Indoor Gardening – Yarn, Books & Roses

Hannah and the CoalBear: All the Glimmers of the Week

Hi. I’m Mateo.

I’m the most handsome boy ever! I’ve been helping the Mother of Cats knit this week.

The Mother of Cats was really busy and happy this week, and she says that all the new things are called glimmers: little moments that bring joy and peace. I think that she needs to maybe take another nap, because I don’t know what she is talking about, but there have been a lot of new things going on. Let me show you the best, most important one first!!!!

We got this new toy!!!! The blue line is moving on the pulleys, and it makes a little mousie race around the room. It changes directions and speeds, and no matter how many times the Mother of Cats makes it run, I need MORE CHASE TIME!!!! I love to chase this!!!!! Even Hannah is playing with it!!!

The Mother of Cats has started knitting again, and look at she managed to do this week.

That’s right. The Mother of Cats got a pair of socks done this week, and she took out her sweater and started knitting on it again. She was SO HAPPY when she tried the sweater on this week and it is going to fit just fine. Well, with me helping her, how could it not? She says that her wrists aren’t hurting all that much lately, so it looks like we will be spending more time knitting. Yay. I love to chase the yarn while she works. Why is the Mother of Cats so mean about sharing her yarn?

Also, she went out and bought this new yarn!!! Can you believe it? She says that she is going to make a sweater, but I think that she may have gotten carried away a little. She should spend the money on tuna and cat toys, right?!

Then there was all of the sewing. Hannah took over and helped the Mother of Cats at the sewing machine because she likes it a lot. They made little zipper pouches and these crazy little things called port pillows that are used by cancer patients who have ports (duh!!) when they ride around in their cars. Why anyone would voluntarily get into a car is completely beyond me, but the Mother of Cats says that there is a big need for these little things, so Hannah and she made a whole bunch of them and delivered them this week to an infusion center. She asked if I wanted to go along for the ride, and I was like…NO!!! That is just CRAZY TALK!!!!

Yesterday the Mother of Cats went to her community knitting group, and while she was there a couple of ladies came in with huge bags of yarn to give away. When they were asked how they had learned about Frayed Knots, the group that the Mother of Cats belongs to, they said that they got the name from the paper insert that they picked up with their new port pillow at the infusion center. The Mother of Cats says that this was a huge glimmer!! The ladies were so happy to get the port pillows and the hats; they wanted to give to other patients too with their yarn. Luckily other people took all of that yarn because WE HAVE LOTS OF YARN HERE ALREADY!!!!! I think that it would have been better if they had brought some more toys for me to chase (or even some little bunnies that want to play chase…), but the Mother of Cats was happy, so I guess I am too.

So that was the week. It was warm and sunny, and the Mother of Cats managed to get the leaves off the lawn with her new leaf blower and vacuum/mulcher. She brought in all of the plants from outside, and now the knitting room is happy and full of flowers.

New clothes came, and you already know about the yarn. She went to her knitting group and had a wonderful time, especially since the lady who took those cats that stayed with us for a few weeks was there, and she said that the cats were happy in their new home, and even gave her a new toy for me.

That little ball with the tail on it races around the house and I chase it the whole time!!!

This is Mateo, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

This is the cat toy that Mateo can chase for hours: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLV7JB5K?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
The socks are the Scrunch Sock on Ravelry.
The sweater is Extra Lite Bright knit in just one color. I may make another that is a fade with the new yarn that just came in. That will be fun, right?
What do I want to make with the heavier weight yarn (DK) that just came? I’m thinking that I need an Alchemist Pullover in my life!
That jade plant that I brought in is at least 10 years old. Has it bloomed yet? No, no it has not!
I’ve been steadily losing weight for the last few months (It is a scleroderma thing) and I finally broke down and bought some new clothes. Yay! They fit great and I’m happy with the new colors.

The Garden Moves Indoors.

The new season is hard upon us now in Colorado. The leaves are gone from the trees, there is snow on the ground in the shaded areas along the back fence, and the only birds around lately are pushy doves at the front feeder terrorizing the squirrels (the squirrels deserve it, in my opinion. Go bad doves!!). The cats are suddenly friendlier, and Mateo, now very soft and fluffy, is growing in his winter cat.

The picture on the left is the summer version of Mateo. His tail is thin, his ruff gone, and I always worry that he is losing weight. Nope. He’s just missing a ton of fur! The other two pictures are examples of the winter, full-coated little furry monster. Right now, Mateo is eating non-stop and getting fluffier by the day. Obviously, winter is right around the corner!

I’ve been slowly bringing in all of my outdoor plants that I thought I could overwinter in the house, and after spending some weeks in the garage, the last of them moved in a week ago. (Why did they have to languish in the garage for a few weeks, you ask? Well… hopefully, some of the bugs gave up and moved on. I want to mention that my garage door has windows in it, and protects the plants from frost, so it is a suitable transition zone.)

Here’s my craft room with the grow light mounted shelves. Happy plants! The largest plants on the left are the lavenders. They are just hanging out and I’m not sure if I should prune them, or what. I may have to do some investigations on the internet…

Most of the plants that were on my deck outdoors in pots are now in the craft room on shelves equipped with grow lights. The plants adjusted pretty well after their move, but I’d like to unpack what happened with them a little.

The geraniums decided to go to sleep for the winter while they were in the garage and most of the leaves turned yellow and started to drop off. I let them adjust to indoors for about a week and then pruned out all of the yellow and sad leaves, which removed more than half of the leaves on the plants. I could see that the plants were putting out blooms before the pruning started, but to my surprise I discovered lots of new growth emerging on the stems down by the base of the plant. All right then! A week after the pruning (and some fertilizer) there aren’t any new yellow leaves, and the plants seem to be thriving.

I pruned the miniature roses right after they came into the house about six weeks ago, and after that they put out new blooms and filled out with lots of growth. Yay. Looking good! Umm… where did those aphids come from!!!!! I had looked at the roses carefully before bringing them in, but to be truthful, I was looking for Japanese beetles. Who knew that aphids lay eggs and go dormant in the fall? To make things worse, those little guys can reproduce like crazy if there is even one because they can reproduce asexually. Bad aphids, bad!! Even worse, these aphids had wings and could fly!!!

Operation Dead Aphid immediately commenced. My mother used to have us whip up soapy water and then put the suds onto the rose plants, which does work pretty well, but since my plants were so filled out, I went with Neem oil. The cats don’t munch on the plants, so I felt pretty safe using this, and there was an immediate drop in the aphid population. I have to respray every week as new growth emerges, but I’m happy with the dramatic drop in population. After the current round of blooms are gone, I plan to prune back hard so I can get a better spray onto the plant. For other insects that came into the house with the plants I have the little bug catcher that going. If you haven’t seen one of these before, it is a fan with an ultraviolet light that attracts insects that then get pulled into the device where they are caught onto sticky paper. Yay! No little flies or gnats. No!! Just no!!

This jade plant was grown from cuttings off a plant I bought over 20 years ago.

My jade plant was pretty overgrown last spring with heavy leaves pulling the stems over sideways. I pruned off the growth that was causing the problems, staked the stems, and then put the plant out onto my front porch where it braved the weather over the summer. I brought it back in a few weeks ago, pruned off new growth that was, once again, pulling the stems sideways and then then removed the stakes. Look! A plant that can stand up on its own now. Maybe someday it will bloom…

I almost left the bougainvillea outside to die because it didn’t bloom even once all summer long. I left it so long the leaves began to yellow and drop before I had a change of heart and brought it in.

The plant has continued dropping the summer leaves, but there is new growth emerging at the ends of stems and along their lengths. Okay. I guess we will go with this. Maybe it will bloom? It’s another adventure. The blooms, if they ever happen, are a really cool pinky-orange that will look great in the room. Do you hear that plant? Bloom or die!!!

So that’s it. The plants that made me happy last spring and summer and now inside with me for the cold seasons. Take that winter!! Bring on the wind and snow.

I have secured an endless summer for myself and the cats.

A hidden benefit of the change in season: In the 5th autumn of her life, Hannah has suddenly decided that she is a lap cat after all.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Lavender and Roses come Inside

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I’m basking in the lights of the new plant shelves!

The days out on the catio are getting a little cooler now, and there are leaves falling off the trees. Mateo really likes to chase the leaves! And the bugs. Okay… he chases everything that moves, basically… The squirrels are waaay more busy than usual, and I haven’t seen a baby bunny for weeks and weeks. There are lots of birds at the feeder that are kind of new, and sometimes there are tons of birds in the trees. The Mother of Cats says that the birds are flocking, and that there are changes coming.

Do you see the box that I am standing on? It was pretty long and a little heavy.

The Mother of Cats pushed that long box up the stairs and then she got out some tools. Yay! I love to help out with projects!!!

Look at all of the stuff that was in the box!

It took her a little while, but the Mother of Cats put all of those pieces together to make some shelves with lights. Oh. That’s kind of cool. I really like sleeping under lights like this, and shelves are always fun!

Then the Mother of Cats brought in all of the plants from the deck to come live under the lights in the indoor garden and on these new shelves. Look at what happened!!! There is no more room for me on the shelves! What was the Mother of Cats thinking of?

She brought in some of the plants from the deck and put them on my shelves!!!

After she brought in the first plants, she started messing around in the indoor garden so that she could make even more room for plants. Then the really big lavender plants came inside along with all the rest of the rose plants.

Now almost all of the plants that were living on the deck are now in the knitting room with the Mother of Cats and me. I love the plants!! Some of them are starting to put out new buds, more roses and lavender blooms are on the way, and the room smells kind of nice. Pretty cool, right? The new shelves even have a bar to hang plants from, there is a timer for the lights, and there is a shelf to put all of the knitting project boxes on the top. We are ready for winter now!!!

This week the Mother of Cats and I sat by the lights, smelled the lavender, and sewed up all of the chickens that she had knitted in September. So much fun… I like to chase the yarn while the Mother of Cats is sewing. This is what the finished chickens look like:

Didn’t I do a good job helping out? All of these chickens will go to their new homes this week. Bye chickens! It was nice to know you!!

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Note from the Mother of Cats: the lavender plants aren’t hardy enough to survive a Colorado winter, so indoors they came! Yay, lighted shelving!! These came from Amazon.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Purple Glam Caturday

Hi. We’re Hannah and Mateo (AKA the CoalBear).

We’ve been hanging out with the Mother of Cats today.

The Mother of Cats has been friskier lately. She’s been working with her indoor garden, and went shopping to buy a whole bunch of new flowers to put outside. She did a lot of cooking. She expanded the indoor garden and repotted a bunch of plants.

The indoor garden now has three shelves. The bottom shelf has the miniature rose, some lavender plants, and the seedlings. The middle shelf is mostly African violets and the baby fig trees. The top shelf is mostly orchids, but there are a couple of African violets up there too. We really like the new shelf and extra space, and Mateo especially is walking around among the plants keeping tabs on how they are doing. The Milkweed is growing great! The baby lavender seedlings are growing more leaves. The planted rose seeds: NOTHING!! The Mother of Cats also fixed up the catio some and has been reading outside with her morning coffee with us every morning. Things have been kind of great lately. She took some great photos of us.

Don’t we look great? The Mother of Cats says these are our glam shots.

The Mother of Cats then spoiled everything by going off and leaving us overnight while she visited her son. What is up with that?

While she was gone, she read this book about dragons and made two PICC line covers with yarns that have dragon colors: the green is called Green Dragon and the purple is called Purple Dragon. How come she went playing with dragons and left us alone? Did the dragons get OUR TUNA?

We absolutely were not surprised to see that she knitted with a purple yarn while she was away. Everything has been kind of purple lately.

Her new sweater (which is kind of purple) is getting longer. It is so big it covers her legs and Hannah while she’s knitting on it. Hannah really like the sweater and want one of her own.

The Mother of Cats say that the name of the sweater is La Prairie. What a crazy name, right, but the Mother of Cats likes it because we live right at the edge of the prairie and that is why there are so many wild things in our yard.

Her weaving is getting bigger and now the weft has changed to a purple color. The CoalBear likes to whap at the purple yarn while the Mother of Cats is moving the shuttle back and forth.

So, there seems to be a lot of purple lately. Enough with the purple and the Mother of Cats. It’s time to talk about us, right. After all, it is Caturday!!! Look at how big our bunny is getting in the back yard. You can barely see it in the first shot of us watching it (it hangs out at the bottom of the tree) so the Mother of Cats took a closeup of the bunny. Look! It looks just like the tree! What a clever bunny! Besides the bunnies, there are lots of birds and GRASSHOPPERS outside and it is kind of exciting on the catio now. The Mother of Cats even moved out some plants for us.

So, that’s about all. Guess it is time for us to go pester the Mother of Cats to get up and play with us. She’s been more active lately, but we still like to keep her busy taking care of us. Hannah is pretty sure that we need TUNA because we were left alone one night last week.

But first we are going to grab another nap… Did you notice that our blanket is purple?

This is Hannah and Mateo, signing off.

Happy Caturday, everyone!!

Hannah and the CoalBear: Snow Days, Indoor Gardening

Hi. I’m Hannah.

I’ve been hanging out with the Mother of Cats in the craft room all week.

There was a big snowstorm this week. It just snowed and snowed and snowed and Mateo got more difficult to manage than usual because he was so frustrated…

The snow kept up for so long the Mother of Cats went out and whapped at some tree branches with a stick to make the snow come off. The trees are all okay, so that was good! There was so much snow in the end it was taller than Mateo. Did I mention that he was grumpy and frustrated? He chases me way too much when he is grumpy… Lucky for me the Mother of Cats had just ordered more chirpy toys for him along with a second automated laser light so there is a fresh one for him to play with while the other one is charging. Sometimes the Mother of Cats is kind of smart. Sometimes…

You can see how much snow there was with the bear. When the awful stuff finally stopped coming out of the sky there was almost 15″ of it on the ground. I absolutely refused to go out onto the catio with Mateo the Idiot, but the poor Mother of Cats had to go out to shovel it twice to get the sidewalks and driveway cleared. Poor Mother of Cats.

Mateo went on the catio while she was shoveling, but I’m too smart for that!

Mostly we stayed indoors and knitted away on the new sweater and listened to an audiobook when we weren’t playing with plants (that’s coming up soon…) or suffering in the cold whiteness.

Look at how much sweater got done! The Mother of Cats is listening to The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi while working on her La Prairie cardigan. She really likes the book (but so far there hasn’t been even a single octopus in the story…), and she is below the armholes on the sweater and getting ready to start using the third color of yarn. Whew. That is a lot of knitting. I’m a really great support for the Mother of Cats while she’s working. I deserve more tuna for sure!

We also worked a lot with the garden plants this week. The Mother of Cats planted her little fig tree seedlings, and they are looking great.

Now there are 4 new fig trees growing in the upstairs garden with the orchids. Speaking of the orchids, another one started blooming this week!

There are some other projects with plants going on which I don’t understand all that well because… I’m a cat… but the Mother of Cats seems to be really happy with the way they are going. The milkweed seeds came up out of the ground this week and the snapdragon seedlings are so big the Mother of Cats is going to have to put them into bigger pots soon to get them ready to go live out on the deck.

The Mother of Cats was really excited to see the milkweed sprouts, but I think that she is a little silly. She thinks that the milkweed will make butterflies come to the garden, which I guess is good because I like to chase them a lot, but it is hard for them to get into the catio. Maybe she can put some of them in pots on the catio? That would be nice!

She is going to plant some more rose seeds this week (they have been in the refrigerator for 6 weeks) and this time I promise to not knock them down onto the floor, and hopefully there won’t be any nasty mold. She is also trying to get the jade plants to bloom, but so far there isn’t anything happening on the plants. Well, they may be growing more leaves, but that isn’t exactly what the Mother of Cats was hoping for.

Not my jade plants, not my problem. I’ll be more excited when she plants catnip.

This is Hannah, signing off.

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats: The lung CT scan results came in. I still have lungs. They still look the same as they did 6 months ago: not better, but not significantly worse, and I have less fluid around my heart. I’ll take it!

Hannah and the CoalBear: The CaterSunday Report

Hi. I’m Hannah.

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.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Weekly Report, Caterdate 1/6/2024

Hi. I’m Hannah.

Do you see what a great help I am to the Mother of Cats?

If you recognized the stuff in the picture above, you probably have already guessed that the Mother of Cats and I spent the day working in her sewing room. First, I helped her cut out all of her little pieces of fabric. Then she got out the big roll of batting and I helped her with that, too.

Don’t you just love the way batting feels?

I carefully supervised the Mother of Cats’ work while she sewed all of the fabric and stuff together…

Quality control is just so important, don’t you think?

When we were done (this all took a couple of hours and I want to say that I absolutely needed some TUNA and a nap after all of this…) we had made 4 placemats and two of these snazzy holders that go on bowls in the microwave so the Mother of Cats can handle them without burning her hands. She said that they are called cozies, and she found the pattern years ago on the internet. She should have fur on her paws like Mateo, but whatever. This works for her, and they were kind of fun to sew.

So that’s mostly what went on today. The Mother of Cats has been doing some knitting (okay, a lot of knitting…) but I decided to not talk about that today. After all, this post is all about CATURDAY, right? I guess that I can show you some of the plants that have started blooming in the last couple of weeks, but before I do that, I have to show you what the bunny out back by our catio has been up to.

Mateo really, really wanted to ~~eat~~ play with the bunny today while it was snacking in the garden, but the Mother of Cats wouldn’t let him out into the yard. Mateo was so focused on the bunny the Mother of Cats had to finally go out and pick him up to get him back indoors; that bunny didn’t even slow down at all in its flower snacking while she was getting him back into the house. Kind of a brazen bunny, right? Personally, I think that if the Mother of Cats let the CoalBear into the yard he could teach it some manners…

While I’m on flowers, here’s the blooming that is going on inside.

You probably recognize the African violet on the left and the orchid on the right. The flower in the middle is the big bougainvillea plant that the Mother of Cats dragged into the house last fall. Now it is covered with lots of new growth and the flowers are starting to pop out all over. Yay! Mateo loves to take naps right next to the plant.

Well, that’s all for now. Time for me to get some cookies and then a little nap.

Note from the Mother of Cats:

Mateo, AKA the CoalBear, was a lot of help today, too.

Hannah and the CoalBear: Orchid Cat Caturday

Hi. I’m Hannah.

The Mother of Cats has been ignoring me for days and days while she knits on a… CAT!!

I hardly know what to think. She had this cool yarn in the stash that kind of reminded her of orchids and spring. The orchids started blooming a few weeks ago and that was that… she began to ignore me and the CoalBear and started fussing over the orchids and the yarn.

Okay, it is true that the orchids are kind of cool. I like to climb into the garden where they are growing from time to time to hang out with them. The Mother of Cats gets a little cranky when I do it, however, so I don’t get to do it all the time. I lately have been sleeping right next to the Mother of Cats while she knits on this… cat… Really, it doesn’t look all that much like a cat, but she kept telling me that it was. Here’s what happened.

The cat started out with some crazy knitting that produced this leg. Whatever. I have a cat paw, and it doesn’t look anything like that. The colors kind of are like orchids, however…

As she kept knitting it began to look a little more like a cat, but…

I was really concerned for the Mother of Cats. It seemed like she didn’t really know what a cat is supposed to look like. I can kind of see the chin, but that nose and the EYES were the stuff of ~~knitty~~ kitty nightmares.

Finally, the ears, nose, and eyes were on the cat. Oh, wow. This is starting to look like a kitty (or maybe a pug?) and I can almost hear it asking, “When will I be done?”

Two days ago, she finally finished knitting the cat and I helped her put the whiskers on. Gee. He almost looks like he belongs in the orchids, doesn’t he.

He even looks pretty good in my strawberry box!

But the Mother of Cats says that he actually belongs in the orchid garden. He does look pretty good in there.

Now that the Mother of Cats has finished up the orchid kitty she has gone back to knitting on my blanket. Yay!! She isn’t ignoring me so much because she keeps putting the blanket on me while she sews the pieces together. I can’t wait to get my blanket and we are working on it every evening together while the CoalBear runs wild and chases his toys downstairs.

Mateo the CoalBear: why does Hannah get all of the cool knits?

Hannah: Because I am a little princess, and also because you don’t share the toys!!

This is Hannah, signing off.

Happy Caturday everyone!!

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The pattern that I used is Grey Kitten Calico Cat by Claire Garland.
The yarn is a silk/merino/nylon blend by Noro called Tsubame. It is dk weight and I just knit the colors as they appeared in the ball as I worked. Mostly. I did throw out some green along the way.
My project page on Ravelry is here. Yeah, I was too lazy to write in any notes on the page.
I used the center quill of feathers to make the whiskers.
5 of my 7 orchid plants are now blooming and they definitely deserve a knitted cat to hang out with them!!
Did you want to see the back of the cat? Here he is!

The Saturday Update: Week 21

Here it is Memorial Day weekend and it is cold and raining outside. Hannah and I have been hanging out indoors knitting, reading a book, and cleaning the stash. Oh, boy. There sure is a lot of yarn in the stash… let’s talk about that another day. Good thing it is raining, because I have a lot of knitting to do!

It is going to rain again tomorrow and when this is all over the outside gardens and lawn will be looking great. In the meantime, I have lots to keep me busy indoors.

Knitting

I finished up the first of the assigned pooling socks that I’m working on.

I had a skein of yarn from Chasing Rabbits Fiber Co. in the Colorful Yarns colorway designed for my favorite LYS, Colorful Yarns. The skein is mostly grey with short rainbow strips that are about 1/6 of the length of the skein. I started knitting the yarn in my usual ribbed sock pattern and was not happy with the way the colors were just stacking on top of each other. I ripped the sock out and started again with a K2P2 ribbed section at the top of the sock with smooth stockinette after that. I purled the rainbow sections when I came to them and threw in random PSS stitches in the rainbow purl strips in an effort to create some randomness in the colored sections on the sock. You can see in my second picture that I put in 1-3 PSS bumps into the purled/color strips or sometimes didn’t add a PSS at all.

What is PSS? It’s a stitch that I learned while knitting The Sharon Show in section 21 (called Catnip Garden) that is simple, added a little bump to the knitting and was sure to alter the length of the rainbow strips. Basically you purl two stitches together but leave them on the left needle. You then knit the same two stitches together, and then purl them together again before you pull them to the right needle: three stitches are made from two. You then pass the middle of these three stitches over the stitch next to it (closest to the tip) and there is the bump! If that doesn’t make sense, here is a swell video to show the stitch. On the next round I slipped the two stitches from the PSS and then finally knitted them on the next round after that. You can see the little colored slipped stitches below the purled sections in my second picture. I knit the sock from the top down; if you knit one from the toe up the little colored stitches will be above the purled sections. (Hint: because of the slipped stitches put a purl or two between PSS stitches.)

Once I got through the heel section I stopped inserting the PSS stitches in the knitting on the foot of the sock: I purled on the top of the foot while sticking to smooth stockinette on the bottom of the sock (3rd picture). I lost some of the randomness in the line up of the colored strips but that part of the sock will be in my shoe so I’m good with it. The final picture shows the finished sock with its contrast heel and toe; kind of wish now that I had make the top ribbing that hot pink too. I’m now working on the second sock now and should eventually get the pair completed.

The other knitting that is still going on is the Noncho (Casapinka) that I kind of wish was already done because it is cool with all of the rain… Hannah has been a great help.

Garden

It is raining outside!! Here are the cool pictures from the week of my indoor plants.

I’ve taken to spraying my African violets every week and they seem to like it. The leaves have lifted up and the plants are blooming like crazy. Not what I expected to happen, but the plants are responding so well I spray them down weekly now.

Books

I was struggling with this book a little and wasn’t sure if I would complete it because… almost 700 pages! I don’t know how much I should say because of spoilers, but the plot involves sleepwalkers who are unresponsive to any efforts to wake them up. They never eat, never stop walking, and it is impossible to get a needle into them to draw blood. “Maybe they have scleroderma,” hypothesizes the CDC personnel attempting to understand what is happening with this flock of wanderers. Scleroderma! They had me at scleroderma. I kept reading.

Of course the wanderers don’t have scleroderma. This book is big, complicated, and pulls in lots of situational elements that are obviously based on actual people and events in the US. Amazingly, the book, which was published in mid-2019, also features a pandemic. I remember looking at the book when it was first published during those happy days when I could just head off to the book store to meet my friends; now things are changed and the impact of the book was that much more. I did like the book, but then I’m a biogeek who reads books about the CDC and outbreaks even before it became our lives.

Have a great week everyone!

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

The Saturday Update: Weeks 14 and 15, 2021

Guest Writer: Hannah the Magnificent

The Kitten Mom made me this new playground during one of her short times out of bed. Don’t you think that she should paint it hot pink for me?

The Kitten Mom is being lazy and staying in bed to read a book today so I’m just going to step in here to tell you about the last two weeks. The Kitten Mom just keeps going out of the house on errands (leaving me alone!!) and then when she comes home she just sleeps and acts super boring. I need her to play with me!! I love her to use the laser light, and to throw little toys for me to chase, or to just run around the house a lot so I can gallop along with her, but NOOOOO she just reads books and sleeps when she comes home. Still, we did do some fun stuff this week so I’ll tell you all about that stuff, okay?

Garden

It is snowing outside, like almost every single day. The Kitten Mom did go outside to mess with the plants out there while I watched in the window, but she mostly just covered all of her plants with boxes and bags because they were getting cold white stuff all over them.

We did work in the indoor garden this week because the Kitten Mom decided to move a bunch of orchids from one pot to another one. What is up with that?? Most of the plants have finished blooming so maybe she was trying to make them happy again… I don’t understand why she did this, but I did have a lot of fun playing with the wood chips and the pots, and then there was the WATER! I really love water.

The Kitten Mom moved the plants into bigger pots with this damp wood chip stuff around them. Now she has so many plants on the shelves under the lights that there is almost no room for me anymore. Almost. I mange to squeeze myself in there anyway and it is kind of fun because the Kitten Mom always rushes over to pay attention to me when I do it…

Knitting

I have sleeping on the bed with the Kitten Mom every single evening while she knits on stuff. I like to chew on the the yarn, but she doesn’t like that too much. I also like to groom the knitted stuff until it gets soft and fuzzy, but she kind of gets really excited and takes stuff away from me when I do that so mostly I don’t do it any more. Mostly.

We have really made a lot of progress on her new purple sweater. She is now finishing up the last sleeve and I like this project because it is perfect to sleep on. Except she keeps moving it around a little too much for me to get completely comfy…

It is better when she knits socks because then I can sleep right on her nap without purple knitted stuff hitting me all of the time.

Books

What can I say. The Kitten Mom reads a lot and I like that when I want to sleep too, but it gets a little old when it is time to get up and PLAY for awhile. What is crazy is the Kitten Mom listening to books while she knits. So strange. At least when she is reading I can sleep on top of her, but this knitting and reading thing is kind of weird if you ask me. I bring toys to her to play with, but nope. She mostly just reads.

She thinks that this book is really wonderful!

The Kitten Mom finished that book in the picture this week and I thought that she would get up to play with me, but nope, that did not happen. She immediately bought the sequel to the book and went back to reading. She didn’t even start up my laser light for me before starting the new book!

Now it is almost evening and that means that it is time for me to get my tuna dinner!! I like my dinner almost as much as playing, so this is a great time of the day. Then the Kitten Mom and I will be back to knitting and reading and maybe a little nap or two. I love the Kitten Mom.

Maybe we will play a little after our after-dinner nap.

Notes from the Kitten Mom:

I’ve gotten both doses of the Pfizer vaccine and have started making more trips out of the house including shopping trips. I got my hair cut, people!! I’m also getting all of the medical testing that was put on pause a year ago finally done. It is so good to get out there again, but exhausting. Hannah is so thrilled when I get home she just flings herself down on the ground in front of me and wiggles around in joy. Then we get cookies. What a perfect pandemic companion this little kitten has turned out to be!!
The sweater is Goldwing by Jennifer Steingass. I’m now finishing up the second sleeve and hope to wear it next week in the next round of snow storms.
I have gotten several new orchids in the last few months and decided to repot them now that they are (mostly) done with blooming. I use a mixture of wood chips and sphagnum moss for my potting soil since I live in a pretty dry climate, and mostly my orchids do well after I move them to new pots with this new soil around them.
There has been a sting of weather systems crossing the state that bring with them snow for the plants outside and trouble for me. Good thing I had the whole series of The Murderbot Diaries to read to keep myself entertained. I love these books!! I checked them out of the library but now I’m thinking that I should just buy them because I will be reading these books again!
The sequel to A Memory Called Empire is the book A Desolation Called Peace. These are really good books; rich characters, complex political intrigue, beautiful writing, spaceships, and cultural dynamics that are an echo of the series of books about the Roman occupation of Britannia that I read earlier this year. I have just arrived at the part of the book where we get to meet… aboreal, water loving kittens. And aliens. Of course. This is space opera, after all.
I have to take Hannah to the vet for a checkup and her shots…

Have a great week, everyone!

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