Christmas – Yarn, Books & Roses

Final Push Towards Christmas: Knitted Cat and Plants

Almost all of my gifts are made and in the mail on their way to their new homes. It is a huge relief to have them out the door, but I still can’t show them off until next week. Gee, it’s hard to blog when I’m spending most of my time on the Christmas making drive but I can’t show things off. Would you like to see some of my plants?

After months of care the African violet suddenly decided to bloom! About time, little guy, I was almost ready to give up on you…

Five of my six orchid plants are getting ready to bloom this season too. I’ve been feeding these orchids every month, spraying them every few days to keep the humidity high, and subjected them to big swings in temperature early in the fall in an effort to encourage blooming.

One is putting up four blooming stems! I think that this plant will produce white blooms, but the others will have purple and orange/gold blooms. How cheerful my sewing room will be this winter.

Even one of the roses that I brought indoors for the winter has started blooming this week!

There is one big knitted gift that I can show off as I’m working on it in coolaboration with the recipient.

This knitted cat is a gift for my younger son whose cat Daxter died unexpectedly from an undetected cancer last September.

Daxter with his Christmas mouse last year. Daxter was a wonderful companion, extremely expressive and very bonded to my son. Truely an extraordinary cat! The loss has been great and there is a hole in the apartment where he used to sleep.

Ironically, I had bought some of the yarn for the knitted cat just days before Daxter’s sudden death. Shocked at the sudden turn of events, I put the yarn away for awhile, but finally took it back out two weeks ago and got started on the knitted cat as a Christmas gift for my son. It’s bittersweet for sure, but it feels good to create something that honors Daxter and acknowledges the loss.

This knitted cat is going to be almost life sized!! There is a hole in the face where the ear is going to be. MacKenzie reluctantly agreed to model the knitted cat so you get an idea of how it will look later with the ears on. The knitted fabric is created with three strands of yarn held together; I’m working with a silk-mohair lace yarn, a silk-alpaca lace yarn, and a fingering wool. The different colors in the cat are created by changing one or more strands of yarn as I work.

You can see how big this cat is going to be.

I’m working like crazy on the cat now and I plan to get it done in time for Christmas. The cat’s eyes are ordered and on their way from China; hopefully they will get here in time. I have started to add some stripes and will knit in others. I can’t wait to get the ears on!! I am so impressed with the shaping and detail in this project, and I also have to say that the pattern is very straight-forward and has lots of great picture and video support. If you would like to create your own cat the pattern is Cat by Claire Garland.

Oh yeah. There is a new kitten in my son’s apartment. I hope that he likes this knitted cat too.

Yellow Boy Speaks: Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Hi. I’m Yellow Boy.

Cat — Here I am tucked into bed, with visions of sugar-mice dancing in my head.

In this season of holidays: the Festival of Lights, the passage of the planet through the longest night, Kwanzaa, and the celebration of the birth of Christ, I wish you all love, peace, safe journeys, good friends, the joy of your families, and lots and lots of cat toys.

Saint Nicholas, I’ve been a good boy!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

MacKenzie Speaks: Christmas is for Cats

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Cat Face — The Mother of Cats says it is Christmas time now.

Cold weather arrived last week so the Mother of Cats has been hanging out indoors. We cats prefer to sleep in her cozy bed, but she has been disrupting the peace doing Christmas stuff. Crazy! She didn’t even talk to us about it first.

Frozen Reindeer — All these lighted things got dragged out of their hiding places and put outside. This is so unfair – we didn’t get to go outside at all because she said subzero temperatures weren’t good for cats. Why don’t we ever get to vote about these things?

Christmas ornament — She dragged in a tree from outside and hung these shiny balls and lights all over it.

Then she settled down to spend the rest of the week binge watching Gilmore Girls and knitting on the last of the Christmas presents. Lots and lots of knitting! Lots and lots of Gilmore Girls. Hey, that’s another thing. Why don’t cats get to go to Harvard or Yale? I think that I would be a wonderful addition to the Independence Inn. Michel would like me for sure; we have almost identical attitudes!

Did I mention that she ate Christmas cookies while she knitted. Hey, these aren’t cat cookies! What was she thinking of?

Boot liners — Finally she got these boot liners finished for her DIL.

Cat and boot liner — Did I mention that they are cashmere, silk and merino? Check out the cushy stitches. These are just wonderful to sleep on. Would you believe that she took them away from me and wrapped them in paper? Oh. Wait. Crackly paper. Yellow Boy lives for crackly paper. We both love to climb into the pile of presents to play with the bows. Why does the Mother of Cats get upset with us?

At last all the knitting gifts were done. Did she stop knitting to pay attention to me? Maybe feed me cat cookies? No!! She pulled out more yarn and unfinished knitting projects. Evidently there are more Gilmore Girls episodes to watch. Rory is now in Yale, and who knows what will happen next? I think that it would be nice if Rory got a cat.

Cat and knitting — Now we’re knitting on some socks for her. I like this color of yarn, don’t you?

It has finally gotten warmer outside and Yellow Boy and I are running through the snow in the backyard during the afternoons. Yellow Boy keeps hoping to find a bug, but so far they seem to be hiding. That sorry squirrel still hangs out in the trees of the yard; annoying creature! He should come down to play in the snow with us. We’ll give him a chase he won’t soon forget…

In a few days Christmas finally arrives. The Mother of Cats will make lasagna and cheesecake and all the kids (and the grandkid) will be over here showering me with attention. I will get to chase ribbons. There will be piles of paper. Yellow Boy will hide the whole time so I’ll be the star of the show. I love Christmas.

Cat with reindeer antler hat — I’m all ready for the big day.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The boot liners are the Savannah Boot Liners by Pam Powers. Ravelry notes here.
The socks are Chouwa Socks by Judy Sumner. Ravelry notes here.
MacKenzie’s antlers are from the Cats in Hats book. Ravelry notes here.

Christmas Make: Stacking Fabric Bowls

I made my first Christmas make list a few weeks ago and it is getting close enough to the main event for me to start to take things seriously. Usually my family and friends get knitted items; they all have knitted mitts, shawls, cats, and socks from previous years. I had this idea that I would change things up and do some sewing this year. Lord knows I have enough Christmas fabrics! Last week I pulled out everything that looked a little Christmasy from my fabric stash and filled a crate with candidate fabrics. If I sew for a couple of hours each day I should be able to make some real progress on the presents without the usual last-minute stress.

Crate of Fabrics — Well look at this! There must be a few presents in here…

I found several projects and kits from previous years that didn’t get made or finished: a set of placemats, an advent calendar, a table runner and some ornaments. Hey! I should get cracking! Of course I decided to make something that wasn’t any of those items for my first project. The problem was these exceptionally cute fabrics that all kind of went together…

Fabrics — How happy can a set of Christmas fabrics get? These are the leftovers from some projects I made in the past with one new buy added in. They look like they were made to go together, don’t they, but some of these are over 10 years old.

I decided to made a series of stacking fabric bowls similar to the ones that I made for my sister for her birthday. The dark green solid will be used for the lining of all the bowls except the smallest, and the bowls will be sewn in the order I have the fabric stacked. I even found a variegated thread that I could use. It’s a plan!! Here is the pattern that I found online to use for the bowls.

Quilted squares — The bowls are made by first constructing a series of quilted squares. To make these bowls I created 12″, 11″, 10″, 9″, and 8″ squares. (OK, I have to be honest. That was the size of the squares before I sewed them. The finish squares are actually 1/2″ smaller because of the seams. I decided to not sweat the small details.) 🙂

Quilting — I did the easiest quilting possible for the squares. Isn’t the thread cute? That was why I used the solid green for all of the linings.

Finished bowls — Stitched down darts in each corner create the bowls. Cute, huh. I’m glad that I used a print fabric for the lining of smallest bowl.

There is enough of some of the fabrics to use them for more bowls (I think that the largest bowl is exactly the right size to hold a Christmas coffee cake or maybe a hand-woven dishtowel with a package of my favorite Christmas cookies…) or to make a set of placemats. I have the perfect family placemat pattern all ready to go and a set from last year that just needs to get some quilting done and the binding attached. I am trying to stay out of the quilt store but I can make everything work if I just add a couple of coordinated fabrics…

Do you see why I have such a big stash? For now I have organized two more set of Christmas bowls and set aside the fabrics for Thanksgiving bowls that I can use next week when I go to my son’s house for the big meal. After that I can attack the table runner and placemats.

So much fabric, so little time. And I thought I had a problem with yarn…

FO Friday: The Day After Christmas

It’s the day after Christmas! I know that it is Boxing Day, but in my house it is “Recover From Knitting Day”. It came right down to the wire (again), but I got all of the gifts done on time and into the mail or under the tree. The most fun for me is getting the feedback from recipients after my little knitted gifts arrive at their new destination. So, from the yarn stash to the Christmas Tree, here are the knitted items of 2014.

Knitted cat. — For my cat loving cousin I made a black and white kitty,

Cats! — Here he is in his new home on Christmas morning. Happy landings little guy!

Lace Mitt WIP — I was knitting lace mitts like crazy as we got closer to the big day…

and here are the same mitts this morning on their new owner's hands. :-) — and here are the same mitts this morning on their new owner’s hands. 🙂

Mitts — The mitts that I made for my sister arrived in time for Christmas…

Socks — and the socks for my daughter-in-law got done early Christmas Eve a couple of hours before I handed over the wrapped package

Ta-daa! Christmas gift success.

OK, there were some things that I planned and bought stuff for but didn’t make, but I have a head start for next year. Right?

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

FO Friday: One Christmas Gift Done!

Ok, I have a lot of knitted Christmas presents going. I buckled down and got one of them done today. I offer for your viewing enjoyment the Christmas Cat!!

Pieces for stuffed knitted cat. — My cat MacKenzie was thrilled to model the start of this knitting project, a black and white cat for a cat-loving cousin.

Last night I completed knitting all of the pieces and steamed blocked them into submission so I could start seaming.

By this afternoon I had the body of the cat together. Not very appealing, is he?

Cat is done! MacKenzie still isn't sure about how he feels about him. — Cat is done! MacKenzie still isn’t sure he’s happy about this new friend

It will be snowing this weekend in Denver, so hopefully I will get those Christmas mitts done next. 🙂

Pattern: Four Knitted Cats by Kath Delmeny