It’s proof of how much I hate seaming that I finished knitting this cat a month ago, stuffed it, yet didn’t get around to the sewing up until a few days ago:

You’ll find the pattern here: Brownie the Cat. Here’s a pic from the side:

And my favourite, the rear shot.

I still want to make several more and populate window sills with them.

Work on the Origami Bolero was progressing quickly – it’s such a fun knit – but it came to a sudden halt last week when I ran out of dark green yarn. That’s the trouble with stash-busting projects: you always end up buying more yarn. My local yarn store just happens to be getting more of the yarn in that green this week. They’re going to call me when it arrives.

So in the meantime I’ve been working on these socks.

I have to admit, this is the second time I’ve started them. Somehow with the first version I managed to end up with the wrong number of stitches by the time I got to the heel, then messed up the short rows. I really wasn’t feeling the love at that point, so I frogged and started again with using some purple for the toes and heels, knitting alternately on each sock. Suddenly the sock knitting love was back and I’m whipping through them.

The knitting has been helped along by episodes of the Martha Stewart Show. It’s showing on Seven’s digital channel on weekdays so I’m recording it. The shows are a couple of years old and the ones I started with were all about ‘the holidays’. There were a few references to possible uncertain economic times – and clearly not enough time has passed since Christmas for me to not shudder at all the holiday decorating and cooking.

It also took a while to get used to all the cheering. The audience breaks out into clapping and whooping numerous times, sometimes at the slightest reason. There’s none of the Aussie cringe at enthusiastic self-promotion, too. I find these little cultural differences fascinating.

Everyone seems to talk very slowly and ‘beat around the bush’ a lot, as we Aussies say. I’ve found that if I play the episodes at double speed the dialogue is just a little faster than ‘normal’ (we Aussies do, apparently, talk quickly), and if I skip the ad breaks I can watch three episodes in the time it would take to watch one live.

So far I’ve learned a better way to slice an onion, that you can get rather nifty Japanese hole punches, and that popping champagne corks is considered uncouth now. I admit it… I’m hooked.