Hello, Kitty...

Tonight we were visited by a very friendly kitty. As I went out to get some groceries, when I opened the door, the cat was right there. When I came back, with my hands full of groceries, I opened the door, and the cat ran in and explored the place. He was purring and rubbing happy scent all over the place.


The birds were safely almost ready for bed, but they were a little alarmed initially at the little dart of black when I opened the door. The cat was so friendly. I'm assuming/hoping he belongs to one of my neighbors, and his owner is waiting for him to come back. Sorry, we can't keep him. It was one of my childhood fantasies that we would find a dog or cat, after weeks of advertising, the owner would not be found, and my parents would let me keep it.


It's the first week of classes, I needed a visit from Angel Kitty, just for a moment.
-吴碧芙

Follow that Bird: Roscoe and Kavi's Big Adventure

Over the break we got in our travel cage, and we got in our giant bird's auto-travel cage. We rode for a long time, and then we finally arrived at Grampa's house.


Many giant bird cousins and relatives came to see us. We sat on the backs of their chairs while they played games and played with string:


We went in the auto-travel cage again, and I was excited to go home, but instead we stopped at Auntie's house. It was very cold outside, so we needed to sleep there. We saw more giant birds, and we met Auntie's cat. The cat was very large, energetic, and loud: [stock photo]


Now we are home, and happy to be back in the big cage and looking out the window from inside.

-Kavi

Snow

Over the break my aunt, uncle, and cousin were here from the East Coast. I had a knitting race with my cousin, in order to find out whether Continental was faster than English knitting. Continental won; I finished 30 stitches in the same amount of time it took her to do 20 stitches. They also brought snowshoes. Since my knowledge of snowshoes extends only to an episode of Winnie the Pooh in which Roo finds two tennis rackets and thinks they're snowshoes, I tried them out. It was fun, but cold.


-吴碧芙

Two Bags Fulled

My new Winter Break project was to try my hand a making a felted/fulled bag. I found a pattern for a small bag (Black Sheep: Sophie Bag), which took just one skein of Cascade 220. It was a minor financial commitment that I didn't mind taking a chance with.


The pattern started with knitting a rectangle bottom, with stitches picked up on all edges to be knitted in the round.


After being washed inside a zipper pillow protector, on the hot wash/cold rinse cycle, I stretched them around grocery bag-wrapped cardboard cutouts and various boxes of dried goods I found in the pantry. When they dried, they looked pretty cool. I added a loop (crocheted chain, felted, and sewn on) and buttons to keep them closed.


Before Finals Week, I pondered whether there was a felted bag pattern that could be made for a quick gift. I think this is definitely the one. It was pretty quick and cute. It didn't turn out as small as I expected it would.

-吴碧芙