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There are a lot of reasons I’ve chosen to support Barack Obama for President. I’ll admit that first and foremost is a personal reason - Mr. Kitchener Bitch is a friend and former employee of Michelle Obama, who is one of the strongest, smartest, and kindest women I have ever met. It’s so rare to be able to give a personal endorsement of someone in politics, but I can vouch personally that over the years, Michelle and Barack have time and again shown us that they’re truly good people - the kind of people you can trust and depend on.
But there’s so much more. I’ve always been a sort of Blue State radical, it’s true, but I’m tired of living in a divided country. And the man that can bring us together has said, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there’s the United States of America. ” Amen, buddy. I’m right behind you, with pointy sticks in hand, waiting for my chance to help mend the fabric of this country.

If you’d like to learn more about Barack Obama - and it’s worth it, because he’s a hell of a guy - go here. And if you’d like to join Knitters for Obama (it’s free! it’s nationwide! and it promises to be a good old time once we get some Knit-Ins scheduled!) go here. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Knitters for Obama. And feel free to steal either button (but not the bandwidth) for your own blog! *NOTE: PLEASE be patient with the Obama website over the next few days - their servers have been overwhelmed!**

Because together we can make this thing happen.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled knitting. Peace, people!

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p.s. Zooty sends his love to all of you. He’s a little better today! We’ve discovered that lamb-flavored baby food is key. More later!

Thank you all for your extremely kind words regarding my poor kitten Zoot. It’s meant a lot to me, as the last few days have felt rocky and dark for us, struggling with the specter of losing a cat that we love like he was a boy. His condition hasn’t improved radically since his visit to the vet last Monday, but at least for now, he’s fighting it out. The big issue we’ve got right now is that Zoot - my champion eater, my Big Booty Zooty, my 25-pounder of yore - has little if any appetite. We’ve got him on appetite stimulants and steroids, but they’re not working all that well, and he only takes a bite or two of anything we give him. And we can’t just let him eat what he wants now, either - we’ve been told that even a few more days of low appetite in his condition could lead to very dire consequences for his already compromised liver. This has led to our concocting sort of a Devil’s Brew of all his favorite foods mixed together. Tonight the menu included a slurry of A/D (a sort of Kitty Ensure) and cat treats whipped up with tuna water and cantaloupe. Tomorrow, the delicacies will include Tender Vittles, baby food, potted meat product, roast chicken, those tiny cat food tins of jellied shrimp, and clam juice. In our desperation to feed him we will leave no vile meat product untried.

…Have you got a suggestion on how to get a gravely ill cat to eat? If so, please, by all means do share it. I’d give him caviar night and day, if I only thought he would eat it. (He tried it once, mind you, but he didn’t like it.)

I know that the world is full of pain and suffering, and that it’s my privilege as a rich spoiled American to weep over a pet the way people have to weep over their real children every day all over the world. But it’s heartbreaking, to love a little creature so, and to know that he can’t respond to reason when you want to say “shut up and eat that, dammit, or you really will die.” Y’all’s kindness means a lot to us here at the Kitchener Bitch household. Again, thanks.

I haven’t stopped knitting completely. I don’t have a complete picture of them yet, but in a fit of pique with the weather I started and finished these gloves:

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It’s Artyarns Merino Handpaint Stripes, and it’s almost lovely enough to command its formidable price tag. (I did get a whole pair out of one skein so I won’t grumble too much.) They sure will be toasty, though, and at 15 below zero today I must say I can’t wait!  (Heh - that’s Bush as Nero in the background - I could write a whole ‘nother rant on that one, but I’ll spare you for now and stick to my needles, as it were.  Let’s just say that in this household, we spell “relief” this way: O-B-A-M-A.)

For now I must bid you adieu - there’s some horrible chum I’ve got to mix up for Prince Sickie, and then I’m off to what hopefully will be a long and dreamless sleep. Tomorrow I’ll share more knitting adventures, and we can talk Tofutsies. Until then take care, and hug your little furry ones at home for me.

I’m very sorry I don’t have a lot of knitting content for you folks this week.  This is what’s been taking up most of my time:

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Zoot, the greatest cat in the world, has inoperable cancer.  He’s an old boy - 18 - but we truly thought he would live forever.  We don’t know how long he has, but when the time comes, we’ve been told that we’ll know.

So say a prayer for my little fat buddy.  And I promise, more knitting and spinning and such once I get my head back on.

I’ve been hiding her from you for a few weeks now, mostly because I’ve been too overwhelmed to blog coherently. But here’s a picture of my new precioussss:

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She’s a double treadle Schacht Matchless, and although she’s somewhat temperamental, when she’s in a good mood she spins like a dream. I haven’t yet named her, other than to occasionally call her a Bitch Goddess. In any case, I can already see a vast improvement in the quality of my spinning with her. I’m able to spin much more evenly and for much longer stretches of time, and when I do need to stop, she stops on a dime. (I’m not sure if that’s due to the Schacht’s sensitivity, or if it’s simply due to the fact that I’m trying it out in double drive mode at the moment - I’ve heard improved consistency and longer spinning time listed as virtues of double drive before.) Right now I’m mostly frantically knitting on my 8,265,394 WIPs. I have had a little time to play with some really soft and nice BFL. I’m spinning it semi-woolen, with the intent of knitting socks (with stronger, tougher Wensleydale at heel and toe).
Just to make sure this month was a “Hooray for Me” bacchanalia, I also swapped the lovely Melissa for a drum carder:

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It’s an older Pat Green - it looks like a Deb’s Deluxe but it’s not; it has the fur drum, though, as far as I can tell, and it seems to work nicely. I also got a burnishing tool from Susan’s Fiber Arts (and Susan is a nice lady!), and it vastly improved the quality of my test batts. Coming up, my first for-reals victim: one of the two Icelandic fleeces that I picked up last month from Woolambia:

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I’ve gotten it into my head that sock yarn made out of these fleeces could be really lovely - but who needs four pounds of sock roving? So perhaps I will end up with a sweater and a couple of matching pairs of socks. I just think that the stong tog and the soft thel would make a wonderful combination for socks. There’s one hitch, though. The traditional way of making lopi yarn out of unseparated Icelandic fleece is to very loosely spin it, with barely enough twist to hold the yarn together. That can’t make for the strongest of socks. Any thoughts on what to make with this?

I’ll leave you with a pretty photo of the gorgeous Stargazer lilies that are scenting our entire house - they’re amazing when they’re fully open:

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and now, back to our regularly scheduled knitting programming (cupcakes are just one post away, though, so don’t deprive yourself if you’re in a baking mood):

Lacy Scarf

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from P&B Luxury in Fuzzy Wuzzy Angora - date published unknown
Materials: Fuzzy Wuzzy Angora, 2 - 1/2 oz. balls. Two #5 knitting needles. (From the looks of it, a sport or light DK-weight angora yarn was used. Anny Blatt Angora Super, Bouton d’Or Angora 70, Lorna’s Laces Angel, or Maggi Knits Angora could be used as a substitute.)

Tension: 4 1/2 sts and 6 rows = 1 inch. (Note: I don’t think tension is particularly critical on this one.)

Cast on 34 sts.

1st row: K2. *YO, Sl 1, k2tog, psso, YO, k3. Repeat from * to last 2 sts; k2.

2nd row: K2, purl to last 2 sts, k2.

3rd row: K2. *K3, YO, sl1, k2tog, psso, YO. Repeat from * to last 2 sts; k2.

4th row: K2, purl to last 2 sts, k2.
Repeat these 4 rows until all the Angora except about 1 1/2 yards have been used. Cast off. Press lightly.