Small furry knitting monster problems.

[niffer]

When I'm knitting I get a couple of problems and I'm wondering if other people have the same issues and how they deal with them.

The problem surrounds knitting monsters - you know, small, furry, big ears, long tails, always know more than they let on....

When I'm happily knitting away, a knitting monster will stick its claws under my kneecaps and pulls hard trying to eat the yarn.

When that one is dealt with, I'll be there again knitting quietly, when another knitting monster will be trying (and succeeding) to get its foot long teeth around the end of the needles.

Occasionally, I'll be knitting in one colour yarn, and when I look down, there'll be black or tabby coloured yard poking through, lift up the work and what do I find? Yet another knitting monster.

Then theres the times when the knitting monsters tails take on a life of their own and swat about at my needles and face.

One serious problem with the knitting monsters, was when I wasn't concentrating properly and a small ginger and white one hijacked my needle and ran into the next room trailing yarn everywhere.

Has anyone else got issues with these monsters?
How do you deal with the furry little critters?

HELP!!!

[mulene]

I have one little black and white knitting monster. She is adorable and unfortunately all I can do is laugh when she plays tricks like that!

[knit-errant]

I have four:

One likes to lay behind me on the couch when I knit, but doesn't mess with what I'm doing as long as I'm using regular yarn; when I crack out the crochet thread, then she thinks its fun.

My tortie beast is pretty well behaved, and she likes to lay on my lap -- actually, I think she likes to lay on whatever I'm making more than my lap.
She's right there trying to lay on it if I'm working on something on the big side like sweaters or afghans; something long like a scarf will do, too.

My third was never really interested in my knitting until this weekend. I'm working on a ribbon top, and somehow (hm, I wonder how) it slipped off the needles. She unravelled part of it (thought the ribbon was fun to play with) and then proceeded to chew said ribbon to bits. I had to redo about 1/3 of the back. Not happy.

My fourth cat is a yarn snob; if it's wool, angora, silk or another animal-ish origin it belongs to her. She'll try to steal the ball right out of my hands, and won't even attempt to be sneaky about it. She couldn't care less about acrylics, cottons, bamboo, etc. It's kind of handy because if I lose a ball band, she can usually give me some hint to the fiber content. :P

I don't really do anything to handle them. With the exception of the ribbon yarn incident, it's usually funny.

[Eloewien]

My monster has been trained-- thank goodness. If you look at my avatar- he's an orange tiger beastie. He just loves to sit and watch- unless I'm winding yarn, then he paws at it, no worse. I just get a cold nose in the elbow once in a while, which is annoying, but survivable

[feministmama]

Two words: water bottle

[mulene]

Two words: water bottle

Shouldn't that be water pistol? :P

[niffer]

Bottle might be better - one of mine (a stray who now lives mostly on my foot) is terrified of drinks bottles - all I need to do is pick one up a cm of the table and he's off - leaving claws behind somewhere in my leg!

[Jan in CA]

My two monsters aren't too bad. The youngest does attempt to bother occasionally, but for the most part just distracting her works pretty well. I don't do waterbottles/waterguns in my house because of the hard floors. It makes them slippery if you forget to clean up or miss a spot. Besides I dont' want to get up from what I'm doing when I'd have to repeatedly clean up after squirting. And also.. monster baby likes water.

You may have to close the closet doors to keep monsters out....or in as the case may be.

[niffer]

I couldn't really use water - they'd cry at me.

today I've resorted to babying Oscar to sleep on my lap and trying to knit silently so not to wake him!

Maybe thats the way - Knitting needle silencers!

[miccisue]

I've got a dog...she doesn't appear to be interested in my yarn.