Hi. I’m Hannah.
During the really bad cold weather the Mother of Cats took out a blankie that had been hibernating for months and months and laid it out to see how much was done…
There is kind of a lot of these knitted flowers! The Mother of Cats calls them hexagons, but I call them comfy!! The Mother of Cats has been making one or two of these every day and I keep a close eye on her to make sure she doesn’t make any mistakes. She has to make about 6 more of these and then she gets to sew them all up together. I plan to take lots of naps on the blankie while she is sewing the little units together!! The Mother of Cats ordered some more yarn to use with this blankie as there is even more knitting that has to happen after she is done sewing all the little pieces together, and I can hardly wait for that to happen! Do you know how much fun it is to chase this yarn? It kind of is my favorite!! The Mother of Cats said that the extra yarn is for the border, whatever that is. Maybe it is something that Mateo the CoalBear can chase? He’s getting a little bored while we are working so hard on these hexagons… Poor CoalBear. He wants to go out onto the catio because all of the bunnies have been playing in the yard every evening.
Mateo still wants to be a SnowCat, and I have to admit, he is still growing winter hair like crazy!!! Does he know something that the bunnies and I don’t know? Is there colder weather on the way? Look at how crazy hairy he has been getting! No wonder the Mother of Cats doesn’t encourage him to sleep on the blankie… besides, it is MY BLANKIE!!!
Enough of Mateo the CoalBear SnowCat. Let’s get back to the knitting. The Mother of Cats also finished up another one of the unfinished projects that had been hanging out for months and months, a hat, and I was with her every single step of the way.
Pretty good job, right? You can hardly see the cat hair on the hat from here…
So, that was the week. The CoalBear and I went out onto the catio every single day this week to watch the bunnies, and then we spent the rest of the time helping the Mother of Cats crank out hats on her little knitting machine in the afternoons, and then we knitted in the evening. That’s a lot of knitting, right? She has 25 hats to donate to Frayed Knots (but NOT THE FANCY HAT!!), she almost has all of her little hexagons knitted up, and before you know it that blankie will be all put together and we will be doing the border. Yay. Maybe then she will make me a little knitted chicken to sleep with on the blankie.
Time for me to get some exercise and then some tuna. Laters!
This is Hannah, signing off.
>^..^<
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
I’ve been listening to audiobooks while working on the machine knitted hats and the hexagons. Right now I’m in Chicago getting ready for the World’s Fair, and there is a killer on the loose…
That hat is Alpine Bloom by Caitlin Hunter. It fits me perfectly and I am keeping it! The blanket is a huge version of Nectar by Isolde Teague.
I’ve almost cleared out all of the old projects that have been hanging around the house. I still have some little emotional support chickies waiting to be finished up, and then I will be ready to start another big project… like a sweater…like the Winter Albina sweater by Caitlin Hunter…
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Ho ! – I see you chose the one that’s not Elven Dark; well, I suppose I can allow you to choose your own yarn, Marilyn. [grin] Madeleine Tosh stuff is awful nice, ain’t it ?!
AND I see you’re onto the Scandinavian thrillers – although you may well have been reading Scandis for yonks, for all I know. I used to like the Henning Mankell books, but was fearfully disappointed by the final Kurt Wallander, which read as if the author had suddenly lost interest in writing it ¾ of the way through. Then I found out that had died a few years later from lung cancer, and it all made sense.
The hat is simply gorgeous !!! I wish I didn’t use that adjective so often, here – it’s your fault ! 😦 And I’m looking forward to the sweater: do not think for one moment that you will be allowed to knit it ‘in private’, OK ?
The Snow Bear is looking as if he’s wearing someone else’s astrakhan coat !!!!
And finally, Madame Hannah, the MoC is taking some very fine studio portraits of you, do you not agree ? Do you think perhaps she’s … well, almost fond of you and Mateo ? 🙂
That dark grey color is another one altogether! I kept looking at the Elven Dark, and it was really nice, but I kept coming back to wanting to have something that would go with my black/grey wardrobe. The dark grey that I finally picked is called El Greco, and it is the dark perfect color that I wanted that has good contrast with the Elizabeth Taylor.
I love the pattern in that hat with its Scandanavian roots; I’m half Swedish on my mother’s side of the family. That pattern, which started out in a sweater, has been used by the designer for other sweaters and cardigans, and I’ve seen it adapted for cowls and mittens.
I love that you called the book I’m reading a Scandanavian thriller – it actually is a real-life thriller that is historical in nature, and the location is 1890s Chicago in the US. It is Scandinavian by association as I’ve been thinking about a post linking the book to my mother’s family in Chicago, and they were Swedish to the bone. The church that they went to had services in Swedish, and they hosted Sunday dinner for all their friends every week. I’m pretty sure everyone spoke Swedish around the table. There was a highly publicized raid attempting to arrest illegal immigrants in my city yesterday; it wasn’t that long ago that my family was the immigrants of dubious legal status as my great-grandfather was pretty much abandoned in Chicago and was a child of the streets at 11 years old. I think of these things as I knit my blanket and listen to the book…
Hannah: the Mother of Cats loves us, of course she does! I mean, did you see how very cute I am! The CoalBear is endearing with all that fur, too…
Tsk ! – taken in, I was, by the author’s name: I thought I remembered it as a Scandi writer. Just goes to show, me love – I am still a bloody smart-arse !! [grin]
Still, it did elicit that lovely tale of your mother’s Chicago family, which otherwise we would not have learned. 🙂
Congratulations on managing despite Hannah’s supervision, Marilyn. Hats off to you
Hannah: I try to keep life interesting for the Mother of Cats! I think that I should get that blanket, don’t you?
🙂
The hat looks fabulous in those colours. The yarns for the new jumper look great together. I really like the jumper pattern so will be interested to hear how you find it. Mind you I already have two patterns for striped tops in my ravelry library 😂
We will not mention how many items are in my Ravelry shopping cart… I do go and clean it up from time to time, but I do use it to “park” patterns that I like and may want to knit down the line. There’s a lot of stuff that I like.
I went into the knitted projects for that sweater to see if someone had worked out how to knit the sweater as a crew neck and there was a test knitter who left fabulous notes; I’ll be linking to her when I start on the sweater. Now that I have the yarn I’m on fire to get knitting before the cold weather is gone. Sometimes squishy yarn is disappointing when you open the package and see the yarn up close, but this time I love it even more!!
Yummy yarn skeins and a beautiful hat! As for Mateo, methinks there might be some werewolf DNA lurking in his ancestry. My daughter’s Maine Coon cat was also big and hairy, too, in winter.
May your days be filled with sunshine and warmer weather; unfortunately, if our pineapple express (we call it the rainy season, aka winter) hits you in a few days, be prepared. We’ve had snow days at school since Tuesday, and there’s not much let up. It rarely snows here, but we had 7 inches on Monday, three more on Tuesday, and I didn’t even look to see how much today. Tomorrow, everything that melted this afternoon will be frozen to the streets and sidewalks, so there’s no school then, either. Enjoy being prepared for the coming snow, which most here are not.
I almost forgot. I love the colorful quilt hanging in the background of one of your photos. You are multi-talented.
Mateo is really a little cat… maybe 8 pounds or so, but there is all of that fur!! I’m pretty darn sure that he is partly Maine coon, especially since he has fur under his feet and that short fur over his shoulders. He is a cute little guy with tons of personality. Your pineapple express jumped right over us and turned into an ice storm in the states east of us. We really could use some moisture; our next shot is early next week.
That beautiful quilt in the background is from my cousin Ruth Ann, and I’m pretty sure that it scored a blue ribbon or two in her county fair. I just love the happy vibes that it gives out, and it goes really well in my craft room. I’m the extreme knitter in a family of talented quilters.
Love, love, love those hats! Perfect colors. The hex blankie looks like a huge amount of work. And those overseer kitties are so handsome.
BTW, what color is your new car and what did you name it/him/her?
I love those hat colors, too. I used the rest of the yarn to crank out a couple of machine knitted hats, and now it is out of the stash so the temptation to make another hand knitted hat is gone. 🙂 The blanket is a ton of work, but I always wanted to have a knitted counterpane, and as soon as I saw this pattern I bought some yarn and got started. The blanket keeps growing as I make more of the hex units, but I am finally getting to the point where I’m starting to think about the border and the lace edging.
The car is color is silver ice metallic, and I have named the car “StumpsALot” as I am thinking of him as my knight in shining armor these days, carrying me around and keeping me safe.
I’m not sure whether Grandma got to the fair, but i’m pretty sure her parents went. I have a souvenir glass globe that has a glass plaque that says “Selma Anderson” inside, and I seem to remember a Worlds Fair spoon somewhere in Mom’s silver chest.
If you listen to the book really, really carefully, you might hear the echoes of family footsteps.
She was at the fair! One of the cousins (Jean) has the souvenir glass dish that they bought her with the words “World Fair 1893” etched onto it. I calculate that she was 4 years old then. I wonder if they went on the Ferris wheel…
Beautiful new yarns. I’d keep the hat too. Looks fantastic.
Wow! SnowCat is really fluffing out with his winter coat! I’m sure they are both loving their time on the catio while the bunnies are out there to watch 🙂 Hannah does look beautiful on your/her new blankie – that is a lovely pattern! Love your yarn for your new sweater!
There is so much fur on Mateo right now he looks to be the same size as Hannah even though he only weighs half as much. Hannah really loves her tuna and kitty treats…
The joy brought by a box of Madelinetosh!