Alpine Bloom Sweater – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: The Alpine Bloom Sweater is Done.

Hi. I’m Mateo.

I’m also known as the CoalBear. Don’t you think that I’m really handsome in my summer coat?

I’ve had a busy couple of days. The Mother of Cats has been knitting and knitting and knitting on her new sweater. Okay, the knitting part was pretty boring. I don’t get to go outside as much as I like, and she doesn’t let me play with the yarn. I tried to hang out on her lap, and that didn’t work, either. To make up for things I got extra tuna and she let me chase the laser light at least three times a day!!!

Mostly I slept in my box while the Mother of Cats was knitting.

When I did get to go outside, it was really exciting. THERE ARE A COUPLE OF ADULT RABBITS HANGING OUT IN THE YARD!!!! They aren’t even a little afraid of me, and they run all around the yard kicking their feet up into the air and chasing each other. Hey, I wanted to run around in the yard chasing them, too, but the Mother of Cats was like…. no, Mateo. She says that I don’t play nice with the bunnies. Hey, there was just that one bunny that I caught and snacked on, and now I can’t ever, ever play with them again? How is that a reasonable policy? I want to lodge a protest.

Here, bunny, bunny. I want to ~~eat~~ play with you!

Then there were the bugs that got into the house this week. Yep, exciting!!!

Okay, back to the sweater. This is what the journey looked like:

This is the finished sweater. Didn’t we do a good job?

Now that the sweater is done the Mother of Cats is talking about winding some more yarn or maybe warping the loom. Wow. That sounds like a lot of fun!!!! Winding yarn is one of my favorite things to do.

Bye now.

I hope that you had a great weekend, and if you are in the US where I live, have a great holiday tomorrow.

This is the CoalBear, signing off.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Trail? What Trail?

Hi. I’m Hannah.

This has been a kind of strange week. The Mother of Cats came home on Monday after spending ANOTHER WEEKEND WITH THOSE KITTENS!!! and then she tried to make it up to us by being really nice all week. She fed us tuna twice a day and played with Mateo with the laser light more than usual. Like that would make up for sneaking off to spend time with these furry little guys instead of US.

Okay, they are kind of cute. Still, they aren’t as cute as Mateo and I were at the same age. Just saying…

Anyway, back to the strange week. The children in the neighborhood all went back to school (whatever that it…) this week and it suddenly is quieter in the backyard. A huge flock of geese flew over the yard yesterday, and today the Mother of Cats noticed that some of the berries on the bushes are turning red. The squirrel is more active than usual, and the moon was out in the daytime. Crazy, right? Here are the pictures.

The Mother of Cats is also excited about something called Pumpkin Spice. Is that a type of tuna?

Anyway, let’s now discuss the Mother of Cats and her COMPLETE ABANDONMENT of the Sharon on the Trail MKAL. She didn’t even bother to open up the emails with the pattern updates. She says that she hates her yarns, and she doesn’t love the pattern, and she just wants to knit the stuff she already has and to make some little knitted kitties to give away. I’d be concerned about her, but she is really happy with the stuff that she is knitting now, and I have to admit that it is looking good.

She put her sweater back onto the needles this week and got several inches of the body knitted. Looking good! She says that the funky looking new stitches are that way because they aren’t blocked yet. Mateo isn’t convinced.

Mateo: I’ll reserve judgement until I see that new knitting blocked. Call me Doubting Mateo.

She really spent some time on the new socks that she is making, and she really likes the way they are coming out. I think that has something to do with how she just UP AND ABANDONED Sharon from Security in her quest to apprehend that villainous Keith…

She likes these socks so much she is already dreaming of which yarns she will use to knit the next pair with. Poor Sharon, I’m pretty sure that the Mother of Cats will never return to the trail. She has her eye on some purple yarns for the next pair of socks…

Well, that is it. I hope that you all had a wonderful Caturday.

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The sweater is Alpine Bloom by Caitlin Hunter.
The socks are Pressed Flowers Socks by Amy Cristoffers.
The abandoned MKAL is Sharon on the Trail by Casapinka. I have decided to wait for the finished shawl before I put any more knitting time into it.
The weather has been playing hell with my breathing. A couple of lows tracked right over the state and in the low pressure I don’t do well at all.

Do you see the low? That’s the place where all the wind arrows are swirling together just east of me in the state (I’m located just east of Denver). Fun and games for people with lung/heart conditions!

Behold Hannah and Mateo as kittens… they were pretty cute!

Hannah and the CoalBear: and she’s already fallen off the trail…

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Hannah: I bet you wished that you had a catio…

In my last report I shared how the Mother of Cats left us for the weekend to go play with her son’s kittens. Hello! We’re kittens too, right?! Well, in our hearts we are. The Mother of Cats says that I’m getting chunky and that I’m hard to pick up now… what is up with that?! If she would let me bring grasshoppers into the house so I could chase them without burning my little feet on the hot deck I’m sure I would slim right down, but does she let me have any fun? Nope. Not so much…

Anyway, the Mother of Cats finished up her first clue of the Sharon on the Trail MKAL shawl and then put it away to wait for the next clue.

I gave it a little grooming before she put it away, and we both thought that it was pretty cute. Then the second clue dropped last week and the Mother saw what it looked like knitted up… and immediately decided that she didn’t want to use these yarns anymore. She never took the shawl out again all week and just worked on her new sweater.

Okay, I have to admit that it is looking pretty darn good, right?

She steam blocked the part that was knitted in the sweater (it is called Alpine Bloom) and while it was drying she hunted and hunted for new yarns to knit the Sharon on the Trail again.

What do you guys think of these yarns? She’s still thinking of using gold instead of that mauve color…

I personally don’t care because it is really darn hot here and we spend every afternoon just waiting it out. The Mother of Cats reads books and I just sleep in any coolish spot that I can find. My favorite spot right now is on the paper from the Chewy box in front of a fan.

Do you see where I had a rash on my tummy? I had another bath (YUK!!!) and now the fur is growing back.

Anyway, once the Mother of Cats had located her new yarns for the MKAL you’d think that she would have cast on and gotten busy knitting, right? Nope. You would be wrong. She saw a sock pattern and went crazy casting on to start them. Then she got an email from her community knitting buddies that made her knit some more PICC line covers and start hunting for yarns to knit little toys and hats. SHE IS COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL!!! Like, she is worse than Mateo at the moment.

Here’s the start of the socks. These will be Pressed Flowers Socks after a whole bunch of time the way she is going.

So, I’m just kind of going with the flow and hoping to get some tuna soon while she is ignoring the shawl, pretending that it is TOO HARD to put that blocked sweater back onto the needles, and saying things like… why should she knit socks when it would be more fun to make some toys (hearts and little mice and maybe some tiny kitties…) to go to with the PICC line covers in a couple of weeks when the next Frayed Knots meeting happens.

Sigh. She should make me some knitted mice!

Mateo: don’t forget that tomorrow is Caturday!

That’s all for now. I’m going to go find another cool spot to sleep in…

This is Hannah, sighing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats: I’ve been reading like crazy because several books arrived in my library account all at once. Yay!

I’ve been reading All the Sinners Bleed as an audiobook while driving around in the car. The main character is still dealing with the trauma of his mother’s death from… (wait for it) …scleroderma!! I heard that part of the book while driving back from my rheumatology appointment this week. Crazy. In the book the mother suffered from extreme muscle pain, and I had just finished talking with my doctor about increasing my immunosuppressant dose because of my continuing muscle/tendon pain.
I also raced through Killers of the Flower Moon recently. What a great book!!! It’s about a cluster of abuses and murders linked to conspiracies to steal the oil generated wealth of Osage Nation members in Oklahoma. The center of the Osage territory is located in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, a place I’ve been to since I have family located there. While flipping through all the footnotes in the book an interview with the author, David Grann, came on the television. How crazy is all of this!! He has written a new book called The Wager that I already have a library hold on.
I continue to be stalked by synchronicity, obviously.
The community knitting/crocheting group that I knit for has been expanding. We now are donating to other medical centers that have requested sewn PICC line pads for seatbelts in cars, heavy winter hats for homeless shelters, and now we are partnering with the Denver STAR program that provides emergency (non-police) responses to people in mental health crisis, or who are homeless, or any emergency that is not violent or criminal in nature. They need blankets, amigurumi, health items, and hats. Lots of knitting (and crocheting and sewing) needs to be done!
Do you see why I just fell off the trail? For something like this I might even try to crochet some little amigurumi.
Now I’m reading The Covenant of Water. Holy smokes, this is looking to be another really good book! Do you see why the knitting has stalled?
Hannah: Get off the computer, Mother of Cats, and get me come tuna!!! Also, a knitted mouse would be nice…

Hannah and the CoalBear: I’m Hitting the Trail!

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I’m hanging out on the catio before it gets too hot.

Did you notice that yesterday was Caturday? I had to stay in the house all day long because the Mother of Cats drove off and left us all alone for the weekend. She has been a little crazy lately, that Mother of Cats… She decided at the last minute to do the Sharon on the Trail MKAL and dug around in her stash to find some yarns. Okay, it was like a yarn explosion, but that is fun, right?

Has she finished her Alpine Bloom sweater yet? No, she has not!!

So she left us and went to her son’s house for the weekend because… he has new kittens!!! How could she leave us? Why did she ever think that she could knit while she was around KITTENS!!! She needs to come home right away!!

She did take out her yarns for a picture showing the order that she wants to knit them, but that is as far as she was able to get because…kittens!

So, the Mother of Cats hasn’t gotten any knitting done at all, which means that she is behind everyone else in the MKAL. Sharon from Security (Casapinka’s employee who needs a raise!) is in France hunting down Keith the Hiker who has (probably) stolen a mysterious paper wrapped object, stuffed it in his backback, and is currently on the trail with Sharon hot on his tail. The Mother of Cats needs to come home today so she can get some knitting down and we can get some COOKIES!!!

You know, I don’t think that the Mother of Cats can do much hiking, so I told Mateo that he is going to have to hit the trails with me if we’re going to help Sharon get that mysterious package back. France. We can do France.

I’m getting some rest so I’m ready to go!!

I hope that you all had a great Caturday, and that you weren’t abandoned and left all alone in a hot house with a crazy Mateo…

This is Hannah, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

My son lost his beautiful cat Maya (who controlled the weather) and his remaining cat has been sad since then. Today Jonesy is looking happier than he has in months. Okay, maybe he’s still a little stressed, but that’s life with kittens for you…
The kittens are a Siamese mix and a classic tabby. So cute!
The yarns for the MKAL are from Indie dyers across the US: Texas, Colorado, Montana, and New York. How fun is that?

Now there are 38…

Bright sunny days are upon us, and the yard is filled with the call of blue jays. Okay, these guys are really noisy, and there are a lot more than usual this year, so the robins seem to be keeping a low profile. All of my plants are growing like crazy in the heat and the gardens are starting to look really good.

The cats are spending lots of time out on the catio.

I’ve discovered that the weeds are also growing like… weeds, so I have been spending an hour every day in the cool of the evening working in the gardens trying to keep ahead of the weed invasion.

There is a lot of pink going on in the garden right now. The Princess Alexandra of Kent rose is stilling going strong, the pink yarrow burst into bloom, and the snapdragons that are now blooming again are… just the pink ones! Of course, the angelica has joined in, and I must admit that the pink does make me feel good.

Even my knitting has pink blooms! This is the Alpine Bloom sweater by Caitlin Hunter.

So, I was thinking that maybe I should get some red when I took a trip to my local garden center this week. Woohoo! Roses WERE ON SALE at 30% off!!! It didn’t take long to locate a landscape shrub rose that had beautiful cabbage rose-ish blooms.

This is the Grand Champion Red rose. I bought two of them.

I thought that it would do well with the Ruby Meidiland roses along the back of my house.

The Rubies have been doing really well this year, but the shrubs didn’t fill in along the back of the house the way I thought they would, so there is room to put another rose between plantings.

See, the new rose will fit right in there!

Now I have to do more weeding (duh!), get the new roses into the ground, and then I plan to put a nice organic mulch around everyone.

So now there are 38 roses!

PS: Bea made this comment… “Mateo is wearing his don’t-mess-with-me face. He looks ready to rumble or hop on his Harley and hightail it for Sturgis.”

He kind of does, doesn’t he. I offer in his defense this picture of how he collapsed and fell asleep on the bookshelf last night…

The tough guy photo was taken right after I woke him up. It seems that he wakes up cranky…

The Soldotna Saga Ends

Yesterday was the Independence Day here in the USA. Fireworks are traditional; my neighborhood goes kind of overboard with the celebrating in that regard. Poor Hannah cowered under the bed and Mateo vanished for the three hours that skyrockets boomed directly overhead and showers of sparks glittered in the night. I finished up all the knitting on the Soldatna Crop, closed the gaps under the sleeves, and then wove in all of the ends. Towards midnight there was a huge thunderstorm that outboomed even the loudest of the skyrockets and I gently misted the sweater and steam blocked it into its final shape.

The Hannah savaged spot is just barely visible, but I am over it.

Do you see it now? The biggest damage is that some of the color has been removed in the fibers that were pulled off in the aggressive grooming Hannah incident. If I move fast, no one will ever notice it and I want to get on with the next knitting project because a new pattern appeared that I want to start right now!! It’s another little sweater by the same designer, Caitlin Hunter, called Alpine Bloom. I downloaded the image of the sweater so you can understand my urgent need: isn’t that the cutest ever? (sweater image is copyright of Caitlin Hunter)

I’m planning right now on doing the colorwork in the hot pink and I may slip in some flower details with the purple. I’ve been looking at other projects online and I actually like the ones that only use one color the best, so I may just stick with the hot pink. Check out the lace at the neckline and the sleeves: cute, cute, cute!! I need to get my needles switched over to this new project right this second, so the Soldotna is now declared done.

In other new, I actually saw a BUNNY in the front yard this week! It is an adult, and it came from across the street to hang out by my tree, but it made me really happy to see it. Stay away from the back yard, little guy!

Finally, how about an update on the roses? They are continuing to flourish and the new blooms are appearing daily. I did a count this week, and I actually have 34 plants right now. Obviously, I need to get another few to take it up to 40, right?

I do have room in the garden because not a single one of the really cute lavender plants that I put out last year came back. A couple of the well established English ones made it, but that was all. I did a little sleuthing on the internet to try to figure out what happened and quickly discovered that the Spanish lavender that I thought was so cute didn’t have a chance.

Yeah, if this plant struggles with temperatures below 10 degrees F, then the -24 degrees F that happened last year absolutely was too cold for it. Actually, it was a problem for most of the garden as I lost the part of the rose plants that were above the ground, but thankfully they all grew back from the roots okay in the spring and it really did help that we had a lot of rain.

Lesson learned.

More roses!!