Barley DK Hat – Yarn, Books & Roses

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.