WiP Wednesday

Things have been stressful here the last week or so.  Yesterday I had to say goodbye to my sweet little kitty, Gracie.  She was only 2 (we’ve had her about a year and a half) and she developed kidney failure for some reason.  She was in the hospital for 3 nights until Saturday, and we had her home trying to get her well after that.  She was really happy to be home, and seemed to be doing better, but took a really hard turn for the worse and I felt that she shouldn’t suffer more, so I made the really hard decision to take her in to the vet yesterday.  I was a huge mess last night, but I’m feeling a bit better today.

She was a small little kitty, and the softest cat I’ve ever known.  A cute orange/brown tabby calico with an elfin face.  She was definitely my cat – but she let the boys carry her around and play with her and badger her with the patience of an old soul.  She loved to sit on their open schoolbooks during school. (stinker)  And she loved to chew on yarn and power cables, too. (stinker) She’d follow me upstairs and downstairs whenever I’d move throughout the house – and absolutely loved dashing down the stairs to beat me down there.  I’d get a gentle clawing on my thigh while I was prepping the coffeepot in the morning, and another gentle clawing on my back through the back spokes of our dining room chairs during dinner time.  She loved riding snuggled on my shoulder, and would head-butt and rest her head against mine all the while purring her double-toned harmonic purr.

I lost my cat Harpo right before Christmas in 2011 (he was my buddy – had him for 17 years), and Gracie stepped into our lives about a month later.  She helped me heal the grief of his passing, and did a wonderful job.  But now losing her so soon has been really tough on me – it’s bringing all the grief of his passing out again, but double-fold, because she worked her way into my heart as well.  Needless to say I’m a mess right now. 🙁  I know it will get better, though.  Thank you for letting me ramble a bit about it all.

I haven’t gotten much more done on the Master Knitter front  – this last week kind of stalled my knitting and spinning a bit – but I’ve been working on the hat very slowly.  I’m almost to a bobble row:

I also finished the one yarn I was spinning up for Tour de Fleece:

I did a navajo ply to keep the color gradient intact.  I’m really happy with how it turned out.  (This was merino/silk from River’s Edge in the colorway ‘Amethyst’.)

I finished another yarn as well:

This was supposed to be yarn inspired by The Hobbit, and I scavenged my fiber stash to find something that spoke to me.  I don’t have a drum carder yet (hint, hint, nudge, nudge, hubby!) otherwise I could have made some neat batts to use, but I stuck with straight roving.  This roving reminded me of Rivendell, and I decided to corespin it to keep the sheen as much as possible.

This was alpaca/silk from Urban GypsZ in the colorway ‘Drink Me’.

Anyway, that’s what I have to share with you and show you this week.  I hope to have happier things and more things to show you next week. 🙂

Be sure to check out Tami’s Amis for more WiP Wednesday posts.