Hannah and the CoalBear: The Alpine Bloom Sweater is Done.

Hi. I’m Mateo.

I’m also known as the CoalBear. Don’t you think that I’m really handsome in my summer coat?

I’ve had a busy couple of days. The Mother of Cats has been knitting and knitting and knitting on her new sweater. Okay, the knitting part was pretty boring. I don’t get to go outside as much as I like, and she doesn’t let me play with the yarn. I tried to hang out on her lap, and that didn’t work, either. To make up for things I got extra tuna and she let me chase the laser light at least three times a day!!!

Mostly I slept in my box while the Mother of Cats was knitting.

When I did get to go outside, it was really exciting. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF ADULT RABBITS HANGING OUT IN THE YARD!!!! They aren’t even a little afraid of me, and they run all around the yard kicking their feet up into the air and chasing each other. Hey, I wanted to run around in the yard chasing them, too, but the Mother of Cats was like…. no, Mateo. She says that I don’t play nice with the bunnies. Hey, there was just that one bunny that I caught and snacked on, and now I can’t ever, ever play with them again? How is that a reasonable policy? I want to lodge a protest.

Here, bunny, bunny. I want to eat play with you!

Then there were the bugs that got into the house this week. Yep, exciting!!!

Okay, back to the sweater. This is what the journey looked like:

This is the finished sweater. Didn’t we do a good job?

Now that the sweater is done the Mother of Cats is talking about winding some more yarn or maybe warping the loom. Wow. That sounds like a lot of fun!!!! Winding yarn is one of my favorite things to do.

Bye now.

I hope that you had a great weekend, and if you are in the US where I live, have a great holiday tomorrow.

This is the CoalBear, signing off.

Unknown's avatar

Author: Midnight Knitter

I weave, knit and read in Aurora, Colorado where my garden lives. I have 2 sons, a knitting daughter-in-law, a grandson and two exceptionally spoiled kittens. In 2014 I was diagnosed with a serious rare autoimmune disease called systemic sclerosis along with Sjogren's Disease and fibromyalgia.

33 thoughts on “Hannah and the CoalBear: The Alpine Bloom Sweater is Done.”

  1. Mateo, you are beautiful in any gear !
    MoC, that sweater is not only a wonderful example of your amazing knitting prowess, but also of your blocking skills – I dips me lid to yer !!! 🙂

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      1. No, you Coal Bear you – bunnies are not for large beauteous moggies !
        Marilyn, how did you learn to block so well; and what is your methodology ?

      2. My favorite method with colorwork or wildly different colors is to gently mist the knit with a water bottle (I add some vinegar if I am even a little worried about color movement) and then hover a steam iron over the fabric to smooth everything down. I smooth and pat with my hands until everything is nice and neat. It is like magic: the yarn blooms and everything just evens out. I do this on a padded mat for big items or just on the ironing board for things like this sweater. I hung the sweater to dry, but large items get towels layered over them on the blocking mats until they dry because… Hannah!!

      3. You obviously do it with love. And looking at the garments you knit, an observer can scarcely be surprised !! – I mean, imagine leaving a bee-yoo-ti-full sweater like that in an unblocked and creased state. The mind boggles ! 😀

  2. The Bloom is fabulous! It’s giving me delusions of competence and I’m going to buy the pattern and give it a try.

    Please don’t let the cats laugh at me.

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    1. I just loved that colorwork chart! A lot of people used color-changing yarn but I thought that the pattern was the best part and I wanted it to stand out. I think that the pattern was pretty good as you didn’t that many long floats.

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  3. Having never learned to knit or crochet, I’m in awe of anyone who can, especially with a pattern as intricate as this. Wow, it’s gorgeous! You’re so talented!

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  6. It looks great, I’ve just realised this is the same jumper Jodi wore on the Grocery Girls episode last week, hers is multicoloured flowers. It’s interesting seeing how different it looks in one colour flower and I love them both.

    Reply

    1. I need to watch that!! I did debate using different colors, but I fell in love with how patterns emerge and recede in the single color version so I went with that. This is a really nice sweater design!

      Reply

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