With Knitted Brows

Well, try as I might, I could not get my pictures posted in the correct spots and still allow for more text. So I'm continuing my Olympic post-games wrap-up. Just in case you don't believe that I earned a gold medal, here it is:


I won it for Team Wales.

Not only that, but I was one of the few lucky Olympic knitatheletes who won a prize! I am going to receive two 100 gm skeins of luscious hand-painted sock yarn, courtesy of Yarnharlot Stephanie McPhee -- who did the drawing -- and Fyberspates--who donated the prize! As soon as I get the lovelies, I'll post a picture. Imagine, out of over 4,000 competitors, I won, I won!!



Now, back to the analysis: Below are pictures of my Fiber Trends Felted Clogs. I took a class at my lys (local yarn store) and had knitted up the first slipper. See how it compares in size to my sport sock!





During the Olympic trials, I knitted up the second and felted them.The reason that I didn't medal: I still need to refelt them to get them a little smaller to fit me.

Also, I planned to sew on a suede sole in order to prevent killing myself on our slippery wooden floors. All in all, I think they turned out pretty well, and am happy with them. It's funny how different the felting experience is depending on the type of wool you use. For the sock tote, I used Lopi; I have quite a furry, hairy tote on my hands. The felted clogs, however, were made with Cascade 220 and they are as smooth as can be.


Now to the "Olympic Moment" of Family Crisis, starring Poor Leo!

Leo, our amazingly flexible Gumby-like cat, got into linen closet in the few seconds I'd opened the door to put something away. He managed to climb up to the second shelf -- while the door was closed -- to take a nap. I found him a few hours later when I went back into the linen closet. He got up, stretched and as I lifted him down, I noticed that he had some gummy stuff on his tail. But before I could wash it off, he'd scampered off to climb the kitchen cabinets.

I figured that I'd clean him off later. Bad decision on my part!

While climbing the linen closet shelves, he managed to spray some laundry prewash on his tail fur, and when he groomed himself, he licked some of it off and it burned his tongue. I sensed something was wrong when I found him sitting under the futon in the guestroom at bedtime, when he's usually camped out on the foot of my bed. He was still hiding under the futon the next morning. He was sitting all hunched up, drooling and holding his mouth "funny" -- best way I can describe it as there's no better "medical" term for it. I whisked him up into his carrier, called the hospital and away we went. He was on IV fluids, appetite stimulant and pain meds at the hospital. All the lab tests came back normal, thankfully.

He came home doped up on pain meds. To make matters worse, the two girl cats , Dot and Sophie, hissed and growled at him. He smelled different and acted different -- not the Leo they knew. It took a few days of nursing care to get him so that he could eat on his own without pain meds. The girls would still hiss at him, but their hearts weren't in it -- lackluster hissing at best.

On the fourth day after his "incident," we finally had the sense that all was going to be well. While watching TV in bed, both DH Mike and and I saw our snickerdoodle fluff -tiger flying straight up in the air! He'd decided to climb the bedroom door by jumping up to grab onto the clothes hung on the back of the door, then pulling himself up. But Leo didn't remember that his claws were clipped at the vet hospital. He slid back down and ran into the carrier as if to say, "I didn't do anything, honest!" Mike and I looked at each other and just broke out laughing. Here's a picture of a successful attempt:

A few minutes later, Mike commented to me that he didn't remember leaving two of his dresser drawers open. They were only open an inch or two. Yet, as we're looking over at the dresser, one of the drawers begins to move.... I went over and looked in, but couldn't see anything. I pulled the drawer out of the dresser and there was Leo, sitting BEHIND the drawer I'd pulled out-- in essence, he was sitting IN the drawer below. So Leo was bouncing back....and up....and in....

And I could get back to my Olympic trials. Instead of my Leo trials. Was this whole saga the reason behind my not finishing the scarf? To be honest, no. I guess I just wasn't ready for designing and implementing stage of knitting. When I figure out how to do more than add photographs, I'll put the "would have been" pattern up on the blog. Maybe someone else can make it work. Sigh.

So that's it for my Olympic foray. Although I must say that I've truly become an avid fan of curling in the "real" Olympics. It's a sport well-suited to the knitting viewer. Let's just say that the action is slow enough that I can make progress with my knitting and still keep up with the developments of the match play. Although all that yelling at a stone that's already on its way sliding down the ice -- well that can be a bit...disconcerting.