The heat arrived with a vengeance this week, and with it a lot of my energy went on out the window. Still, I made some progress on projects and it was a good week.
Knitting
I knitted like crazy at the start of the week on my Breathe and Hope shawl. If you missed it, I showed off a picture in my last post here. Then, after writing that post, I suddenly wanted to go back to the brighter colors of my Garter Snake Cowl and thought about how to add some fluff to my knitted Maya cat, so I shifted on over to those projects.
Do you remember my son’s cat Maya? She is an incredible fluffy tuxedo patterned Maine coon cat with lots of presence and even more attitude. I have been working on her knitted version for several weeks now. Last week I finished knitting her and showed off the pictures of the final knitted cat in my post last Saturday. I’ve been posing her around the house all week and kind of thinking about how I could add fluff to the knitted cat to make her look more realistic. I had moments of laziness when I would decide that she was just fine as a short haired cat. Then I would look at the cat again, posed on my bookshelf with MacKnitzie, and decide that I should enter into round 2 of cat creation with added fluff. Finally, today, I woke up energized to take the project on.
The work is going much faster then I thought it would, but there is a lot of cat that needs these little lengths of yarn attached. The final effect is so much more like the actual cat, however, that I am glad that I am doing it. I have the work arranged on a comfortable arm chair with good light in the front room and the plan is to work on Maya a hour or so every day until have her done. Maybe by next week!
Between the simple knitting of the cowl and the mindless attachment of the yarn to knitted Maya I’m finding that I have time to listen to some books on tape. Yay. I’m finally making some progress on my reading again.
Garden
The plants in the gardens are starting to look really good now. Perennials are in bloom, the roses are looking great, and my grass is looking mighty fine. I was looking forward to taking pictures today to show everything off… and then there was a high wind event and a thunderstorm that drenched everything and convinced me that I should take shelter in the downstairs bathroom for awhile.
That bear is heavy! A wheelbarrow with rocks in it tipped over and my lawn furniture, even the wooden chairs for my outdoor table, went flying across the yard! I had been warned that the wind was coming so I did batten things down ahead of time, and for me the damage was minor. I do have a fence that needs to be fixed…
Books
My book club met via Zoom this week, and it was kind of fun. We usually meet at a local restaurant, which is out of the question for me right now, but we all had drinks or food with us for the meeting and it almost felt the same. The book that we had selected was Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas.
Catherine House was an immensely readable book that I just blew through in two days flat. It’s about an exclusive college with unusual rules: students can’t leave campus, have any personal possessions, or have contact with their parents and friends. Everything is provided, there are little limits on behavior, but the academic expectations are high. There are strange traditions and weekly rituals that make team building exercises look like duck walks. The students have unlimited access to alcohol and lack social limits. Banishment to a reeducation center happens if you aren’t doing well.. Yeah. Things are not what they seem to be, and as you read what seems to be an endless account of student life that reminds you of Harry Potter without the fun magic, you realize that there is more, much more, going on than meets the eye. Something is really wrong with Catherine House, and our heroine is in danger… I just have to say that there are lots of characters that flit in and out of the story, and the plot is somewhat loosely constructed, so I think it was good that I was able to read this quickly; otherwise I might have been disgusted by endless academic life with little plot development and would have quit.
So what am I reading/listening to while knitting now?
I will mention that this series of books, Expeditionary Force, has gotten a little silly and formulaic, but the off shoot series, Mavericks, has captured my interest and I’m enjoying this book. 🙂
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Well I must admit I think the added mohair is definitely making her more Maya like, I just don’t envy you the task of adding it all. I would probably just do the head and upper chest and leave the rest….like a lion 🦁 😂
The cowl looks lovely. Sorry to hear about your wind damage…cute bear statue!
I have thought of the lion look, but it is going on really fast and I have a good book to listen to. I think that by chunking it by only doing an hour a day it will not get too overwhelming. She is looking cuter by the minute as I do it.
The wind is back again today, and will keep up for several days. Just crazy! Hopefully we will get some rain, too, as the wind is hard on the plants.
1st off, I do love your hanging basket of petunias with the other things that jazz them up ! [grin]
I didn’t realize you’re one of my mob – an audiobook listener. AND an Audible person, too. I currently have a few over 200 titles, a large proportion of which are crime novels, and another large portion of which are the St Mary’s Chronicles – science fiction for those interested in history ! I heartily recommend them – Jodi Taylor is the author. You should ascertain their order, and stick to it, btw ..
I am a regular returner for a credit listener, and it’s nearly always because of the narrator. People who don’t listen to books can’t understand how important the narrator is, don’t you think ?
I actually bought two of those hanging baskets to keep on my back deck. They just make me so happy when I head outside to read with my morning latte.
I will have to check out the St Mary’s Chronicles – I am a huge fan of history and science fiction. I love space opera, but then there are all the Jack McDevitt books that are an archeologist/science fiction genre. I was a fan of The Expanse books long before the television show was done.
I have three audible credits right now, so I am looking for a good book to settle down with. I have a bad habit of buying the book to read and then adding the audible later for just a few dollars. It’s all about the narrator. It they aren’t good, then I need the printed book to figure out what is going on sometimes. Also, I sometimes just need to read. I always read the reviews by other readers before I buy an audible book because they will usually warn you off if the narrator is crap.
I also get Prime unlimited books that have the audible attached as a sneaky way to score cheap audiobooks. 🙂
Ah ! – dyed-in-the-wool (how relevant !) audiobook listener. A good book to settle down with ? – then why not try https://www.fantasticfiction.com/t/jodi-taylor/
P.S. ! In truth, the FIRST of her writing about St Mary’s is “Just One Damned Thing after Another”; and I read it first because she hadn’t written any prequels then. My suggestion is you do the same, for what it’s worth.
A really cool Maine Coon
She is!!
Maya looks amazing!
The weather must have been scary! I’m glad the damage wasn’t worse.
The joke in our family is that Maya controls the weather. When I texted my son yesterday to complain about what Maya was up to, he replied that she was trying out tornadoes… Bad Maya!!
That’s quite a cat:) I hope she doesn’t try snow in July!
Knitted Maya already looked great – adding the extra fur is giving her a wonderful extra dimension. She looks amazing! Glad you got to meet up with your bookclub, even if it was virtual. Sounds like it was a nice time 🙂
She is getting really furry now. After consulting with my son I’m going to add little bits of purple mohair into all of that black! It was nice to see everyone from the book club. I now am a fan of Zoom.
Can’t wait to see how she is progressing 🙂 Zoom is a handy way to meet up!
The kitty is coming along nicely; I love the whiskers. Your cowl looks beautiful.
Thanks!
Those little hairs look so good, definitely more Maya 🙂
Thanks!