Continuing the theme of cats sitting on knitwear, we have Malthus sitting on a wrap I knitted ages ago.

It was when I was a new knitter, and Brown Sheep still sold yarn in hanks. The yarn store I shopped at, the only one in the Valley, had a whole wall of these hanks, a wooly spectrum of saturated color. Fall colors were my favorite then too, and I picked out a strong orange, dark red, walnut brown, and forest green.

I can’t remember if I had the idea to make a poncho before or after I bought the yarn, but that’s what I knitted. I had advanced far enough that I could match yarn to the appropriate needles, but not so far that I was using others’ patterns. I had been playing with the Diamond Lace pattern from my 70’s-tastic Arco Guide to Knitting Stitches, and cast on a dozen repeats plus a garter edge. It didn’t even occur to me to worry that the color changes chopped two diamonds in half, and actually, my color changes were incredibly tidy.

When I had a long rectangle, I bound off and crocheted one side together. After ponchos went back out, I undid the crocheting and used it occasionally as a wrap. More often than not, it lived in its moth-proof Ziploc body bag. Today, I took it out of the bag for the first time in years to wear as a scarf. It was snug enough to ward off a sharp morning breeze, and what do you know. It makes an irresistible kitty bed too.