House Mouse Mat

Say that three times fast!

I just couldn't resist knitting this up for my folks two new kittens, Omar and Foxy. It's been years since they had a kitten in the house let alone two feline youngsters. From what I hear this is quite an energetic duo. Quite the contrast with the 18 and 15 year old's that passed earlier in the year. At least I won't have Sophie giving me the evil stare for two days. She liked to sleep on the guest room bed at night and I guess I was a terrible imposition. She would warm up though and all in all was a very sweet cat. She would have liked this warm woolly mat to sleep on I know.

The pattern came out of this wonderfully fun book, Pet Projects The Animal Knits Bible by Sally Muir & Joanna Osborne.

 Not only does it have some very nice patterns for dogs and cats, but also a hamster hut, a turtle tent, some horsey things and  water lilies knitted from plastic bags to name a few. This book has moved up to one of my favorites. The writing is quite witty and at $17.95 retail a bargain too.

The cashmere warp made it over to the loom and got spread in the raddle but that's about it. I was finishing up ears yesterday and sewing it all together. I finally got some socks on the needles after a long break. I have some camel and wool yarn that my Dad liked when he saw it. After starting and frogging it 3 times I put socks away for a while.

The yarn has no elasticity and each pattern I tried would stretch and then stay stretched. I found a lovely ball of yarn a few weeks ago that I think will be just as nice as the camel and has the appropriate spring and memory to make a nice sock. I'm using a pattern out of Cookie A's new book Sock Innovation, Cauchy is the pattern for those that might have the book. The yarn is Schoppel Wolle Zauberball in chocolate creme, although they have many other brighter colors. This yarn has very long color repeats and the sock they show on the label is quite lovely without all the business of the typical variegated yarn. Wool and nylon blend so you don't need a reinforcement yarn at heels and toes.

It has been raining for two plus days. Sunday morning the temps dropped and we had snow. I  had 4 out of 5 shivering cold horses. The guys are 75% into their summer slicks, the winter coat left is shedding and providing no insulation and they had been wet for about 24 hours when the snow started. Rather than blanket, since I don't have 4 anyway (and that in itself can be a royal mess), I brought another hay helping up. The boys got second breakfast! For grazing animals the act of digestion produces body heat. On a cold day you will see the horses backs producing steam into the air as they eat. It's a good thing and just what they needed to get them through. Yesterday during the heaviest rain they were all tucked into their shelter. Hungry but dry when they came down for their evening meal. Looks like nice weather is on the way but taking it's good sweet time about it.