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…

One would think, after going to the NY Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend, that I’d have posted about that next,   but I’ve been lax in my photo taking, and still processing last weekend and my expenditures and not quite ready to post about it.   Soon.

But today was an unusally eventful day totally worthy of posting about.   Today I learned just a little bit more about my 8 yr old seal point Siamese,  Stretch..

Now let me first explain that Stretch is a complete hug hog,  he needs to be the center of attention and always in someone’s arms. He’s been known to often paw at my sweater until I let him climb underneath to snuggle inside (making me look pregnant with cat). He also likes to sleep in the crook of my arm, and under the covers.

So this morning, I got out of bed and let him snuggle under the covers for an hour, before removing him from the bedroom before going to work. At 8, I lifted him from under the covers, listened to him complain, and gently set him in the computer room in a sunny chair. He sat there looking sleepily at me and just slightly cold….

I turned around and spied a cut piece of knitted wool from a recycled sweater on the table, and draped it over him, noticing it made a nice little kitty shawl. And he sat there with it on looking at me. Which is when I grabbed a small safety pin, and pinned the little makeshift knitted shawl around him.. grabbed my coat, and left for work.

This afternoon at 4 I get a call from Ann, who says to me.. “so.. we need to talk about the cat cozy”. It turns out that Stretch wore the kitty shawl ALL DAY, and Ann found it still on him when she arrived home!

Which now brings me to wonder… time to make a sweater for the cat?   I wonder if this has been done successfully before?   Are there other cats that wear knitted items and LIKE it?  Or do I just have a very strange kitty?

…made the front page of the paper Wed……
playing Julius Caesar in our local high school’s Shakespeare production.