This week there was a flurry of activity. The Mother of Cats seemed busier than usual, and we certainly got neglected. There was a lot of commotion and she seemed to leave us alone a lot of the time. She went to the dentist (great checkup, whatever that means), out to lunch with friends, and out to dinner with her son. Did she bring us anything? No!
She put us out in the yard while they took away the oxygen machine. Can you believe it? She has gotten so frisky that the doctor decided that she doesn’t need her oxygen any more. Yellow Boy and I are having trouble sleeping now that it is gone. I’m not sure she really is focused on our needs the way she needs to.
She was so excited about the oxygen leaving that she bought a cake with the inscription “Goodbye Oxygen” on it and took it to her knitting group to share. They must have known that the cake was coming because they had a card waiting to give her…
Why are there no cats on this card? Wait, what type of card is this? Can this be a… Birthday Card?Oh. That explains why these flowers arrived from her sister. I thought that they were for me…Now that I think of it, she did say that this was her birthday yarn…and her daughter-in-law bought her more birthday yarn. Look! It even matches the books that arrived at the library for her on her “special day”.
All this yarn, books and flowers are just crazy. She doesn’t need all of this special stuff. We don’t care that she is now an official senior citizen.
We just care that she loves us.
Happy “You Got Old” Day, Mother of Cats. May you have many more.
Two shawls got finished last week. Check this out:
Shawl #1: Putting on the Dog
My friend Deb had a dog named Jake who was really special. She saved his fur for years when she brushed him, and earlier this year I spun some of the dog down into yarn. I blogged about Jake and the spinning here and this post showed the final yarn.
MacKenzie really liked the finished yarn (which Deb named PuppyPaca)Look! Here is the finished shawl made with the PuppyPaca. Didn’t it turn out great?Here is Deb modeling the finished product. I think that the green really complements the homespun.
Deb has begun her own blog recently where she writes about greyhounds, gardening, and, what else, knitting!! You can visit her site, The Greyt Knitting Frenzy, and see her post about the shawl here.
Shawl #2: Bad Cats
I finished knitting my Random Act of Color shawl late last week and wet blocked it Saturday morning. I really liked how it turn out. Here’s some pics of the final product.
Look at how great the colors turned out together. I love the lace, the texture, the colors; a great addition to my cool weather wardrobe.The beads and the edging are nice details, don’t you think?
What I’m not showing in the pictures is the fact that one of my bad, bad, cats got a claw stuck in the shawl (it was safe on the table at the time…), dragged it through the house and managed to pull a TEN FOOT snag of yarn out. Really. I’m not exaggerating. I found it in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs. The cats were hiding.
Proof of cat badness. This is the yarn that I haven’t been able to work back into the shawl.
The pull goes across almost the entire width of the shawl in the final purple lace section. The yarn didn’t get cut, but I’m not too sure how to repair this. I dreamed last night about cutting off the lower section of the shawl, picking up the stitches at the start of the purple section and then re-knitting the last sections. This morning I work up and thought, “Kitchener stitch!” I’m not quite sure how I’m going to deal with this. There may be a way to gradually work the yarn back into the shawl, but I have to balance time vs. frustration. For now I’ve packed it away (to keep it safe from cats and scissors) and moved on to other knitting projects.
The Mother of Cats and I have been hanging out in the yard every morning reading and eating breakfast. It is my favorite time of day.I love chasing stuff in the garden while she reads. I was hot on the tail of a garter snake when… Wait, what was that?!Dogs! What does it always have to be dogs? I lost the snake, too.
Ugh. The Mother of Cats loves the dogs that live next door, but I’m not a fan. How can she expect me to put up with this? Thankfully it was getting hot and she decided to move inside to knit.
She’s been putting beads on her Random Act of Color shawl. This looks like it could be fun.That does look like fun. She hooks the beads onto the stitches one at a time and then knits them in. Hey, I bet she could use a little help…There. I’ll just massage the shawl a little while she puts those beads on. I’m not in the way at all. Oops. Did those beads just spill……sometimes the Mother of Cats can to be lacking in empathy. Really, it is a flaw in her character, don’t you think? I was just helping. How can she expect me to just exist at the foot of the bed soooo far away from the yarn?
She was so cranky that she shifted knitting operations to the family room where she binge watched this show called Nurse Jackie and knitted the binding onto the shawl. I helped her as much as I could; I must have stopped by at least a dozen times to check on her progress. Hey, yarn chomping is helping, right?
After six hours of beading and knitting she finally finished, only to discover that she had made a spacing error in her bind-off. She went to bed with a bag of Cheetos. Let me tell you, it was not pretty! She finished the whole bag and there were sad little sighs along with the Cheetos crunches…
The next morning she ripped out the binding, watched more Nurse Jackie and put the edging back onto the shawl correctly. I was out with the dogs and snakes so it was over before I knew what had happened. Funny, she was much faster this time.
Finally! It is done and pinned to block. I just love the smell of wet yarn, don’t you?
Note from the Mother of Cats: If I’m lucky MacKenzie won’t throw up on this shawl and I’ll have the final picture next week. Happy knitting weekend everyone!
Oh, I am totally locked into Olympic viewing with knitting on the side. Last week was swimming, beach volleyball, woman’s gymnastics, and my fabulous tropical colored Antarktis shawl. I cast off Friday night and here she is:
You know, it is challenging to knit with so much cat help. Once MacKenzie joins the party my knitting speed goes way down. Actually it is a reverse relationship with the amount of yarn chomping; MacKenzie loves to chomp yarn. But in spite of cat help it is finished. Check this out!! My Ravlery notes are here.
Well, as soon as I was done with this shawl I cast on and started the next. I had put 7 new shawls into my Ravelry queue a couple of weeks ago, so I headed on over to check out the list. I fussed around with Rainbow Warrior for a while, but decided that the two colors that I had selected really didn’t go together as well as I thought they did. Fine. Back to the stash!! In the meantime, I did have the perfect colors to start a Random Act of Color, so that is what happened.
I’m making this shawl in the colors that are linked to my autoimmune conditions: bright teal (scleroderma) and purple (Sjogren’s Syndrome). How lucky that those two colors go well together. 🙂
So, I am still binge watching and knitting like crazy. The cats stayed out most of the day so there was a lot of progress. Hey, I might be able to knock this one off too before Rio ends on me.
It is still hot here and things are really slowing down. Most of the plants in the garden have stopped blooming and the cats are on strike under the largest bushes in the yard trying to stay cool. Smoke from western USA wildfires have made the air quality where I live less than optimal so I’ve been staying indoors as much as possible; this is easy because… Olympics! Prime knitting weather!! Today I’m watching volleyball (Serbia vs. USA. Go USA!!) and cranking away on the Antarktis shawl. Okay, that’s enough detail. Here are the pictures. 🙂
I’m loving the colors of my Antarktis shawlHere’s a shot that better shows my progress. I’m now at about the halfway point.I’m about half way through the Hawkshaw cowl too. I love, love, love this yarn from Spincycle Yarns.My butterfly bush has finally started to bloom, about the only color in the entire yard. Not that any butterflies are bothering to come see the bush in the heat. Even the grass has stopped growing. Mostly it is managing to stay alive. Mostly.The cats are too hot to chase any butterflies, anyway. Yellow Boy sleeps spread out on the damp ground under a shady bush.Yellow Boy: I can haz matted fur…
That right. This cat grows new balls of matted fur daily. I’ve been shaving him when they get really bad, but he can get a little scary while this is going on (growling makes me nervous, and then there are those teeth!) so we do what we can. Last night I got almost everything off except some lumps of fur on his chest. This should be an Olympic event! I wonder who would get scored… me or the cat? We could call it single-handed cat clipping. Points are deducted if you resort to using a foot or sustain a scratch.
MacKenzie: I have superior fur: no fur mats for me!
Last week I went to see my primary care physician and she ordered me the oxygen-to-go equipment and changed my blood pressure meds. Now my heart rate is up, my blood pressure is down, and my oxygen levels are better. I feel pretty good and have stopped the daytime oxygen. OK, I take the support tank with me when I leave the house, but things are still better. It’s a win!!
So that’s the cat days of summer. Olympics, heat, matted cat fur, oxygen level checks, and knitting marathons.
I’m on the home stretch of the Antarktis shawl. Time to decide which shawl to knit next.
The Mother of Cats has been so boring lately… all she does is spin yarn! The spinning wheel doesn’t like me to mess with it, so my brother and I have been left outside to entertain ourselves. Alone. In the gardens. It is so hot even the bugs are hiding…
It could be worse I guess. While she’s inside I have unlimited access to the swinging garden chair. 🙂
My brother Yellow Boy has been sleeping in Darwin’s Garden under the butterfly bush. He’s counting the days until it blooms and the butterflies arrive.
Was that a butterfly?
The Mother of Cats did take some breaks to work in the gardens. Lots and lots of weeds have been pulled. Some new flowers got planted. She accidentally sprayed Yellow Boy with water. I think it was an accident.
The purple spiky plant in Darwin’s Garden finally bloomed this week. Someone, please, tell her the name of this plant!! I don’t think “Darwin’s Bane” is a good name. She ripped out more of the purple plants and moved over some of this pink angelica. Good luck angelica. Only the strong survive in Darwin’s Garden.
Finally she got the spinning done. Hey, she has been spinning that dog! We have been shoved outside so she could spend time with dog hair? Abandoned for a DOG!! What is up with that!!
I do have to admit that this yarn smells pretty interesting……and the final product (she calls it PuppyPaca) looks pretty good.Oh. It’s actually pretty comfy. Maybe dogs aren’t that bad after all…
The finished yarn was taken to her friend Deb today and we were left alone again. What is up with all this feline neglect? When will I get the doggy yarn back to sleep on? There was a hailstorm while she was gone and Yellow Boy wailed (not a brave one, that boy) and hid under the bed. The purple plants in Darwin’s Garden all got knocked down…
…but she doesn’t call it Darwin’s Garden for nothing. My money is still on the purple spiky plant. Tough luck angelica.
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
The PuppyPaca is a 50/50 blend of dog down and alpaca. You can learn more about the yarn in this earlier post about Jake and the project to make some yarn from his fur. The final yarn (460 yards) is approximately sport weight. Deb plans to knit a small shawl.
If you know the name of Darwin’s Bane, please let me know!!
No cats whatsoever were harmed during this week (well, Yellow Boy did get a bath…).
The weather has really warmed up and stabilized this week; sun, heat and no thunderstorms; just what I needed to make my aching muscles and joints behave themselves. This week has been a good one and I took to the backyard for most of the afternoons. There’s a lot that can be accomplished outside. Let me take you on a little tour of my days.
MacKenzie: when she says that she took operations outside what she really means is that I was forced to share the swinging garden chair with her. Does she not understand, June is for cats?!!
The shade of my locust tree covers the lawn swing and a couple of the gardens. What could be better for a person with a latte and an incredibly good book?
The aforementioned book…
I’ve been consumed with the Justin Cronin novel, The City of Mirrors. Oh, my goodness. What a well-written, tightly-crafted book to spend the summer afternoons with. I read the first two books in this series and I wasn’t completely sure that I wanted to dive into a book of over 700 pages to learn the fate of mankind in their battle against the Zombie apocalypse, but the reviews made me take the leap and I pushed the “buy” button on my NOOK. Good decision. I keep highlighting passages that are just so wonderful I want to savor them later. I usually race through good books but this is one that I am stretching out so the experience will continue. The perfect June book.
After an hour of reading the knitting begins. Check out my progress on the Solaris shawl (by Melanie Berg).
I’ve gotten through the first two color inserts in the shawl. To get a different color in the short row section I pulled off some yarn until I was at a new section. Fast, easy, simple.and I still have some great (crazy) colors in the ball to use. Project details are here.
I’ve also taken some weeding breaks. The little roses in my tea rose garden are now blooming, and I have gotten the weeds pulled out of another couple of patches. There are a lot of weeds, but everything is getting ready to bloom so I’m pretty motivated to keep at it.
The bloom on this tea rose is just great; really big for such a small plant. This was one of those little roses that are sold at the grocery store. I put them out in the garden when they look a little worn out and they winter just fine here in the Denver area.Here was today’s project. Do you see the rose plant in there?Oh, there it is!!
Towards the late afternoon as things really warm up I water the flowers and gardens and head inside for food, the news and more knitting (bet that was a shock, huh!) Even the cats are ready to come in by that point. OK, they get kitty treats for coming in, but they would probably come in anyway… especially since I just watered all of their favorite plant nests. 🙂
He’s gone all day. I can hardly find him without a search of all the plants in the gardens. A sudden streak of yellow across the yard proves to be him chasing a butterfly, but by the time I go outside to find him he’s under cover again.
Hi. I’m MacKenzie. The Mother of Cats has spent the day reading a book, so I’ve taken over here to share the week with you.She has been cleaning this week. Crazy. She kept muttering about cat hair, vacuuming, the importance of guarding against wool moths… Impossible to understand! Yellow Boy is very upset because the furniture got moved around…and she even washed my cat blanket. Sigh. It took forever for it to dry. I know. I counted.
She hung out new flowers on the deck…and sewed a quilt top with roses on it. It’s OK, I guess; the green highlights my eyes. Instead of quilting it, though, she stopped and made matching bed socks. I don’t know why she stopped quilting. I only messed with the machine a FEW times…She said I was exhausting her. Hey. She washed my blanket. I need to lay on something!!All the neighborhood children are out of school now and playing out front. She, however, won’t let me go out to play with them.I even asked nicely!!Thank heavens I get to play in the backyard. The catmint is coming right along…Sigh. I told Yellow Boy to stop doing that!!Well, that’s the week. Its nice and hot outside now, and the Mother of Cats is in the lawn chair reading her book and eating leftover Chinese take out. I’m in camouflage waiting for a moth. Or maybe a garter snake. If that darn squirrel comes down I’ll give him a chase that he won’t quickly forget…
The yarn is Crazy Zauberball in the colorway 2170_Blasser Schimmer
The quilt is a kit I found years ago at the Great Amrican Quilt Factory called “Leading Ladies”. Fast, simple, fun. Even with cats who help a little too much.
The book is The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin. All knitting activities are basically on hold while I finish this book.
Yarn, Books & Roses 