It's Story Time!

We haven't had a good disaster story around here in a while.  It seems time for things to go horribly wrong.

See this beautiful throw

I test knit that for KnitPicks.  (It's now a free pattern available here)  Photo credit for this goes to KnitPicks because my finished project photo looked like this.

Why yes, I do still block my stuff on garbage bags.  Probably the exact same garbage bags I used twelve years ago when I first discovered what blocking was.

When I test knit for KnitPicks I have to knit a gauge swatch.

Turns out I only knit gauge swatches if I'm getting paid to.  Otherwise I like to live dangerously. 

The path from humble lowly gauge swatch to finished throw started out smoothly enough.

The designer also has five children and she likes to design patterns that are easily memorized but with just enough change to keep it interesting.  She achieved her goals with this one.  You had to pay a little attention to what you're doing but not too much.  It is perfect tv knitting.

And when it got big enough you could snuggle under it while you knit.

I knit this while marathoning Quantico.  Season one was better than season two (which explains why there wasn't a season three).

But I wasn't the only one in the house who loved this blanket

Pumpkin LOVED this blanket.

I don't know if it was the color, or the yarn itself (it was knit with Mighty Stitch Bulky which is super soft and smooshy) or if it just smelled so much like me she couldn't resist loving it.  But seriously, I could not keep her away from it.

Side note, when we did the big furniture change downstairs we upgraded my knitting chair.

The otter man opens for knitting storage!  How awesome is that!

But this is neither here nor there.  Back to the cat.

So Pumpkin loved the big grey blanket.  And the morning I was to block it I took this picture for Knitpicks.

Then I ran down stairs to grab my wool wash to soak it in.  And when I returned I discovered Pumpkin not only on the blanket, but doing that weird nursing/pawing thing cats do sometimes.

And while she was doing that weird nursing/pawing thing she did this.

It is hard to see from the way I was holding it in the picture, but she pulled out that loop, and it was broken.  She chewed through the yarn.  And that's not a third of the way from the top of the blanket.  That's a third of the way from the bottom.

And I realized as I pulled out my contracts that the blanket was not due the next week like I thought.  It was actually due in the Knitpicks offices THAT SAME DAY!  I have never missed a deadline and it felt terrible to miss this one. 

And there was nothing to be done but frog it back down to the bad spot, take it out, and reknit the top two thirds of the blanket.

Which I did.

In two days.

Sometimes I'm a crazy fast knitter.

Or maybe I'm just crazy.

That could be it too.

I told my little brother that she's lucky she's such a nice cat with lots of redeeming qualities or I wouldn't put up with her nonsense.   He laughed and asked "the nonsense of her being a cat?"  Yes, exactly.  If she weren't such an awesome cat I wouldn't put up with her being a cat.

And that's the story of the grey blanket.

Go forth and knit one of your very own.

And keep it away from Pumpkin.