Everything came to a standstill except for heath and home during the last two weeks. A badly-timed intestinal bug forced me to miss much of Christmas Day.

But kitty had a good time.

I recovered in time to clean for a party Saturday in honor of M.

And yesterday I began catching up on a little knitting, but I've not done as much as I wanted. I think I'll only be satisfied when I learn to accept what I've done as sufficient unto the day. Not an easy sleight of mind for me.

But here a detail of one of the fruits of the day.

Notice the "lifeline" in contasting scrap yarn that provides a safe point in case I need to rip more than one row of the pattern. he yarn is Kid Mohair Metallic by Feza. It comes from Betsy and Stephanie at the Knitting Corner and Beadery in Middletown, RI. They chose it for a sample scarf advancing a workshop I'll be giving at the shop in February on an introduction to lace. More details on the workshop later.

Kid Mohair Metallic is perfect for a big-needle (size 8) version of the knitting pattern "A Luscious and Lacy Scarf" in The Elegant Knitter.

This particular knitting pattern makes for a beautiful introduction to lace. The pattern combines the ubiquitous yarn over -that extra stitch we use to deliberately make a hole in our knitting - with several kinds of decreases to provide a manageable challenge for first-time lace knitters. I love making those borders wave in and out.

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I thought I was almost done with a new knitting pattern inspired by the ear-flap hat in "Start to Knit." And then, and then, something began to nag at me. This has happened enough times that I know I must pay attention. I'm never going to be able to leave the design alone without giving it just one more try.  Brighter, it needs to be brighter.

The good news is that this hat, made in bulky yarn on big needles, only takes an evening from start to finish - if I ever get there. I've knit this twice in the last few days, in between the cleaning, polishing, and re-organizing that has come in the wake of the painters' departure from the newly chic kitchen and family room.

For days before that, I had played around with the colors in this knitting pattern, on the computer and on the needles, each time believing the design was almost there - but not quite.

In the meantime, the hat ideas are coming like a riff - quick,  bulky knits that will make gifts from the heart and keep the head warm in the snowy N'oreasters we've been here in New England.

I used to hate hats. My mother, like all mothers, kept telling me to wear one, and for good reason. About 30 percent of heat loss comes through the head. (I looked it up.) Thankfully, my own kids have gotten past the age of hat defiance, into the age of hat acceptance. One less battle.

 

First there was a headband. Fluffy alpaca. Nice.  Just the thing to keep the icicles off the ears without giving hat hair. 
Then little fair isle borders joined the headband. A little thicker, a little warmer. 
After a while, the fair isle took over the headband, and the little hems on the inside grew into an entire second layer. 
Luxurious insulation - lofty yarn trapping many, many tiny pockets of air.
 But too thick to fit around the head that wasn't watching out for all those layers! 
     We'll be back soon with another, slightly larger version - and a free pattern!
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Beauty and order will come.

I guess I should focus on the process of putting things back together, better than ever, rather than the current state of disarray at my house, where the contents of the kitchen and the family room take up the rest of the first floor while the painters do their expert painting.

The tea cozy from The Well-Knit Homeis the newest addition to the décor. I love the stitch definition and the colors of the superwash Bazic Wool, although I think Lamb's Pride Worstedwould get about the same gauge. (Lamb's Pride would have to be hand washed.) Suzanne emailed me that she turned the one she made into a Christmas tree. Hmmm . . .

It's a wonder I managed to do any knitting this past week, when every day there was something  - or someone - keeping me from it. Yes you, Kitty.

Look carefully and you will see no blue paint on this cat. That is the point of this photo. He is as clean and sweet smelling as the laundry that forms his lounge cushion.

On Friday morning kitty ran through the paint tray.

"I only took my eye off him for a second," said one of the painters. But one second was all it took for Kitty to satisfy his curiosity - to his great regret. (DH says it's my fault because I didn't close the doors keeping Kitty out of the painting area.) To his credit, the painter held Kitty until the paint dried so that the blue didn't get all over everything. How was he to know that Kitty loves the water?

Then there was the further complication of the cone-shaped collar around kitty's neck that prevented him from getting at the stitches in a delicate area. Like anyone post-op, kitty wasn't supposed to go swimming - at least until the doctor gave the go-ahead, which the doctor did later in the day. Kitty was ten days past his surgery and was healing well. Removing the paint became the top priority to prevent Kitty from ingesting it.

Two baths later, much of the paint still remained, most of it on kitty's paws. I had to cut the fur away, bit by bit, in that tender area between the pads of each little foot. Kitty trusted me. I think he knew that awful stuff had to come off. But he was trembling as I snipped - embroidery scissors would have worked much better - and even though I held my hand steady, I too was trembling on the inside, lest one wrong cut send us out in the night on an emergency run to the animal hospital. When it was done, I could barely move. I was just that exhausted.

So it wasn't until yesterday that I got back to the tea cozy for the last installment of finishing.
 Design note: I got the ruffles to stand out and behave by adding a row of slip stitch crochet to the bottoms. I worked on the right side, putting one slip stitch in the bottom of each of the first seven knitted stitches that had been cast on for a particular ruffle, and then skipped the eighth cast-on stitch. The result is a minimal crochet edge that is a tad tighter than the actual knitted circumference. The finish adds a littletension which acts almost as if the ruffles were wired at the tips - but softer.
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