Friday's Hunt v. 4.11

I had my spinning guild meeting last night, so I didn't get around to doing Friday's Hunt yesterday. I do enjoy getting together with other hand spinners to chat about fibre and yarn and spinning.  We have a great tribe!

The prompts for Friday's Hunt with Eden Hills this week are:  Starts with K, stinky, and old.

Starts with K
Well, as anyone who reads this blog from time to time will know, I am a fibre fiend, and that means that among other things, I knit.  I wish I had more time for knitting, but recently I have completed a project that I really like.  I made a purple bouclé yarn vest with an alpaca/wool blend yarn.  I had a lot of the yarn in my stash and wanted the right project for it.  A bouclé yarn is one with little loops along its surface, which gives the finished project a highly textured surface.

One of my current projects (I always have a few on the go) is this cowl, knitted in locally-sourced and processed yarn that my parents brought from a holiday in England - the Yorkshire area to be precise.  The cowl is called Harmonia's Rings and you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

I like the beaded edge on the cowl, which you can see in the picture below.  I'm on the last skein of yarn, so nearly finished.


Stinky
We recently adopted a pair of young rats from one of Marc's colleagues.  Her cat was frightening them, so they were looking for a good home for them.  We love their cute little faces and their funny antics.  The brown rat is Violet and the grey and white one is Ivy.  People sometimes complain that rats are stinky.

I cleaned their cage this morning so it would not be stinky - rats are not very easy to litter train, so they pee around the cage, which can make it stinky if you don't clean it regularly.

Old
I recently unpacked some boxes in the basement that had some of my old toys in them.  One of the oldest is this stuffed hedgehog.  It was one of my first "teddy bears" and was made for me by my maternal grandparents.  Her name was Mrs. Tiggy Winkle, named after the character from the Beatrix Potter books, all of which I also adored!  She has been loved for many years and looks a bit squashed as a result, but she is a very special old toy.

I also found this marvellous finger-puppet mouse bride, which my mother made for me when I was very young.  She is also a very old toy, but also well-loved and often played with when I was a child. My mother is very creative and made me many little animal toys when I was young, many of which I still have.  It's lovely to re-discover them!