Zhinka dinka doo

Red tweed wood sprite hat

This is one of a set of 7 hats for a special order. The order was for 4 child/teen sized hats, but then I had bits of yarn left over so I made 3 doll-sized hats to include.  My customer is amazing:  these are part of her Christmas shopping!

I desperately need a head mannequin for hat photographs. These just don't look very good all flat like this, and Max is no longer interested in modeling. I looked on ebay and found some vintage millinery forms, but I keep getting outbid. Does anyone know where else I can get one? Or maybe I should just make one. How hard could it be? (Famous last words.)

Gertie update: Thank you all for cheering Gert on! She says thank you too, only it sounds more like "purrrrrr". We have big news: yesterday she ate her first food in about 3 weeks! It was only a teaspoon, but it's a step in the right direction. She didn't repeat until this morning, and now isn't interested again. We're going in for her check-up tomorrow. Hopefully we'll keep taking small steps in the right direction.

Gertie is pretty in pink

Gertl is feeling much less yellow (jaundiced) now, and much pinker. Even her neck wrap is pink!

Gert stayed at the kitty hospital for 11 days. She was incredibly lethargic, very jaundiced, and looking like she was not long for this world. They put in a feeding tube and fluids IV, and basically brought her back to life.

She's been home for 6 days now, and while she's none to happy about the neck wrap, she's definitely happy to be home and getting more active every day.

Feeding her has been a challenge, she needs to be fed 4 times a day, every 4 hours, plus one water-only feeding at night. All through the tube, since she still won't eat or drink. They say the usual time to have the tube in and get them eating again is 4-6 weeks.

The food is watered down and then goes through the blender. I have to bring it to about kitty-body temperature and feed it to her through her tube v-e-r-y--s-l-o-w-l-y, otherwise she vomits. Or, like this weekend, sometimes she vomits her entire feeding all over the living room for no apparent reason. It's very challenging, and I'm completely exhausted.

But seeing her happy and alert like this is wonderful.

WIP: needle felting and Gertie update

Crafts are good for distracting oneself...

These little needle-felted wool felt motifs are destined to be decoration patches on felt needle books, end-of-year presents for Max's kindergarten teachers. After Max finishes the needle felting (he's been doing all of it), I'll trim them down a bit and attach them to the books.

Except for the danger of 5 super-sharp barbed needles going through a little finger—and that's a pretty big "except"—this is an fun activity for kids. I got the Clover needle felting tool and mat for Christmas, and after a 3-day frantic search through the house for it, it took us all of 30 seconds to get going. The Clover tool has a little safety cover that theoretically prevents one from puncturing one's body. In reality, we found many ways around this safety feature. Not because we were looking, but just because they came up. Ocassionally the cover would stay retracted and not come back down to cover the needles; disassembling and cleaning the unit seems to have helped. There's a "lock" position, but it very easily wiggles out of lock and into the open position. So we've stressed keeping fingers away and never testing whether it's locked or open on your hand.

The only problem we're having is that the felting tool leaves pretty big holes in the felt. Can you see them in the photo below? They're most obvious in the door and in the light felt to the lower right of the house.



I'm wondering if perhaps we poked more lightly (don't push the needles all the way in), maybe it would make smaller holes.  The felter says it has fine weight needles, so I wouldn't image that needle size is the problem. On the yellow flower I was able to sort of brush the top of the flower and make the holes less obvious.

Does anyone have experience with needle felting and can give me any tips on this?

Gertie update: I just talked with the vet, he said her blood tests show that she has hepatic lipidosis.  The infectious diseases panel showed no FLV, FIV, FIP, so that's good although it means they don't know what led to this problem.  She's on IV fluids and antibiotics, and he suggested either a feeding tube or home care with appetite stimulants, anti-nausea meds, and special foods.  I'd much rather try the less invasive technique, but not if she's so far along that any failure with this method would be Really Bad.  Unfortunately, the vet was unable to say if this was the case, I guess the blood test results are not that specific.  He could only say that her values were elevated, but not the worst he's seen.

So we're going to try home care first, to see if we can get her to eat with the extra pharmaceutical support.  I hope it's the right decision.

Get well, my little Gertl

We brought Gertie to the vet this morning and they admitted her to the kitty hospital right away. She hasn't been eating or drinking since Monday, and has been very lethargic. We were certain something was wrong when Couga curled up next to her, and Gert—the self-proclaimed alpha cat—didn't kill him.

The doc looked at her for about 30 seconds and pronounced the situation dire. She was very jaundiced.  I didn't know how to look for jaundice in cats, its difficult because they're covered in fur.  But her nictating membrane (third eyelid), gums, and inside her ears were yellow. This indicates a liver problem, which is consistent with her not eating for a few days.

Cats can't fast, they need to eat regularly or their bodies will begin to do things that lead to total failure. One step along the way is hepatic lipidosis, which is a buildup of fats in the liver. Because of her fragile state, he wanted to immediately put her on fluids, get some bloodwork done, and perhaps start alternative feedings.

We don't know what caused this. She's been on a low-calorie diet for about a year. All the cats have been on the same diet, how does one give just one cat out of four a special diet? The others have shown some weight loss, but not Gert until now. Her weigh-in today was 12 lb. and 14 oz., compared to 17 lb. a year ago. We haven't weighed her in the meantime, but she never felt any lighter. In fact, in recent months she was starting to feel heavier. If she has lost 4+ pounds in a week or two, that's serious.

The doctor said this could be due to liver disease, or diabetes, or gastroenteritis. Hopefully we'll know more tomorrow after all the tests.



These pictures were taken this February. I really hope we can get her looking all happy and healthy like this again.

Comet and nothing

We had lots more snow last week and school was cancelled on both Monday and Tuesday. Max had a great time body-sledding in the front yard on the giant mound of snow that was removed from our driveway. While I was watching Max play--I was inside and warm--I found Comet doing a common cat thing and staring at nothing. Or perhaps they were fairies that are invisible to humans. In any case, she seemed content to just stare.

Look at the ruff on that cat. I know it's hard to see, being white on a background of white, but take my word for it, it's huge.

One minute later, she tired of keeping watch over the fairies and let out a huge cat-yawn. No, she's not trying to eat them.

Looking at Comet's ruff made me want to knit a neck warmer to keep my neck as warm as hers. I tried something, but it didn't work out as planned. I think it would work with a modification, but I don't think I'll get to it because in the meantime I discovered that my Calorimetry works pretty well, I just tie it to fasten behind my neck (I've long ago given up on the button, I just tie it now), and then I can pull the front part up as high as I want. It keeps my chin and nose warm during my sunrise walks in the frigid air. I don't think I ever posted a picture of it here, but I did make one, as did almost everyone else. I make it out of Noro something or other. As for everyone else, it's kinda big and I keep thinking of felting it, but with this new use as a neck warmer I think I'll keep it as is.

It's a happy day

Today I'm happy. I got 11 hours of sleep last night, after two nights of drastically insufficient sleep (due to a new contract I've taken on at work). I got my walk in this morning, which I haven't been able to do for days (work again). It's snowing--well, on and off. And the best reason? Today is the day that Gertie got to come home! Look at that cat, can't you just feel the happiness vibes coming off her? She gets to sit in the sun again. At home. Life is good. Except for Zhinka. Who might as well never have met Gert before in her life, for how she's acting toward her. Zhink is all hisses and growls. The other cats are perplexed but much more accepting. Gert, the big bruiser that she is, is treating little Zhinka's hisses like the buzz from a passing fly. Annoying, but nothing to worry about.

Feline felon