Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Toki

Okay, so I guess it's time to write about the passing of my little bunny, Toki. I got Toki about 2 years ago, and she died last Monday. She died so young. I should have rushed her to the hospital as soon as I saw her mushy poop, but I thought she could last a few hours as I was rushing off to work. So stupid. She was dead when I came back. I feel so guilty. I'm so sorry, Toki. Next time I will know better.


I cried a lot. I'm sure people will think it's silly, but she my was companion for two years. They live in my apt. with me, and my two bunnies were the last thing I would check on before I left the house and the first thing I would check on when I got back. I tried to take good care of her. Unlike Enif, who I adopted from a shelter, I got Toki from a pet store. She was so little, a baby Netherlands Dwarf. Here are some early pictures:



Here she is still getting to know Enif (the flash makes her eyes red):


Eating her veggies:

Somehow I had the idea that if she had been in a pet store being petted by lots of people, she'd be used to be touched and handled by people. But Toki was always a little shy of people, even me who she saw everyday, and Enif became more friendly. Go figure.


Her name means "rabbit" in Korean. Before I had her, I used to just call Enif "bunny", and I thought, "what will I do when i have another bunny?" So I named her 'rabbit' in Korean. Anyway, after I got her I stopped calling Enif "bunny" anyway. Some times I called her "Little Mama" because of her false pregnancy. When I first got her, she was too young to have spayed. Unspayed rabbits can sometimes go into a false pregnancy when mounted by a male. Enif had been neutered for a long time, but I guess it didn't matter because when she was around 4 or 5 months old, she had a false pregnancy. She went around the house gathering anything soft she could find to make a nest. Very destructive. She also took fur from her belly, and she turned their litter box into a nest. I think Enif was confused. See what she did to this doll's head!



So I got her spayed. Near $200! I cleaned her wound everyday, twice a day, though she hated it.

When I went to study Zulu in Bloomington, Indiana over the summer, I packed up my favorite plants, clothes, and my two bunnies and drove down there with them. Here is a picture of her all grown up from that time:


It was in Indianapolis that I found their bunny sitter, a volunteer for the House Rabbit Society. Even though I went back to Chicago after that summer, I still drove them down to their house when I went out of town because she is such a caring bunny lover. I will take Enif there next week while I visit family for xmas in CA. She said she would light a candle for Toki to help her cross the Rainbow Bridge. I'm not one for supernatural or spiritual stuff, but it is nice to imagine Toki as still being somewhere, curiously getting ready to cross a bridge where she will have other bunnies to snuggle with and get all the banana treats she wants.

I had her for two years. She was really special. Oh Little Mama, we will miss you around here. Goodbye, Toki.






Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Crazy for Colorwork

Since the fair isle sweater, I seem to have just gone crazy for colorwork. I just got Vol 3 of Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, and I love it. It's just what I wanted. I wish there were several more books like it so I could have a collection of thousands of colorwork patterns. But in the meantime I am using it to make some fair isle gloves. I'm knitting them flat because I didn't want to figure out how to do the thumb gusset while working fair isle. I'll sew up the side and leave a space for the thumb and then add the thumb and fingers on after, I think/hope. This is where I am so far. Just started last night. I LOVE the yarn I used for this. Frog Tree Alpaca's Merino. Alpaca makes me a little itchy, though not on my hands I guess. I used it for the headbands below, and I bought some more as comfort yarn right after dropping my dead bunny at the vet (post coming soon).


These are a couple of head bands I did for my upcoming ski trip. One for me and one for my companion, I guess. I got the snowflake motif from this site . I LOVE the yarn I used for this.




And this slip stitch pattern. I love slip stitch colorwork. So easy because you only do one color per row. I got the pattern here. But we aware that there is a typo on rounds 8 and 9, and the asterisk should be after the first slipped stitch. Also, worsted weight on size 10.5s is very loose. I used size 8s and cast on 90 stitches. Karabella Aurora 8 is the gray and Dolce Mohair Rigato is the self-striping mohair/acrylic blend.