Knitting – Page 6 – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: The CaterSunday Report

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Chewy brought me more TUNA and this crunchy paper this week. How awesome is that?

The Mother of Cats was busy yesterday shopping and cooking and reading and stuff, so I’m finally getting the news of the week out today. It’s CaturSunday. That works, right?

The Mother of Cats brought a little loom into the craft room and Mateo and I have been checking it out. It’s kind of strange, don’t you think?

Can you see it on the table behind the chair? Mateo has been whapping at the metal heddles on the loom because he likes the sound.

The Mother of Cats wound some yarn out to make the warp, and I helped her with all of that. I’m such a good girl.

Yesterday she cut the warp off of the warping board (that’s the wooden thingy with the pegs) and put it all into a bag to keep it safe from me. Why would she do something like that? How am I going to learn how to weave when she doesn’t share her toys? Anyway… when we finally start weaving I’ll give you another update.

The Mother of Cats also spent some time knitting this week. She made another Alpine Bloom hat in fingering weight yarn to give away to the Kaiser infusion center, but this time it is shorter. Here’s the tall hat next to the shorter one.

Can you see the difference? The Mother of Cats has enough yarn to make another one of these hats, so she just started another one.

The leaves at the bottom of the flower are chopped off in the smaller hat, but the Mother of Cats says that it fits her head better. I think that she should make a really small one for me, don’t you think that would be cute? She would have to something to let my ears out of the hats, though.

This is me on top of the new hat while it was blocking. She put a towel on top of the hat, but I can still smell the wet wool. Don’t you just love the smell of wet wool in the morning?

Finally, I should give you the latest updates on the plant experiments that the Mother of Cats has been conducting around the house. Hold on to your whiskers, here they come!

The rose seeds got moldy. Goodbye, rose seeds.

Luckily there are more rose seeds chilling in the refrigerator and the Mother of Cats plans to try again in a few weeks.

The snapdragon seeds came up and are doing great!!

There was a fig tree in the front room that was growing really tall and thin. It was growing crooked and looked kind of silly. The Mother of Cats wasn’t sure what to do with it, but finally decided to CUT IT OFF to take the top two-thirds of the tree off with the thought that it might bush out some. She took some cuttings off the branches of the ~~killed~~ chopped tree and put them in the orchid garden to see if they would grow some roots.

Do you see the beginning of the little roots on the seedlings? Yay! Next she will try to move two of the rooted cutting to dirt to see if they continue to do well. What will she do with all these trees if they keep growing? Sometimes I worry about the Mother of Cats.

Finally, there is the milkweed seeds. Remember them? Mateo and I check on them every time we are out on the catio, because they are outside in milk cartons hanging out in the cold.

The iris plant has shoots coming up, but so far, the milkweed seeds are still asleep.

Well, that’s all I have to say for today. That was a lot of updates, huh. I’m pretty sure that I need some TUNA to keep my strength up.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Note from the Mother of Cats: I modified the Alpine Bloom pattern to use fingering yarn. You can see my project notes here.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Reporting In

Hi. I’m Hannah.

This is just a fast check in to let you know what has been going on the last couple of weeks. First of all, I want to mention that the Mother of Cats has been going away in the car WAY TOO MUCH lately. I mean, she should always be here to play with me and WHAT IF I HAVE A TUNA EMERGENCY??? Seriously, she needs to take her responsibilities and duties a little more seriously.

Mateo would like me to mention that it has been snowing almost every single weekend this year. He no longer things that it is amusing. The Mother of Cats should do something about this, too.

The Mother of Cats has also been reading in bed (but I try to put a stop to that whenever I can) and knitting her little hats. This weekend she drove to her knitting group to turn in the hats that she has knitted this year to date: there are 16 of them!

The Mother of Cats also got six PICC line covers knitted; she donated them along with the hats on Saturday. She filled a big bin with shawls and socks and cowls that she doesn’t wear anymore and took that with her too; they were all donated to a refugee assistance organization. She’s happy to put the knitted stuff to good use, and I’m so happy to have an empty shelf in the closet to hide from Mateo on. The Mother of Cats even put a cat bed on the shelf for me to use. As long as Mateo doesn’t find my secret hiding spot, I’m going to have long naps without any annoying interference from that CoalBear!

We got cute little African violets for Valentine’s day along with a little pink zebra. Mateo thinks that the zebra is for him and he bunny kicks it, but I know that the zebra is really mine!!

Well, I think that’s all I have to share for now. I do want to mention that it is sunny most mornings of the week and I’m really enjoying sunshine again. It makes me shed! I just love getting combed with the grooming brush. Mateo, not so much!

I look a little like the cat quilt on the wall behind me…

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The pattern for the hats is Barley DK by Tin Can Knits.
I knit for Frayed Knots, a Denver-area community knitting group. These wonderful ladies also provide services to the homeless/refugee communities in our area along with the many items produced for local hospitals and cancer centers.
I’m making the rounds to doctors again and getting testing done. I’m still really struggling with fatigue, pain, and shortness of breath; my lips are bluer than ever. Initial testing results show that I’ve developed anemia. It is an unusual type; I have enough red blood cells, but they are too small and don’t have enough hemoglobin. Next up… more testing!
No wonder I’m always exhausted!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Weekly Report, Caturdate 1/27/24

Hi. I’m Hannah.

It has been much warmer here this week and the Mother of Cats has been up and about doing lots of… stuff. She has been moving furniture, fussing with the plants, working in the kitchen, and she even… <shudder>… vacuumed this week! I just don’t understand why she is doing stuff like this when she really should be spending more time playing with me and the CoalBear instead of scaring me with the evil vacuum. You’d think that Mateo would be calm after the vacuum chasing, but no, that dang Coalbear has been in all kinds of mischief all week. He pulled quilts and wreaths off the walls. He left toys everywhere. He ate my TUNA!!!

Mateo: What? Are you talking about me? I’m a feline angel!

Seriously, CoalBear, you are a pouncing disaster. You have been driving everyone crazy with your chirpy toys. The Mother of Cats has to put you outside while she cooks in the kitchen so you won’t trip her. I have photo evidence…

Mateo: … and another wreath bites the dust… and another wreath down, another wreath down, another one bites the dust… What? The Mother of Cats listens to Queen.

See. Trouble. I think that he was acting up so much because the Mother of Cats was doing all of this Meyer lemon cooking and he gets excited when she keeps running around the house, moving things and bringing stuff in from the garage. Look at what she made this week.

The Mother of Cats made the yummy lemon bars early in the week, and then she made the marmalade over two days. The marmalade was a LOT OF WORK and she had to actually drag a chair into the kitchen to sit on while she was taking care of it on the stove. It looks really nice, but to be frank, lemons aren’t my thing. I like it better when the Mother of Cats sits down to knit.

The Mother of Cats is now knitting on the 10th hat this month. Boring. All the hats look the same, so she decided to not show them off this week. She is knitting the hats with two strands of fingering yarn held together, and she is liking how cool the marled knitted fabric looks. I wish she would knit me a catnip mouse from the yarns instead of hats, but there you are. Luckily, I get to sleep curled up by her when she knits, so it is a good time.

The Mother of Cats also finished this book this week.

The book, The Priory of the Orange Tree, was a really long one. I got to spend lots and lots of time sleeping on top of the Mother of Cats’ legs while she was reading it this week. She says that the book was really good: lots of political and court intrigue, adventures traveling to strange places, an ancient prophecy of the return of a horrible monster that will bring an age of grief, dragons, magic, pirates, a sword and jewels made from starlight stuff, and NO CATS. What is up with that, right? The dragons were pretty cool in my opinion, however. Almost as cool as cats.

Well, that’s all for now. It’s time for me to go help the Mother of Cats finish up her dinner.

I can see bunnies and squirrels from here…

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The hats are all knit from the Barley DK hat pattern by Tin Can Knits.
My yarn is wound into a cake for knitting. I’m knitting two stranded from the same cake by pulling yarn from the outside and inside at the same time, which also reduces pooling. So far it is working pretty well, and there is enough yarn to make one hat and one PICC line cover in each skein.
The lemon bar recipe is The Best Lemon Bars from Allrecipes. I adjusted the recipe to 2/3 cup of lemon juice and added one tablespoon of flour to compensate.
The Marmalade recipe is Easy, Beautiful Meyer Marmalade by Otherwise Amazing.
Here’s the whole marmalade adventure: two days condensed into a few pictures.

The recipe made exactly 6 perfect jars of marmalade.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Weekly Report Caturdate 1/20/24

Hi. I’m Mateo the CoalBear.

Don’t you think that this is good picture of me?

Allright, I have a little bit of smutch on my forehead… I bet you wondered how that got there. I finally got to go outside again this week (!!) and of course I did some serious rolling around! I mean, it had been days and days since the Mother of Cats let me have some fun outside with the bunnies.

Look at this. It is finally above freezing again, and I have some dry spots for my feet. You know that there was rolling around under the patio seat.

It is still too cold to spend a lot of time outside, so the Mother of Cats spent most of the week knitting and reading again. There was some excitement late in the week when a package arrived that had these Meyer lemons and a little stuffed zebra.

Meyer lemons are sweeter than your usual lemon. The Mother of Cats says that they aren’t even real lemons, but whatever. I don’t like the way they smell because I’M A CAT!!

Who would send such a box? Well… the Mother of Cats has a knitworthy niece who lives in a place that almost never snows with this Meyer lemon tree, and it got a little out of control this year. The Mother of Cats has been secretly longing for some of these lemons, but she didn’t want to ask, and out of the blue they arrived this week. With a zebra! She was so happy. There was even crunchy brown paper in the box for us to play with.

Hannah: Lemons? Whatever. If the niece really cared about us, she would have sent some TUNA!!! I also want to mention that the zebra didn’t even smell a little like catnip and obviously wasn’t a toy for ME!!

Just ignore Hannah. She kind of has “center of the universe” syndrome and thinks that everything is about her. I’m almost 3 years old now and I’m grown up enough to understand that chasing bunnies is much more important than silly ol’ tuna. Let’s get back to the knitting and the reading.

It is a little ironic that those lemon things arrived at the same time that the Mother of Cats was reading a book with Orange Tree in the title, don’t you think? The three hats that were finished this week look nice with the lemons (that are really something else that has to do with mandarin oranges and citrons…), and the newest hat that she just started knitting really coordinates will with the book.

Well, that’s all for now. The Mother of Cats has been hunting around on the internet for recipes to make Meyer lemon marmalade and lemon bars, and I think that I should go make a commotion so she will let me outside again. I may even have to meow to get her attention.

Hannah: Outside?! Time to get out of the box!!

This is Mateo, signing off.

Note from the Mother of Cats: I think that I need to order some jam jars, too. I found this recipe for Meyer lemon marmalade, and then there is this one for lemon bars…

My exceptionally knitworthy niece showing off some mitts I made her years ago. Somewhere, out of view, is the Meyer lemon tree.

You can read the story of those colorful mitts that were made for my niece in this post here. If you are wondering why my niece is so exceptionally knitworthy (the exact language I used was… “never, ever, was there a more knitworthy person than my niece”…) you can read about it in this even earlier post that explains the launch of the color explosion mitts in the picture and why my niece deserves the knitworthy designation for life.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Weekly Report, Caturdate 1/13/24

Hi. I’m Mateo.

It has been a pretty darn boring week for me. It has been snowing and cold, and the Mother of Cats has NOT been letting me out as much as I would like. I can see the bunnies and those horrid squirrels all running around outside, but do I get to spend time on the deck, belly flat against the wood, slowly creeping up towards the wire, digging in my back claws, dreaming of the rush towards that big fat bunny in the garden… NO. I hardly got any time out at all. The Mother of Cats was full of so many excuses that involved snow, wind, cold… whatever. If the bunny can manage, I’m sure that I’d be fine. To be fair, I guess I should admit that things have been a little extreme lately weather-wise. Check out today’s weather and what the City and County of Denver had to say about it.

The Mother of Cats has been home and staying busy reading and knitting this week. She cleaned up the yarn stash early in the week and I have to admit, there is a lot of yarn. This is what the stash looked like when she was done.

Most of those plastic bins have yarn in them! There are also drawers with all the little fun things that she uses while sewing and knitting (like knitting needles, stitch marker sets, and her pin cushions), but the vast bulk is… yarn.

The Mother of Cats has been making decisions for the new year (she calls them resolutions, but that’s a crazy word. The better phrase would be The Wishful Thinking List, because that’s what it really is), but she seems almost perked up now that she has organized herself for the coming year. She wants to read 50 books, knit 50 hats, plant milkweed in her garden, and maybe convince the jade plant to bloom. That’s it. She has decided that she will only knit and work with yarn from the stash this year.

I mean, look at these sock sets that she found in the stash. She should knit these up before she buys any new yarn, right?!

The Mother of Cats still has some projects that she needs to get finished up with, so she is also working on them for a couple of days each week between the hat knitting. This week she focused on some socks that were started last year, and this evening she got them finished.

These are knitted from the Pressed Flowers Socks pattern. She still has a sweater to get done and Hannah wants her blanket!!

She has also been cranking out the hats and PICC line covers since the start of the year. This is what she has managed so far:

Those hats are DK weight Barleys by Tin Can Knits. She has been knitting them with doubled fingering weight yarn and they are turning out nice.

So, that is all that has been going on around here. (yawn) Maybe I can get Hannah to get up and chase me for a while. Maybe the laser light will come on pretty soon. Maybe I can find one of my chirpy toys. I think that they are all under the bed… what?… don’t you keep your important stuff under the bed?

Or maybe I’ll just take a nap…

This is Mateo, the CoalBear, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

There are some other projects lurking in the wings, but I don’t want to commit to them. I bought another quilt pattern, and I pulled out my little tabletop loom too. Those are just side projects and I really plan to commit to producing hats for the community group that I knit for. Last year there were more than 900 hats donated, and somehow, we have acquired even more requests in the last few months.

All of a sudden, everything that I’m reading and watching has Asian (and publishing or Chinese triads) elements. It was a compete accident: I had put holds on the books in my library months ago, and they arrived in my inbox withing a couple of days of each other. While I was reading Yellowface, The Brothers Sun appeared on Netflix. Synchronicity, right?

These are two really great books, and I really, really enjoyed The Brothers Sun. Thanks to synchronicity, I kind of understood common references (snakeheads, the one-child policy of China, auctions in publishing…) as they popped up in each book or episode of The Brothers Sun. Whew. There were common themes too, such as the relationships between children and their mothers, the struggle to find your own way, racism, the debt we owe to each other and our family, plagiarism, bullying, deaths, you name it, these media sources had it.

Now I’m reading The Maid. Would you believe that there is some bullying and a death already? Of course there is!

I also have to share this picture that was posted on Facebook today of an old newspaper picture of my high school gymnastics team. How fun to see my younger self now that I’m old and walking with a cane. 🙂

Hannah and the CoalBear: Last Caturday Report for 2023

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do you see me in my Christmas tissue paper pile? The best part of Christmas is playing with the boxes and wrapping paper!

The Mother of Cats had a nice Christmas Eve when her son came down to help make the traditional lasagna, watch the traditional Christmas movie (Die Hard) and exchange gifts. Mateo (the CoalBear) loves the Mother of Cats’ son!!! Okay, I think it is because Mateo just loves lots of commotion, but he had a great Christmas running in and out of the house and onto the catio. Basically, he specialized in being underfoot and getting in the way most of the time while they were cooking. I stayed in the closet for most of this, but I did come out once they sat down for dinner.

Mateo: Hey, I need lots of stimulation because I’m a Maine coon cat. We have needs!! The CoalBear variety of Maine coons really, really need a lot of attention. By the way, do you like my winter fur? It is coming really well now.

Anyway, let me show you our Christmas presents!!! We got chirping toys; a little squirrel for me, and little birds for Mateo.

The Mother of Cats is handling all the chirping okay, but she does get a little cranky when Mateo plays with his bird under the bed at 4am… Did I mention that Mateo chirps too? There is a lot of chirping going on right now and I for one am wearing out a little…

So… what else has been going on around this place…there has been some cooking, some sewing, some cleaning, and a whole lot of knitting. Let me show you the knitting that has been going on!

The Mother of Cats finished her Alpine Bloom hat that was done in fingering yarn. She used size 2 and 4 needles for this one and added some I-cord to the bottom to balance the colors a little more.

The Mother of Cats also made some progress on a few other projects, but nothing is done. These projects are (left to right) the La Prairie cardigan, the Pressed Flowers socks (in purple!!) and a pair of lined cuffs called Fluffy. Hey, Fluffy is a good name for the CoalBear. I think that’s what I’ll call him all next year.

So, here we are at the end of the year. Have a nice New Year everyone. I’ll be hiding in the closet because of the firecrackers, but I hope you have fun on New Year’s Eve.

Hannah: why does there have to be firecrackers?

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The Fluffy pattern is free if you would like to make one. I’m filled with ideas about how to modify the pattern to produce an outer layer of knitted lace that shows a colored lining below. I have a lot of lace yarns in the stash…
The Alpine Bloom hat is still too tall and slouchy. There have been lots of comments about this online and ideas about how to modify the pattern. If I make another hat, I’m going to modify the knitted chart to omit the knitted leaves at the bottom, but I may also try out corrugated ribbing or knit the I-cord trim again to keep the color going in the ribbing.
Mateo is a really unique little guy. If you pull his tail, he flips over and bunny kicks. He is terrified of Netflix and cowers next to me every time I launch it; it is the big zooming red “N” that scares him, I think. What makes this especially hysterical is the fact that he runs into the room and jumps right up next to me every time he hears me turn on the television just in case I might be starting Netflix. Then there is the chirping… he only meows in emergencies but makes lots of chirping sounds. He likes to sleep under the covers, and there aren’t enough toys in the universe to keep him busy. It’s like owning a very furry monkey with claws…

Almost Christmas Caturday

Hi. I’m Hannah.

It was the week before Christmas, and the Mother of Cats has been kind of busy. She had presents to finish up, packages to mail, cookies to bake, and some cleaning to get done. She didn’t put up a tree this year because of the Mateo menace, but there are fun lights all over the place. Yay, I kind of like Christmas because of ALL THE PAPERS and the boxes.

The Mother of Cats also spent some time sewing on her placemats, and she managed to get three tops finished. Now she needs to get them quilted and finished, but that is for next week. I helped her with the sewing because I’m such a good girl. The best girl ever. I should have some more tuna, right?

I also helped the Mother of Cats with her knitting. We are trying out a kind of experiment with the Alpine Bloom hat. The pattern is Alpine Bloom, but the Mother of Cats is knitting it with the same stitch count and needles that she uses to knit a Barley Light that fits her pretty well. What do you think of our progress?

This hat is 120 stitches being knit on size 2 (2.75 mm) and 4 (3.5 mm) needles. The yarns are La Bien Aimee Merino Super Sock and Crazy Zauberball by Schoppel-Wolle. The Mother of Cats is hopeful that the hat will fit, but we haven’t checked that yet. It’s like an adventure.

Tonight it has just started snowing outside, and the Mother of Cats is happy that we are going to have a White Christmas. The CoalBear has been outside playing in the white stuff, but I don’t like cold snow on my paws because…

Well, that’s about all for now. The Mother of Cats spent the day cleaning and cooking, and now it is time for her to settle down with a nice book so I can cuddle and hang out with her. Maybe we can snack on a Christmas cookie or two.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Mateo the CoalBear: Merry Christmas, everyone. Have fun with your trees!!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Another Busy Caturday

Hi. I’m Mateo.

We have been doing so much stuff this week. The Mother of Cats has been winterizing the house and we have been helping her out with every single task! She put insulation on all of the windows (it’s some type of funky plastic film that Hannah and I think is just amazing to play with…) and foam stripping around the doors. She fixed the toilet. She took the car to get its oil changed (and she didn’t take us!) and took all of the presents that have been coming in boxes to the house out to be mailed off for Christmas presents. Whew! Just exhausting, right?

The Mother of Cats also cleaned up the sewing room… Hannah helped with that too!

When the Mother of Cats has been sitting down these days she mostly is knitting. Some of the stuff that we made with her got mailed away this week and it is a secret, but here is what we can show you.

Now there are two Alpine Bloom hats. One of the Alpine Blooms got mailed away to a cousin, and the Mother of Cats knitted a new hat that will be for her to wear. They can be twins!! The hat that the Mother of Cats made for herself is a little smaller, and it fits her head better. Hannah still likes to use it as a pillow, but the Mother of Cats said NO and put it away. No fun, that Mother of Cats. She also has been busy knitting on her new sweater, and we have both been sleeping on her legs while she works; I’m hoping to chase some yarn while she isn’t looking, and Hannah is secretly hoping to get in a chomp or two, but so far, we haven’t had that many chances to have close encounters with wool fun.

The sweater is called La Prairie which the Mother of Cats thinks is funny since we live on the edge of the prairie. That’s why we have bunnies, and coyotes, and there is an owl that hoots out back almost every night. We don’t like the owl much… we never get to go out on the catio when the Mother of Cats hears the owl.

There are three more colors of yarn to be used in this La Prairie, but so far, the Mother of Cats hasn’t taken them out of the bin because of … chomps. Seriously, I just want to roll the balls of yarn around, but she won’t let me do that either.

Hey, the laser light toy just turned on. I have to go chase it… Laters!!

This is the CoalBear, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I knitted the new Alpine Bloom hat with the same yarn but went down a needle size to get a slightly smaller hat. The finished product is about 1-2 inches less in circumference and fits better. The new, more tightly knit fabric didn’t block out quite as nicely, but I’m happy with the hat. I’m planning on trying another one with fingering yarn (because, why not, right?) just to see how it comes out since the stitch count and needle sizes for the hat is the same as another hat that fits me well (Barley Light) and maybe it will work great, right?

Won’t this look nice as an Alpine Bloom hat?

Hannah and the ColeBear: Caturday Soup Saga

Hi. I’m Mateo.

I also go by the name CoalBear. Hannah calls me some other names that I guess I shouldn’t share here. Mostly that happens when I slash her heels…

So, what do you want to hear about first. The Mother of Cat’s knitting, the soup that she made this weekend, or… my fabulous new toy?

The Chewy box came this morning, and that little bird was in it! I knew that something was up because the box was chirping before the Mother of Cats got it cut open. Then she took the toy out… wow… I had to spend some time figuring out if it was going to jump at me, and then I started carrying it all around the house. Seriously, this was so exciting that I wasn’t even able to eat breakfast!!!! Everyone should have a chirpy bird!!!!

Hannah is like… whatever. She is so weird sometimes.

Hannah: Excuse me? I was busy with the TUNA!!!

So, I guess that I should mention the knitting that has been happening this week before we get to the main course, the soup! The Mother of Cats finished her Alpine Bloom hat this week, blocked it, and then tried it on.

Hannah: This is a nice Hannah warmer, don’t you think?

Yeah. The hat is too big for the Mother of Cat’s head. She sent a picture to everyone in her family and this hat will be heading off to New York to keep one of her cousins warm this winter. She has some ideas about how to adjust the pattern to get the hat smaller, but she just parked them at the back of the bus for now and started knitting away on her La Prairie sweater instead.

Mateo: don’t you like how I’ve decorated the knitting with some of my cat hairs? This knitting is kind of stressful, so I’ve been hanging out a lot with her.

Alright, let talk about the soup. This has been a source of commotion for days. It all started when the Mother of Cats brought home this goofy squash and told us that she was going to make soup out of it. Hannah was like… can I have some tuna? I mean, the squash was parked right next to our cat food, but somehow the Mother of Cats didn’t pick up on Hannah’s hints that she needed some more tuna! Or Cookies!!

This squash caused lots of trouble this week. First the Mother of Cats had to buy a new peeler to use with the squash. She ordered it from Amazon, and the package got lost. So, she had to go to the store to get another peeler. She also bought a crock pot while she was there. Then she bought an immersion blender on Amazon. Hannah and I were going crazy playing in the boxes and chasing each other today while the Mother of Cats peeled, chopped, cooked, blended, and made the soup.

Perhaps this is the most expensive Autumn Squash Soup ever made. The Mother of Cats likes it, so I guess that’s good, even if it smells pretty nasty to me. She’s eaten two bowls, and she still has two quarts in the fridge.

Well, that’s all for now. I need to go find my chirpy bird toy.

This is the CoalBear, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I have enough yarn left over to make another Alpine Bloom hat and I plan to go down a needle size to make it a little smaller. I also have in mind trying out knitting the hat in fingering yarn using the smaller sized needles.
The La Prairie pattern is full of new skills to master. The pattern includes instructions on how to knit the tiny cables without a cable needle (Yay!), and how to knit the bobbles in a new way to me. This is not a sweater that you can take to the movies while knitting as it requires focused attention!
Now, the soup. My latest blood tests came in showing that I have developed a type of anemia. A less common type, of course. Never mind, my doctor wants me to try to get more iron into my diet, so I’m trying to add more iron rich food to my diet (like squash), but I also need to try to maximize my ability to digest the food and absorb the nutrients. Hence the new, medium sized crock pot and the much safer for me to handle immersion blender.
Here’s the recipe for the soup that I made today. Copycat Panera Autumn Squash Soup by A Simple Palate. This was really yummy; I added Thai green curry paste to mine.
That squash is a butternut squash in case you didn’t instantly recognize it.
What is this less common type of anemia, you ask? It’s an anemia of chronic disease with red blood cells that don’t have enough hemoglobin in them. As in, I have enough red blood cells, but they are not packing enough hemoglobin to do the job even though I have iron levels that are within normal limits. Squash, as it turns out, is a good source of iron.
The little African violet that my sister sent me for my birthday is still blooming!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Caturday Report

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do I look like I’m pretty focused on something?

Today the Mother of Cats and I had such a busy day I’m just now getting around to writing my Caturday report. You wouldn’t believe how much stuff we have been doing! The Mother of Cats went crazy last week and ordered all of this stuff, and the boxes started coming a few days ago.

I just love boxes, don’t you? It was really exciting for the CoalBear and me as the Mother of Cats started opening up the boxes today and dragging out the stuff.

She bought and put together a new printer for me to play with in the bedroom. Yay! I can’t tell you how much fun it is to help her print out patterns and stuff!

She also bought a power shovel to use with the snow this winter, but that isn’t so exciting for us. It was fun helping her put it together, but the best thing was she used the two big boxes that the shovel came in to build a cat fort for me and the CoalBear. There are big doors to zoom through. Little holes that we can use to poke each other, and even tiny holes on the top to let in the light. I spent the afternoon sleeping on top of the biggest box in the sunshine because sometimes that is the best part…

After all the useless boxes (those would be the ones that couldn’t be used in the fort…) were cut into pieces and dragged into the garage the Mother of Cats and I moved upstairs to get serious with the knitting. Do you like this hat that we are working on? It is called the Alpine Bloom Hat, and we made a lot of progress on it this afternoon while listening to a fun book about a cat who lives on a space station protecting the Earth.

This book is great! Look at that cat… she looks a little like me!! She pretty much runs the space station, answers alarms and fires weapons to take care of threats towards humans on the (pretty much ruined) planet below. Her name is Lily (not as nice as Hannah, but still a pretty good name), she is immortal, and she is very smart because she has been uplifted and can talk and has battle armor and everything. Okay, not having thumbs is kind of a problem for her, and it was hard to get everything to work right before she figured out machine assisted speech, but still. How cool would it be to have your very own space station equipped with like a death star type laser weapon, a friend named Sparkles who writes you haikus, and a ghost in the station… oh, wait. Lily is kind of freaked out about the ghost part. The Mother of Cats and I need to listen a little more…

You don’t think that a cat could run a battle station in orbit? Have you met THE MONSTER that comes to visit me sometimes with the Mother of Cat’s son?

MONSTER: I could run a battle station in orbit with one paw behind my back!!

Well, that is all for now. I’m going to see if I can talk the Mother of Cats into giving me some tuna for a bedtime snack.

This is Hannah, signing off.