In Which I Lose My Freaking Mind

I was in Wal Mart the other day.

I am always in Wal Mart.

All day.

Every day.

I'm either buying milk or toilet paper.  Because that is my glamorous life.

But on the particular day in question I found myself in the fabric section.

Pork Chop is going to Disney Land with the Science National Honor Society.  Not only is that girl in the National Honor Society but she is also in the Science National Honor Society.  She makes me proud!

But anyways...

She is going to Disney Land and as such she needs a pair of Mickey Mouse Ears.  But not just any Mickey Mouse Ears.  A dorky circle hat with plastic ears and her name embroidered on the back just isn't good enough.  She has to have DIY character ears made from instructions she found on Pinterest with a few youtube tutorials thrown in for good measure.

She is so my kid.

Again, that girl makes me proud!

Which is how I found myself standing in the middle of the Wal Mart fabric section pushing the button for service for eighth time trying to find someone to cut me six inches of satin fabric in a dazzling array of rainbow colors.  For her ears.

And that is when I saw them.

A glorious row of fat quarters in colors and patterns that spoke to my soul.

Before I knew it I was googling how many fat quarters one might need to sew an twin size quilt.

The Queen is three and still sleeping in her crib.  It is better for everyone if she remains in her crib.  But she is growing.  And will outgrow her crib any moment now.  I can hear her hit the bars at night as she rolls over.  She needs a big girl bed.

Soon.

We have almost everything we need to move her to a big girl bed.

We have a bed frame.  A twin size mattress.  Tons of twin size sheets.  We have a baby gate to put at her door to attempt to keep her in her room.  We have a secondary gate we can use to block the stairs in the event that the first baby gate does not prove to be sufficient to contain the wild toddler.

We everything but a quilt.

She has a very very cute crib quilt.

But she will need a big girl quilt.

And I think these will work nicely for that purpose

The pink!  The grey!  The aqua!

The clouds!  The polka dots!  The chevrons!

I don't know what happened.  They were on the shelf one moment.  And then they were in my cart.  (for the record the internet said I needed 24 of them, so I bought 24.  I probably shouldn't have trusted the internet.  I probably should have bought 25 or 30 or 52 just to be safe.  But I took a leap of faith and bought 24)

It was only when I brought them home and set them on the counter beside The Queen's shoes that I realized how deep my problem is.

Evidently I am only purchasing from a single color palette lately.

But it is such a gorgeous one!

Now I just need to give up sleep completely to find time to actually make a quilt.

Cat For Sale...Cheap

My fat cat is a cat nip addict.

Each night when the kids go to bed she joins me in the family room where I present her with a goblet of milk and a pile of catnip served on a silver tray.

The Greatest wishes I was making this up.  

But it's true.

I am an enabler.

In October of last year Pork Chop crocheted a round cat toy and filled with with batting and cat nip.

That was hours of fun.

For some reason I hate stuffing.  Not the yummy food of the Gods you fill turkeys with at Thanksgiving.  But the white stuff you use in pillows/dolls/teddy bears/and cat toys.  I hate it.  Just hate it.  It's a texture thing maybe? Or bad flashback of middle school home ec?  I just hate the stuff.  We all have our quirks and I seem to be amassing more and more as I age.  Hating stuff is one I embrace.  (that was supposed to read "hating stuffing is one I embrace" but I think I like the typo better)

I read somewhere (probably on Ravelry) where someone kept all their yarn ends to stuff their cat toys with.  And I really really really liked that idea.  So I've been saving my yarn ends for the past six months or so.

And I've got half a cat bed full of left overs.  I could stuff three or four cat toys with my stash.

I bring this up because from looking around my blog one might be left with the impression that I haven't knit anything at all in the past six months or so.

And that impression isn't entirely wrong.

My pink socks are still in the Abyss waiting to be knit.  My red dress is still sitting on a shelf in my closet waiting to be turned into a sweater.  My Good Sweater is still hibernating in the trunk beside my knitting chair waiting for a miracle.  Even my Find Your Fade shawl is knit, and even blocked.  It is waiting for the ends to be woven in.

Another Find Your Fade and a Boho Blush shawl have joined it (see I did knit something!).  Both are waiting to be blocked.

In my defense, blocking has become a lot harder around here.  Not only do I have to fight my natural loathing of blocking (see...quirky.  also...hating stuff).  But fat cat LOVES blocking knits.  She ALWAYS lays on them.

And if the pins are bothering her she just pulls them up with her teeth.

Problem solved.

The only way to ensure my blocked knits actually dry to the proper proportions and remain relatively cat hair free is to lock her out of the bedroom.  Which is harder than it sounds.  She sits and meows at the door.  She tries to open it with her paw.  And heaven forbid you have to go in that room.  Don't let her robust physique fool you.  She is fast and she will trip you in her efforts to enter the room before you finish turning the door knob.  The other day I locked her out of the bedroom so I could block a sweater I test knit for Knit Picks.  She was so mad at me that yesterday as I sat on the couch knitting she chewed through my working yarn.  Revenge was hers.

Whose idea was it to get cats?

All of this to say I'm still alive.  I'm still knitting.  I hope to finish something one day so I may share it with you.

*fingers crossed*