Finally, finally, I’ve written out the dotty pattern. I was planning on writing up the details on how I came up with the numbers in case anyone wants to modify it before I realized that hey! It’s felted and really, it’s not a math exam where anyone cares if I show my work. If anyone is interested, I’d be more than happy to decipher my notes for you.

So here it is! I was a bit fast-and-loose about measuring my gauge, but hey! It’s felted, so don’t worry about it! Also, the bottom decrease method doesn’t necessarily jive with my row gauge in stockinette, but I think it will work based on how mine turned out (actually, the bed bottom is now flat after the cats used it a few times).

I’d love to know if anyone actually makes this thing. Your cats will heart you for it!

Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes [100% wool, 110 yards/50 grams]

• 3 balls MC [Chocolate (23774)]
• 2 balls CC1 [Chambray (23769)]
• 2 balls CC2 [Rain (23768)]
• 2 balls CC3 [Stream (23434)]

Notions:

• One 24 or 32 inch US 10.5 circular needle
• One set of US 10.5 double-pointed needles
• One stitch marker
• Tapestry needle

Gauge:

• Dot pattern, before felting: 3 circles wide by 3 pattern repeats tall = 3.75 inches by 3.5 inches
• Dot pattern, after felting: 3 circles wide by 3 pattern repeats tall = 3 inches by 3.18 inches
• Stockinette, before felting: 15 sts by 20 rows = 4 inches square
• Stockinette, after felting: ? stitches by 42 rows = 4 inches

Finished Measurements:

• Bottom: 17 inches in diameter
• Sides: 5 inches tall

Dotty Pattern:
Worked in the round over 6 sts, slip all sts as if to purl

Row 1: Attach MC. Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Break MC, attach CC. [sl2, K4]
Rows 4-7: [sl2, K4]
Row 8: [sl2, K4]. Break CC. Remove marker, sl3, place marker. This is your new beginning-of-round.

The Dotty Cat Bed pattern

Using MC, CO 276 stitches. Join in the round, being careful not to twist. Place a stitch marker to denote the beginning-of-round.

Sides
Work the Dotty Pattern 9 times, alternating CC colors each repeat (CC1, CC2, CC3, CC1, …).

Transition Section
Break CC3, attach MC.
Purl one row in MC.
Flip cat bed inside-out. Remove marker. Slip one stitch from left needle to right. Pass second stitch from right needle to left, do not drop stitch off left needle. Place marker. You should now be set up to knit every round, and the stockinette side of the fabric is on the inside of the bed.

[K34, PM, K35, PM] to end. You should have eight evenly-spaced markers around the bed.
Knit one row in MC. Break MC.

Bottom
Work three-row stripes, alternating colors in this order: CC1, CC3, CC2, MC. Or invent your own stripey sequence. Go crazy! At some point you will run out of the CC colors - switch to MC and use that until the end.

At the same time, decrease as follows:

Row 1: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 2: K
Row 3: K
Row 4: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 5: K
Row 6: K
Row 7: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 8: K

*** Warning: this decrease sequence above is emperically-generated - no math was used here! In the pattern photos, the decreases are worked every 3 rounds, which led to a not-flat bottom. However, once the cats started lying in the bed, the bed bottom flattened out in no time. ***

Continue decreasing (switching to double-pointed needles when there are too few stitches on the circular needle) until you have 24 stitches. Break yarn, thread through remaining stitches, and pull tightly to close.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Felt the bed, using instructions here or here. I placed the bed in a zippered pillowcase, then threw the pillowcase and a pair of of jeans in my washing machine, on the HOT wash cycle, for about 15-20 minutes.

Once the bed is felted to your liking, block it over a cylindrical surface or bowl (I used an inverted bowl and lots of plastic bags).

Coerce cats into sleeping in it.

I am totally and absolutely sick of knitting these days, so I’m expanding my crafty horizons!

Plying is FUN! The spinning itself: not as fun. But plying is WHEEEE all the way!

I helped Amy move her blog posts to a new url, and somehow convinced her to bring her new-to-her wheel over to my house. The fiber is Spunky Eclectic merino in the Nova Scotia colorway. The best part? The yarn is perfectly balanced after plying. After this, I felt inspired and plied up some of my spindle-spun roving, and the end result is twisty as hell.

Next up: sewing. I had a sewing phase a few years ago, but haven’t really done much besides clothing alterations recently. This was partly because of my old setup - my table and chair were both very short, so I would bend over the sewing machine as I worked. My back hurts just thinking about it. Ouch. I bought a new desk to use as a sewing table last weekend, so I’m ready to rock. I was planning on making this whale from this book, which has a sum total of two distinct pattern pieces. However, the pattern sheet looks like this:

It is also double-sided. My pattern pieces are in red, which really recedes behind all that black. I found one piece before my eyes crossed and I gave up.

Instead, we have this (which gets bonus points for having instructions in English):

That bunny? Has big feet! Well, he will have big feet once I assemble him. If you squint, you can see that my bunny-pants fabric is the same as in the pattern photo - total coincidence. I also managed to way overbuy fabric (in anticipation of kelpy mistakes), so I have enough to make three bunnies.

The bunny is for my sister-in-law, who is due in August. Baby stuff! I’m in the midst of compiling baby sweater patterns to make. She’s expecting a boy, so I’m open to suggestions!

Crochet! I now kinda-sorta know how to single crochet. Here’s a tip: don’t teach yourself to crochet with lightly-plied, super-hairy yarn. I kept piercing the yarn between the plies with the hook, which was a total pita.

There is still knitting going on behind the scenes. I’m working on the most looks-simple-but-is-epic project ever:

Knitting the ties are the equivalent of knitting a scarf and a half. Gah! You can see why I’m cheating on the knitting.

One last thing: Blackie hearts dotty! I swear, this is the last word on the cat bed. Except for posting the pattern. I need to knit a new pre-felted swatch to figure out my gauge, because my notes were wonderfully vague.

This morning Rob remarked, “Wow, he sleeps in there a lot!” Yeah! Joe has stopped attacking the bed (for the most part) and now sleeps in it, usually in the evenings when he’s at his blurriest. I luckily snagged a decent shot of him this morning before heading off to work.

Silver doesn’t really lay in the bed, but rather on it (see also: baby got back). Joe does the same thing (although he’s much smaller than Silver), so the bed sides are pretty smooshed down at this point.

Blackie doesn’t really give the bed much thought, she’d rather hang out in her pillow. Regardless, I’m calling this project a success! The cats certainly use the bed more than I’ve worn most of my handknit sweaters (gulp!).

Dotty Cat Bed, before felting:

Maybe you noticed that the exterior bottom is in reverse stockinette? I flipped the whole thing inside out once I finished with the sides, so that the visible portion of the bed bottom would be in prettier stockinette. It’s not a very noticeable difference once the bag is felted, though.

Wool of the Andes felted like a champ!

Pattern: A fusion of the dotty pattern + inspiration from the Wendy Knits Kitty Pi + the maths.
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, which is surprisingly nice given the price.

I first fell for the dot pattern after I saw it in the Mason-Dixon book (remember the bench cover? yum), but it’s also in the first Barbara Walker Treasury. This wasn’t purely a project to pamper my cats - looking back in the old archives, I realized that I had purchased the yarn in order to teach myself Continental knitting. I figured that I wouldn’t be so bummed about wonky tension if I was felting it at the end. Did I knit continental? Yes, for about a half-row. Learning new things is hard! Actually, by the time I figured out the original plan, I was slogging through the zillion rows in the bottom and really just wanted to get the damn thing done.

The pattern looks like the Kitty Pi, but is knit a bit differently. This bed is knit from the top-down, decreasing to form the bottom. I also used my own logic for creating the bottom decreases, which turned out almost-correct.

I heart the little dots! My swatch felted more in height than in width, so I modified the stitch pattern a bit to create circles when felted. The stitch pattern is super, super simple, with great results.

Yeah, the bottom isn’t quite flat. There are two reasons for this: my decrease method (dec 8 stitches every third row) didn’t quite match my swatch shrinkage, and I’m a dolt and computed the swatch shrinkage incorrectly. I did figure out the correct way to decrease - decrease 8 stitches every third row twice, then decrease 8 stitches every other row once.

Too bad that decreasing every third row didn’t turn out - I did three-row stripes on the bottom, and it was really easy to remember to decrease when I change colors.

The cats haven’t snuggled up to the bed quite yet. I can’t blame them, it was still slightly damp yesterday. The bed causes Blackie to yawn meanly, and Joe keeps running up to it and ATTACKING it.

I’ll probably write up the pattern at some point, if I can decipher my (very!) vague notes. And if any cats learn to love the bed, there will surely be photographic documentation on this here blog!

Knit Happens had a big sale recently, really big. And I missed it. But I made up for that in spades when I saw the Yarnzilla one. 20% off your order, with an additional 15% off if you spend lots-o-money. I went to a friends house for drinks last weekend (Rob drove, what a guy), and then came home and spent lots-o-money.

The Koigu. Ah, the Koigu. I bought two of each colorway here. Unfortunately, I’m a bit disappointed by the green, I thought would look more gray-green, like, say, this. Surprise! Buyer beware, I should have asked the internets the true meaning of color 323.

The brownish purple is awesome, perfect, heavenly. P300.

Then I really slipped, fell, ouch. I bought enough yarn for three sweaters.

In my semi-drunken haze, I didn’t realize that the two Rowan colors were almost identical. Eep! I guess I know what I like, and that is purple. I was even going to buy the Cotton Fleece in the Berry color (a purplish pink), but switched to the periwinkle at the last moment.

I can justify the Brown Sheep - I’ve been meaning to buy a bunch for a sweater, and my LYS has a perpetually picked-over selection of Cotton Fleece. I can even justify the 4 ply cotton - I love the yarn, and it’s one of the few yarns wearable in the weather around here. The Calmer was a splurge. Super splurge. It cost more than the cotton fleece plus 4 ply cotton combined. But it was on sale, and I’ve been meaning to rob a Calmer truck for awhile, so it’s mine.

I’m happy that I bought this stuff when I did - they’re selling out of things pretty quickly (everything I purchased is now unavailable). But that’s it! No more yarn! Until, um, Maryland Sheep and Wool. In three weeks. I’m visiting some friends in DC and Baltimore and happened to schedule my trip so that it coincides with the YARN. I’ll be driving up there by myself early Saturday - my friend has to work (and thinks I’m insane), and Rob would rather nap. Hopefully I’ll get to see some of the people from the internets there!

I’ve always been amazed at the flora in Houston. It’s very green and lush here, and there’s an abundance of palm trees and bamboo. Palm trees! So cool. This time of year is definitely gorgeous around here - there’s lots of rain, but everything is flowering like crazy and the temps are ideal.

Our backyard is a different story. There’s no grass, just a series of shrubs, each larger than the next. And ferns! Ferns belong on a forest floor, not in our backyard. Rob has Big Plans for this space.

However, it’s not all bad. All those little flowers in the background?

Jasmine! It looks remarkably similar to the Jasmine of last year at our old apartment. There’s also Jasmine growing next to our driveway, so I smell it when I get home every day. I’m beginning to associate the smell of Jasmine with spring down here.

The big shrub in the foreground has a brother next to the garage (it also has a big ass rosemary bush behind it). The garage shrub has pointy leaves that always scrape my legs as I walk by it when doing laundry. Annoying. But it’s slightly less annoying these days:

It suddenly has two gorgeous flowers, this one on a stalk about three feet tall. Ok, Rob will let this one live… for now. I’d love to tell you what this flower smells like, but I’ve developed a cold and can’t smell a damn thing. I blame the northeast - this is the first cold I’ve had since moving down here (I used to get at least one cold a year). Damn you, Cleveland!

Coming next: I slipped and fell on Yarnzilla. Lesson learned: don’t shop for yarn when tipsy.

A bulleted list of Buffalo activities from our weekend visiting the fam:

• A new haircut, with bangs. Last time I had bangs, I was 16 and my mother warned me about how horrible I would look when they grew out.
• Ate unhealthy food and drank $1.61 beers.
• We watched it snow sideways. I know, most of the northeast had much more white action than this, but still! I brought Sarcelle with me, and it made the perfect pretty scarf.
• Took photos of a Buffalo-themed license plate:

• Hung out with a Goldendoodle puppy. Rob thinks they should be called Pootrievers.
• Made sponge candy. YUM! Does anyone outside of Western NY/Southern Ontario eat this stuff?

Of course I didn’t take photos of the fun stuff, like hanging with my peeps and drinking to excess and getting STUCK IN CLEVELAND overnight because of !@#$ bad weather in Newark (which caused our plane to show up late, which then caused us to miss our connection).

There was knitting. No project knitting, but tons of swatching. I’m feeling a bit inspired from the swatching happening here, but completely noncommittal to anything bigger than a five-inch square.

Clockwise from the big black void on the left:

• Phyllo Yoked Pullover (from Knitting Nature) in GGH Safari. The black really obscures the pattern, and I want something with a shorter row gauge so the pattern is compressed, then I can maybe wear the sweater without a cami underneath.
• Shetland Triangle (Wrap Style) in Fleece Artist Sea Wool. Thanks to Amy for suggesting this in my “what to knit with Sea Wool?” post. I knit this on a US 5, I’ll probably go up a needle size if I decide to make this.
• Some travelling cables in Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy. I need to work on the increase/decrease method - there’s some seriously ugly step edges along the purl columns.
• Twisted Flower sock pattern in Mountain Colors Bearfoot. Love the Bearfoot, but I’m thinking it’s a bit too hairy for this pattern. The colorway is gorgeous - it’s teal with some green bits running through it.

My fave of the four is the Sea Wool:

The only thing better than beautiful sock yarn is SHINY sock yarn!

I’ve had the Asymmetrical Cardigan done for at least a month, but I’ve totally been procrastinating about writing up all of the details. Here’s the lowdown, brace yourself for a wordy post:

Pattern: Asymmetrical Cardigan, from Knitting Nature
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted, the Olive colorway

This sweater was all about the journey, man. Where journey is actually drama. It started out with the best of intentions. I had seen a beautiful finished sweater in Malabrigo on the knitalong page, and I stopped by Yarntopia the next day to buy the yarn. I ran home and armed with my calculator, I was ready to rock.

I quickly found my first error - the pattern called for a bulky yarn, and the Malabrigo was worsted weight. That’s all well and good, but I didn’t convert the bulky yardage requirements before buying yarn, and I was a skein short. Damn. Yarntopia was out of the Olive colorway, and wouldn’t get more in until the next shipment. I pressed ahead anyway, determined to find a matching skein somewhere.

It took me four skeins to find a match. Hot damn, that Malabrigo really varies in color! I ordered two skeins from the internets (Pureknits, where I didn’t see the disclaimer that the olive was darker than the photo, and ebay where the photo was all lies), one from Yarntopia (then brilliantly lost the receipt), and finally Sarah totally swept in and saved my ass. She was visiting home in Indiana, I sent her my swatch, and she hooked me up! I used the mismatched skein on the cuffs and collar, striped with the original dyelot, and it is Good Enough. I think it’s less noticeable than the right front, which has a big ass stripe across it where I joined a new skein (in the same dyelot).

On to the pattern! The pattern is… different. The body of the sweater is knit in one big piece, starting at the front ribbing, up across the shoulders, and down the back. You cast on a ton of stitches for the arms along the way and then decrease them back down when you get to the back. Lastly, you add the ribbed collar/neckband and cuffs. This construction is interesting and keeps your attention, but makes gauge modifications a bitch to compute.

Because my gauge was different from the pattern, I basically knit a larger pattern size, but kept the vertical measurements for my true size (the pattern gives inches measurements, rather than rows). This made figuring out the chart easier - the chart explicitly states where to begin and end the fronts and back, and it was difficult to figure out the method behind Norah’s madness. Also, the pattern schematic and finished bust size do not take into account the two inch buttonband, so keep an eye out for this if you’re knitting this sweater.

Modifications:

1. I added 5 inches of waist shaping.

2. I kept the underarm stitches live when casting on and binding off the arms, and did a three-needle bind off when seaming them together. Casting on was easy, I just did a provisional cast on with waste yarn. Binding off was trickier - I didn’t use short rows, I used a Kelly fudge technique that involved stopping rows early and turning the work to leave the arm stitches live. Don’t try this at home kids, this isn’t good knitting practice by any means.

Modifications that I really wish I did:

1. Change the stitch pattern. The stitch pattern is caning-inspired, and I really liked it. However, the longer you look at it, the more Star of David it becomes. This would be really easy to fix - just replace the mostly-purl row in the chart, which would produce an elongated diamond pattern. I started really wishing for this mod about halfway through the sweater.

2. Knit the buttonbands on to the sweater, rather than seaming them. The seaming? Pretty much unnecessary.

The sweater pulling out at the bottom (it doesn’t normally pull quite like that), but this is still an extremely flattering photo of the cardi. The cardigan actually fits very well, but it makes me look like a ton of bricks.

The first problem is the buttonband. It is horribly, awfully gapey. I really tugged at it and smoothed it out for the photoshoot. A smaller friend tried it on, and it gaped on her, too. The issue is the 1×1 rib in the buttonband - rib is made to stretch, and stretch it does. The sweater is pretty heavy, and needs a much more substantial buttonband to hold things together. I’m considering buying some sturdy ribbon and sewing it on for some structure.

The second issue is the asymmetrical silhouette. I was pretty excited about the asymmetrical part of the cardigan - it’s a different shape for me, and my wardrobe was psyched to be expanded. But it’s not flattering. To be frank, it makes one of the (already generously-sized) girls look massive. Eek! I’d be so much happier if it was a regular, buttonband-in-the-middle, cardigan.

Malabrigo is such nice yarn, it’s so soft and wonderful to work with. However, you don’t have to do much to get it to pill - by the time I was finished knitting the body of the sweater, the front halves had already shown evidence of the yarn’s pilly, blurry fate. I’ll definitely use Malabrigo in the future, but I’ll stick to scarves. Or hats. I seamed the cardigan with a thinner yarn, Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool. I know, Silky Wool is not strong at all, but I had it lying around and the color was a near-match.

This is my third pattern from Knitting Nature (see also: Target Wave Mittens, Basalt Tank). I really and truly adore that book, and my eye is definitely drawn to Norah Gaughan’s patterns these days. The Phyllo Yoked pullover is next on the list. I’m planning on knitting a shorter version of the pattern repeat so I can wear it as a short-sleeved sweater without too much see-through action.

Yarntopia had their anniversary sale this past weekend. I wasn’t planning on going, since most of the sale yarn was wool (and it’s already heating up here in Houston), but the planets aligned in such a way that I ended up in Katy, surrounded by yarn.

Yarntopia had some non-wool on sale, and I bought a bag of GGH Scarlett in basic, lovely black for 40% off. I need to surround myself with more black yarn, since that’s by far the color I wear the most.

Even more exciting was the Fleece Artist - not on sale, but awesome all the same. They had just gotten in a shipment, which included the brand new Sea Wool:

This stuff is 115 grams of YUM. It’s got a great twist, and is soft and pretty. There’s no way that this will become socks - it deserves better than that. I’m open to project suggestions.

However, the yarn has these funky undyed bits throughout the skein:

The clumps pull out (carefully!), but still! I spotted about a half dozen of these, I’m sure there’s more.

And the free pattern on the label?

Looks like a Jaywalker to me.