Did you know that spring is right around the corner?
That’s right. I can tell that spring is coming because there are more birds in the yard now. The robins are back!! There is more sun in the afternoon. The flights of geese over the house seem to have stopped. There are THREE BIG FAT BUNNIES in my backyard!
These bunnies are really big! Mateo the CoalBear and I watch them every late afternoon when they come out into the yard to play. The CoalBear is chomping at the bit to chase them, but so far he hasn’t managed to escape from the catio. The bunnies are also eating the Mother of Cats lawn, but she doesn’t seem to care that much. She’s just happy to see some green grass after the long winter.
Anyway, the Mother of Cats made me this mouse to play with since I can’t go out to chase the bunnies with Mateo.
She stored the mouse in the catnip jar to make it smell good. I’ve been hogging it for myself because that dang CoalBear plays with all the chirpy toys and never, ever lets me have fun with the ping pong balls. He just acts like all the toys belong to him and I never get to play with anything anymore, so this mouse is mine! Besides, it doesn’t chirp, so he isn’t that interested in it, and he doesn’t like catnip.
I eat his tuna when he isn’t looking because he is a total toy hog. It’s only fair, right?
This is Hannah, signing off.
Notes from the Mother of Cats: That portly mouse is made from this pattern on Ravelry. I used same homespun yarn that the chicken is made from, and Hannah seems to be roughing up the mouse more and leaving poor HanPeck along.
I kind of think that this mouse looks like a pika. What do you think?
This was a fast, fun project. The entire chicken was knitted in one piece except for the red parts and the underneath section. All garter stitch made it easy on my hands/wrists to knit, and the change in colors helped me keep moving along. Here’s the pattern for the emotional support chicken on Ravelry: I just noticed that there is a tutorial available with the pattern.
Sewing up was pretty minimal.
The red comb is knitted separately and was quick and easy to attach. The beak was finished in a grand total of about 4 stitches, and then it was pretty straight forward to seam the underneath to the two sides of the body as I closed the chicken. It was amazing how quickly the bird came to life.
The base is nice and wide, letting the chicken sit in place without tipping over.
I really am happy with the final product. This chicken is made solely from homespun yarn, and it makes me even more happy to see this yarn being used well. Here’s the problem with my homespun yarn; it is a little rough on my skin and as a scleroderma patient I’m giving my skin whatever it wants. So… I’m not wearing my homespun anymore, and it is even a little hard to knit with it. The chicken goes quickly, however, and I can have a beautiful, finished chicken to admire and then take a few days to let my fingers recover from the knitting. I’ve already gone stash diving to pull together ideas for another chicken or two or… don’t you think that it would be nice to donate a few emotional support chickens to patients at the infusion center or maybe to Ronald McDonald House? That’s what I’m thinking now. It depends on how well my fingers tolerate the knitting. It makes me so happy to get the homespun out and put to use; each skein and color is a memory, and it makes me feel so good to think of putting them to a good use.
Hannah: Don’t I look sweet?
Last night Hannah attacked the chicken and dragged it around, bunny kicking it from time to time. Poor chicken, it was defiantly Hannah pecked.
It is therefore named HanPeck.
Welcome, HanPeck. Hang on, the rest of the flock is on the way.
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’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!)
This book is on the way to me.
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.
Rare Disease Day is tomorrow, but since I’m going in for a lung scan on the 29th, I thought I would post this now.
Well, here it is again. Rare Disease Day. This is my 9th year posting about rare diseases: on August 28, 2014, I was diagnosed with a form of scleroderma called limited systemic sclerosis. This condition, autoimmune in nature, is progressive as multiple organs, blood vessels, and the skin of the patient (that would be me) stiffen and harden due to scarring (fibrosis). It is also considered rare, since fewer than 200,000 people in the US are currently diagnosed with it.
So, what’s up with the zebra? Well… in the medical community doctors and other health professionals are trained to focus on the most common cause for the symptoms that they are seeing in their patient. The saying goes: when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras. Certainly, that makes a lot of sense in terms of patient care and cost control. It works most of the time.
Unless, of course, you are a zebra.
Life is challenging if you are a zebra in a herd of horses. Doctors screen for the most likely cause of reported symptoms, and then when those tests are negative, you usually get told that you are fine, and then you are pawned off with some pablum like… do these exercises… try to reduce stress…would you like anti-depressants?… Seriously, it is pretty crushing as you start to wonder if you are just an attention-seeking hypochondriac since for the most part you look great. In my case, I didn’t even appear to be aging…
This can go on for years. And years. Autoimmune conditions like mine tend to send patients with vague complaints (I hurt all over…) to the doctor’s office looking for help. Some of the symptoms can be so subtle that you just don’t think to mention them to the doctor because you already feel pretty defensive about complaining after a few borderline disparaging interactions in the past. Why mention that you have trouble swallowing sometimes? Or that your arm is starting to look like Flipper the dolphin in appearance and texture? Some new red freckles have shown up on your face, but why mention them when you really want to get to the bottom of why you hurt all over and what is up with this fatigue????? Sure, there were those carpal tunnel surgeries 10 years ago, and the hospitalization for gastritis last year, but why would you mention them… When I was finally diagnosed, I discovered that I was absolutely classic and presented with all five of the CREST features of limited systemic sclerosis. Oh, one more thing: lack of wrinkles is a red flag for scleroderma…
You can see two of the CREST characteristics here. I’ve lost circulation in my ring finger as a result of Raynaud’s, and the thick (sausage-like) fingers that are trying to contract are examples of sclerodactyly. The other distinguishing symptoms are trouble swallowing, lumps of calcium deposits on some of my bones, and those pesky red freckles that are now appearing everywhere. It was official: I was a zebra. There are a lot of us.
Rare diseases are also known as orphan diseases. They are poorly supported and most of the time there is no treatment. After failing a chemotherapy drug, I was moved to an off-label treatment using an immunosuppressant drug developed for kidney transplant patients. It was hard to get the drug as it was declined by my insurance, then the appeal failed, my doctor filed another appeal, and I went to see the pharmacist with a pathology report showing extreme gastritis. It was a fight, but I got the drug. This drug, Myfortic (mycophenolic acid), has proven to be so effective in slowing disease progression that it is now approved for systemic sclerosis and is a drug of choice along with its close relative CellCept. It has been doing a pretty good job at slowing things down; at the time of my diagnosis the 10-year survival rate was about 50%. Now that there are some better treatment options the survival numbers have improved: 10-year survival is up to 70%.
Two years ago, I developed two of the more serious complications of systemic sclerosis (SSc): pulmonary hypertension and interstitial lung disease: two more rare diseases. Not good news at all; my pulmonologist told me it would be okay to cry as he showed me my lung scans and gave me the bad news. Remember that little word “progressive” that I used to describe SSc? This is disease progression; the inflammation and formation of scar tissue (fibrosis) had hit my lungs and heart, and my have doctors responded with big time drugs. Yes. Big time and pretty expensive drugs. Over the last few years, literally in the time since I was first diagnosed, drugs have appeared that can greatly improve treatment and life expectancy in patients like me, and there are more drugs in the pipeline.
The first drug that can be used to directly treat SSc just moved from orphan drug status to the fast track. This is serious, serious good news. I looked into entering a clinical trial for this drug, but my doctors thought that I wasn’t a good candidate because I have too many complications right now. Seriously, I have been slotted into a diagnosis called SSc-ILD with PH which means that I am a SSc patient with interstitial lung disease and pulmonary hypertension. Good grief, I’m now a walking bundle of acronyms. That’s okay. I can hang on, help is on the way!! FT011, I am waiting for you!!!
So, what is up with all the colored stripes?
Serious medical conditions usually have an awareness ribbon color. It is a little cheesy, but if you are dealing with scary stuff, why not have some fun? Be a zebra, color your stripes in your awareness colors, and get yourself some fun t-shirts while you are at it. Eat Zebra Food (that would be black and white striped caramel popcorn to you non-zebras), get colored medical bracelets, and collect the stuffed animals. Zebras, of course!! My zebra has teal stripes (scleroderma), periwinkle stripes (PH) and purple for the ILD. Lung disease in general is green and blue. I also get purple for my Sjogren’s and fibromyalgia, and don’t forget the red for my heart failure. I’m a rainbow zebra!! Yay!
Okay, time to get serious. What is Rare Disease Day about? Raising awareness in the public about the challenges of living with a rare disease. There are a lot of people who have rare diseases, so by sharing our faces and voices the hope is that it will help make us more visible. We hope that a more educated public will aid in the diagnosis of others with rare conditions. (See above; diagnosis can take years. It would be wonderful if that could be sped up a little…) We hope it will help with funding for drugs, treatments, and maybe even cures. We hope that for those with invisible conditions, they will become more visible and supported. We hope.
MacKenzie and me from 2018.
To learn more about my rare conditions and others you can go to:
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.
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!
The Mother of Cats has been ignoring us for days and days. I mean, our food bowls were almost empty, and she ran out of tuna over the weekend. I seriously question her fitness as a pet parent at this point…
Do you see this? I absolutely did not deserve this either!!!
First it snowed. Like kind of a lot of the wet sloppy stuff. Hannah refused to even go outside on the catio, and I could only stay a few minutes without getting covered in the white stuff because IT KEPT FALLING OUT OF THE SKY!! The Mother of Cats wasn’t letting me out all that much either because for the most part, we couldn’t get her to get out of bed. Seriously, she is the laziest human on the planet. She just stayed in bed listening to books, sleeping, working on her computer, and basically ignoring all of our needs. Finally, it stopped snowing, and the sun came out again. Like magic, the Mother of Cats also started to pay better attention to us. She charged up the laser friend that Hannah likes to chase and ordered me more toys from Amazon. Also, she had some tuna delivered because we needed it DESPERATELY!!
Once she was back into the kitchen, she made more of that crazy squash soup that she likes and spent some time playing with the lemons that her niece sent her. She cut them all up and put them in the countertop oven on the dehydrate setting for hours. Kind of a stupid thing to be doing when I NEED TO GO OUTSIDE AND SEE BUNNIES!!! Luckiy, she had taken care of the tuna issue already… I’m a good boy, but I do meow in emergencies!
Now she can put lemon slices into her tea while she is being lazy in bed and ignoring our needs. Thank heavens the new toys arrived, and the laser friend kept working because I never got to see any bunnies or squirrels or anything for the whole weekend.
The only other thing that she did last week was to set up an experiment with dirt and seeds and stuff.
The Mother of Cats collected the seed pods from her roses last fall, and they have been out in the cold of the garage ever since. She carefully planted half of the seeds and put the trays onto a warm pad on the floor because Hannah pushed the trays onto the floor from the table in the craft room. Silly Mother of Cats, doesn’t she understand that they needed to be on the floor in the first place?
Hannah: I was just trying to help out! I take the covers off the planter trays too so I can keep my eye on things.
Now the rest of the seeds are chilling in the refrigerator that I like to shove my toys under where they are going to stay for another few weeks. They will get planted then if the first seeds haven’t sprouted. She also put milkweed seeds into dirt that is out in the cold of the garage or outside under the snow: another experiment! She likes to do stuff like that. I think that she would be happier if she played with chirpy toys instead, but what can you do. I’m only one cat, and she is a lot to handle, let me tell you.
This is Mateo, signing off.
Note from the Mother of Cats: The barometric pressure really dropped quickly when the snowstorm came in, and I evidently developed a bit of pulmonary edema when that happened and gained almost 8 pounds in two days. Friday night I realized that I was dizzy and having trouble breathing: diuretics to the rescue!! It has taken several days to get the weight back down and I’m breathing a lot better now, but the cats sure were neglected while I was in bed on oxygen dealing with it. Just another scleroderma adventure…
Also, Amazon delivered the tuna and the chirpy toys overnight. Yay, Amazon. It is good to live in a city with a fulfillment center…
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.
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.
Yarn, Books & Roses 