Pumpkinspun’s Musings

Yes, the faux blogger returns, she who posts maybe once or twice a year… but I hadn’t forgotten about the sweater for Stretch. On Ravelry I was reading some posts in the Pointed Knits group (you know.. Pointed as in Seal POINT, Blue POINT, Meezers, rabbits, etc.) and posted about the shawl situation last October. Turns out others have thought of this idea, and even shared patterns. Yes, there are a few cats that apparently will wear sweaters, and yes, there are thousands more that are merely humiliated when their owners play dress up with them (see the Ravelry group “Knitted Furmiliation“).

Stretch was genuinely cold. He liked the shawl. So this past January I picked my favorite of the Cat sweater patterns I found, an adapted Chihuahua doggie sweater pattern - Felis Felix Mandarin Cat Sweater by Hilary Smith Callis . I knit the sweater for him using the same yarn as the “shawl”, which was a frogged thrifted woolen sweater, a tweedy deep red, and used some white alpaca for the faux Mandarin trim. It knit quickly.. and it, well, “sort of” fit him.

The biggest problem with the fit, is that Siamese cats, and most cats, probably, are built in such a way that they need a very wide armscye, so their entire shoulders can move when they walk. In the sweater as knit, he ended up being very restricted, and while he liked the sweater, every time he’d attempt to stand up with it on, he’d flop over onto one side, with this shoulders being so restricted. It was a little amusing for the humans, but not very comfortable for the Stretch-man.

I’ll rip out the sleeves and widen the armscye by at least 2 1/2 times this fall, when it gets chilly again. The sleeves really aren’t necessary for him, I suspect. You can see all the pictures I took with this sweater in my Ravelry projects. Maybe this fall I’ll also revisit finishing the “shawl” with a button or two, and the finishing the edges.

Oh and that post I was supposed to do on Rhinebeck…. feh… it’s been written about oodles of times by now. Let’s just say I was very good on the yarn acquisition and only bought one skein of Icelandic sheep sock yarn, and not so controlled with the fiber and well… came home with a few pounds of unspun wool, mohair, bamboo, merino/silk…