Knitting – Page 6 – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: Chicken Caturday

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do you see this knitting that is draped over my back? It is the chicken!!!!

So, yesterday the Mother of Cats started knitting away on the Emotional Support Chicken. I don’t know why she needs it, because she has me, right? Anyway, she got going on the knitting and Mateo and I were forced to entertain ourselves FOR HOURS while the Mother of Cats knitted the feathers for the tail of the chicken. Today she attached the two tail pieces together with a crochet hook and then started knitting the back of the chicken. This is what it all looked like.

Look at how big this chicken is going to be! I can wear it for a blanket on really cold days. Maybe it can be made into a little snowsuit for me so I can go outside with Mateo on cold days. I bet that there will be enough extra yarn to make me little snow booties to wear.

Mateo the CoalBear: Hannah should grow fur like me!! I never get cold.

The rest of the stuff that happened this week was playing with the loom. For some reason, the Mother of Cats wouldn’t let me near the yarns while she fixed up the loom for weaving; she was sneaky about when she did her work. The Mother of Cats did most of her stuff with the loom during the afternoons while I was taking a nap. When I got up from my nap all the loose ends of yarn were stuffed into bags attached to the loom so the CoalBear couldn’t get touch them. Here’s what happened while I was snoozing…

The part of the loom with the little slots comes out of the loom, so she sat on the loveseat while she threaded all the little yarns through the reed using a special little hook called a sley hook. Later Mateo dragged it off to play with it downstairs, but she was calm about it because she has two of these hooks. I’m pretty sure that she will find the hook that Mateo took eventually. Then she had to thread all the yarns through the little metal holders in the loom (the heddles) and finally she got everything wound up and started weaving. She made a few different starts with the weaving while she was working out the tension on the threads, but now she thinks that she is good to go. It is going to look kind of cool when she makes better progress because the yarn will keep changing colors while she works back and forth. Next up it starts to turn to grey.

So that’s it. The whole week. Tomorow we’re going to get more of the chicken done. I can’t wait!!

This is Mateo the CoalBear, signing off for Hannah who is asleep again.

Note from the Mother of Cats: March is the month that Hannah was born in 2020. This is what she looked like the first time I saw her in the animal shelter.

She was the last kitten in the room as she had been returned to the shelter after her first adoption didn’t work out. She evidently cried all night, so they returned her. How very lucky for me that they did.

I Need an Emotional Support Chicken!! (and a bunch of other stuff…)

I’ve been doing really well this year with knitting out the stash. So far, I’ve finished 19 hats and 4 PICC line covers and am well on pace to meet the goal of 50 donated hats this year. So… I should be able to take a break and get some stuff finished up and maybe I can start a new project or two. That sounds completely reasonable, right? I cleaned out my yarn stash a couple of weeks ago and came across a bin of homespun yarns and roving that I’ve been saving for ages… The minute I saw it, I knew that it had to be an emotional support chicken.

This is an emotional support chicken, in case you haven’t been keeping up with the latest patterns trending on Ravelry.

Doesn’t that chicken look great? Don’t you think a rustic homespun yarn will be just perfect for it? The chicken will need some great solid colored yarn for the stripes, and the minute I opened the storage bin and looked inside I knew that I had my chicken.

Look at that yarn!! It is marled looking because it was spun from some roving that I got on a field trip to a yarn mill. At the end of the month the mill gathered up all the bits and pieces of fiber that they had leftover and made a run combining them into this roving that I just loved and bought a pound of. The roving had mystery fibers (I’m pretty sure there is alpaca in there…) in cream, tan, brown and black with a little pink here and there. It was wonderful to spin, and I have 4 skeins of the yarn and more roving right now. Chicken yarn!!

This pink will look great on the chicken! I bet you never suspected that it is dog yarn, as in husky dogs.

I’m pretty sure that I am going to use this pink too. Do you see how fluffy the yarn is? That’s because it is spun from husky down blended with wool. (Yes, a coworker brought in bags of husky down from her dogs for me to spin. I kept some for myself.) I’m excited to find a project to use these yarns that I’ve been keeping for quite a while, and what a great way to keep using up the stash. I’m thinking that I have other homespun yarns that will make great chickens too.

Once I bought and downloaded the chicken pattern it was like the floodgates had opened. I have seen several sweaters that I would love to knit and I’m chomping at the bit to buy yarn for them. (NO, NO!! I tell myself. Must use stash!)

I took a look at this book on Amazon as it was one included in my unlimited subscription. Hey, there are lots of great patterns and they can all be adapted to fingerless gloves and wrist warmers. SOOOO CUTE!!! I found the size needle that I needed to do these, and I’m pretty darn sure that I have the yarn in the stash to make lots of cute mitts to wear and gift. The hard copy of the book is slowly (very slowly) making its way to me. At the rate it is moving the chicken may be done before it gets here.

Then I saw the latest edition of The Knitter magazine (also in my Amazon unlimited subscription) and there are two sweaters that I want. Maybe it is the color. You have to admit, that is a fabulous raspberry color in those sweaters. I’ve already tracked down the colors online and I really, really want to buy, but so far I’ve managed to not pull the trigger on the online sales. Stash. Must knit the stash… I need to find a hard copy of this magazine.

Then this appeared on Ravelry. When will it ever end…

Look at that sweater. That sweater is beyond cute (but not as cute as the chicken, you must admit!!) I probably do have the yarn to make this sweater in the stash. I must stash dive right away!!!! I need a Renaissance sweater.

And so it goes. My knitting mojo is back big time, and I am on fire to create beautiful things from the yarn I have. I also pulled out the sweater that has been hibernating for the last few months and I’m ready to get going on it again too.

Sorry hats. You are now paused for a few weeks while I fall down the chicken homespun rabbit hole, and if a couple of sweaters happen while I’m down there, that’s cool too.

My La Prairie by Joji Locatelli is one of the sweaters that I plan to get done while I’m playing with chickens.

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?