Hi. I’m Hannah.
I’m hanging out with the Mother of Cats while she works away on her loom downstairs. The Mother of Cats has been fussing around with this thing for days now, and I don’t see the point, but she seems to be happy playing with all of these strings that she WON’T SHARE WITH THE ME!!! I’m lucky that there is this nice bed to hang out on because I’m now allowed anywhere near the loom. Why does the Mother of Cats do these things?
The Mother of Cats took two evenings getting the heddles of the loom threaded and then did some test weaving to check to make sure that she hadn’t made any mistakes. It all looked great to me, but she suddenly burst out with…
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!
… it seems that there was a mistake or two in the threading of the loom…
If you look inside of the pink circle (hey, don’t judge my circle drawing skills… I’m a cat… paws…) you will see a couple of spots where two threads (AKA strings… or if you are Mateo… CAT TOYS!!) are hanging out side by side as they move up the weaving. Oops. That’s a problem I guess. The Mother of Cats spent hours fixing that mistake and a couple of others absolutely forgetting my evening tuna snack. Why is the Mother of Cats like this?
She had to cut out and remove the weft threads on one side of the weaving, and then she pulled out threads to fix some other problems. All of this had something to do with threading heddles correctly so that the pattern would be perfect. Perfect is overrated, right? What do I know… I’m a cat and I have to settle for less than perfect a lot. Have you seen Mateo? What an absolute goofball!! Anyway, as she worked, she found even more problems!!! There was some sighing. She kept ignoring me. WHERE IS MY TUNA!!! Finally, after some not nice words were said, she had everything fixed and was ready to do the next lesson in her online weaving class. She actually paid for all of this misery. I don’t understand humans very well.
In the daytime the Mother of Cats worked on knitting a little outfit for her knitted zebra. This is another bit of silliness that I don’t really understand, but it is nice to hang out with her while she knits. The outfit got done this week and I do have to admit that it looks pretty darn sweet on him.
Well, that is all for now. I’m going to see if I can get my evening tuna snack a little early to make up for yesterday.
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
- I really am learning a lot in the online weaving course. I have also figured out at least a half dozen new ways to fix threading mistakes while dressing the loom. I’m pretty sure that the next time I do this things will go much faster because I have learned about almost every single mistake that can happen.
- Next project on the loom: I have to weave a band of the pattern and then cut it off the loom (!!!) so that it can be washed and measured. Oh boy. This is going to be an adventure for sure. I will also get to see if the cotton yarn I have chosen is color fast during washing.
- I finished reading The Emperor of Gladness and I’m not sure what I think about it, but I am certainly thinking about it a lot. It isn’t a happy book, but it is a book so well written and crafted it feels like being in a dream. Imagine a group of people living on the fringes, coping with their lives in a number of ways through lies, imaginary realities, drugs, and tightly knit grouping of found family. People who really care about each other, and people rendered down to the essentials by trauma and life. People who feel consumed by the system. People who are vulnerable. People whose lives matter all the same. I’m glad that I read this.
- I’m already thinking about how to create a scleroderma warrior edition of the zebra to enter into the annual fundraiser auction for my chapter of the Scleroderma Foundation.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
The zebra is adorable. The weaving looks much more complex than I’d imagined when you first mentioned it. Closest I ever got to such things was a (very) few simple macrame pieces back in the 70s (?). If I were ever to tackle weaving, I think maybe I’d go for a wall hanging of some kind with maybe Southwest Indian pattern.
Hope you’re staying warm!
I’m glad the online weaving course is going well. The zebra outfit is cute. Is that a red maple leaf? Hannah is certainly very photogenic.
That is a red star on the jumper.
Hannah: Thank you. I am a very pretty girl. Please send TUNA!!
Hannah, if the mother hadn’t had what it takes to fix those mistakes she would never have the patience for you.
Marilyn your fundraiser idea looks good.
I think that it is a good idea too. My support group likes the idea.
wow, I’m very impressed by your work- the zebra and the sweater are so cute
I’m pretty impressed by the designer! The many animals in her book have the same body plan so all of the clothes and shoes are interchangeable. I think that the zebra might need a rainbow colored hoodie to wear and some jeans.
I’m becoming absolutely exhausted by my laptop and my router and my browsers. I need my husband to be here and fix everything; but the day after tomorrow will mark exactly 20 years since he was here to do that. And it makes me extremely grumpy to have Microsoft telling me that I want to write “passed” once I’d typed ‘since he’: I don’t use that revolting word. People die: they don’t ‘pass’. When I finally fall silent, you can believe I won’t’ve ‘passed’ anywhere: I will have died.
Anyway.
Yesterday I wrote a very long response to this lovely post – as ever, it is full of interesting stuff !! – and went to send it online, and it vanished into … who knows where ?
I completely lost heart. I rebooted my router and disconsolately watched some tennis on said laptop, instead (it is currently The Australian Open, being played in obscene heat – going to be 45 degrees CELSIUS today). But I have an age-old problem with watching any sport: I don’t give a rat’s arse about any of the players, have never heard of most of them, so I can’t work up any enthusiasm.
Anyway, she said again, morosely …
I do love the zebra – who doesn’t appear to have blue lips – and her short-legged overalls. That’s a small work of art, Marilyn !!
I am amazed and rendered almost speechless (you wish !) by the weaving thingy. Loom. Whatever. It’s obvious that you are no beginner: you couldn’t’ve learned that much in a couple of days … or could you ? Hmmmmm … It is, after all, you, with your first-class brain; so perhaps … 🙂
It is to be confessed that I have decided against The Emperor of Gladness – or at least not for a while. I do not need to be rendered anything that isn’t cheerful by a book. Instead, I found the latest book written by an Australian writer whose first three books I loved, and to my enormous pleasure discovered that this one is her best so far ! I absolutely LOVED it – LOVED it !!! And I haven’t had so positive a reaction to a book since … oh, since discovering the Thursday Murder Club, or Cormoran Strike !! (Of course I am talking about audiobooks rather than hard or soft copies.)
As of yesterday, awaiting a scleroderma warrior BLZ, Marilyn …
Oh, as always, there is a lot here! I do need a BLZ!!! The support group thinks that I should make a zebra for donation to the fundraiser auction in the fall, but I can make another one (blue lips, rainbow colors in the stripes) and donate this one that is already made eventually. Hmmm…. nothing is going to happen right away because it is cold here and I have gone back to knitting my new sweater.
About the weaving,,, I am not a new weaver, but I haven’t been weaving much between scleroderma adventures and a series of kittens. I decided to pull myself together and register for an online course that would keep me motivated and deliver lots of instructional videos that would empower me to use my loom again. I am also motivated to get more of my yarn used up, and weaving will allow me to do that while giving me some exercise and not (hopefully) my wrists. I just sent another big stack of shawls to the rehab center in the mountains here and I realized that woven shawls can be donated too. The class is for a more challenging type of weaving called overshot that I love the look of, so that was the other reason to take the class.
What is this book that you speak of? I just love the Thursday Murder Club and of course, Cormoran Strike!! Share, please. I have continued to reflect about the Emperor of Gladness and I think that you should skip it too. I read it too soon after my son’s death. Yep. I say died too, or maybe that he is gone.
I think that 45 degrees C is maybe dangerous to be out in? Good grief. I hope that you are managing okay.
I just bought a new computer, but I still struggle with the WordPress editor. Ugh!
Stay cool if you can.
That heat surge is over; now awaiting the next, but it’s currently 21C. The tennis players are all (I hope !) asleep in their beds, half dreaming happy dreams and the other half not.
Does overshot have a special look ? – https://youtu.be/MaxOGz1NUEQ Hmmmm … I watched this for a coupla minutes and the ancient brain gave up almost immediately. I think weaving is a craft one needs to really want to be able to do. My hideously advanced age means that I’m not keen on having to learn how to do ANYTHING – let alone an activity requiring fastidious neatness and attention. You will re-master this inside a week, without doubt; and you will then show us (you’d BETTER !) wonderfully intricate things. But please advise: were you correct in thinking your wrists won’t be called into play – or, not nearly as much as they are for knitting, to which you have returned because of the [gasp !] cold ?
The book I love so very much … The author is Jane Harper. https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/crime-thriller/jane-harper-books-in-order She doesn’t actually live in Oz, but she did. And she sets all her books here, very convincingly. I fell madly in love with her protagonist, Aaron Falk; but then I found that although she has finished with Aaron, everything she writes is just as terrific. I’d kind of come to think I would recognize her style until this latest blockbuster arrived on the scene – “The Last One Out” – and it’s nothing like any of the others. It starts quiet and slow, and you begin to think maybe it’s like this all through; but gradually it simply gets you in, and you’re ‘turning the pages’ with a kind of eager intensity. Or I was ! I tell you, superior reader who knows both Richard Osman and ‘Robert Galbraith’, this is a book that’s entirely satisfying in all respects.
I can’t use the new WordPress, but stick with ‘Classic’ everything. I’m OLD, did I tell you ? [grin]
Oh, I’ve read Jane Harper before! I need to hunt down her books that I haven’t read yet. Yay. Thanks for the recommendation. I think that I want to read some books that won’t make me reflect on the events of the last few months. Science fiction is usually my safe go to. I unfortunately read a book where one character yearns to make contact with her dead son in the afterlife (Buckeye, how could you do that to me!), and then there was the body blow of Emperor of Gladness. I may reread all of the Jack McDevitt books as I recover. If you don’t know these, they are space archeological mystery books with a strong female pilot main character. Unique niche, right? It’s either that or Murderbot!!
Overshot is very technical with two fabrics being built at the same time on the loom. I was feeling a little crazed by the end of the lecture. I still have to weave my pattern band on the loom, but as soon as I do I will get the picture up.
(Am I a little concerned that there might still be a threading error. Maybe.)
I am thinking more and more that learning new things is essential to my mental health at this point. Look at us, older ladies on computers posting to new friends across the planet on the internet. We are fabulous!
Stay cool, my friend.