Knitting

The Saturday Update: Week 6

Six weeks? How can that be? The weeks are just flying by. I am definitely over my flu now and actually, I am feeling pretty darn good. I’ve been really busy this week and I have so much to share and talk about I’m wondering how much I should put into this update post and how much should be blown out into a post of its own. Hmm… I don’t want to write a Saturday post that pretty much talks your ear off, but I have really been busy this week and I have a lot that I’ve been thinking about. Let’s see how this shakes out while I write.

Let’s start out with the best part of the week: Knitted MacKenzie is done!!!

This is my second attempt to knit Cat by Claire Garland, and this time I knitted lots of swatches combining different combinations of mohair with the base yarns before I started the knitted cat. Once I had the swatches done I had a better idea of how to create more contrast and interest in the final product, and I am much happier with this cat.

This time I knitted in the stripes while working the cat, and then added some embroidered detail afterwards to the face and head.

MacKenzie is now hanging out with his doppelganger buddy. What should I name him?

I started the Ravelry project page with the idea that I would record all of the yarn combinations while making this little guy, but the truth is I just kept making up things as I went along by pulling yarn out of my project bin, looking at my swatches, checking MacKenzie’s coat, and then making some leaps of faith. See, this could be a whole post if I explained all the strategies and decisions. In the meantime, feel free to check out my Ravelry page if you’d like.

Garden

The orchids are really cranking up now. The buds are getting fat and some major bloom outbreaks are right around the corner.

Those buds are growing at an exciting pace now. I think that the plants liked their fertilizer last week!

Do you see the new rose-gold bloom? My most favorite color in the orchid world! I’m so excited to have those other buds open up. The purple orchid put out some more blooms and the white one is just outdoing itself in the kitchen. Meanwhile, I have pulled the monster orchid out from under the grow lights and have put a new grow floodlight on it.

This orchid is still in the original pot; I don’t want to mess with it while it is growing at such a clip! It is now over 2 feet tall and has been churning out new leaves and air roots steadily since I brought it home. I keep it suspended on pebbles above water in this large saucer and I suspect that helps it too. It has two stems growing with flower buds… please, please be rose gold blooms!!! I wonder how to get these plants to make seeds? Hmmm… do I just use a paintbrush to transfer pollen? What if I cross pollinate? Internet, here I come!!

Oh, yeah. I killed the poor innocent cyclamen by overwatering it, but the lantana is just covered in blooms. My sewing room is downright cheerful these days.

Books

I raced through a print book over the weekend and then listened to an audiobook while finishing up the knitted cat. Okay, it took me 2 days to do all the finishing work on the cat, but it was so worth the time and this audiobook made the hours fly by.

I read Dear Edward for my book club this month; I belong to a wonderful group at Barnes & Noble and I treaure our discussions each month. I would never have chosen this book on my own as I am avoiding books about people trapped in situations that they can’t escape from, (hello, scleroderma patient here…), but I sucked it up and read the book to be a good book club member. Wow! Just wow!! We talked for the entire hour about the book: everyone really liked it! We were compelled to finish the book as soon as we started it, thought and thought about the people in this story, and even as I write this I am still considering the events and futures for our main characters. This book, and book clubs in general, could also be a post on its own. I rarely give books 5 stars when I review them at Goodreads, but this one was totally 5 stars!

So, what is Dear Edward about? A plane crash that leaves a single survivor. Exactly the type of book that I would normally avoid, but I am so glad I read it. The aftermath of this horrific event for the single survivor, a 12 year old boy, is the meat of the book; his unwanted celebrity status, the consequences of the pressure this puts on him and other people around him in his life, the compulsion that other people affected by the crash have to connect to him, and the eventual emergence from loss and grief to a place of peace, transformation, and purpose in everyone’s lives.

Then there was The Giver of Stars. Librarians on horseback serving the communities in Appalachian Kentucky: moonshiners, coal miners, poverty, economic inequlity, and struggling families cut off from society in their far flung mountain cabins. We are introduced to women struggling for equality in a society that has firm expectations for their demeanor/place, coal miners struggling to organize for better work conditions, corrupt and powerful men who manipulate situations to their advantage, and a murder trial. It was a good read and great knitting entertainment.

MacKenzie Speaks: Look!!

Hi I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Cats is making a lot of progress on my knitted buddy.

It’s really, really cold outside but it is okay because the Mother of Cats is letting me sleep with my new knitted brother. He is still awfully flat and has lots of pins and knitting needles attached, but he is still warm and furry. The Mother of Cats has been very mean about sharing the new knitted kitty with me, but tonight she finally did the right thing and left him in my kitty bed for the night. Isn’t he a handsome guy? That’s because he looks a lot like me!!

Tomorrow she says she will finish knitting the tummy of the cat and then it will be time to start stuffing and sewing my new buddy up. Yay! Maybe the Mother of Cats isn’t too bad after all…

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

This knitted cat is Cat by Claire Garland.
MacKenzie is still struggling with several health issues and is getting medicine twice a day; he hates it but did better this week. He deserves a knitted buddy, don’t you think?

The Saturday Update: Week 5

I’m back up on my feet again (so long, flu!) and getting stuff done. I managed to run errands, went back to Kaiser for MORE testing, took MacKenzie to the vet again, and managed to cook some yummy meals to set me up for the week. Oh, yeah, I am back to knitting, too.

Knitting

I’m working on the knitted version of MacKenzie again and I can’t tell you how thrilled MacKenzie is with my progress!

See what I’m talking about? MacKenzie’s belly is brownish and has longer fur then on his back. Somehow I want to create this with the mohair I already have on hand…

My favorite yarn store posted a picture on Facebook showing off the new February yarns… there is a plum that I want desperately and some red looks pretty darn good too. Beautiful yarn. Must have it now!! Tomorrow it will snow, so I should have my yarn, right?!!

Garden

The orchids continue to grow their flower stems and some of the buds are starting to look promising. I gave everyone a nice misting and fertilizer this week, so I am counting on them to produce some bloomy fabulousness.

The little white orchid plant is outdoing itself! I’m amazed at how many stems and blooms this little plant is producing. I moved it into the kitchen for the western light and it gets misted almost every day along with the African violet.

Back in the sewing room one of the other orchids has finally opened up a bud. This plant, the most sickly appearing of my orchids, is bravely producing small purple blooms.

One of the other orchid plants is a monster and I need to move it into a better location as the stems carrying the flower buds are almost into the grow lights. I think that this plant will produce rose gold blooms… can’t wait to see them! Next week I will get up some pictures of this plant.

Books

I knitted the cat while listening to the Dutch House. Perfect match!

This week was an audible book one as I listened to Tom Hanks perform the Dutch House. This was a good book, but not a great one. There is this fabulous house that captures, alters, and anchors the lives of generations of occupants. The people leave the house, but they never really ever get away, and even though the story sort of just goes on and on, I was completely captured and my days were filled with knitting the cat and listening to Tom Hanks tell about the families captured by the house.

The Saturday Update: Week 3

It was a really busy week for me: doctor’s appointments and testing, a meeting of my book club, a broken tooth, and… wait for it… hurricane force winds outside! I am so glad for my new heater and fence, people. I’ve been busy this week but focused mostly on small, portable projects as that was the kind of week I had.

Knitting

I am enjoying my new Snowshoe socks so much that I cast on another pair early in the week. The trick in these thick, squishy socks is that you can pair a soft 100% merino yarn with a hardy sock yarn that packs a good percentage of nylon. Having discovered how compelling the marled fabric is when you knit two such yarns together is, I dug through the stash looking for another pair to yarns to put together.

The purple yarn is Rockshelter Sock from Meadowcraft Dyeworks. I love the color, but this yarn didn’t work out in the project that I originally bought it for. The grey multi (Western Sky Knits Smooth Sock) was also bought for an abandoned project, but with its 25% nylon and muted flashes of color it was perfect! Together these yarns made a sock that I just loved!

These socks just flew off my needles and I’m wearing them right now as I write this post. My project notes on Ravelry are here.

The first night after I finished the purple marled socks I went to bed wearing them and thought about other possible pairings between yarns in my stash. One soft yarn, one tough. Two colors that will go great together. Ideally, yarns that are just hanging out in the stash wondering what to do with themselves…

The single ply merino yarn (Black Elephant Yarns) was bought years ago as an extra insurance skein when I was knitting a shawl. I did need some of the yarn in this skein, but only a small portion. What ever should I do with the remaining yarn? The red sparkly yarn was a Christmas-time special produced for my favorite LYS by Chasing Rabbits Fiber Co. and is nylon rich. Bam! Another pairing was born and I cast on. My Ravelry project notes are here.

I’ve also been making some progress on knitting MacKenzie, but slowly as I need to work off the computer and it is the kind of project that needs a block of time and focused attention. Still, there is a cat emerging on my needles.

I’m currently using three mohair yarns and a grey/black fingering yarn to create his back with stripes. I am just beyond his front shoulders at the moment. With all of the mohair he is one soft, furry boy!

Garden

Things are happening in my little indoor garden.

Curses!! There has been a reemergence of mildew on one of the miniature rose bushes…

All of the miniature roses were treated with Neem oil as soon as I saw the mildew. By the end of the week they had appeared to be recovered and the bush with the original infestation was getting ready to bloom. Note to self: buy more Neem oil!

The other big news is that the Amaryllis buds from the bulbs that my sister sent me for Christmas are getting ready to burst open. Yay!! The only orchid that is currently blooming is the white one, but some of the others are gtting pretty close.

Books

For some reason that I simply can’t understand every single book I pick up lately is about something that I don’t want to deal with at the moment. This one, which is about a life-long pairing between a cello and a gifted magician, seemed intriguing: there is a curse, a love interest, loss, grief, redemption and recovery. Sounds good, huh? There is also alcoholism, sudden death, suicide, and heart wrenching betrayals, too. Faced with a life of constant struggle as I deal with my chronic illnesses, I am personally calling a moratorium on books like this for awhile. I want some happy, fluffy books for awhile. Or at the very least, people not in the grips of self-destructive behaviors, mental illness, and bleak futures. I’m calling a pause on sociopaths and serial killers, too!

This is absolutely not a happy, fluffy book, but it was what I needed this week.

I’m a big science fiction geek. This book, the 20th in a series that I have been reading over 2 decades, is like the next installment in a Greek drama. The action is really slow: the book unpacks the events of a few momentous days and explores in minute detail the political, social, and familial events as our hero embarks on a diplomatic mission with the aliens that he serves as mediator/facilitator/interpreter for as they attempt to create an alliance that will consolidate power in a difficult region of the planet. It’s very formal. There is lots of analysis and consideration of intent in every action and decision. Forms, and the correct numbers, must be maintained at all times. Everything, and I do mean everything, is fraught with meaning. I love this series and can’t wait to get my hands on the next installment, but I know that it isn’t for everyone.

The Saturday Update: Week 2

So, I am a little late with the weekly update. Since it is only the second week of the year it doesn’t really look at that good, does it. I mean, I should start out the way that I mean to go if I am going to stick to this posting practice. In my defense I an only say…

I tried to write the post up at my son’s place while dinner was cooking and the kitten had other ideas. He decided that my arm was a kick toy and that the computer was almost as much fun. In the face of such determined kitten wildness I retreated from the battlefield and watched a movie.

I really had a busy week, but it was sort of a nonproductive one as I spent most of my time fussing around, swatching, making phone calls and struggling to make decisions.

Knitting

I want to make another knitted cat that looks like MacKenzie, but he is a hard combination of colors and patterns. I spent part of the week shopping the stash (which I did clean out and reorganize while I was at it!), going to the local yarn store, and hunting online. Then I made swatches of various combinations of yarn as I made decisions. Finally, finally, on Friday I cast on and started to knit. I did blog about this project and you can find it here.

I also have some mohair that I bought in December that I just love. Look at this:

This was a totally serendipitous discovery while I was hunting for the yarns to knit cats. My favorite color ever!!

I want to make a sweater with this yarn by stranding is with a fingering. I have struggled with the decisions: I need the perfect pattern and a fingering that will work with the pattern and make this color shine true. Not as easy as it seems.

I first focused on the color. There was NO pink yarn at my local yarn store that would work with this mohair. I wanted pink with a little bit of speckle. Nope, nope, nope. There was baby pink, hot pink, brownish-pink, bright pink, but not the pink that I wanted. I want to keep the dusty greyish undertone in this yarn! I tried to swatch with various grey yarns hoping that the mohair halo would dominate. NOPE! I tried to swatch with a muted variegated yarn hoping that I would like it as an alternative. NOPE! Actually, that was a huge nope. I want that dusty pink!!

Forget the color. Maybe I should make a decision about the sweater first. I was torn between knitting The Daydreamer and Iskald. I own both patterns so I read through them and made the decision: Daydreamer it is! That sweater has lots of detail work: honeycomb, moving stitches, and bobbles. I needed a smooth yarn that would show off the details through the mohair. I went back online for the umpteenth time hunting for the right color with the correct yarn properties. It has to be a smooth yarn, maybe something not quite pink, something that would add some depth but maintain the dusty hue… with the new focus I looked at yarns I hadn’t considered earlier. Bingo! There was the yarn at the Loopy Ewe.

A single ply yarn in the shade Into Dust by the Uncommon Thread jumped out at me. The color is kind of a light orchid with grey undertones.

Yay! After all the agonizing I had made my decision. I immediately tried to order the yarn from the Loopy Ewe instead of driving up to Fort Collins, Colorado, to see the yarn in person with my mohair in hand.

And I failed. The website refused to let me log in or to register me as a customer as someone else had my email address. Right, you dumb ass computer, that person is me!! Get with the program here!! I have bought yarn in person at this store in the past and now I want to buy online. Nope, nope, nope said the computer.

I called the store and suddenly the week did a complete turnaround. The wonderful woman at the store verified my identity, reset the password in a workaround at her end, pulled my yarn for me to check the color consistancy, and sold it to me on the phone. Yay!! The yarn arrived by express mail the next morning and I just gasped in joy when I saw it. Loopy Ewe, you are the best ever!!!

Now we’re talking. I went with the more detailed sweater design as I knew I was going to end up with a monochromatic yarn. This is going to be the perfect color and texture for my Daydreamer sweater. I am in business people!!

I spent almost the entire week making knitting decisions, but I did get a little knitting done too.

I made a pair of fingerless mitts to gift to a fellow scleroderma patient. Here is my pattern if you want it. 🙂

I also finished another pair of wristers. Should I write up this pattern too?

Garden

My sister sent me two amaryllis bulbs for Christmas. They are close to blooming!!

My African volet plant continues to put up new blooms. Good plant!

A cyclamen plant came to live with me this week. Hey, it was at Sam’s Club and it just followed me home.

The orchids continue to do well and another plant has buds that look ready to burst open. I think this plant will be purple. Yay. Can’t wait. It has been a good week for plants, and a bad one for the white flies. I think that the Neem oil did them in. Bye white flies. Don’t come back!!

Books

I’m reading three books at once this week, I have to get another one done by Tuesday evening for my book club, and I’ve finished nothing. Stay tuned. I’m sure to get something finished soon.

So that was the week. Lots of indecision and swatch making. I also spent way too much time on the phone and computer trying to set up an appointment with my doctor during the week, but by the end of the week everything was in place for an appointment and testing next week to track down the source of my extremely annoying new symptoms. <Yep. This was more of the NOPE! theme of the week. Would I like to see another doctor? NOPE!! These new docs tend to go crazy when they get their hands on rare disease me. Would I like to go to Urgent Care? Umm… in the height of a major flu outbreak? NOPE!! See, I can do nope too!> Hopefully there will be some answers on the medical scene soon and I can write a post about that. 🙂

Have a great week everyone.

Knitting MacKenzie

Yep. I have caught the cat knitting bug. It’s kind of a problem that I have; as I knit a project I dream of ways to improve it, new colors that I could use, and different yarns that might work better. More than once I have finished up a sweater or shawl just chomping at the bit to cast on another one to see what it would look like with my new ideas. Too much curiosity, but I just can’t help myself. I have to see the new version.

By the time I was finishing up knitting my son’s cat Daxter I has already made plans to make two more cats, and there is probably a couple more in the works, too. Must have more cats!! The most obvious next cat to knit is MacKenzie.

Unbelievably handsome cat in the light of a window. — Look at how handsome MacKenzie is! Knitting him is a big exercise in color problem solving.

Here is one of the problems: MacKenzie is a ticked tabby cat. His fur changes color as it grows out, and the changes in color put a lot of depth into the final product on the cat.

Cat, the pattern by Claire Garland, uses several yarns stranded together to create the multi-colored furry cat. I needed 2 mohairs and another yarn at all times while knitting the cat; different effects are created by changing one or more yarns as you move from section to section of the cat. I realized that I could create tabby stripes with fourth mohair as I knitted the body of the cat due to the construction techniques. I started collecting yarns for the Knitting MacKenzie project while I was still stitching Daxter. I found a rich cedar mohair. I found some black and cream. I began to search for yarn online and made multiple trips to the yarn store.

This mohair was a huge acquisition, but there are all those other colors in MacKenzie’s coat that I needed to find somehow.

I decided to use the grey/black yarn to help simulate stripes in MacKenzie’s coat. Look at his face! I planned to use the cedar and cream mohair yarns to capture some of the color on his chin and around his nose and whiskers.

Here is most of the yarn that I’ve settled on for the project. In addition to these I have two more mohair yarns and another alpaca/silk yarn that I’m using for his chin.

Whew! Late in the week I began to swatch all types of yarn combinations so I could get a feel for how they would look together and planned where to place them on the cat while I knit it. Last night I finally cast on and began knitting MacKenzie. My project notes are here, but right now there’s not much there other than a listing of the yarns.

So far, MacKenzie isn’t all that impressed…

As soon as I get above the ears the black mohair jumps in and I can begin the black ridge down MacKenzie’s back. Then there will be stripes. This is fun.

Stay tuned. There is more to come. 🙂

MacKenzie: Can I have some cookies now?

The Saturday Update: Week 1

Have you ever gotten to the end of a week and wondered what you had accomplished? Yep. Me, too. As a New Year’s resolution I’m going to try to do a weekly update every Saturday about all the little things that were going on that week. You know, all the stuff that has to do with yarn, books and my garden. Here’s the first update.

Knitting

I just made the best socks in the world! I’m not kidding, these babies are just great! I’m talking about the Snowshoe Socks by Emily Foden that I knit this week. What is nice about them, you ask? I’m so glad you wanted to know: they are heavier socks that are knit by holding two fingering strands together. One strand needs to have nylon in it, but the other can be a softer yarn like 100% superwash merino or maybe something with cashmere. I have a lot of yarns that I bought to feed the stash thinking that they would be great shawls or whatever someday. Right. Those yarns are still lurking in the stash laughing at me. I can now use them to make socks when combined with a tough sock yarn. Together the two fingering yarns make a marled DK yarn that blends through the sock as you swap in different fingering yarns. This can be a stash buster or you can just use 2 yarns that you love marled together. The pattern is simple and pretty easy to adapt if you need to. My project notes for this sock are here.

The navy and gold are yarns that I had left over from previous sweater projects. I hate yarn chicken, so I always have an extra skein of yarn. The light blue mix is yarn that I bought to feed the stash. A year later I’m still wondering what to use it with. Since it went with the other two yarns I decided to use it as the main yarn with the other two jumping in and out.

The gold yarn has some cashmere and both the navy and the gold contain nylon. The light blue multi is 100% superwash merino and could never survive as a sock on its own. This strategy allows it to become a sock by hanging out with the other two yarns. It’s kind of mysterious, but the resulting fabric is much better than a sock just knit from DK yarn. I think that the twisting of the two sock yarns plus the added nylon makes the difference as you knit.

Look at the cool fabric that is being produced by these three yarns in combo.

Here they are all finished up: hearty socks that are amazingly warm, soft and kind to my feet right when I need a little help to get through the winter.

In spite of gloves with mittens over them I lost circulation in my hands and feet while trying to get into the grocery store… this is Raynaud’s.

What’s up with my feet? Ugh. Where to start. I haven’t made too big a deal about it, but I’ve been struggling to walk for a year now and finally have transitioned from limping, to using crutches, to mastering a snazzy purple cane. The opposite foot to the bad hip has developed a slew of problems of its own and now needs to be babied also. My toes hurt and need to be cushioned. The fat that people usually have on the bottoms of their feet is now gone on mine (thanks, scleroderma) and I’m walking on the bones of the outer side of my foot and they are not happy campers at all. I’m developing benign tumors in the big tendon on the bottom of my foot (the plantar fascia), and to top it all off I struggle with loss of circulation in my toes because of the cold. Not to worry, people, I am a knitter and these socks are going to be big helps for me in the weeks and months of cold weather to come. Bring it, winter, I am ready for you!! Note to self: knit more of these socks!!

Garden

The first orchid plant has started blooming! This is a plant that puts out lots of smaller blooms. Four more orchid plants have growing stems and those flowers will be larger. I can’t wait to see what the color of the blooms will be: you’d think I’d keep notes, but no, this is going to be an adventure. I’m pretty sure I’m in for purples and rosy gold blooms.

All of the orchids are thriving under the indoor growth lights that I bought for them last winter and I gave them more fertilizer and a spritz of Neem oil this week. I felt sorry for a couple of little roses that were still in the garage and brought them into the indoor garden. To thank me for taking pity on them they gifted me with white fly: those brats!! Everyone got sprayed with Neem and we’ll see if that does the trick.

Books

This is why my socks were completed in three days flat!!

I’m trying to listen to audiobooks more while knitting, and I started this one early in the week while knitting in bed with MacKenzie. Good lord! Don’t start this book if you don’t have time to put your life on hold while obsessively reading (or listening) it from cover to cover. It’s compelling. It’s horrifying. It’s best described as a psychological thriller that involves a cult-like psychopath, abused and abandoned children, a murder mystery, lies, poisons, inheritances, families lost and found, or a take home lesson to not let strangers come live with you. Okay, this is flat out unbelievable and more than a little disturbing, and the characters aren’t all that likable, but you can’t help feeling like, maybe, this could actually happen… I read this book for my book club and I can’t wait to go talk to some other people about it.

I’ve been thinking of Australia this week. If you are there, please stay safe. I feel awful complaining about cold while you are suffering through extreme heat and fire behavior. Hugs to all of you.

Knitting Daxter

This is Daxter.

Daxter was a birthday gift to my son years ago: best present ever.

But he especially was bonded to my son. Whenever possible, he was on his lap. He had a purr that you could hear across a room.

An exceptionally expressive cat, you always had an idea of what Daxter was thinking. He visibly worried, literally wagged when he was happy, and smiled when he was glad to see you. On this occasion I had stopped by to check on the cats while my son was hospitalized. This “proof of life” snapshot showed how he felt about me showing up when he had been separated from my son for TWO WHOLE DAYS!!

I bought the yarn and decided to knit Daxter last summer as a gift to my son for Christmas, but following a rapid and shocking series of events last September Daxter left us; it was only 24 hours after the first hint that something was horribly wrong. I put the yarn away, but a few weeks ago I took it back out and started on it again. (I blogged a little about the early efforts here). Okay, this wasn’t all smooth sailing… the pattern by Claire Garland (called Cat) was really well written and had lots of picture support. There was also video support for how to complete the cat once the knitting was done. It was about 40 pages in length, however, so I worked off my computer for the first time. I may have lost my place a couple of times while scrolling up and down through the pattern… I wasn’t completely happy with the colors of the yarns that I found. It’s hard to make a completely realistic cat.

But this was ridiculous! Obviously, mistakes were made. The pattern suggested brown yarn for the eye socket, and MacKenzie has black around his eye, so I went for it. Ugh!! The eyes I bought on Amazon look more like snake eyes, and what is up with the ear on the left? After looking at it carefully and checking the pattern I found that I had accidently made it like the previous ear, instead of being the opposite side.

Sigh. Never, ever, in the history of cat knitting was there a more wonky looking cat. There were strategic snips and frogging as I attacked the cat parts that annoyed me the most. I ordered new eyes with my son selecting the correct color and shape. I replaced the eye socket with light colored mohair. I took apart, ripped out and reknit the ear on the left. The first nose had to be replaced twice. Sometimes you can overthink these things: I went out and found some cheap eyes that I could use for right now while we wait for the better ones. I embroidered on some stripes to match Daxter.

Here is the finished (almost) cat.

This is much closer to what I was thinking about!

The little cat almost seems real as I flipped it around while adding embroidered stripes and details. Look at that face!!

Here he is trying out MacKenzie’s blankie.

Last night I took the cat up to my son’s for New Year’s and we settled him onto the loveseat in the office where Daxter used to hang out from time to time.

and here he is, knitted Daxter, home at last. I plan to add more embroidery later on, but for now is is done.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I will be knitting more cats (and maybe a wild rabbit) this year. May you all also find a project that gives you joy in the coming year.

2019 Challenges: Crushed Them!

The end of the year is in sight. I have books that aren’t finished and some projects that still aren’t done, but I’m good with my progress on the three challenges that I set for myself this year. There were three big ones: removing skeins of yarn from my enormous yarn stash, completing and logging knitted projects on Ravelry, and finishing books that I logged on my page at Goodreads. I did really well this year! Here’s the numbers.

Knitting

I set a goal of 30 projects for myself in the Challenge at Ravelry. This was 5 more than last year, and I managed 25 projects the year before, so I was comfortable with the number. Since I was focusing on using up yarn in the stash I really was responsible about logging each project and recording the yarn used and the amounts as best I could. I got lots of things done this year: lots of socks, mitts, sweaters, and some odd items along the way.

Seven sweaters jumped off my needles this year, all of them huge successes; comfy and a joy to wear. Here are some of them (Clockwise from the upper left): Koivua (Caitlin Hunter), Nordiska (Caitlin Hunter), Sturgill (Caitlin Hunter), Daelyn (Isabell Kraemer), and Understated (Joji Locatelli).

I made lots of shawls, socks, fingerless mitts, and even some gnomes this Christmas. The shawl shown here is What the Fade?! by Andrea Mowry and the gnomes are Here We Gnome Again by Sarah Schira.

There were lots of other projects that came off my needles; too many to show here. MacKenzie got a mouse and a blanket. I made cowls, dishcloths, and some thrummed mittens. It was a great year! As of tonight I have completed 48 projects, and the number is actually more as I combined some little projects together in the same Ravelry project page. Knitting goal crushed!

Yarn Destash

I resolved in January to get at least 50 skeins of yarn out of the yarn stash. At my high point in December I had gotten out 75 skeins, but a little trip to my favorite yarn store saw me buying 4 skeins of my most favorite color mohair, more yarn for the cat that I am knitting, and some yarn that I felt I had to grab when I saw it. Nine more skeins walked out of the store with me that day. Whatever. When you deduct the yarn from my total I still got 66 skeins of yarn out of the stash this year. Yarn destash goal crushed!!

Books

Lots of reading happened this year. I began to listen to audiobooks while knitting and once that happened the book count steadily climbed through the year. I set myself a goal of 50 books at Goodreads; as of tonight I have finished 65 books this year. Reading goal crushed!!

I tried to pick my favorite books from the list, but that was too hard. So many 5 star books! Here are some of the ones that really made an impression on me:

- Where the Crawdads Sing is a magical tale of an isolated young woman, abandoned as a child by almost everyone who should have cared for her, who grows to become a gifted naturalist in her own right. Living with nature in a coastal marsh area, guided by her understanding of the biological systems in the ecosystem around her, she becomes the focus of a murder investigation. Is she the victim of prejudice? Did she do it? Was there actually a crime? You will have to read the book for yourself!
- Blowout speaks for itself in the title. Hey, I live in Colorado. Oil money is big here, the risks to the population are real, and I remember when we had earthquakes from the fracking operations. Nowadays there is a battle to control how close drilling can be to human habitation in this state; there are a lot of jobs involved, but there was that home that exploded in Firestone, Colorado… Did you know that an early fracking operation in Colorado involved a nuclear explosive that was detonated underground? Yeah. I highly recommend this book.
- Childen of Ruin speaks to one of my pet peeves in science fiction writing. Why do we always depict aliens as being like us? You know, bipeds who speak and have hands. Beings that think like us. Why should that be? This book goes there using models of intelligence found right here on earth. Octopuses are way smart, but their method of information processing is very different from our own, and they use visual cues in their communication. Portia spiders have object permanence and are canny predators who use a model of problem solving that is formidable and different from our own. Slime molds get together from time to time and act like a multicellular organism… how do they coordinate that trick? Bacteria have more genes in their population than any one member can store; learning is fluid and travels through the population as members swap genes with each other. This book made me think about all these models of intelligence and made me look at my plants and animals with new eyes. One of my jade plants had a slime mold last summer and I put it right outside… best to be safe!
- The Night Tiger was a huge gift to me. Magic. Dreams. The interface between the spirit world and our own. Tigers who become people, or is it the other way around? It was just a fun, wonderful read with a strong female character in the lead. I loved it.
- There were so many other 5 stars in my list, but I can’t write about then all. Here’s a list: Ninth House, The Night Fire, The Testaments, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, The Guest Book , The Clockmaker’s Daughter, and The Alice Network all made the list.

So that’s that. I made it through all of my resolved goals and I’m now thinking about new ones. It’s time to take out the spinning wheel and the loom, don’t you think? That, however, will be another post.

MacKenzie Speaks: So This Was Christmas… A Tale of Chaos and Knitted Gifts

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Here I am spending Christmas Eve at the Emergency Vet Clinic

I haven’t been feeling all that well for awhile. To be fair, the Mother of Cats has been spending a lot of time trying to be nice to me. She gets me special food. She washes my ears every day before I get my medicine. She has gotten more blankets and beds for me to sleep in.

My favorite is the fluffy fleecy locks that she has added to my favorite cat bed that is located right next to her knitting spot.

Things just aren’t going well for me right now, and Monday was the worst. I couldn’t use my cat box no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t walk right. I kept vomiting and it hurt so bad I couldn’t help myself… some horrible yowls came out before I could stop them. It was really late at night but the Mother of Cats threw me into my cat carrier and off to the Kitty ER we went. The radio played some Christmas music as we drove through the night. Thankfully the streets were dry and we made good time.

Once I got to the ER I got a nice pink towel to make me feel calm and I met a nice lady vet who said that my tummy was really hard and tight. NO KIDDING!!! Then the fun started. I got whisked away from the Mother of Cats and taken back into the bowels of the clinic. They put me to sleep so I could have x-rays. They did nasty things to my bottom and gave me an enema. They cut off all of my nails!!! Christmas Eve arrived while I was being taken to the x-ray machine. Hours later they sent me home again with new drugs, special food, and a very sore bottom. WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME?

I was so tired that I didn’t move off the Mother of Cats’ bed all day Christmas and didn’t even use the cat box once.

Hamster ignoring cat and eating a carrot. — Do you remember that I have a mouse of my very own call Pitty-Pat? (I know she really is a hamster, but I like to think of her as a mouse. She’s mine, and I’m calling her a mouse!!)

While I was getting the luxury spa treatment at the Kitty ER (NOT!!) Little Miss Pitty-Pat escaped from her cage and went on an adventure exploring the house. She dragged piles of my cat food into her cage! She took some of my wooly fleece out of my cat bed and put it into her bed in the cage. She slept in her cage Christmas Day so the Mother of Cats thought I was eating lots of the new food and never suspected what was up. Poor Mother of Cats. She tries hard but we really are too much for her.

At 2am in the morning on the day after Christmas I noticed Pitty-Pat running around on the floor of the bedroom. The Mother of Cats woke up when I ran over her to get to Pitty-Pat. Pitty-Pat ran behind the dresser and holed up underneath. The Mother of Cats just ignored me, sprang into action, and began building a barricade of blankets, pillows and furniture to keep Pitty-Pat trapped in that corner of the room. She just acted like I wasn’t there!! Fine, I didn’t want to play with Pitty-Pat anyway since I feel pretty darn TERRIBLE and my bottom hurts! I gave up and went to sleep in the sewing room while the Mother of Cats moved furniture, trapped Pitty-Pat, repaired her cage, and finally calmed down enough to go back to sleep. It was 4am by that time and I was ready to move back into the big bedroom anyway. The down comforter on that bed is my favorite!

The next day the Mother of Cats shoved ANOTHER pill down my throat and I finally began using my cat box again. I now feel a little better, but I have to eat food that I don’t like, and the Mother of Cats keeps putting more medicine on my ears. The vet has called twice since my visit to the ER and I couldn’t help hearing that I need to come back in a few weeks to get more testing. What a yucky Christmas I am having here! Pitty-Pat seems to be having a really nice one, however…

Enough about me. I bet that you want to see the Christmas knitting, don’t you. Here it is!

The Mother of Cats and I made these fabulous Christmas Gnomes. Just perfect for cat toys, don’t you think?

We also whipped out these wristers to wear on cool days alone or on really cold days under the sleeve of a sweater. I really liked this cashmere mix yarn; almost as nice as the fleece in my cat bed.

We also made a set of fleece-stuffed pincushions for the Mother of Cat’s cousin made from yarn that came from her trip to Peru.

That’s it. Not that much knitting happened this Christmas unless you want to include the knitted Cat that the Mother of Cats and I are still working on. It looks a little wonky right now, but we are going to work on it this weekend and hopefully it will be done by the end of the year. I can’t wait to write a post showing it off to all of you.

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have something nice to eat instead of the yucky new food?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

Those excessively cute Gnomes are the pattern “Here We Gnome Again” by Sarah Schira.
The wristers are a mash-up pattern that I put together this fall. I recorded what I did in the notes on my Ravelry project page.
The pincushions are made with yarn that my cousin got on her trip to Peru this fall along with some Peruvian yarn that I had in the stash. The pattern is Chloe’s Cushions by Yamagara and is free.
MacKenzie is struggling with several medical issues at the moment. He is being treated for hyperthyroidism and developed severe constipation; who knew this is a medical emergency in cats? The x-rays and exam revealed several other problems including kidney disease, stones in his bladder, arthritis, and an enlarged spleen. There is some concern that he has cancer, but we are spending the next month working on the issues that can be treated right now with medications (the bladder stones, constipation, and hyperthyroidism), and after seeing where we following an ultrasound next month the vet and I will decide next steps.
The new food is supposed to dissolve the stones in MacKenzie’s bladder.
The medicine that I smooth onto the insides of MacKenzie’s ears is for the hyperthyroidism.
What was the pill that I had to shove down MacKenzie’s throat you ask? A stool softener, of course. It worked!!
I got a weighted blanket for Christmas and MacKenzie has taken it over as his own. Of course. It’s like getting hugged while you sleep. If ever there was a kitty who deserved some hugs, it’s this guy.