There are going to be a lot of Melt The Ice hats in Minneapolis

[chowmama]

These are the Norwegian protest hats, for which a pattern is being sold to raise funds for immigrants.

I say this because I bought the pattern and the yarn. Then went to my ample supply of needles and other equipment and came up empty. The worsted weight version, which will have a medium weight fabric and knit up the quickest, uses size 8 needles. I really only use double point needles for circular because I'm a 'propped needle' knitter - the needle from which the yarn is being knit is propped vertically on my leg. You can't do this with a circular, unless you're the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And if you try, you soon will be.

I have no size 8 DP needles. I've shopped around this weekend at several places and looked on the websites of every store located within a reasonable distance. Every store is sold out. (I didn't look at Hobby Lobby because I'd sooner stop knitting.) There are no size 8 DP needles in the Twin Cities.

I have my mom's old needle collection and it turns out that she had a size 8 15" length circular needle, tip to tip. It's going to be hard to squeeze 96 stitches onto it and I'm going to have to rubber band the tips any time I need to set it aside, so the piece doesn't explode off them and unravel. I'm going to need markers - I hate markers. And my hands are going to be cramped as hell from trying to knit in midair. Gauge and consistent stitches may be another problem.

We'll see how it goes. But how often does this kind of shortage, on only one size of needle, happen?

[Nanuke]

1. My knitter friends say the red yarn is impossible to get due to shortage (also in Mpls).

[chowmama]

2. The circular needle is going to work out.

Unfortunately, Baby Belle, Audrey's kitten, found the project overnight. I found the yarn hanging down from the table I'd left it on this morning and began reeling it in. A chewed end of yarn was all that came up.

I found the project, still on the needle, in the hairiest cat bed in the house. The yarn is accounted for, so she didn't eat it anyway. I know it was her because the hairs I'm still removing from the project are all silver gray. (Audrey and Fast Eddie are black.) I spent my lunch hour making sure no stitches were dropped, picking back until I had a long enough end to weave in, starting a fresh length of yarn and doing a few more rows.

Crafts and cats are an... interesting combination. I'll have to be more careful to secure it away. I keep imagining her in that bed all night, muttering "Mine, all mine." At least she seems to have treated it like a baby kitten, instead of like a mouse. It's remarkably intact, considering.