Caturday: British Bakes

We have brand new kittens so I’m a little tired. Forgive me if this is a mess. Anyway, this isn’t about those kittens. This is about the previous kittens. The British Bakes. We got a request for fostering a mama with three 6 day old kittens back in the beginning of February. We hadn’t been planning on taking on a mama as we have to close off the main bedroom suite for that and the resident cats hate that. However, we were desperate for kittens, so we took it.

We collected the babies and mama and got them home. As soon as mama came out of the carrier we noticed something odd. She had only half a tail! At first we wondered if it was an injury like Ivan had, but soon we noticed all the kittens had little stubs for tails too, so they’re part Manx! Mama cat had the prettiest golden eyes too, and a beautiful medium to long gray and white coat. She is VERY sweet and like pets and made lots of biscuits so we named her Biscuit.

A gray and white cat with half a tail and a medium coat with gold eyes staring at the camera from behind an open carrier door.

We decided since they were Manx we should name them after British things, and since mom was Biscuit we should name them all after baked goods. The gray tabby boy is Shortbread, the gray and white girl is Teacake, and the brown tabby girl is Crumpet.

Mama cat laying down in a nest of blankets licking her lips as one gray tabby kitten nurses and the gray and white and brown tabby kitten rest between her front paws.

At first Biscuit was content with the blanket nest we made in a bin with a heating pad, but soon the predictable happened. She moved them. To the favorite spot of all mamas – the covered litter box house. There’s a litter box inside a furniture piece with a lid that is the perfect hidey hole for new mamas. We really should have anticipated this and moved the litter box out and put in blankets from the start. Instead we moved the kittens out, removed the litter box, set up a nest and put them back. We don’t particularly like them staying in there as the cats were not always careful with their aim in there and the walls and floor smell like pee. Whatever, if you want to sleep in a stinky box with your kittens I guess that’s your prerogative, Biscuit. 

Mama Biscuit in the litter box cover with all three kittens on a blanket.

As an aside, Biscuit didn’t like change and whenever we would move the kittens or change her environment she would poop in the sink. Weird, but not that inconvenient, easy enough to clean up.

Soon we noticed a problem. One kitten, Teacake had a favorite nipple all to herself, but Crumpet and Shortbread always fought over one particular nipple and they never branched out to the other nipples. We inspected Biscuit carefully (and she was so good) and we found that all but two of her nipples were so crusted over with milk that there was no way they could get anything out of them! It took us about a day to A) figure out how to get the crusts off (the answer is vegetable oil) and B) to actually work the crusts off with Biscuit sitting still long enough to let us do it. Again, she was so good, but even she had her limits when it came to rubbing and tugging at her nipples. By the time we got them all decrusted it seemed they had all dried up! Now, it’s possible (and even probable) she didn’t have much milk to begin with in those nipples, but there certainly was something otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten crusted. This just highlights the need for immediate fostering for new moms. I don’t know why they waited 6 days to place them when they had limited shelter staff to watch for problems like this.

Anyway, a few days pass and they start slowly opening their eyes. My sister noticed a hair sticking out of Teacake’s eye and pulled it free only to have pus pour out of it! We called the shelter several times but it was the weekend and no one was returning our calls. Finally we just had to take them to vet ourselves, as we needed an antibiotic for Teacake’s eye and we had concerns about how much milk Biscuit was producing. We acquired the antibiotic and confirmed that no, Biscuit was not producing nearly enough milk. So we had to supplement with bottle feeding.

A brown tabby kitten (Crumpet) getting bottle fed while wrapped in a blanket.

Teacake, a gray and white kitten, milk drunk, with her head hanging backwards and her mouth open.

Luckily, Biscuit never outright rejected her kittens. She continued to feed them what she could and clean their butts so we didn’t have to do that part. It’s a good thing she kept feeding them too because these kittens were difficult to feed. They Would. Not. Latch. Ever. Not once the whole time we fed them did they latch and suckle on their own. They relied on us pumping formula into their mouths and then swallowing it.

Shortbread, a gray tabby kitten, looking grumpy/sleepy wrapped in a blanket with a bottle being held off to the side.

It was rough going at first, feeding every 3 hours, and with them being confined to mom’s room she got zero sleep during this time. Normally with bottle babies we keep them out in the living room so the bedrooms are free for sleeping when you’re not on shift. Not so with these special snowflakes. They still needed mommy. And Biscuit LOVED her babies. When we first started feeding them she’d constantly be trying to take them away from us. Eventually she begrudgingly let us do our jobs.

Biscuit holding Shortbread and Teacake under her front paw while laying down on the bed.

Another oddity about these babies was that they kept their umbilical cords for the longest time. I think it was about 2 weeks. Usually they lose them within the first week. I was worried they’d get caught on something and cause a hernia. They were super long too, but we got vet permission to trim them a bit. They did eventually come off though and everything was fine.

Shortbread on his back wiggling around with a short length of umbilical cord sticking out of his belly.

When they were about 3 weeks old we felt comfortable enough to move them from the litter box cover and into a playpen and put out the honey pot houses. These are technically guinea pig houses, but kittens loved them, and these kittens took to them right away. They used them so much that Biscuit felt a bit put out. They needed to learn how to use litter boxes though so we HAD to take away the litter box cover they had been hiding in. They were getting too mobile to be contained there anymore. We just decided to move the cover out of the room entirely.

Crumpet laying on her side inside the yellow honey pot.

They still refused to go potty on their own though. Either that or Biscuit just wouldn’t let them. They could also have been holding out for a bigger litter box too, as they started to use it a bit when we swapped boxes as they got more steady on their feet. 

We also started bringing them out to the living room to visit the other cats and get them all used to the idea of having kittens around again.

Stella, a long haired gray Ragdoll, sniffing noses with a kitten as another toddles around nearby.

Since we fed Biscuit in the same room as the kittens, they were exposed to big kitty food early. Shortbread was the first to stick his face in mama’s food dish at about 3.5 weeks old, so we started introducing them to wet food then. They took to it pretty much right away, and we didn’t even need to mix it with formula!

All three kittens standing in front of boat shaped dishes full of wet food, but only Teacake has her face in it and is eating.

Again, about a week later, Shortbread was the first to start trying out the dry food, so we started setting that out as well. And again, they took to it right away. These kittens were pretty easy!

Soon we ran into another problem though. There was a herpes outbreak. Now, this isn’t a huge deal, but it can be unsightly. We video chatted with a vet who confirmed the herpes diagnosis and said as long as the discharge didn’t turn green or yellow indicating a bacterial infection, there wasn’t much we could do except clean their eyes daily. Teacake had it the worst. It causes a brown discharge from the eye and if not cleaned up can cause ulcers on the eye. The other kittens mostly got over it, but one of Teacake’s eyes never really cleared up. She HATED having us clean it up with clean water and a Q-tip. She acted like we were pouring acid into her eye. So dramatic.

Teacake’s face in profile showing a brown discharge coming from her eye and extending underneath the eye.

They started to get more coordinated (they seemed a little behind on that front – could have been the lack of a tail for balance), and started to play more!

Shortbread on his side with his head upside down chewing on a rainbow catnip toy.

Crumpet standing and facing the camera, with one paw perched triumphantly on top of the rainbow catnip toy.

They started taking to sleeping under recliners though which is always a dangerous move. In trying to get Crumpet out from under a recliner for mealtime or something she got pinched and screamed. She got grease all over her fur, lost a little patch of fur, and had a bruise. Poor Crumpet. So the answer to getting grease out of fur is…more grease. Vegetable oil to be exact. Then you have to wash with soapy water to get the oil out. It took several washings to get everything out but we finally got her cleaned up. She never did learn though, she continued to go under the recliners. So we just had to have a rule that no one could touch the reclining function unless the kittens were put away.

Crumpet’s side with wet fur showing a small patch that is missing fur. She is laying on a towel.

Crumpet’s face poking out from inside a towel looking grumpy.

At about 7 weeks old we pulled them from mama Biscuit’s room so she could dry up the rest of the way. We set up the playpen out in the living room and let the kittens roam free most of the time. At first they just stuck to the same 10 foot square that they were used to for their visits out in the living room. They really weren’t very curious about the rest of the house. Eventually though they did start to explore some and soon were joining mom in the office.

Crumpet sitting on the desk next to a computer mouse in front of a computer monitor.

Shortbread laying on a blanket in the extra computer chair which was put out specifically for kitties.

The big kitties started to get more used to the kittens being around all the time and even started grooming them and playing with them.

Teacake laying in the window getting her face licked by Stella.

Finally about a week after we pulled them, it was time to send Biscuit back to the shelter to get spayed. She had been such a sweet cat with lots of personality. She liked to rearrange your hair whenever you laid down, was constantly chirping in a sweet voice, and loved being held. We let her say goodbye to her babies before she left. She cleaned them and chirped at them a lot and they purred at her. They also demolished the last of her food, lol.

Biscuit looking up at the camera standing in front of Teacake and Shortbread who are eating from her food dishes.

We kept the babies for about another week after Biscuit left. Here are some of the last pictures we took.

All three kittens laying on a cat tower shelf looking like a band cover.

Crumpet standing in front of a track toy looking at the camera.

Shortbread laying on his side looking at the camera holding a blue furry ball.

Teacake laying amongst her siblings with her head wrenched back looking content.

As soon as we dropped off the kittens at the shelter they went up on the adoption site. They did not have their cute names listed, not sure why as we had turned in their profiles the day before and they knew we were coming, but they had just updated they whole system. The next day they were gone, so they all got adopted!

Biscuit just had her spay surgery this week and should be up for adoption next week. You can look for her here if you’re local. She may not be under the name Biscuit. Like I said, the shelter just updated their whole system so they may not have connected her with her profile yet. I hope they have though.

FO Friday: Pirra Necklace

I finished the necklace! It’s a nice quick project, even with all that beading slowing it down. The beading at the ends of the shorter sections got in the way of the wrapping a bit, the pattern had a wider band of wrapping around each edge, but it worked out. If I were to make this again I’d leave the first inch or so of the shorter lengths unbeaded on each end. The finishing was a bit fiddly to do, but didn’t take very long. Again, the pattern is Pirra Necklace by Ambah O’Brien, and I modified the pattern to use beads.

Image Description: A three strand i-cord necklace in tan with color blocked blue sections on two of the strands. All strands are beaded with clear sparkly and orange frosted beads. It is being worn by a model with a tan shirt.

WIP Wednesday: Pirra Necklace

My mom was pre-packing for a trip and discovered a gap in her jewelry collection. She wanted something longish that would coordinate with the outfits she picked out for the trip. I presented several knitted necklace options and she picked out the Pirra Necklace by Ambah O’Brien. But she wanted it beaded too, so I am following some modified instructions from Galatea by Sivia Harding (caution: the link to the pattern on her site goes to Ravelry). Instead of beading every round which would be way too many beads for what mom wants, I’m beading every third row. 

Then I got out all my solid and semi-solid scraps to show her and she picked out a tan and a blue. Then I got out beads and she picked out a combo of clear sparkly beads and a sprinkling of orange frosted beads.

So I got to work. First I swatched (yes, I swatched an icord) to make sure the difference in texture between the two yarns wasn’t too jarring and to get the bead placement right. See, one of the yarns is a single ply camel/silk, and the other is a 3-ply wool/tencel. The single ply was a bit tricky to pull through the beads as it wasn’t a particularly tight twist, but I persevered.

Here’s the progression over the last few days.

Image description: A two inch length of tan i-cord with clear sparkly and orange beads, still on the circular needle.

Image description: A 17 inch coiled tan i-cord with clear sparkly and orange beads, still on a circular needle

Image description: A 26 inch length of coiled tan i-cord and a 7 inch length of i-cord, half tan half blue, both with clear sparkly and orange beads. The blue section is still on circular needles. There are lots of ends to weave in.

The bead placement took some doing to figure out. I wanted them to spiral around the i-cord but only every 3rd row, and every 3rd bead would be orange. So I wrote out the instructions for the whole length of the necklace. It was too much to keep track of without writing it down.

I’m also modifying the pattern to be 1 inch longer all around.

Image description: A journal page with pattern notes and line by line instructions for bead placement.

Image description: A journal page with pattern notes and line by line instructions for bead placement.

I started with 2 plain rounds. I realized later that the first bead round should have been round 0, not 1, but whatever. I fixed it on the next section of i-cord. Now I just need to figure out how to weave in ends on i-cord. I think I just need to secure the first stitch and then thread it through the middle. I’ll play with it.

WIP Wednesday: The Cursed Sock Part 2

The sock strikes again. I’m now on the second sock, the right foot, which has completely different charts. In addition to the math not working out for the repeating section of the top of foot chart I have found two mistakes so far. First there’s a line of four purl stitches in the middle of the cable pattern that should be knit stitches on row 17. Then on row 31 there’s a missing decrease before the cable pattern starts. It’s the only way that row makes sense.

I looked through the project notes on Ravelry for many of the projects from this pattern and NO ONE mentions these mistakes. Am I the only one knitting the small size? I didn’t really check on that factor that I remember. Was everyone else so enamored with the designer that they were loathe to correct her and just quietly made the corrections themselves? Am I the victim of gaslighting? Who knows.

Pattern once again is Legolas Socks by Claire Ellen. DO NOT knit these unless you really know what you’re doing and know how to fudge things to make them work and find and correct mistakes in charts. I’ve been told I’d be a good test knitter/tech editor. This was clearly not tech edited. I’m hate-knitting it at this point.

[Image description: a green cabled sock with the cable traveling in a spiral around the leg and foot sitting on a blue-clad knee]

Accessibility

With the recent Ravelry debacle, there’s been much discussion about accessibility on the web. We all know by now that Ravelry is the example of what NOT to do and that most other websites do better. But I realized I don’t know anything about how accessible this blog is. I haven’t had any visual problems with the web EVER, so I have no idea what line spacing, fonts, white space, etc. that are accessible vs. inaccessible look like.

So, dear readers, how is this blog doing? Is WordPress a decent site for you? Is there somewhere else better I can host this blog?

I know one thing I can do is add image descriptions to all the photos I post and I can do that from now on.

How does this blog look for screen readers? I know literally nothing about how screen readers work.

Any other tips from WordPress users on how to make this blog easier to read for those with visual/neurological impairments? Is there certain formatting I’m not aware of? I always use the “Classic” block for the text because it’s the only one I know (I’m old and haven’t adapted to changes in the site).

Is there some sort of plain language guide out there to making blogs accessible?

WIP Wednesday: The Cursed Sock

I’ve been focusing on these socks all week. I already told you about how the chart symbols were confusing and the chart for the heel flap didn’t have wrong side instructions in the legend. Well, it got worse. I was aware that the charts for the small and large sizes for the top of foot were reversed, so I didn’t get tripped up there. No, the chart itself doesn’t work. About 10-15 rounds early you run out of room for the repeating pattern on the left side. I was able to fudge it, but it almost started wrapping the cable around to the bottom of the foot! I seriously don’t think this was test knit. At least not the small size. I really hope the rest of the patterns aren’t like this. It’s one of many in an e-book I bought. Anyway, I persevered and am now working on the second sock. Here’s the whole first sock:

And here’s where I’m at now with the second sock:

Also, in digging through project notes on this pattern to see if it was just me struggling with the chart, someone pointed out that the increases should be reversed to look tidier. I probably should have been using the opposite increase on the left sock, but it’s too late now. I’m just using the M1R on the right sock now, as I did M1L on the left sock.

I tried on the left sock and it fits, but looks…odd. The yarn overs are like, too big? They stretch out a lot. Maybe it’ll block out. Maybe I’ll just hate these socks. Whatever, I’m not turning back now.

I have a correction to make. In the previous WIP Wednesday post I stated I was related to Robert the Bruce. Upon further inspection, the link to the fancy pants relatives was false. I found a scanned book page that stated that the “parents” of my ancestor died with no issue. So they couldn’t have been his parents. So I had to nuke the whole royal line. Oh well, I guess we’re just Scottish peasants, lol.

Ravelry Days of Silence

As some of you may know, Ravelry is retiring the Classic version of their site on April 1. The only option after that will be NuRav, which still causes eyestrain, headaches, migraines, and even seizures for some people. This is why you will never see my posting a link to Ravelry, ever. It can be a little awkward when I’m talking about designers or patterns that don’t have a presence outside Ravelry, but I cannot risk causing harm to my readers. Unfortunately the Ravelry staff are not that compassionate. A wonderful person on Instagram, evanitaewm has proposed a few days of silence to show Ravelry what their future may look like without the many users who have been affected. Here is their post to Instagram:

For those who can’t view the images/have screen readers, here’s the text:

 

“I have a plan to make our voices heard! To carry this out I need everyone’s help! Please read over the next few slides. I will be reposting these to help spread the word.

After March 31st Ravelry will be removing Ravelry Classic permanently leaving it’s community to only be able to view the site with it’s NuRav layout that has caused countless people to experience visual discomfort, migraines, and for some individuals seizures.

We need a day of silence for Ravelry Classic. As an international community I propose we expand this to 3 days. On March 31st through April 2nd do not log into Ravelry. Encourage all your friends to do the same so that Ravelry will see a huge drop in online presence.

Instead of logging into Ravelry during this time let’s post to our pages and stories how we feel about NuRav. Share your stories of your experience with the new layout and make your voices heard! Repost and share to Stories, posts that others have made on #Ravelryaccessibilty and let Ravelry know it’s not ok/your feelings so they understand we are not happy with NuRav.

Please share these posts so we can reach as many Ravelry members as possible. We need them to listen to us to help keep our community together.

Silence for Ravelry Classic March 31st – April 2nd.”

 

So let’s do this! I’m going to be deleting the shortcut to Raverly on my phone so I don’t absentmindedly open it up. I’ve been decreasing my presence on Ravelry over the last few weeks, not because it visually affects me, but because it feels sad now without so many posters. The monthly thread I usually participate in is so much quieter now. The loss for the community is real, and I feel it. Let’s hold a few days of silence for Classic Rav, and all those who are no longer able to use the site. They will be missed.

WIP Wednesday – Legolas Socks

The Legolas Socks by Claire Ellen remains my primary WIP. It is definitely an advanced pattern. The heel flap is worked flat (of course), but the legend for the chart does not provide wrong side instructions. It assumes that for the wrong side of “knit through the back loop” you know to “purl through the back loop,” which fortunately I was able to work out, but others may stumble on that. The cables are all on the right side, so that’s nice.

I only ended up picking up 10 sts on each side of the heel flap for the gusset, so it’ll be a short gusset. That’s fine with me because I prefer a shorter gusset – the longer ones tend to be baggy around the instep.

I also switched from a #1.5 needle to #0 needle for the heel turn and gusset because my foot is substantially skinnier than the leg ever since I had surgery to fix my bunions. It’s been years, but I’ve only recently been modifying sock patterns to account for that, lol. My foot length is a little long though, having a shoe size 9. Luckily most patterns don’t have a prescribed length for the foot. I haven’t read ahead to see if this one does. I probably should.

I know, I know, you’re supposed to read the whole pattern before starting, but this pattern is complex enough that I’m not sure I’d be able to visualize it well enough without actually doing the knitting. I’m not great at that anyway.

I haven’t gotten as far on the sock as I expected because I fell down an Ancestry rabbit hole. My mom is planning a Scotland trip in a few years and asked me to look into our Scottish ancestry. I found some fancy pants ancestors that eventually traced back to Robert the Bruce! There are a few estates and castles that were in the family for mom to visit while she’s there. It seems we lost most of our wealth sometime after the battle of Culloden at which point the family fled to Ireland and a couple generations after immigrated to America.

Anyway, here’s how far I’ve gotten on the sock.

I’ve been busy…

Sorry for the long absence, my life mildly blew up for a while. First I tried to go low carb and crashed HARD without the happy carbs in my system and totally lost my crafting mojo. Then we picked up kittens and a mama cat to foster and that took a lot of time and energy. I really only started crafting again last week. Also, I’m eating carbs again, lol. Coincidence?

I also was working on a big project whenever I had the time. I was migrating all my pattern library, stash, and queue from Ravelry to Airtable. It’s a precaution I’m taking in case Ravelry goes down in the future, which is looking more and more likely. At the very least the community will degrade significantly starting April 1 when they remove the Classic Rav option from the site. Many are planning on deleting their accounts either because they can’t use NuRav, or don’t want to. The forums will never be the same. I finished my Airtable work this morning and I have over 1900 pattern entries, both from my library and queue. As I went through the queue I found quite a few patterns that were taken down and are no longer available online. I think many of those were in response to NuRav. It’s sad. At least some designers are expanding their pattern sales beyond Ravelry into other platforms like Payhip.

I haven’t quite committed to an approach to the impending deadline yet. I don’t think I’ll delete my account, as there’s still some value in the database and project management. Though there have been some reports of problems with the database lately and no response from Ravelry about whether they’re fixing it or not…

I’ll probably stick around the forums at least for a little while to see how bad it is, but I expect in the end I’ll be posting a lot less. I followed a bunch of blogs and Instagrams of LSGers when there was a thread around advertising that, but now I don’t know who’s who, lol. In case anyone here is having that problem, my user name on Ravelry is bioartist.

Anyway. To recapture my crafting mojo I did what any self-respecting crafter would do. I started a new project. Never mind all the other projects I have going, I needed something fresh. There’s nothing like the high of winding yarn and casting on to get the juices flowing. I started Cozumel by Justyna Lorkowska using 5 colors of Mirasol Llama Una, a 100% baby llama yarn. It’s so luscious to knit with! It started with a provisional cast on, then 80 rows of garter stitch before starting a mosaic pattern with the second color. Then more garter in the second color, rinse and repeat with new colors. Then at the end you use the first color again for the last mosaic pattern and a few rows of garter stitch, then you graft the ends together. This is how far I got.

Then I realized I had a problem. I didn’t have very much of the first color left. I ripped out the whole mosaic pattern and a few rows garter stitch to correspond to what I needed at the end to weigh the yarn and see how much I’d need. I wasn’t even close. So I figured I could just shorten the garter section, no big deal, right? I ripped out what I’d need to finish the end and was left with only 56 of the required 80 rows of garter. Reading ahead I realized that while most of the colors used less yarn as they had shorter garter blocks, one other color used the same amount of yarn, so I’d have to shorten that section too. That would be too much shortening. It would significantly change the length of the cowl. While it is a long cowl, I was afraid shortening it too much might leave me with an awkward length. Not long enough to loop twice, but too long to sit comfortably.

I had no choice, I needed more yarn. I contacted the owner of the local yarn shop where I got the yarn (on sale) and found out they sold out of it during the big end of year sale. So I went online. I found one color at one site, and the other color at another site, so, sadly, I had to pay shipping twice. What can you do? Meanwhile I couldn’t continue with the project because what if the new yarns were totally different dyelots? I’d have to rip back to the cast on and stripe them to smooth the transition between old yarn and new where the beginning and end would meet. So again, I did what any self-respecting crafter would do. I started a new project.

I wanted something challenging but not super long term. I’d been itching to cast on a pair of socks and in going through my library on Airtable I realized I had a ton of Claire Ellen sock patterns, but had never knit any. She has a whole line of Lord of the Rings themed socks. So I picked out a pattern with cables and lace, the Legolas Socks, and cast on.

Almost right away I ran into a problem with the chart. She represents decreases with a slash \ which is pretty common. So when I saw two slashes next to each other spanning two stitches, I decreased twice in a row. I didn’t think to check the legend for other meanings because I knew what a slash meant. But this had me decreasing almost half the stitches in the round. I know socks are meant to have negative ease, but this was going to shrink it so much it wouldn’t fit over my heel! I stared at the pattern for the longest time. I counted stitches. I looked at the following rounds in the chart. It wasn’t adding up. I looked for pattern notes in other people’s projects to see if anyone else had been confused, but no one mentioned it. Then I glanced at the legend. Now, you have to understand there isn’t really a standardized set of symbols for displaying cables in a chart, but there are common symbols a lot of patterns use. This pattern uses something a little different. Two slashes \\ is meant to represent a cable cross. Not just a cable cross, but a cross with a purl for the first stich and knit for the second. I’m used to that being represented differently, with a dot over the purl stitch in addition to the slash. I also am more used to the two stitches in a cable cross looking like one long stitch on the chart rather than graphed to look like two stitches, with a line between them like any other pair of stitches. It was confusing. But I fixed it. I had only made that mistake for one round, so it was easy enough to tink back. Then it was smooth sailing. I’ve already completed the first pattern repeat on the leg.

Meanwhile, the extra yarn for Cozumel showed up and amazingly, both colors were the same dyelots that I already had! No need to stripe! Unbelievable!

So that’s what I’ve been up to. I still don’t quite feel like taking up my other crafts yet, like spinning, but I’m working up to it. Now that I’m done with setting up Airtable I can focus on other things, like blogging, chores, crafts, gaming, and such. You’ll hear from me again soon, I’m sure.

FO Friday: Qiviut Cowl

I finished my qiviut cowl! It was my New Year’s Eve cast on, so only took about a month. Well, the knitting didn’t take that long, but it always takes me a while to get around to blocking things. With my new schedule of mostly doing finishing work on Tuesdays, I just had such a backlog of that sort of thing that I didn’t get around to blocking it until this week. It looked pretty cool blocking too.

It dried really quickly and it drapes beautifully. Also, it’s super warm and soft! Definitely a winter accessory. The pattern is Lotus Ring by Maureen Hefti. I made the small size because I didn’t have much yarn. It used 185 yds, which was just about spot on for the lower end of the yardage estimate! I love when that happens. I was left with only 33 yards. I’m sure it will make a very special edging for some scrappy project. Into the scraps bin it goes.

The fit is great, it slips easily over my head because the ribbing is so stretchy. I do have to take off my glasses before taking it on or off though because I don’t want them to snag anything.