Dear Mr. Lulu,

When our mom showed us your picture on the 'nets, it was love at first sight! You are soooo hot, we wanted to have your kittens! We worshipped your muscular manhood! But then we read the rest of the post and found out... the truth.


Naturally, at first we were quite despondent. But then we realized, an even more satisfying and fun relationship could be ours! We can swap recipes for dead mousies and share grooming tips! We can snark about our crazy humans and the drooling, smelly canines! We can have a Gay Boyfriend!!!


Please say yes.


Love 4-ever,
Miss Criquette & BitsyBonTon
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

PS - We're not really girls anymore, if you catch our drift. But at least the vet got our surgeries right the first time.


This video is dedicated to you, Mr. Lulu. (It even has knitting content!)

A Poem (by the Original Criquette)

"The Cat in the Hat" (with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

"A stupid hat!
A stupid hat!
I do not like that stupid hat!
I do not like it, mean old bat, I do not like your stupid hat!"

"Will you pose, Miss Criquette Cat?
So I can take your picture in the hat?"


"I do not like to pose in hats,
I will not pose in this or that.
I will not pose on stairs or chairs,
I will not pose, not anywhere!"

"I do not want hats on my head,
I do not want them in the bed.


I do not want them in a boat,
I do not want them with a goat.
I do not want them here or there --
I do not want them anywhere!"

"Would you? Could you?
In a tree? Try it on, you will agree!"

"I would not, could not in a tree.
Or anywhere else, bitch, let me be!"


"You do not like hats so you say.
Try it! Try it! And you may.
Try it and you may, I say."



"I will not try the f****** hat!
I will not try on this or that!
Now go away, you let me be.
Or you will see how mean I'll be.
I'll claw the yarn, I'll shred the hat,
I'll scratch you up, cause I'm a cat.
Cats do not wear hand-knitted crap
now let me go and take my nap!
Before I kick some human butt,
go and try it on the mutt!"

The End

To Knit Or To Blog...

...that is the question. I chose "knit" this week. I have also chosen "knit" instead of "clean" this week. And I have a couple of FO's to show for it. But Blogger's photo uploading feature took the night off, so I can't get all of the photos posted. I'll have to try again tomorrow. So all I can show is this dishcloth (kindly ignore the mistake rows, thank you very much). I adapted the pattern from the Yarn Harlot's One-row Scarf pattern - I love this pattern! Unfortunately, I got into such a groove knitting it (knit, knit, knit through the back, purl), that I forgot the side border a couple of times, hence the mistakes. Since it's only going to be used at home for cleaning, I decided not to frog and just leave it as it is.

Bitsy likes it - she did not even snarl once when I put her to work modeling this for me

I also finally got around to taking some pictures of some new stash that I nabbed at a Fall Fiber Festival. It was a small affair, held in the parking lot of one of my favorite yarn stores. I love the buttery soft handpainted merino from Crafty In a Good Way. I had hoped she would be there, and she was! And, wouldn't you know it, just when I got to her booth, it began pouring. Of course, not having an umbrella, I had to stay there under her tent in order to stay dry, giving me lots of time for yarn-petting. And in the course of all that petting, I bonded quite closely with several of the skeins. Their colors were so rich and saturated in the middle of all that grey wetness. I wanted all of them, but had to settle for these 3:

Socks (eventually)

I can picture this turning into a Baby Surprise jacket

These skeins are literally Criquette-sized - each has over 500 yds.
Can't you just see this knitted up into a lacy fall stole?

Okay, I've let myself be distracted by the blog but it's time to get back to knitting. See ya'll later!

A Belated Thanks

I thought I'd have a chance to post this on Friday, but it hasn't happened. Where did my weekend go??? I swear there's a black hole out in the universe that sucks up nothing but weekends and vacations. I don't feel like I got much done, but I stayed busy although I hardly got any knitting in.

So I am late to publicly thank my awesome secret pal for my second SP11 package. This time around, she went for quality vs quantity, which is a winner in my book any day. Here's what I received:




Wheeee! A really cool frame for pictures of my fur babies:

I know it says dogs, but I'm putting Criquette and Bitsy's pictures in there too. Fortunately they can't read and they'll never know unless Chloe or Abbie rub it in. I have a thing for black picture frames - almost every frame in my house is black - how did she know?

And I also got this fantastic book! This is a book I didn't know about - haven't seen it at any local stores or on Amazon, but if I had, I would definitely have wanted it! It's divided into chapters by technique (knit, purl, cables, lace, fair isle, etc.) with stitch patterns for each technique.

I didn't have anything like it so I am quite happy. Plus, I love getting a new book because I love books. I'm hoping to have time to start reading it this week. Thank you, SP!!! You have a real talent for choosing things I love and would pick out for myself! I hope you are being spoiled equally rotten by your upstream pal.

Border Collies Gone Wild!

Mr. C and I got to participate, for the first time, in a fall ritual, known around these parts as the MOKAN Border Collie Rescue Annual Reunion. This is the time for all of the rescued BC's to get together and paarrty and generally let their crazies out. There's running, swimming, chasing balls, sniffing butts, rolling in the manure pile and begging for barbeque - and those are just the canine sports. The humans get to chase after them and keep them out of trouble. Although Chloe is a BC mix, we left her home because as sweet as she is with kids and cats, she turns into a downright beeyotch when some strange dog tries to sniff her butt. And at this event, Chloe would have been snarling and snapping at 80+ dogs who would be trying to make her acquaintance. So she and her sensitive butt stayed home.

Which was okay, because we had a little reunion of our own with our most recent foster pup, Bonnie. She is now 9 months old and has grown a bit, but is still such a lovable and gentle girl:

Should I play chase the ball or go swimming?

Having some reunion snuggles with my sweet girl

Bonnie is now in a long-term foster home about 2 hours away. She lives with a family who has 2 kids, 2 other dogs and 3 acres. She remembered us and was as happy to see us as we were to see her. We hung out with her and her foster mom most of the day. We miss her a lot, but it's good to see how happy and healthy she is.

The day was beautiful, but hot. Great weather to take a dip in the pond.


Most of the BC's were swimming fools and just like little kids, they didn't want to get out of the water until their moms and dads made them.

One of the highlights of the day was group photo time. BC's are incredibly obedient dogs and they got organized and down to business way before their owners were ready.


After the group shot, there is a down/stay group shot (most of these are dogs who do obedience or herding). Their discipline is pretty impressive. You'd never catch a pack of Brittanys or Beagles doing this! (Sorry Dianne, I couldn't resist. Although Emma might be the exception!)

"Down, stay...."

"That'll do!"

And now to tie this into some Actual Knitting Content. First of all, I made some progress on the ribbed baby hat while driving to the reunion. But not enough to take a picture.

Also, where there are border collies, there will inevitably be sheep:

Of course they all turned their backs on me when I started to take their picture. But they're so cute - they look like they're wearing little wooly pantaloons.

The reunion was held on a small sheep ranch - these are just a few members of the flock. During the reunion, the sheep are usually put to work for herding demonstrations but got a break this year because they were breeding. The pens all had tarps covering the fences so the BC's couldn't see the sheep and get too hyper and crazy because bc's are already hyper and crazy enough.

We left before it was over, having tired ourselves out eating barbeque and running around with Bonnie. We're getting too old to party with the bc's all night long.