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Cat-tastrophy

One would think I might remember there are two young cats in my house; both rather curious about the new things I brought back from Minneapolis.  I made the mistake last evening of leaving one of my most favorite plastic circular set of needles out with a project on those needles.  One of the cats, and I don't know which, decided that a needle tip would make for a good chew toy and chew s/he did, leaving the surface of the needle rough and the point misshaped.

This photo is really blown up, making it easy to see which tip was damaged.

I worked on the tip with a nail file and then put it is boiling hot water several times to rework the tip. For the most part it has come back to a point that it is usable.  In fact as I continue to knit the tip improves with every stitch.

There are some good news things to note from this cat-tastrophy:
  • Lucky me, s/he chose only one of the tips and not both.
  • Which ever of the two did this had the common courtesy to not drop any stitches.  I am working on a project that starts by casting on 1,221 stitches.  Yes, no typo there: one thousand, two hundred and twenty-one stitches.  I had just counted them before going to bed to be sure the number was correct.  (You will get the lowdown on this project later.  It has only just begun.)
  • No yarn was impacted.  The project is using lace weight yarn and it could have easily been damaged.
  • I was able to fix the problem with relatively little effort.
  • I was taught a good lesson about haphazardly leaving knitting projects out over night.  From now on the needles and yarn will be put in a plastic bag and tip protectors will be used.
So I guess I am thanking M&M for teaching me a lesson, one that will not soon be forgotten.  Tuck all your yarny things away before going to bed.  The cats say they will not be held responsible for the results if I do otherwise.

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