are more time-consuming than hats or scarves, giving them as gifts must be done carefully. You don’t want to give away a pair of socks to someone who will either not wear them, or will treat them badly such as throwing into a load of wash with their kids’ grass-stained tube socks.

Do you just hate it when you sit down on the train or the bus only to see the person next to you has the exact same pair of socks?  When you make your own socks, that never happens. No one else has an pair of socks just like the ones you have on your feet right now. 

I think my biggest problem is not with socks, but rather with shoes. We go to all this trouble to make lacy or cabled or ribbed socks in beautiful colors in soft, warm yarns, and then we stick those in a smelly old shoe? I've seen clear plastic clogs to show off socks, but those don't seem practical either. Yes, I have cute loafers and a nice pair of Mary Jane shoes, but it still seems like a waste. 

So I have come to the conclusion of my 12-Step Program for Sock Addiction. I now realize that I did not cure anyone's addiction to sock knitting (nor did I really want to), but rather enabled you to carry on. Put those needles to yarn, add your yarn overs and slip, slip knits, master the kitchener stitch, and weave in those ends. Winter is coming. Make your toes happy.

So until I get hit with another subject to blog about, it's back to the needles.

12-Step Program for Sock Knitters - Step 11

Step 11 - Take personal inventory.

What else could ‘personal inventory’ mean but our Stash?  

I have so much stash that I am almost embarrassed (almost).  Don't hate me, but I don’t have a closet -- I have a stash room. 

I married an architect (32 years ago) and so I have a beautiful and unique house. When Ken built it, he actually told me this room was for my craft supplies. So I can blame my stash collection on him -- I was obligated to fill it up, right? I don’t know why he doesn't see it that way.

This is why I am convincing I will live forever because I can't possibly use all of this in my life time. SABLE, right? (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy).  Good words to life by.

The sad part is that about a third of my stash came from my mother's and my sister-in-law's stash when they passed away. It's fun, though, to make something with those skeins because I seem to think about them the entire time I am knitting.  They must be channeling their way through to my fingers, onto my needles, and holding my yarn, because every now and then, I hear my mom telling me I am knitting too loosely, or my sister-in-law praising my choice of colors. 

One of Neko's favorite hangouts
- the Yarn Room

Yes, Mom, I'm done writing.  Back to the needles. (See what I mean?)

12-Step Program for Sock Knitters - Step 10

Step 10 - Learn the value of patience with the less fortunate ones who don’t knit.

Sometimes, don't you want to just rub a dirty sock in some people's  faces? If you KIP (knit in public), you need to be ready for the stupid questions. The art of patience is the only way to dealing with the non-knitting public. Look at it instead as you are educating the public.

“No, this is not crocheting, this is knitting.”

“Yes, I am making a sock.”

“No, it is not too small.”

“Yes, I know I can buy socks at the grocery store for 1.00.” (But why would I?)

"If you have always wanted to learn how to knit, go for it. There are yarn shops all over the city giving lessons."

"Yes, I believe your grandmother did that. I'm not a grandmother, and yet I am knitting."

“I'm sorry you don’t have patience for this. It is very relaxing.”

I knit in public whenever I can. I knit on the train to and from work. I knit through committee meetings at church that I thought would never end. I knit while waiting for my dentist to finish the patient in front of me before calling me in. I knit while I am waiting for the movie to start and, if it's a simple pattern, I often knit during the movie. 

It is my way of bringing the wonderful art of knitting to the world. I am not afraid of being tagged as 21^st century Madam Defarge although I am beginning to understand her. I bet the French elite asked her dumb questions too, and see what happened to them? 

Back to the needles.

12-Step Program for Sock Knitters - Step 9

Step 9: Use meditation to improve our consciousness. 

I have never been able to just sit and meditate even though all the world seems to think this is something we should do. When I am still, my hand itch for yarn and needles. With my eyes closed and silence around me, my brain kicks into gear with my thoughts drifting to knitting. My mind's eye begins to search my file folders of online patterns to determine what I should knit next.  

“I could begin that pair of socks in green with that interesting rib that was on the cover of the new Vogue Knitting” 

or 

“Where is that red yarn that I purchased at the wool festival last year?” 

or 

“Did I use that self-striping orange yarn to knit a hat or is it still in my stash?"

I struggled with my lack of meditation skills for years until I stumbling upon a concept that may be unique to some of us knitters. 

Making socks, and even knitting in general, is a Zen experience. I get enough peace and contentment from knitting as those trying to clear their minds. I knit while thinking about the person I may knitting the piece (or would it be peace?) for: 

• My husband who has worn through the last pair of socks I made for him; 
• My friend who is pregnant with the child that she has wanted for years;
• My cousin who says she looks terrible in hats until she tries on the one I made for her;
• My son who requested another pair of felted slippers since his apartment gets too cold.

Yeah, this is more my style of meditation. Maybe I can't help inner peace that much, but I can help with inner warmth of the people I love.

Back to the needles.

12-Step Program for Sock Knitters - Step 8

Step 8 - Help others who suffer from the same compulsions.  

I’ll say it again. Ravelry!

A good deal of Ravelry revolves around knitting socks. I entered 'socks' in the pattern search engine and the count was 27,079, a number that will change before I finish writing this blog entry. There are also groups dedicated solely to sock knitting (839 at last count), not to mention all the articles about sock knitting techniques. So if you haven't tried sock knitting yet, it's time to stick your toe in, and soon you will become a well-heeled sock knitter.

There is something about sock knitting that is truly addictive. Remember, however, that there is nothing wrong with being obsessed with sock knitting. Pick up a skein of sock yarn saturated with bright colors in green, gold, and pink, and try not to imagine how they would look on your feet. 

And what you get cold, what is the first part of your body that feels it? When a chill settles in the air, it is an unimaginable pleasure to slip on a pair of wool socks. Suddenly your feet are happy, the warmth spreading up to your legs on into your entire body. Your toes stop feeling like ten individual ice cubes at the end of your feet, and combine into a single block of warmth.

But then, you already knew that.

Back to the needles.

12-Step Program for Socks Knitters - Step 7

Step 7: Be ready to remove the defects of our character. 

This one is easy. The defect in your sock addiction character is not trying new styles or stitches. I like to knit socks from the cuff down, but every now and then, I do one from the toe up, or I try a new heel style. There is no such thing as failure when knitting socks.

• It is not a sign of failure to admit that the sock you are making just doesn't seem right.  (See my post of July 30, 2013) is not a sign of failure to see an error in the cuff of your sock after you have completed the heel.
• It is not a sign of failure to put your sock aside and come back to it later.
• It is not a sign of failure to have several single socks finished without casting on the second one.

This is where making amends comes in. At this point, you have to make a decision: Frog the sock and correct the mistake, or let it go and call it a design choice. 

(Please know that I recognize the difficulty of working through a 12-step program and only have respect and admiration for people who are struggling and/or succeeded.)