Quilting – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: Crafting Chaos Continues….

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do you see me waiting for the Mother of Cats to start writing?

The Mother of Cats continues to be completely out of control with all of her knitting, sewing, and other crazy crafts. She just keeps moving from thing to thing all day long, but NOTHING GETS DONE! Really, the CoalBear and I would be having concerns about the Mother of Cats, but she did manage to finish one very important thing this week. She built us a new cat tree!!!!

I hung out with the Mother of Cats the whole time she worked on the new tree, and I managed to keep an eye on the front yard bunnies too. Look at this tree!!! The CoalBear and I are spending all of our spare time hanging out on it. So fun. Now let’s talk about the crazy crafting…

She decided to get started on the octopus. Yep. She just abandoned all of shawls that she was knitting, pulled out the bin of octopus yarns, and cast on. Then she spent all of her spare time working on that for a few days.

She is knitting 5 strands of yarn together while making the octopus. That’s a lot of strings to chase, let me tell you!!!! I was just getting used to the octopus knitting when suddenly the Mother of Cats decided to work on the quilt for a couple of days.

The quilt is now three blocks big, and she says that there is a lot more of the tree to come in the next block, and… are you ready for this??? There is a cat that looks just like me on the next block!!!!! I can’t wait to see it, but did the Mother of Cats start working on block 4. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. She pulled out her new overlock maching, had a friends come over to help her, and then she started sewing a pile of fabric totes for donation. Seriously?!!! The sewing machines are noisy, and I stayed on the new cat tree the whole time she was working.

Hey, these totes are kind of fun to sleep on…

After the tote sewing episode the Mother of Cats got busy knitting… hexagons. I know. I don’t understand it either, but here we are. She is knitting little balls of left over sock yarn together to make these hexagons that she hopes to make into laps blankets to take to the infusion center. She likes the colors, and for some reason she keeps casting on JUST ONE MORE to see what the new yarn combination will look like.

I have to admit, the colors are kind of nice. Will the Mother of Cats let me sleep on the hexagons? No. She. Will. Not.

See how busy things have been. I’m lucky if she remembers to give me my tuna on time. She has been so distracted, and busy with all of the building, sewing and knitting, and I’m not even factoring in the new clue that arrives every Friday from Sharon from Security that she uses to knit her Tabby Road mystery knitting adventure. She is in clue 3 now and the shawl is starting to look kind of cool.

It has been growing, hasn’t it. The Mother of Cats can’t wait to get to the colors that more blue, but it is still pretty cool and she is learning lots of new stitches as she works.

Well, that’s most of it. The Mother of Cats has been checking out kits to knit socks on her computer, and I am seriously concerned that this is spiraling out of control. When will it end? When will something get finished? Why is she getting out more fabric to sew tote bags…

I guess that is all for now. The CoalBear (AKA Mateo) and I have to catch another episode of Bird TV while the Mother of Cats works on even another shawl…

This is Hannah, signing off.

Hannah and the CoalBear: We May Need an Intervention Soon…

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I just love hanging out in the catio every morning!!

The Mother of Cats has been staying home with us every single day lately. Why is this happening? Look at what is going on in the afternoons…

Yep. It is really hot, the air pressure is pretty darn low, and the Mother of Cats doesn’t do very well when the air gets like that. Hey, I’m a cat. I just roll with it and spend the day sleeping, but for some reason the Mother of Cats stays awake all day and does stuff.

To be fair, she does give me lots of attention and cookies, but mostly she crafts ENDLESSLY. There is so much going on, and the CoalBear and I are starting to get a little concerned.

She has been working on her quilt. I like the quilting, and I help her as much as I can. Look at the two quilt blocks that she has been working on over the last two weeks.

The next cat that is featured in the quilt will be a tuxedo like me. Not as cute as me, but still, it is nice that she will have a quilt showing how absolutely superior tuxedo cats are. I think that there is also a squirrel and a tree involved, so that is perfect, right?

Now, let’s get to the knitting. That is where things have really gotten out of control. First there are the shawls…

That’s right: four shawls!!! The first one was really fussy and hard on the Mother of Cats hands, so she ripped it out. (Good job, Mother of Cats) She said that she obviously can’t be expected to knit a shawl that was too complicated to let her listen to an audiobook or watch Netflix

Mateo: I’m terrified of Netflix!!! That huge red N is too much for me to deal with. No one should be subjected to the…TA-DUM!!!!

Hannah: but Mateo rushes into the room EVERY TIME the television gets turned on just in case it is… NETFLIX. CoalBears can be so silly.

Let’s get back to the shawls. The Mother of Cats has a lot of yarn. She isn’t making hats right now because it is hot, and there are too many hats at the infusion centers right now, so she decided to make a shawl or two. Since the first shawl was soooo complicated, she started a simple Age of Gold shawl in pink yarn. Then she started a Sharon Show shawl because she saw one hanging up in the yarn store. Then Tabby Road started, so she had to knit on that, right. This is just kind of insane because at the same time…

The Mother of Cats decided to knit some octopuses… Yep. All of that yarn has now been wound. Hold onto your tuna treats, because I’m not done yet. The Mother of Cats, still upset about not knitting hats, and hugging a huge box of left over yarn balls (why doesn’t she give them to me?), decided to start knitting a BLANKET that will be made of a bunch of different octogons that kind of go together.

She made this holding two little balls of yarn together while she knitted. Did she let me chew the yarn while she worked? No. SHE DID NOT!!!!

Do you see why I am concerned about needing an intervention? She has been crafting nonstop for days in a row. Okay, it has been really, really hot for days in a row, but still. NOTHING is getting finished and she just keeps picking up yarns and starting new projects when she isn’t fusing down little pieces of fabric for the quilts. HELP!!!

I’m pretty sure that I need an intervention here.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

There is a giant octopus that I hope to knit in the blue yarns: Opus

Did you want a few glimmers? Check out this picture of the moon and a baby bunny…

I’ve also been reading a lot while sheltering indoors away from the heat, but that is another post. 🙂

Crafting in the time of the Blood Moon

I live in the state of Colorado, which is in the western part of the United States. We are in deep drought here, and it has been hot. There are several, very serious wildfires burning to the south and west of where I live, and I am in the smoke plume. The light outside is… strange. The Rocky Mountains, just west of where I live, can no longer be seen. The strangest effect is the moon.

That crazy red cast of the moon is caused by smoke. Last week was the Strawberry Moon, but here in the area where I live, it was the Blood Red Moon.

Every day another air quality alert is issued: Unhealthy for Sensitives Groups. I’ve been staying indoors with the cats and my air purifier, happily crafting for days. This is what I’ve gotten done over the last week.

I’ve been assembling an art quilt this week that required fusing precut pieces of fabric together to make motifs that are later assembled onto a background to make the larger quilt block.

This the first block of the quilt. Only 5 more to go…

Can you see the individual elements on the finished block? The stuff in the middle is laundry that will be hung on wash line hung between trees that will appear in the future as more of the blocks get done. Do you see the tuxedo cat with the laundry? Obviously, this cat is the one hanging the laundry out, and there will be clothes pins involved eventually. Tuxedo cats are such great help, right? Of course, Hannah was right there the whole time I was working on the quilt block, helping tremendously.

Hannah: The Mother of Cats is so lucky to have me helping her!! More tuna, please…

In addition to the quilting, I also made a lot of progress on my Cloudbreak sweater. I have finished the first sleeve and I plan to cast on the second one as soon as this post goes up. No sleeve island here!!

I spent some time with my rigid heddle loom on a new scarf that I am really liking. The yarn is mostly grey with a little strip of color in it. Look at how fun it is as a woven cloth!!

It has been a pretty productive week! I’m concentrating on the knitting this week so I can get that sweater done as I’ve signed up for a knit-along at a local yarn shop in town and I feel I should reduce the number of works in progress before I cast on that big shawl. Maybe there will be some sewing…

I have been going out onto the catio with the cats in the evenings because you can only expect cats to stay indoors for just so long when there are BIRDS and SQUIRRELS and BUNNIES out there. This week, just for fun, I added a string of fairy lights to the cat netting that makes the walls of the catio. Look at how fun these are!!! We usually sit out there every evening until the kitty lights come on; that’s how we saw the blood moon.

What else happened this week? The baby eagles that I watch left the nest last week (one FELL OUT and accidentally fledged, and the other flew off the next day), spent a couple of days learning how to fly well as their parents fed them, and returned to the nest to hang out together late last week. Yay Sandy and Luna! They are hanging out together now, flying around in the vicinity of the nest while the parents continue to deliver food, mostly FISH!! These eaglets love their fish! Eventually they will learn to catch their own and become independent, but for now I’m still following them in their adventures.

Speaking of adventures, Mateo got his tummy shaved this week, his sides trimmed down, and has been combed every single day no matter what he says. Now every trace of the winter coat is gone, and he is sporting a sleek summer coat. Gosh, look at that white patch on his chest. As it turns out the CoalBear is actually a little MoonBear.

Why does Mateo look a little sad? I had just finished shaving his tummy when I took the picture. Poor guy. Here’s a picture of him in his winter coat so you can see how much fur has come off

He’s a whole new cat, right?!! In the winter I tend to forget that he is actually black under all of that floof!

It is a sad time here, don’t get me wrong. The lawns are all dead (drought) and the county just sent me information on how to prepare for an emergency evacuation in case of wildfire. Fireworks were banned this year. I am keeping the car full of gas. Resources from cities are being send to battle wildfires. I sew for some of the emergency response agencies in my region, and this week I plan to sew a pile of fabric tote bags to go to an agency that will stuff them full of essentials to deliver to people displaced by the fires. Keep us in your thoughts.

It is the time of the Blood Moon.

Thoughts on the Night of the Harvest Supermoon

The supermoon has been slowly building over the last few evenings. Enormous and bright, I have been watching it slowly grow in fullness all week. I’ve been looking forward to watching this moon, the Harvest Supermoon of 2025, rise this evening, but of course it is raining and cold. I know, even though I can’t see it, that the moon is there, just out of my sight.

Tonight’s moon pretty much matches my mood this evening. There is this beautiful shining thing, just out of sight, but just knowing it is there, I am buoyed up and happy. I’ve been thinking about recuerdos and glimmers all day as I cleaned out boxes of things connected to my sister and son: bits and pieces of things that they valued and were stored, or sent, to me over the years. Nestled among the junk and ancient clothing there are objects that instantly transport me to another place and time: recuerdos.

Those two big tubs are full of my sister’s fabric stash. And unfinished projects and quilts… things that she loved and had plans for.

My mom was raised in Argentina during her teens and early twenties, and she was bilingual and somewhat multi-cultural in her approach to life. Every important trip or event required a recuerdo to help capture and preserve the memory of the event; she would insist that we select and keep something. Recuerdos are like souvenirs, or memories, but richer and more transformative, returning you to an important experience. That’s what I’ve been finding as I go through the boxes: pictures, trophies, knitted items, old quilts, a college diploma, stuffed animals, and marching shoes. Every single item rich with memories, returning me to the time when I visited a national park with my sister, or watched my son from the bleachers in a fencing tournament at the US Air Force Academy. Like tonight’s supermoon, something great and shining is right there with me, out of sight, but real all the same, and I am happy.

I found three unfinished quilts in the tubs. All the fabrics bundled together, a lot of the cutting already done, everything organized to create the quilts that she dreamed of. I was instantly transported to her favorite fabric store in San Diego, picking out fabrics with her on a beautiful summer afternoon.

Grief is a difficult thing to deal with, but I’ve learned some lessons over the years as the universe kept shoveling bad news in my direction. It helps to write. It is important to acknowledge what has happened, and to allow your support groups to… well… support you! Honor the good in the people (or life) that has been lost. Focus on what you can do, not what is no longer possible. Make sure you are getting enough to eat; remember to rest. Reconnect with your friends, and get out of the house. Create purpose and beauty from the loss whenever possible.

What to do with all of this… stuff… in the crates?

My sister loved autumn colors. Orange, yellow, greens, and browns. I found almost 20 skeins of ORANGE yarn in the crates, and as luck would have it, Halloween and Thanksgiving are right around the corner. All of that yarn is going to be transformed into chemo hats. I’ve been making 2 a day and hope to get them all to an infusion center by the middle of the month. Can you feel the glimmer? I’m looking forward to driving them to a Kaiser infusion center up north next week through the fall foliage; maybe there will still be some sunflowers in the fields. Glimmer.

Then there is the fabric. Oh, boy. There is a lot of fabric there! I’ve been sorting through it and pulling out nice colors to make into zipper pouches (filled with hygiene products) for the DART program at Denver Health.

This week there was an article in the local news about an organization that provides comfort quilts to trauma survivors. They take in donated fabric and unfinished quilts: what a great place for my sister’s unfinished quilts to go!! I’ve been sorting my own fabric along with my sister’s to get the donation ready, and I plan to drive it up to the organization next week. Can’t you just feel the shine of the supermoon just out of sight? It’s like there is a glimmer hiding right behind my shoulder, raising my spirits and centering me again.

So, this is life. I’m pulling myself back together while surrounded by items that my sister gifted me through the years, sorting the fabrics, yarn, and projects that she once had big plans for, reliving our time together, and taking her dreams into the future with me while mindfully watching for the glimmers of peace and joy that are there for us.

Shine on, Harvest Supermoon. Shine on.

P.S.

These are my son’s cats: Jonesy, Gabriel and Liam.

I was able to successfully rehome my son’s three cats all together two weeks ago. This week, as I worried about how they were doing, I followed the story of Francine’s loss and the resulting successful rescue operation. Yesterday when I heard that Francine had been returned to her home, a Lowe’s store where she is the resident cat, I heard from the new owner of my son’s cats; they were out, sleeping on her bed, and chomping tuna. Glimmer time!!

A Little This, A Little That

I haven’t posted for a while, and the stuff that I keep thinking that I should write about are piling up. I have all of these great books that I think I should connect somehow and then write about. My medical adventures continue. I’ve been driving around looking at the ~~weeds~~ plants in the fields hunting for great prospects for a BioGeek post. The weather has been beautiful: crisp, cooler in the evenings, and perfect blue skies. The trees are flashing their fall colors, and the squirrels are going wild. I pulled out the sewing machine and started using it again. I’ve been working on the catio. Oh, yeah. I’ve also been knitting.

Knitting

The arm warmers are done and I’m still knitting away on the sweater. Oh, you can’t see the sweater in the picture? Well, there isn’t much to see at this point… it is just a huge pink blog. Isn’t Hannah cute?

Catio

I also bought a cheap screen door for the catio and my son came down last weekend to help me get it installed. Today I managed to get a coat of paint on it.

Now I have easy access to the back yard that is Mateo proof. I think. Mateo is pretty tricky and has gotten out of the catio a few times now.

Mini Waffle Mania

I bought a little waffle maker during Amazon Prime Days last summer. It is really cute, makes the waffles in just a couple of minutes each, and I have been making a batch at a time and freezing the extras.

What can I say. These little waffles are really nice (and cute!). I shared the fun and wonderfulness of mini waffles with my family, and my niece bought a mini waffle iron. Then she sent one to my sister. As of this evening, we are now officially the Mini Waffle Mafia. Don’t ever question the power of waffles!

Pig Gone Wild

Yep. This happened this week, too. The governor of the state finally sent us the update that we had all been waiting for: Fred had been run to ground and captured in a parking lot by my Kaiser Clinic. Isn’t he cute? I wonder how he feels about catios?

Indigo Sunflowers

I have this wonderful batik fabric that was designed for Colorado: sunflowers, grain, aspen leaves, and a sky full of stars.

I have been sewing in the early afternoons and so far I’ve produced a couple of hot pads and a place mat.

I’m not sure if I love that place mat… I may make one more to match the one that I have, and then I can change the borders on the next two. It is nice to be sewing again, and Hannah is thrilled to have the machine out. Seriously, she must remember it and is displaying a lot of the kitten behaviors that she had when I last sewed in this room like… standing on the machine and pulling the wall hanging off the walls. Trilling and rolling around under the table. Carrying off the pin cushion. Knocking the scissors off the table. It is so nice to see her perked up like this… (yes, this is snark!)

Well, that is enough catching up for now, don’t you think?

I’m off to make some more waffles.

Laters!

Six Months Update and Days of Color

Okay, this is an update on my progress on my goals for the year, but it is also a celebration of how well I feel at the moment and my launch into several projects that are rocking the color right now. Seriously, I am so drawn to colors at the moment that I’m pretty much doing some silly impulse shopping. Who cares. I’m having a good time!!

You want to see the silly impulse shopping and/or pink things first?

I could not leave the local garden center without that pink flamingo for my garden! Hello, it glows in the dark with an LED body. 🙂 What do you think about my Knitting Goddess fabric? Yep. That was a late-night Etsy impulse purchase. I’m thinking that it will make a fabulous project bag. What do you think about that Noro yarn? That will become a crocheted tote bag… I also needed to buy some brightly colored hooks to make the bag, and there may have been another big ball of beautiful yarn that fell into the shopping crate before I checked out, but I’ll never talk about it. My feet are hurting because of the spinning I’m doing, so I had to get those wicked compression socks!!! Yep, I am a total sucker for pink. Well, raspberry pink to be specific, but I will settle for hot pink. Finally, Hannah kept trying to drag off my knitted finger protectors, so I made her and Mateo some little tube-like cat thingies to play with. They like them!

Speaking of color, look at my progress on the spinning for Tour de Fleece.

Can you see that I am making progress? The bobbin on the right is where I am today. I’m almost through the crocus-colored roving (50/50 yak/silk from Greenwood Fiberworks), then I get to start on the variegated roving. I’ve been watching episodes of Vera on BritBox while I spin so I’m actually coming to think of this Tour de Fleece as the Tour de Northumbia… I am happy with the spinning as I think that my drafting is getting easier and the thread that I’m spinning is getting smoother. It may also be slightly larger, but I can live with that!

I started reading this book this week because… look at that cover!!!

I don’t want to talk about this book yet because it really is remarkable, and I am changing my opinion about it as I go. It’s like entering a dream world and just experiencing the adventure without worrying too much about what’s going on. In time, I’m sure, I’ll understand what is happening. Maybe. I don’t care. I’m so entranced at the moment I’m reading a couple of hours a day during the heat of the day.

There is color in the garden, too. Look at this:

There is more color in the garden to replace the fading roses. My veronica is finally blooming, and I went back to the garden center to buy more lavender plants. I now have 11 lavenders in the garden… don’t you think that I should get another, so it is an even dozen? The pink yarrow is hard at work. Oh, yeah, there was also a garter snake in the garden today. Not a lot of color, but a ton of fun to see.

So, how much progress has occurred over the last 6 months?

I finished 30 hats and 28 PICC line covers in the first 6 months. I was hoping to get 50 of each done this year, so I am on track.
I have removed 76 skeins of yarn (100g of yarn = a skein) from the stash through knitting and donations. I hope to get 100 skeins out before the end of the year, so I am on track. I did just have a 6-skein slip, but I’m not worried.

The other knitting accomplishments are two sweaters and two pairs of socks.
I finished a quilt and got it hung up on the wall!

I learned how to double knit. Actually, I’m really stoked about how fun it was and I am looking forward to doing some cute projects. (I found that chart online and watched videos to figure out how to do this. Piece of cake, as it turns out!)

I have finished 32 books.

Well, that’s the progress report. My son helped me get my table loom set up for me to use and I’m dreaming of warping the floor loom before the end of the year. (Mateo: that sounds like fun!!) I’m wondering if I can weave something with the yarn that I am spinning now, and I’ve pulled out another quilt kit that has been languishing forever in a cupboard so that I can work on that in my sewing room. I’m entering the last few days on the full dose of prednisone; the dose will be tapered off and stopped over the next two weeks. While I was on prednisone my rheumatologist gradually stepped up my immunosuppressant to a final dose that is double what I was on previously. I feel really good right now and I have huge plans for the rest of the year.

Scleroderma, behave yourself!!

The Scleroderma Chronicles: It’s okay if you cry…

My fatigue lately has been off the charts. I struggle to get the simplest of tasks done, and to be honest I just don’t feel like getting out of bed for days on end. I have been slowly, slowly sewing on a quilt top over the last few weeks. It is soooo exhausting to pin two fabrics together, guide the fabric through the sewing machine, and then to stand up to iron the seam. I handled all of this by 1) sewing only for an hour a day, and 2) lowering the ironing board so I didn’t have to stand while ironing. Take that, you nasty, exhausting fatigue!!

The quilt has a panel in the middle with really cute pictures like this one. Super cute, right?

Here’s the finished quilt top. This baby has really simple quilting in one border and then simple, simple borders around the central panel. Yeah. This took over two weeks to complete. Thanks, fatigue.

When I noticed some strange terminology on my last heart imaging test report, I contacted my pulmonologist about it, and he ordered a CT scan of my lungs. (You can read about that adventure here.) I knew that something was up when I got a call from his office telling me the date and time of the earliest possible appointment with this doctor. The nurse had intervened and made the appointment for me ahead of time. Then there was a call from the cardiologist’s nurse that was the same; an echocardiogram and appointment with that doctor had also been scheduled for me in order to secure the earliest possible appointment. Kind of the harbinger of a tough appointment, right?

Today I had a pulmonary function test and met with the pulmonologist soon afterwards. We joked about the horrible year we had both had. (He is a pulmonary critical care specialist who has been on the front lines of Covid care for two years now; for me lockdown never ended and the BLZ was running wild.) We laughed at my summation of the year: Crushed by Covid. We decided that “Crushed by Covid” could be the name of a really sad band. Then he whipped out his laptop and had me move over to look at it with him.

He had prepared for my appointment with a spreadsheet of my lung function tests over time and my latest lung scan along with that of a normal person. The spreadsheet showed that I was losing volume in my lungs. The scan of a normal lung was really interesting (old biology teacher here…) and then we looked at mine.

Um… my lungs were really cloudy. Like frosted glass. Like… “Hey. Is that what they call ground glass lung?” I asked.

“Yes. That is exactly what we’re looking at. That’s why I wanted you to come in. This isn’t the type of conversation that you have over the phone,” he replied.

Ground glass is not good, folks. Ground glass is the type of lung imaging that Covid patients with pneumonia have. Covid presents like systemic sclerosis because there is an extreme immune response going on in the lungs; both are aggressively treated with drugs that target the immune system. I also have some honeycombing that is the beginning of fibrosis; first the inflammation (which creates the ground glass appearance), then the fibrosis follows. My ground glass lungs are, in his opinion, absolutely not Covid. It is not likely to be just pulmonary edema. It’s systemic sclerosis at its worst. This is interstitial lung disease.

So, it is not good. On the other hand, this is good. I’m in trouble, but the problem has been identified early on and that means aggressive treatment now may stave off the worst of the fibrosis. I am so glad (and lucky) that I googled those crazy medical terms and then followed through with an email to my pulmonologist.

I’ve been referred to a surgeon for a lung biopsy procedure. Evidently that will land me in the hospital for a few days. Following that, if things go to plan, I will be started on more aggressive immunosuppressive drugs. He is going to talk to my rheumatologist about starting a course of chemo and an anti-fibrotic drug. One of the last things that my pulmonologist said to me was, “It’s okay to cry about this, but we have a plan.” That’s when it hit me that this might be really bad; lockdown will continue, and the fatigue is probably going to get worse. Oxygen 24/7 is right around the corner.

Crushed by Covid plays on. What a sad little band it is.

Luckily for me and the cats it is squirrel season. They will have lots of entertainment while I’m in the hospital and laying around like a slug.

2022: New Year, New Goals

I’ve been working out ideas for goals for this new year. I have ended up with a lot of ideas, some of which will probably be abandoned, but still I thought I would share them to see what people think.

Knitting

Oh, my yarn stash is totally out of control. I am going to do everything I can to get it willowed down this year, and the main strategy is to produce as many hats and PICC line covers for the Kaiser infusion centers. I am also thinking about asking my rheumatologist if she would like to have some arm warmers and fingerless mitts to gift to patients struggling with Raynaud’s. Anyway, I’m thinking that I should try to knit out at least 50 skeins of yarn this year.
I have several sweaters all lined up to knit. This will be the year of sweaters!
I have this Coco Knits book that I have been wanting to knit from. A few weeks ago I scored some great yarn from someone destashing – I know I was bad, but I couldn’t help myself. I got 6 skeins of worsted and 7 skeins of chunky yarn in greys and they are perfect for a couple of these sweaters.

This yarn was too nice to walk away from. The light grey is The Uncommon Thread and the dark grey is MadTosh yarn. Perfect for a Coco Knits exploration.

Weaving

Look! Another book to work my way through!

The poor loom has been languishing for some time now. In my defense I would like to plead kittens, but I have a plan where I will warp the loom in a closed room and then I should be able to weave. Time to learn some new stuff! Hey, maybe I can use up some yarn this way too.

Spinning

I think that I should spin this, right?!

I have been avoiding this impulse buy for some time now because the fiber is pretty expensive and I don’t want to ruin it. Whatever. This year I am going to spin this up and make something wonderful from the fiber like maybe a cowl and mitts.

Books

I am going to read some of the non-fiction books that I bought with thoughts of self-improvement that weren’t read right away because I moved on to some space opera type book instead. Hey, I’ve had a tough couple of years and I needed lots of distractions. This year I will read at least 6 of these books. For sure. I promise. I read 66 books last year, so if I read 50 this year I should be able to manage 6 of these more non-fiction guys.

Quilts

I have made a lot of progress working my way through all of the quilting kits that I bought over the years, but there are still these two hanging out in the sewing room.

I have put off working on these because they are pretty complicated with a couple of stacks of different colored fabric in each pack. Still, what is the worst thing that can happen? If I mess up in cutting the fabric I will just go buy some more… The Fiesta quilt is a wall hanging so I will probably start with that one as it will be easier for me to quilt.

Blogging

WordPress is offering classes. I have been thinking that maybe I should take a class or two and become a little more competent.
I have been thinking about starting a couple of other blogs, but finally decided to just add additional topics to this one. I’m going to start blogging about all the things in the natural world that I love and that are wrapped up in memories. I’m thinking about calling it … The Biogeek Memoirs. How geeky is that? Anyway, don’t be astonished if I start blogging about potato bugs, geese, and owls.

The Saturday Update: Weeks 33 and 34, 2021

The end of August, and things are still hot here. The lawn struggles in the heat and the cats go to ground in the coolest parts of the house during the day. The smoke is gone, however, and I’ve been going out in the evenings to water and do some yard work almost every day. Someday, soon, autumn will come, but so far it doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry…

The kitten is 5 months old today!! He and Hannah are pretty inseparable now.

Except in the worst heat of the day. Then it is every cat for themselves around here.

Covid-19 has exploded in the US over the last few weeks, mostly the Delta strain of the virus. I have always been careful since there was some concern that the vaccine wouldn’t give me good protection because of one of the drugs that I take to control my systemic sclerosis; now I rarely leave the house and when I do walk into a store I am double masked. Since I am hanging out at home I’ve been on a “one little thing” cleaning campaign that is really rewarding in small ways. Each day I target one little project: wash the upstairs windows, clean out a drawer, weed out a flower bed, or sort and dispose of old stuff in the garage. I still have bins of teaching materials from my days in the classroom stored away… well, I used to. It was hard, but most of that is now gone. Every week my trash cans are stuffed full and things are nicer in the house. The Covid situation is bad outside my little home, but I am soothed by the gradual improvements that are happening in all of my drawers and rooms as the clutter and dirt disappears.

Every cloud has a silver lining, people!

Garden

My baby bunny is gone. Here he is in his last picture before he moved on the the larger world outside my back yard eating a dandelion leaf.

When the new fence was installed I was pretty sure that the bunny would find his way out of the yard as there were a couple of new gaps under the gates. I can see a new bunny-shaped gap under the new boards that sure looks like there has been some squeeze under the fence action; happy days little guy. The cats will miss you but it is good to move on to greener pastures (and not eating my lawn!!) as you grow up.

Knitting

I am deep in the world of the Sharon from Security (Casapinka) MKAL Snark-O-Meter. I knitted like crazy for several days to get my shawl through the first two clues.

I am through the first two clues (clue number 3 arrived this morning) and I am really happy with how things are going. My problem is that once I finished the clues I had some free time on my hands, so…

I cast on and started another shawl. I messed up the color sequence on this second one, so it has some major Sharon Snax going, but I love it anyway. Now my dilemma is whether to continue with shawl number 2 until I have caught up with the first one, or to charge ahead on the black and red version so I can see what the colors will look like. There is a change in needle size involved so I may keep going on #2 until I get to the lace section at the top that I can switch the needles between the two shawls.

I also feel like I need to knit a little cat, too. I’m cleaning a lot of shelves and I want some more knitted critters to fill in the gaps. 🙂

Quilting

It has been a long time coming, but now that I’m cleaning things up I decided to finish up a small quilting project that has been ignored for years. This quilt has been on the wall by my indoor garden but I was lazy and didn’t hand quilt the lettering in the blocks.

There are several blocks on this quilt with different gardening themed images; each has a cute phrase that needs to be quilted to make it stand out right. Then maybe I will add some more quilting to the outer panels of the quilt. Ugh. I am doing a little bit every day as an extension of the “one little thing” campaign. Hopefully it will be done and back up on the wall before the cold weather arrives and I bring in the plants from outside for their winter indoors.

Have a great week everyone.

Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.

Packages on the Doorstep

Here we are, safely arrived in 2021. I spent part of the day sandwiching the new art quilt top that I finished for my son’s very late Christmas present with the batting and the backing so that I can start doing the quilting tomorrow. Hannah was a huge help as I ironed and laid out the cloth on the floor with the batting and the top on it and secured everything with lots of safety pins. The backing for the quilt is just perfect, and I was able to get it with the help of a cousin who works in a quilt store in Durango, Colorado. I texted her a picture of the fabrics for the borders of the quilt, and she texted back fabric photos of possible candidates. I picked one, and she mailed it to me a couple of days later.

The fabric to the left is the backing that my cousin found for me and the purple to the right is the outer border of the quilt. They go together perfectly!!

I was so happy to get the package with the fabric when it arrived: it was perfect and the thread the exact right color. A big problem had been solved through a pandemic-induced life hack. As I worked with this fabric today I remembered all the uplifting boxes that have arrived on my doorstep recently that have really impacted my mood as I struggle along like so many other people isolating at home alone.

My niece in California sent me a box of lemons from her tree!! Really, who expects lemons when you open an unexpected box? I rose to the challenge and made lemon bars. Each trip to the fridge to sneak another bar out to snack on fills me with a little burst of happiness! Next I’m thinking that I might be able to manage a lemon pound cake. Can I freeze lemon juice?

Do you remember my fabulous monster orchid that I was so happy with last year at this time? That’s it to the left. Over the summer it died… seriously, it is silly to be upset over a lost orchid, but I was. Right before Christmas a enormous box arrived on my doorstep with a two foot orchid carefully stuffed into it… another monster orchid!! Check out the blooms in the picture to the right – that’s my new big boy orchid. My DIL scored me the best Christmas present ever!!

Out of nowhere a strange package appeared a few weeks ago… maybe it was early December? Completely mystified, I brought it in and opened it with Hannah to discover…

A knitting friend had bought yarn for me when she visited a yarn store in Florida months ago before the pandemic changed our world.

My friend is now waiting out the pandemic in another state and who knows when we will see each other again, but we communicate back and forth with email and sending me yarn was a world class act of generosity and completely made my day.

Finally, there was the Christmas gift that arrived without warning from my sister. A little something to keep its eye on Hannah, who has been known to get into mischief on a pretty regular basis these days.

An owl! It is hanging out these days with the orchids where it can, indeed, keep an eye on Hannah!

There they are, the collection of serendipitous boxes of joy that landed on my doorstep over the last few weeks that have been so impactful in helping me carry on as bad news keeps crashing in through my walls from the world outside. They remind me that even though I am still isolating and waiting for my turn to get a vaccine I am not alone at all. Through the mail, little things keep coming that mean so much.

I know that we all have high hopes for 2021, but I think that we are in for a long haul. Take joy in the little things that come your way, and when you can, send packets of caring and happiness to others.

This year I will be focusing on charity knitting.