Binding Off—a Nearly Finished Object

Wow! That has got to be some kind of record! On Wednesday I cast on for BSJ #2 Bébé Français, and Sunday morning I was binding off. I’ll leave the finishing details (buttons, etc.) for knit group on Saturday. The speed at which I completed the BSJ pleases me immensely, because I am anxious to cast on for the Super Secret Baby Project. (And yes, my right wrist and hand feel warm and a bit swollen after the knitting marathon. Yet I push on.)



This BSJ is nearly identical to the one I completed in January, with the exception of one very important thing. When I did the earlier BSJ, I found a row keeper online that helped me interpret Zimmerman’s original instructions as written in the Workbook. Since then I’ve listened to an interview with Meg Swanson on Sticks & Strings, wherein she expressed amazement and disbelief that such things were necessary, that she could never make heads nor tails of row by row instructions, and that your knitting will tell you exactly where you are. Essentially Meg Swanson shamed me into casting on for the 2nd BSJ without the safety net of my row keeper.

I found this approach to be only partially successful. At one point I had a question, and I tried to find the row keeper online. Turns out that it is no longer online because Schoolhouse Press has started selling modern instructions for the BSJ. Well, I had bought the Workbook for the sole purpose of owning the BSJ instructions, so I was damned well not going to purchase them again. I made an executive decision about my work, then kept going. It wasn’t until the last paragraph that I really ran into a vague areas. At this point I went to my laptop (I’d already searched for the row keeper on my desktop without success) and found the row keeper document in my downloads folder. Turns out I was going to interpret those last steps incorrectly. A copy of the row keeper is now folded inside the Workbook to have in the future.

Back to super-secret.

I checked Ravelry, and no one has added the super-secret project to their profile. I assumed as much, because it’s an older book, and a very unusual (by today’s standards) knit pattern.

As I’ve said, the BSJ #2 isn’t for my very pregnant knit-bud, because that mother doesn’t care for the BSJ. I’m not promising that she will like the project I’m planning, but at the very least she won’t know she doesn’t like it until she sees my version.

We’ve had appointments all week, and Friday was no different. A few weeks ago I went into the attic (the only under-utilized storage location in the house) and moved one of only three boxes that we’d stored up there to the side to make room for some empty planters. When I did so, two silverfish skittered across the box. Silverfish are the worst! They eat paper and cloth, and are extremely difficult to kill. I made an appointment with a national pest control company, and the exterminator came out Friday morning.

The man was nice, and yet annoyed me on so many fronts that if I need further pest treatments in later years, I will not call upon them. First, he was loud and heavy-footed, so I had to caution him multiple times before we entered the hospital room, that he was to be quiet and not move fast, and if the cat showed any signs of panicking, he was to leave the room immediately. We explained about his broken leg, of course. The dude had the nerve to state “the cat looks fine to me,” several times. Not that the cat wasn’t panicking, but that the cat wasn’t ill. This he followed up with “of course I’m not a vet.” My inner voice was yelling, “Darn right you’re not a vet you A-hole!”

I realize that there was actually no thinking involved, but I still have to ask myself what he was thinking when he made those comments. Was he trying to suggest that we were being overly protective? I have no doubt that there are a ton of strangers/normal people with normal cats who assess the situation thusly. But my vets are in total agreement with the necessity of our extreme cat parenting. In fact, several of the things we have done, they suggested independently due to the required second surgery, as well as his advanced Houdini capabilities for extracting himself from bindings, pads, and splints, etc. proved that Caper is not a normal cat.

FYI, had he said, “wow, for a cat that broke his leg that severely, he looks really great!” I would be more understanding. But that’s not what he said, nor do I believe it’s what he meant.

Then pest control dude started asking about our homebrew kit, and he started comparing the beers we were making to national brands. “So, it’s like a Killian’s Red?” or “You’re making the King of Beers?” At that point I realized he was a heathen that probably downed a 24-pack of Bud in a weekend. If you’re counting, that’s two offenses. And really, it’s the homebrew comment that bothered me more than the cat comment.

Plus he wasn’t listening. We asked him several times not to spray the closets, which are full of electronic gear. And yet if Michael hadn’t been standing there watching him, that’s exactly what would have happened. And he didn’t tell us he was going to lay down glue traps. When Eclair was a kitten, she got trapped on a glue trap behind the refrigerator. All four of her legs were stuck on the glue board, complicated by the fact that she was glued and also stradling the copper feed line for the ice maker. So I’m kinda sensitve about the glue trap issue. But I’ll give him credit for the fact that he didn’t put down traps in any area where the cats are allowed.

Lastly, he didn’t wear a respirator when he dusted the attic with silverfish life-ending chemicals. No surprise that dude coughed his way out of the house. This final example illustrates his general lack of common sense.

I asked him if he lived in my town. Turns out that he doesn’t. He lives in my old town. That explained a lot!

Pardon me. I have to make a stop at the LYS.

Audio Lemonade

We begin Day 6 of Caper Watch 2009. It reminds me of something friend “E” said recently when recalling the first months of her daughter’s life. “I’ve never been so busy being bored in my life.” That’s not an exact quote, but you get the gist. As I interpreted is, she was ever-vigilant caring for that little life, and that while that vigilance consumed her days and nights, it was the opposite of stimulating. That’s what I heard, anyway.

These are my days, after Caper’s bad fall last week.



Because the majority of my day is spent working with words, I have gotten behind on my podcast listening. That is, I am unable to listen to people talking, and write at the same time. Vidcast work is out as well.

I’ve subscribed to Sticks & Strings since David Reidy began it several years ago, and I love his podcast. He’s calm—which is the opposite of me—has a lovely Aussie accent, and embraces the craft of knitting whole heartedly. I started on the backlog of podcasts (almost two years’ worth) while cutting out fabric strips for my winter quilt, then continued through garment sewing, and am now listening to his most recent episode. The last half dozen episodes were sponsored by Audible.com, so David has been recommending a lot of books from their audio book library. It reminded me that I have had a bag of audio books in a plastic grocery sack in the basement. Some of these are books I’ve already listened to, but others were passed to me by my uncle.



If I haven’t had time to keep up on my podcasts, then I really haven’t had time to listen to audio books. It’s probably been four years since I listened to one beginning to end. And there were two or three falls that I attempted to listen to one particular book, and never got past Side A of Tape 1. But with the Caper situation, I realized that I can “read” and still knit (deadline knitting) and still keep my attention on the little guy. Who twice in the last five minutes I had to stop from pulling out his sutures. And yes, he is wearing a cone, but he laughs at the cone. Ha, ha, ha!



First up is Remains of the Day read by Michael York, who I first associate with Logan’s Run. There are two cassettes, and I’ve already listened to one side of a tape. That’s a record!

I finished Reidy’s most recent episode. Unfortunately he’s ill, and may be out of commission for a few months. If you read this David, please know that a lot of people are wishing you good health, and hope to hear that you are on the mend very soon.

As for Caper, both he and T-Bone were due in November to have vaccinations. But with Caper’s leg being so fragile, I’ve decided to be a good pet parent by being a bad pet parent, and postponing his shots until after his leg has fully healed. This afternoon I took T-Bone to get her shot, which gave me a chance to chat with my regular vet about the boy. Knowing him the way she does, having struggled to give him vaccinations (it often ends up in his ass), she is not at all surprised by the goings on. Moreover, she thinks our “extreme” measures are exactly what it will take to get his leg mended. You may think we’re weird for doing this. And I’m not saying we’re not weird. But it’s not because of the pet thing. With Caper as our patient, extreme measures are a necessary.

Casting On

Let’s face it. I’m not short on projects. I’ve got quite a few (let’s not tally them up, k?) that are in various stages from “supplies purchased but not started,” to “on the needles.” And yet, I find myself casting on for not one but two new projects.

To be precise, I’ve only cast on for one, but the second is planned and will begin around Thanksgiving.

Why begin a whole new project? Because people around me are preparing to squirt out babies like a Play-Doh Fun Factory.

I know. They didn’t check with me first.

First up is my second Baby Surprise Jacket, which will be an exact copy of the one I did last year, down to the adorable duck buttons. This one is named BSJ #2 Bébé Français. In other words (if you are a member of my knit group), it’s for someone other than a knit buddy. I’m not sure of her due date, but I know it’s in the next month or two, because her pregnancy is preventing her from traveling home for the Christmas holidays.

The cast-on-to-be will not be a Baby Surprise Jacket, because the recipient (or rather the recipient’s mother) doesn’t care for the look of that pattern. The good news is that the mother is a knitter, so there are no worries about textile care. The bad news is the mother is a very talented and prolific knitter, so what on earth can I make that isn’t something she would have made herself and much better?

During my morning lock-in with Caper*, I had time to scan the bookcase of textile books in my craft room. I was looking for a book or magazine that I was confident she didn’t own, and wasn’t available in the local library. I’ve got a number of those. My back issues of Anna, for example. Or perhaps a pamphlet from the 1940s to 1960s? Success! The winning article wasn’t in either of the above, but an older-but-not-really-old knit & crochet book. The object is one that is useful, but not one I’ve seen in modern books. And the knit pattern is very that period appropriate, and also not one I’ve seen in modern books.

Given that the recipient knows about and possibly reads this blog, my description will end there. My biggest question is what type of yarn to use, given that the original pattern calls for Unger Roly Sport Yarn, which is both 100% acrylic, and discontinued. I sense a trip to the LYS in the near future.

* Caper is still doing well. He is closely monitored, and thankfully sleeping a lot due in large part to his pain medication. There’s a question of poo, as in “has he had a bowel movement yet?” to which my answer was “I don’t know.” Digging through used cat litter is on my task list for the afternoon, I guess. But we have boldly made the appointment to have his sutures removed next week, the day before Thanksgiving.

It’s Sleeting Outside, But What Do We Care?

Laying in Supplies for the Long Winter Ahead

We have set a new record. The little guy has been home a whopping eighteen hours. Considering that the previous return home lasted only forty-five minutes, I call this a success.

Caring for him takes a different mindset. As you know, we’ve learned that leaving Caper unchaperoned even briefly while he’s out of his crate can spell disaster. And even though the surgeons haven’t used these words, I fully realize that another set-back in his recovery will probably mean amputation.

It’s not that I’m anti-amputation. Cats can do very well on three legs, and I have no personal issues with having a three-legged cat. (I’ve met people that do. I know of one woman who, when she found out I was involved in cat rescue, happily shared that she had had a cat, but it’s leg needed to be amputated and she couldn’t stand seeing her cat with only three legs, so she put it down. I bit my tongue.) But I realize that Caper would be happier having all his legs. Three legs or dead, no issue. Three legs. But if we can simply push through this recovery period, then I think the outcome will be much better. It’s just (as though that makes it simple) a matter of finding a way to help him through this period, while still allowing me to be productive.

First up is furnishing the room with all those minor-but-critical items that will cut down on the number of trips I need to make: Kleenex and Advil, for example.

Since I’m housing him in my craft room, it makes sense to use this time to catch up on some craft projects. But even with me in the room, he’s already threatened to break the cardinal rule of recovery: no jumping! I was assembling and pinning strips for my winter quilt, when he limped over to the sewing machine to see me. Sure enough, he started measuring the chair to jump onto the seat next to me.

Thus I learned that I can sew, but only when he is sleeping. What can I do when he’s awake?

For those periods I need to find something I can do from a sitting position on the floor. Because he is such an affectionate cat, snuggling next to us is his favorite thing in the world. If he’s snuggled, he’s not getting into trouble. Knitting fits the bill quite nicely.

And so does working on the laptop. Which brings me to work. I can’t use the laptop for what consumes most of my work time. For that I need a desktop. But perhaps, just perhaps, I can find some smaller tasks that I haven’t been able to successfully accomplish given the time the desktop work takes.

But those are relatively unimportant goals. Getting Caper to eat and drink tops my list. He’s done neither since his surgery on Friday. He has used the litter pan twice, in case you were curious.

Caper’s Home, Take 2



And fingers crossed, he will stay home. The little guy is totally exhausted, as he should be. Except for a few hours on Thursday and again on Friday when we was knocked out for surgery, he’s been awake non-stop since Wednesday morning. That can’t be good and it can’t be easy.

He was the model patient for his caregivers at the surgical center. Not as in he behaved in a way that facilitated healing. On that front he failed miserably. But he was an attention-seeking affectionate patient. It sounds as though the vet techs had their hands in his cage for half the night, simply giving him lovin’. He needed that, too.

Our post-hospitalization instructions included information on bandage care. The second surgeon had applied a surgical bandage on the inside of his thigh that was to stay for a week. Then we were to bring him in to have the bandage checked and changed. Except by early morning he had knocked it loose. Since during his tenure as a severe bone break patient he has squirmed out of his splint within an hour of it being put on, and the heavy pre-op binding that had been applied “securely” on Wednesday afternoon was off by Thursday morning, and somehow he’d circumvented the soft Elizabethan collar so he could overlick the area on his front leg where the catheter had been inserted... Because of all that and more, the 1st surgeon (who was on call today) wisely said they should leave it off. They did send us home with a hard plastic E-collar, though.



This will likely be how our next three weeks will be spent. The following three will be similar, but less focused.



Here’s the promised pic of the new pajamas. The pattern is Simplicity Easy-to-Sew #3571. The fabric is Mutt by Michael Miller Fabrics. With all the fit mods I did both before cutting and after, the pajamas fit like a dream. I take issue with this being an Easy-to-Sew pattern, though. I think there’s a lot of details that made construction more difficult than it needed to be. Like the piping, for example. And the cuffs, both on the sleeves, and the top of the pocket. You’ll recall that the pattern originally called for cargo-like pants pockets set on the outside of the knees. I chose to ignore that directive, and I’m glad I did.

The Slasher Room

Have you heard that term? Recently I’ve heard “slasher” used when referring to someone who does several jobs. As in, I’m an actor slash waiter. With Caper coming home today, and strict instruction that he limit his activity (no stairs!), my craft room is now becoming a craft room slash recovery ward.

It’s the best room in the house for this, really. We’d considered the bedroom, but there’s that darn bed. And if he’s not supposed to do stairs, then having a cozy bed tempting him to jump is completely out of the question.

To make this possible, I had to spend Thursday ramping up my finishing schedule on my new night apparel. At least getting it far enough along that I no longer need the hollow core door set on saw horses that become my work surface for large sewing projects.

This was going fairly well yesterday, except we had a load of small errands that really ate into my time. At a certain point I only needed to hem the top, hand-sew the collar facing to the collar, sew the button holes, and make an important fit adjustment on the underarms. That’s the point that I ran out of thread.

That’s okay. I decided to stop by the LFS this morning on my way to Kansas City to pick up the little guy. The delay also gave me time to hunt down the instructions for my button hole foot, because I have zero memory on how I’ve done this in the past, and trial and error wasn’t cutting it. The internet was no help, either.

It turns out I had enough remnants of the fabric to make the draw string bag pattern that is also included in the instructions. Not that I need another bag in my life. (Kinda bagged out, really.) But I have one or two nieces in my family who would love a small bag made out of this fabric. In fact, I drew one of their names for Christmas this year. We’re supposed to keep the cost below $5. Since the fabric is remnant, all I need to buy is the draw string. That should be well under the monetary threshold. She probably wouldn’t appreciate having a bag made out of her aunty’s pajama fabric, so I’ll omit that detail from any discussions.

Sewing the bag will have to wait for another day. But I’ve at least got all the bits cut out and ready when a better day rolls around.

That’s where the positive news of the day ends, and we segue into weird frustration with an extra topping of angst.

My LFS wasn’t open when they were supposed to be. I actually showed up a half hour early because I thought they opened a half hour early. When I realized my mistake, we decided to hang around my LYS for that half hour, then sauntered across the street a few minutes after the LFS’s real opening time. Except it was locked and dark. I knocked on the door, but no one appeared to be inside. Just to be safe I called from my cell phone. It rang and rang and rang.

We had one last stop in town before picking the boy up from the surgical center, so we did that. Then I called the LFS again from the parking lot. They were open. Just late. We went back so I could buy that single spool of thread. (This is where a superstitious person might chalk this up to being Friday the 13th.) They were fully stocked, except for one color which they were totally out of. It was my color. Fortunately, they had one that was extremely close, so I purchased it and ran to the car. Off to KC to pick up the boy.

By the time we had him in the car, it was around 11:45 a.m. Here’s his post-op X-ray:



We allowed him to roam around the room for a bit. He was excited, and wanted to investigate everything. This is one of the few images I took of him that weren’t blurry. I intentionally blurred his a-hole to respect both his privacy and your good taste:



He put his weight on the broken leg like nothing had ever happened. I had hoped that he would settle in, so we left for about half an hour to have lunch.

Nacho was especially interested in the return of the alpha male:



Then we returned to the recovery ward to get a better look at his sutures (we needed a baseline so if his incision area got worse, we would know it). He was on his back attempting to groom his belly. When he stood up and began to walk, he had a noticeable limp—and this is where it gets gross—his leg had a bend in it that wasn’t there half an hour before.

He had not jumped on anything. We’d fairly successfully cat-proofed the room, and the objects that were still in there showed no signs of being disturbed. Moreover, he was in ear-shot, yet we’d heard no exclamation of pain. I have no idea how he did it.

We called the hospital immediately, and stuffed him back in the carrier for a trip to the hospital and an exam by a veterinarian. They took a new X-ray, and it turns out he bent the bone plate, as seen in the new X-ray:



Allow me to repeat. Within forty-five minutes of his feet hitting our carpet, Caper bent his bone plate. I’m pretty sure he had no chance of making the full 6-week recovery period without an incident.

In better news, as soon as we returned home, I went to work on the new pajamas. And two hours later the last seam was sewn, and the last button attached. I’ll try to take a photo of it when the sun is out, and I’m not driving to or from one of our many vet offices.

The surgeon just called. He’s out of his second surgery in two days, and he now has a much larger thicker bone plate on his leg. It wasn’t as elegant a fix as the first was, but we clearly need to wrap the boy in bubble wrap or something for the next 12 weeks. (Note how his recover time keeps extending? Now he’s missing bone, so we need to give him time to completely re-grow bone, not just knit bone.

We have a revised plan for Caper’s recovery. He will now be confined to a dog crate for the duration.