Part One

Friends, things are tough here. I’ll kind of glide over it in the first paragraph – you can skip to the first picture (or indeed skip the whole post!) if you like.

My dad has Alzheimer’s, and my other immediate family members have a range of their own health concerns, both chronic and acute. In November, my sister and I moved in with our parents for a couple of months while they were both unable to take care of themselves/each other. I’m home now, but us three siblings are still trying to figure out how we can support mum and dad while still looking after ourselves. Everyone says ‘make sure to take care of yourself, too’ but honestly, that’s harder than you think.

Needless to say, it’s challenging. And what do we do in challenging times? We knit.

The last time you saw the Black Cat Sweater, it was just a neck! And now it’s a whole garment, that’s been worn and washed and worn some more! I’m absolutely thrilled with it.

I followed the jumper pattern until just after the armpits (maybe ten rows? This detail is lost), then picked up and finished the sleeves. This meant I knew exactly how much yarn was left for the rest of the body and could keep knitting till it was all gone.

Then, I worked the front and back separately to do the cat pattern. After finishing the front, I could see I didn’t have enough grey to make the back plain orange/grey, so I worked the cat again in reverse. It looks awesome.

I seamed up the sides, and made rolled cuffs and a rolled hem, to match the neckline. Then I sewed in the ends, and we were done! One cat jumper, based on an AI image and reverse engineered into existence.

I love the cat’s mildly crazy eyes. And while I would never usually have made or worn something bright orange, I really like how it contrasts with my purple hair. I’m especially pleased with the straight line of colour change across both sleeves and body when it’s worn.

In summary:

The pattern is Black Cat Bag (Ravelry link) by Maryna Vershynina (designer’s site) inserted into Early Moorning Mist (Drops website). I knit top down until I wanted to start the pattern, then knit front and back separately and seamed. The cat pattern is for crochet, but I simply used it as a knitting chart instead.

I made it with Drops Air in Electric Orange, Pearl Grey, and Anthracite. It used exactly three skeins of grey, half a skein of black, and juuuust over four skeins of orange. That’s based on weighing leftover yarn, some time after the fact – I think I used 5g of the fifth orange skein, but I’m not sure.

I’ll do a separate post with some notes on the yarn (I like it and would use it again, but it has some noteworthy features).