Halloween. It is cold and raining outside and all of the leaves are now off my trees. The plants in my gardens are bedded down under mulch to stay safe in the overnight freezes that are on the way and the bunnies of summer are no where to be seen. The children of the neighborhood have also gone somewhere else this evening as there isn’t a “trick-or-treater” in sight; the cats and I laid in some candy but no one has come.
Mateo: We got Halloween toys!!
Knitting
I’m seriously struggling this week as I adapt to a new medication, but that is a whole other post. I did manage to get my new Snark-O-Meter shawl finished and blocked in spite of tremendous cat help. Hannah loves the blocking mats and it was a battle to convince her to let me use them for, you know, blocking purposes. The kitten, faster then seems catly possible, was the master of flashing claws and nipping chompers as I tried to pin the shawl into place; he did leave the field of battle once I began spraying water on the shawl. Yay for the sprayed water blocking method! He is a brave boy, however, and was immediately back once I started to layer towels on top of the wet shawl to protect it from cats. Not to be outdone, Hannah decided that she should burrow into the towels. Luckily I had more blocking combs.
Do you understand how all this could be exhausting?
Anyway, the shawl survived blocking and looks fabulous!!
I just love how this shawl came out! All of this yarn was from the stash, and two of the colors (the gold and the orchid) had been languishing for years as I never found the right project for them. The gold especially was a problem as it is 100% silk yarn and I felt that it needed the right vehicle to show it off. The lace of this shawl with the rich colors and varied textures is absolutely perfect! You can’t see it in these pictures but the gold yarn glows in the lace and background sections.
I absolutely have to mention that Sharon from Security, the designer of this shawl (with some help from Casapinka) was banned from Facebook this week for threatening Finn, the newest (and somewhat shady) employee in the Casapinka world. Too much snark, it seems. There are some negotiations underway because both of these individuals are… cats. Hopefully Sharon will be back next week. If that isn’t the most 2021 thing that has happened this year, I’d like to hear of any others that beat it. 🙂
Books
I finally scored a copy of The Madness of Crowds from the local library. I’m early in the book and struggling a little with it as it is about the danger of ideas, misinformation, catchy messaging, and mob action. Umm… kind of the situation right now in the US. I’ll give it a little more time and then if it doesn’t perk up I’ll be going back to another science fiction novel with a strong female character who can cope with absolutely anything that the universe cares to send her way.
I’ll close with a shot of the kitten’s tail.
This is the crate that holds my blocking towels. There’s only room for one cat in the crate. The cats ruthlessly grab it when empty shutting the other one out. Kind of silly kitties, right?!
The tail is almost as big as the kitten! Do you see how much fur is on it? Maintaining that tail is almost like feeding another cat. No wonder the kitten is always hungry.
That’s it. Have a great week everyone!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Do you see how big my kitten has gotten? He’s hard to share a platform on the cat tree with now because of that… tail! His tail is absolutely out of control.
The kitten and I have been helping the Mother of Cats knit her latest shawl for weeks now. It has been lots of hard work, especially since the kitten forgets to behave himself and starts carrying off the balls of yarn. I have talked to him about this, but he is just too crazy wild to really settle down. The proper etiquette is to sit on top of the knitting, purr like crazy, and to snag any moving yarn in your claws when you can… If the Mother of Cats accidently leaves the knitting downstairs you can drag it up the stairs to return to her, but not the balls of yarn. Especially if you forget what you are doing and leave the yarn balls in some strange place. Sigh. It is so hard to raise a kitten.
Umm… that’s because I’m a little CoalBear.
Anyway, the shawl is called the Snark-O-Meter and it is designed by another cat!!! This cat, Sharon from Security, is the employee of Casapinka and seems to be a little tiny bit hard to work with. She is always complaining and dealing with the misbehavior of her fellow employees and never has enough sushi. Also she keeps losing her squad car… and her subordinate Finn (who has a shady background and multiple passports) is also gone. You wouldn’t believe how she talks to the knitters, too! Talk about snark!!
Oh. I guess that is why it is called the Snark-O-Meter.
The Mother of Cats finished the Snark-O-Meter this week and left me alone with the kitten to go buy some blocking mats and more pins to use. Oh, my goodness, the blocking mats are the most fun ever!! The kitten and I were so excited to see them. The kitten chewed as many corners as he could get his little chompers onto while I rolled around and did a little cat yoga.
Aren’t these the best cat yoga mats ever?
Then the Mother of Cats and we got serious and worked on blocking the shawl. She had made a little test sample to make sure the colors wouldn’t run when wet and tried to lay it out on the mat.
Tried. Yep. The minute the kitten saw the loose strings of that sample he began swapping at them. Then I grabbed the sample to groom it a little… did I mention that I just love wet yarn? Besides, it needs to get smoothed down and dried a little… The Mother of Cats tried to pin it and the kitten pulled out the pins to drag off and play with. The Mother of Cats decided that the yarns weren’t going to run (this is true… I never saw them move at all) and put the sample away in a cupboard. That was okay, because then she started putting the shawl out on the cat yoga mats.
Helping with the shawl. I’m such a good girl!! I only groomed the shawl a little bit while the Mother of Cats was laying it out.
The Mother of Cats didn’t like how saggy the yarns in the sample were when wet so she decided to spray the shawl really well with water and then lightly steam it. This was not funny!!! She put in some pins, sprayed water everywhere, and then put in even more pins all around the shawl. Then she hovered the steam iron all around the shawl to make the lace look nice.
I moved to a safe place and the kitten played with his toys on the floor while all this was going on!Doesn’t it look nice now?
Then the Mother of Cats layered towels on top of the wet shawl and sprinkled some yoga mats on top of that so we wouldn’t sleep on top of the shawl. I slept on top of everything anyway. Did I mention that I love the smell of wet wool?
The next day the Mother of Cats took all the mats and towels off the shawl and the kitten and I helped her take all of the pins off and the mats apart. You would not believe how fast the kitten can pull out the pins to take away as toys. Sigh. I’m going to have a little talk with him again. I do have to say that the little corners of the mats are fun to chew on, though. The kitten is a lot of work, but he is fun too and sometimes has some really good ideas.
Last night the Mother of Cats took the shawl over to her son’s for a visit and the kitten and I got to chase each other around like crazy all night. The shawl looked really nice as she packed it up to take to the car. Of course. This was a cat written and cat produced knitted item of beauty.
My work here is done. Except for the kitten. He’s still work…
Note from the Mother of Cats:
The kitten Mateo is growing at an alarming clip and is now filling out and growing a longer coat than I expected. He is a really good natured little guy and makes little chirping noises as he runs around the house, and of course he is a great playmate for Hannah. He is now 6 months old and will certainly be a bigger cat than Hannah.
Don’t you think he looks a little like a bear?
Here is the finished shawl modeled by one of my son’s cats.
Jonesy and the Snark-O-Meter.
I have another one of these shawls to finish up. The cats can’t wait for me to pull it out and get going again because blocking the last one was so much fun!!!
Wow, the week just flew by again. We had lots of snow in the middle of the week, I had a great appointment with my new rheumatologist, and Hannah got the new toy of her dreams: an electronic flapping fish!
Almost a foot of snow arrived overnight in the middle of the week.
The medical center where I went for the appointment was in the heart of Denver and I had to drive fairly near my favorite yarn store on the way back home. Did I stop to look at the yarn? Duh… yarn addict here! I found the perfect yarn to replace the yarn I swiped from a sweater kit to make a new wrap, some fabulous blue speckled yarn for a fade, and more grey yarn because… I need grey in my life! Having scored more yarn again I buckled down and focused on the knitting to get at least one project done during the week.
I finished up Julie’s Wrap (Joji Locatelli) during the snow storm and it was really nice to throw on to wear around the house the rest of the week (and the weekend!) I used a dusty black cashmere blend yarn that doesn’t photo all the well, but it is extremely versatile and cushy to wear. The ribbed edging is slow to knit but very nice with the garter stitch body of the wrap. Can you make out the additional points built into the edging to give it some more interest and a little flutter detail? That would be the extra points at the top and bottom of the wrap in the right-most picture, but those little added-on points are also on the long edges towards each end. The points and bobbles make the wrap even more fun to curl up in to read a good book on a cold, snowy night. If a kitten joins in it is even better!
The other knitting that was going on this week was my pair of February socks. Okay, they didn’t quite make it, but they should get done in the next couple of days and my feet are totally waiting for them to enter service.
This is my own tried and true 64 stitch sock pattern using Hue Loco’s Phyllis Sock in the color #Trending from their 2020 Fall color lineup. I’m just loving how this colorway looks on these socks.
I polished off a couple of science fiction books that I liked but don’t feel up to discussing until I read another book in the series. I started a book last night, however, that I feel compelled to talk about right away…
Oh, my goodness! I’m three chapters (stories) into this book and it is so compelling and engaging that I am pretty sure that this is going to be the best book of the year for me.
A nice young couple lives across the street from me. Two summer ago they planted a little tree in the front yard of their house and babied it with deep soaks of water using a 5 gallon bucket with a tube to slowly siphon the water from the bucket to the roots of their baby tree. I have to be honest, this tree was kind of pitiful to look at: about 6 feet high, it had only a few bare branches on it. I would look out my kitchen window in the mornings all last winter hoping that this pathetic stick of a sapling would leaf out in the spring okay…
Spring came and the tree produced some hopeful leaves. I have to admit that I was a somewhat amazed. Then we had heavy spring snow that almost did the tree in, but a few leaves hung in there after the melt down, and a couple of weeks after that the tree produced immense white clusters of blooms. Look at that, I thought! This little tree, not too promising at the start of its life across the street, was a little rock star for sure. Those blooms on the stick of a start-up tree totally made my mornings!! One evening I went across the street while they were working in the yard to ask what the tree was: a catalpa tree.
World of Wonders has a beautiful drawing a biological organism to start each chapter/story. This is the drawing for the first chapter.
Unbelievably, the World of Wonders starts with catalpa trees; the author’s memory of sheltering from the heat under these trees, her mother’s place of work, the racism that her physician mother faced in her professional life, how social norms have changed over the last few decades, the immense catalpa tree on the university campus where she now teaches that she passes each day on her way to class, and the strong commitment and joy that she finds today in her work.
Just like that I was sucked into this book. The next chapter features fireflies, and after that peacocks. All of these have strong emotional connections to me and events in my life, and like magic as the author relates her sense of wonder and joy of nature interconnected with her family and life I am propelled into something of the same. This book is amazing, and I highly recommend it based on what I’ve read so far.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
The Kitten Mom is taking a nap now and left her laptop out so I will be filling you in on the week, okay?
The Kitten Mom and I spent most of the week hanging out upstairs because it was just stinking cold for most of the week! I mean, I hated to even go downstairs to the best window to watch for squirrels because my feet got so cold… and there were crazy noises in the night, too!! The Kitten Mom was startled awake twice by big bangs downstairs that didn’t scare me even a little bit. Seriously. Well, maybe my eyes got a little HUGE but I was totally cool. Really. I was so brave I went with her when she went downstairs to check things out…
The Kitten Mom left some pop cans in the garage and they exploded. She said that they went ballistic and flew through the air. I can fly through the air when I jump off the bookshelf. Do you want to see ballistic Hannah? Ballistic is my new word for this week.
We spent most of the week knitting and reading under the covers upstairs and the Kitten Mom also made two big pots of soup. I didn’t get any of the soup because it was made of really yucky stuff like green chili and baked potatoes… I like chunky tuna the best of all my kitty foods… maybe we can make chunky tuna soup next week? I will help make it!! I’m the best helper ever!!!
Anyway, here is the knitting stuff that the Kitten Mom did this week:
The Kitten Mom spent days and days working on the bobble bind off for her new shawl. This is soooo boring but I like to sleep under the wrap while she works so it could be worse. She got tired of the bobbles one night and started on a new shawl with nice blue yarn that is fun to chew on a little when she isn’t looking. She also started knitting a new sock in the middle of the week that was more fun for me because I like to whap the needles while she is working. Those needles are really a lot of fun!!!
We also worked on her new mitts that she is making for the lady in California who sent me the lemons to play with. I’m really helping with these mitts and they are coming out looking super good, don’t you think? I think that they should become my newest toy so I can drag them down into my box playhouse. Maybe the Kitten Mom can make them squeak when I jump on them?!! That would be awesome!
For some reason the Kitten Mom kept working in the stash this week digging around in the yarn. It has something to do with this other cat named Sharon from Security who is releasing a new pattern this week named Botanique. What ever. Is that like plants? I like to dig in the dirt of the plants in the indoor garden. Did you know that the orchids have wood chips in them that are great toys to bat around on the kitchen floor? Why do we need more yarn when there are wood chips? Anyway, she found this yarn finally and WE GET TO GO WIND THE YARN TOMORROW which is about my most favorite thing in the world. Next to having the Kitten Mom play with me using the red dot toy… that little red dot is the bestest toy in the universe!!
Do you think that these will make a nice shawl? I get to sleep on the Kitten Mom’s legs while she is knitting and these colors look like they will be soft and warm on my fur…
So that was the week. The only other thing that happened is that the Kitten Mom VACCUMMED the house today and took away all of my dusty paw prints on the tables. I was really brave and watched from under the bed while she worked but it was kind of stressful. Afterwards I got new toys and some kitty cookies!!
I think that the Kitten Mom is waking up and that means that my time at the computer is over. I want to go pull a bunch of clothes down off the hangers in the closet to make a little kitten bed for myself now, anyways. Laters!!
Notes from the Kitten Mom:
How cold did it get? It was -17 degrees Fahrenheit when the pop cans exploded. I looked outside while searching for the source of the noise and saw a lonely bunny huddled in the yard covered with snow. Tough night for bunnies and kittens.
The wrap with the bobble bind-off is Julie’s Wrap (Joji Locatelli).
The garter stitch shawl (blue) that I started this week is another Age of Gold by Joji Locatelli. What can I say. The bobbles were hurting my hands and I needed a nice break to work out the soreness… I should have the wrap finished in another week or so and the left over black yarn can be used to trim the new Age of Gold shawl.
The sock is just a homegrown pattern, but that yarn is Smooth Sock in the colorway #Trending by Hue Loco.
The mitts are the Mando Mitts (Natela Datura) and are an exercise in yarn handling as some rows use three or four colors. I am doing three at a time and planning on coming back to duplicate stitch in the missing details later.
The lady in California who shipped the lemons is my exceedingly knitworthy niece Melissa.
The shawl that Sharon from Security and Casapinka released yesterday is indeed Botanique. I bought the pattern and have the yarn all lined up to cast on, but I want to get something finished and off the needles before I do that. Must knit faster!!
I am currently in position 6, 231 on my health provider’s Covid-19 vaccine wait list. I have a whole bucket of medical testing coming at me in the next 6 weeks and the race to get vaccinated first is now on…
The worst disaster of the week? I somehow sliced some new yarn that came via squishy mail as I battled with the packaging to get it out, and I now have 15 pieces of this yummy pink yarn.
It was a crazy, crazy busy week with lots going on. I had medical testing, an online court appearance to give testimony in a neighbor’s custody case, and a nail in one of my car’s tires. My medical status continues unchanged (blue lips, chest pain, shortness of breath), but the machinery to get to the bottom of things is now in motion. The first couple of rounds of testing have generated a referral to cardiology and hopefully that will happen this week. My neighbor won her custody case, and the car tire is now repaired. Whew! I spent the bottom half of the week relaxing with my knitting because I was completely pooped by all of that running around.
The Kitten Mom left me all alone THREE times this week!!
Knitting
I did make some good progress this week in spite of the trips out of the house.
My Geology socks are done!! I’ve decided to try to make at least one pair of socks each month, so these are January’s pair.
I also buckled down and did the blocking and finishing work on my Secret Life of Cats (and dogz) shawl by Sharon from Security (Casapinka). This is the longer shawl version of the project; there were also options to make a cowl or a scarf. Fun color for gloomy days, huh! I’m actually thinking that I may be giving this one away to someone who loves purple and bright colors and a scarf version made with scrap yarn from the stash may be in my future.
It snowed this week I so gave in to the urge and cast on one of the sweaters that I have been dying to get going on. I have wanted to make Goldwing for a long time, and bought the yarn a couple of weeks ago with my stimulus check. Here it is, finally started:
Look at the absolute quality help that I am getting from Hannah!!
The Scleroderma Chronicles: The Pulmonary HypertensionEdition
Monday I had an urgent echocardiogram done and once again an eerie connection between my disease, systemic sclerosis, and Covid-19 appeared. My test was started a little late so I asked the technician if things were busy. He told me that they were very busy because there were so many Covid-19 long haulers who needed testing. After a while, thinking things over, I asked if these patients were getting heart damage. “Well, not their heart muscle, but they were developing pulmonary hypertension,” he said. Oh, oh. That is the very reason I was there getting an echocardiogram; as a systemic sclerosis patient I am high risk for pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary arterial hypertension, and I know that those are serious and life altering/ending conditions. After thinking a little longer I asked him how many Covid-19 long haulers were getting that diagnosis. “It’s in double digits,” he replied…
Double digits. At this one medical center in the heart of Denver. That means that there are potentially hundreds and hundreds of patients getting that diagnosis across my state.
I wished that I had thought to ask him how old those patients were…
The next day my rheumatologist called to let me know that I was being referred to cardiology as my echocardiogram results suggested pulmonary hypertension and that further testing was required. There is also an issue with fluid around my heart… It was what I expected, but not exactly what I was looking forward to. The only problem right now is getting me into cardiology, because, all of those Covid-19 long haulers…
It has been impressed on me that I need to double mask now each time I go out into public. I have a nice N95 level mask, but I’m also putting a medical grade mask on top of it.
Ugh. The last two weeks have been a blur. I’ve been rolling with the punches and trying to make the best of things as I dealt with all the good, bad, and ugly of the last 14 days. My son is better and is out of the hospital. I fractured a rib on the opposite side from my bad hip, and walking with a cane became utter torture for a week. My outdoor roses are blooming their hearts out. I had bloodwork done and I’m happy to report that I am recovering some lost ground with my scleroderma-induced organ damage. Ruth Bader Ginsberg died. The smoke rolled back in from the western wildfires, my symptoms flared, and the weather turned nasty hot again. Inhaled steroids brought my symptoms back under control in just a couple of days! My neighbor repaired the fence between our yards: this is great news because… pit pull in her yard. The Covid-19 death toll passed 200,000 in the US. I bought some wicked cute new clothes. Miss Pitty-Pat, the cutest hamster ever, died. I went crazy and bought new yarn, and I finished knitting my fabulous The Sharon Show.
It is done.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this entire MKAL experience. It was so much fun; the rapidly changing knitted elements in the shawl made it engaging and interesting, and the support and camaraderie of the Facebook group was just amazing. Did I mention that there is cat snark and policing going on, not to mention the multi-state chase of a stolen squad car with a platter of sushi in the glove box? In fact, the whole thing has been so positive that the adventure continues with another MKAL being run by Sharon that is a cowl called The Secret Handshake and the Facebook group is all atwitter with excited knitters showing off their yarn, the first knitted efforts with Clue 1, their drinks (yes, these clues come with beverage recipes…), and the kittens that they just adopted. If you don’t want to own a cat, this is a dangerous group for you as kitten adoption seems to be contagious right now…
Speaking of kittens, Hannah and I had our birthdays last week and we made cookies to celebrate. As chance would have it, my birthday and Hannah’s 6 month birthday were the same day.
This is Hannah on the day I brought her home…
And on our birthday last week. Boy, has she grown.
I had planned a post all about Hannah, but it kind of flamed out in the general chaos of the last two weeks. She is growing fast and has really started to develop a personality all her own. Especially when I’m working in the kitchen!
Which brings me back to the cookies. 50 years ago I copied this cookie recipe out of my mom’s loose leaf collection of favorites. It was originally a gumdrop recipe that has been adapted to become my family’s favorite chocolate chip recipe. Here it is for you, as a birthday present from me. 🙂
These cookies are coming to you straight out of the 50’s. Enjoy!
Cream together:
1 cup softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
Add and mix well:
2 large (or extra large) eggs
Add to the bowl and mix well:
2 cups white flour (I never bother to sift)
2 cups fast cooking (minute) oatmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
(1 tsp. salt – I never add this as I am living the salt free life and if there was salt in the butter you may not want it. Suit your own taste.)
Add in 12 ounces of chocolate chips (or about 2 cups) and mix well. If the mixture is too crumply for your liking you can add a little milk.
Spoon cookie amounts of the dough onto the cookie sheet, flatten a little if you like with a little pat, and bake about 10-12 minutes at 350°F. The cookies should be lightly brown on top and will spread as they bake; they puff up while baking and then flatted when they are done. Let them cool before you start eating them!! These cookies freeze well and have survived shipment in care packages many times over the years.
My mom would put all kinds of things into the dough… raisins, chopped dates, nuts, gummi bears, shredded coconut, you name it. It’s your cookie, make it your own!! The total amount of additives should be around two cups. I’ve also used old fashioned rolled oats, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as the instant oats.
Happy cookie crunching, everyone!
I think that I may now go online and buy a little more yarn while crunching my own cookies…
I think that I am just about done with 2020. Never, ever has there been a year so ill behaved in my own memory. Today we hit a record high of 100° F where I live, and on Tuesday it is expected to snow. We had another case of bubonic plague in the state. A geyser in Yellowstone National Park, long dormant, has suddenly returned to life. Covid-19 cases are spiking in the states that surround my own. The nightly news continues to be a horror show, and some of it is just downright triggering. There can be no longer be doubt that the current administration is taking action to accelerate the Covid-19 infection rate in the US; stay tuned, folks: our fatality numbers are going to be astounding. Every day brings more tweeted lies and misinformation meant to contribute to racial tensions and general chaos, and the words “civil war” are popping up more often in my social media timeline. The president was reported to disparage war dead as “suckers” and “losers” this week, and also encouraged his supporter to vote twice. This is just plain historic, but also very painful. I’m totally over living in interesting times.
Some days it is hard to stay cheerful.
But Hannah and I are doing our best. 🙂 Also, I’ve told Hannah that she can’t play with the squirrels because… plague!
Hannah: There’s a squirrel, Kitten Mom!! Let me out, let me out, let me out…
Shameless hussy squirrel chomping down my flowers, oblivious to the intensely focused kitten at the screen door.
Knitting
This was a hugely productive week knitting-wise. Well, nothing got done, but there was a lot of knitting going on! I am working on a second Far Away Dreams shawl with more yarn from the stash. This mindless garter stitch shawl is perfect and easy to handle while knitting in bed, sucking down oxygen, and listening to an audiobook.
I still have three feet of garter stitch to go before I start on the outer border. I’m going to use a white yarn speckled with blue and black that will be just awesome. Isn’t that a great blue color? Its name is “Denim”.
I also went crazy and cast on a sweater in the middle of the week.
After vacillating between color choices for a couple of weeks I settled on this combo to knit myself a Misurina by Caitlin Hunter.
Misurina has it all going on… cables, lace, colorwork, and some texture too. The original sweater was knit with a single stranded yarn containing a little linen and the gauge was pretty large… 20 stitches per 4 inches. I settled on two colors of single strand yarn that was pretty lofty in my stash and recklessly cast on using size 6 needles last week.
This sweater is knit from the top down and I have just made my way through the lace and am beginning the colorwork. I need to transfer my stitches to a larger size 6 needle, but they are kind of in high demand right now. Hmmm… It may be curbside pickup time at my local yarn store. 🙂
Hannah is a lot of help and is also totally a fan of the cashmere yarn I’m using for the contrast color.
In the background, being knit in chunks when new clues arrive, is my The Sharon Show shawl. If you don’t want to see this, I’m sorry. It really is too good to not show off. It is finally long enough to drape around my shoulders like a shawl which gives you an idea of all the colors and textures going on while this is being knitted.
See what I mean? Texture, lace, crazy stitches you never thought of before all coming together to make a totally fun, cat-crazy experience. Part of the fun is the totally cool and laid back group on Facebook that has been completely supportive of all knitting speeds and color choices.
This shawl and the whole MKAL experience has been the perfect antidote to the crazy world outside my doors. Peace. Joy. Color. Admonitions from Sharon to not be self-critical and to weave in all of the ends!! Did I mention that each clue comes with a cocktail recipe? One of the best parts is seeing all the color choices of the other knitters: I am so going to have to make another one of these in blues… and maybe earth tones… My Ravelry notes are here.
Garden
The weather was cool for several days before the thermostat went back up into the high 90’s. Many of the potted plants were able to recover over the last week, and things are looking pretty cheerful out front again.
All the geraniums along the front walk are blooming cheerfully again.
The mini roses especially are looking good. Poor things. Little do they know that there is snow on the way…
I’m going to bring all the potted plants into the garage for a couple of days and then will go to heroic lengths to cover and protect the front roses to get them undamaged through the cold front and snowfall on Tuesday. Poor roses. The plants took a lot of damage in the spring from a late hard freeze, and here we go with an early one in the fall. 2020, knock it off!!!
Books
Okay, I lost a couple of days reading a book for my book club that was… not good. I refuse to post its picture online and I’m not going to say anything else expect that I’m pretty much done with my book group. NO one else read the book, and they decided to just get together at a restaurant for happy hour and a return to the days when we used to meet in person, and of course that isn’t something that I can do. I was already pretty disgusted with the week when this happened, and not being able to recover the two lost days of my life BECAUSE I READ THIS STUPID BOOK THAT THEY CHOOSE!!! I headed online looking for options. Hey, Barnes & Noble has an online live book club meet up that I could join. They picked a book that I want to read, and people are already online talking about how excited they are to have the book, and that they are reading the book, and that they can’t wait to talk about the book… I’m in!! I love books, and I want to hang out with other people who also love books, and I would also like to talk about the books!!
This is the book for the Barnes & Noble club. I started it last night!
This book is set in Ireland, during WWI and the Great Influenza pandemic. Our heroine is a nurse taking care of young pregnant women who also have the flu in an isolated fever ward. The book is also crazy timely as the disrespect of WWI fallen troops is a hot item in the news this week, and we all know about the pandemic… I’m only a couple of hours into the book, but it is engaging and interesting; I’m a fan! I’m looking forward to the actual meeting and discussions. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Late Update: Just got a warning on my cell phone that there is a MOUNTAIN LION wandering through my neighborhood. Of course there is. It is 2020.
The days have finally cooled down here and the first leaves are changing color on my trees. The air quality is better as some rain showers in the evenings cleared the worst of the smoke from the air. The plants in the garden are recovering and so am I; the painful joints/muscles are now behaving themselves and I am getting good sleep again. I’m making more progress in cleaning my house (this week I got ride of fleeces that were at least 20 years old…) and am ready to return to a little quilting.
Hannah thinks that would be fun!
Knitting
I was really productive this week in the knitting department. I finished the Far Away Dreams shawl that I have been working on for a few weeks now.
This cushy shawl is just perfect for wrapping up in on cool evenings.
I especially like how the lace turned out.
Can you see in the picture above that the light outer trim on the right side of the shawl is just a tiny bit wider? I lost at yarn chicken and did the last row of the dark lace in the lighter color. I’m pretty sure no one will notice the difference while I’m wearing the shawl. 🙂 My Ravelry notes are here.
I like this shawl so much I already went digging into the yarn stash for more yarn to make another. This time I’m going to have a lighter outer border.
This will look more like the knitted sample shown in the Far Away Dreams pattern. I’m liking it!! The speckled white will be the lace border. I can’t wait to cast on!
I need another shawl to knit on because I’m racing right through The Sharon Show shawl. It is so much fun!! I can’t wait for the new clue to arrive on Friday and I usually have it done within a day or two. This week I focused on finishing the Far Away shawl and put off Sharon until the end of the week. I got Clue 3 done Thursday night and was just chomping to start Clue 4 as soon as it dropped. I’m now halfway through Clue 4. I won’t show the entire shawl because… MYSTERY… and I don’t want Sharon from Security to track me down with a citation (but I’m pretty sure that Hannah would be excited to have her come visit and maybe play chase-chase with her…) but here is a glimpse of my latest work.
How fun is this?!
I kind of want to cast on another one of these shawls, too, but I’m waiting to get to the end before I make the final color decisions. I’m also fussing over yarns and color choices for another couple of sweaters these days (with lots of help from Hannah) and I’ve been reflecting on how robust my yarn stash is and how happy I am to be able to put together an endless number of projects using just stash yarn. Seriously, there is yarn in there that I’ve wondered, up until this summer, just what it could be used for that is now exactly the right amount and color for a new sweater pattern just dropped by a favorite designer. Good planning. Good luck. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Garden
To you see this? The miniature roses are starting to bloom again. This year I plan to plant the roses into the garden to overwinter instead of bringing them indoors for the winter because, Hannah!
There are several new buds on the plant. Can you see them?
Books
I’m reading again now that my eyes have recovered. I’ve gone back to the 16th century for some murder mystery action.
It’s a murder mystery.Â
Our hero is a lawyer named Matthew Shardlake who has undertaken an investigation in the service of the Lady Elizabeth who wants to ensure that justice is served in the murder trial of a distant Boleyn relative who is also embroiled in a land dispute with a neighbor. This story, written about a time centuries past, also echoes some themes current today. There is a lot of political uncertainty as the current king, Edward VI, is 11 years old and his uncle is ruling in his name. You get a sense that power is being abused; coinage is so debased it is almost worthless. Landowners are turning out tenant farmers to enclose their land because sheep earn a better profit for them than crops. Displaced and homeless people wander the landscape in search of a living while the wealthy insist that their actions are necessary to maintain their way of life; the landless citizens are seen as dangerous and criminal by the more stable upper class and resentments are brewing. The shifts to the new religion and an English language mass continue and are also creating tensions. To be clear, this is a time of unrest and uncertainty that kind of rivals our own. In the middle of this a run-away wife is found murdered and Matthew is dispatched to discover the truth. I’m about a third of the way through and I’m enjoying myself.
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
Here I am with a late post following an hectic, nonproductive week. Well, it was actually productive, but not in the ways that I wanted it to be. It is very hot here, very dry, and our wildfires are worse than they were last week. There is so much smoke in the air now that I’m trapped in the house from the air alerts: tonight I wore a mask when I watered the lawn and that helped. Good thing I have some masks laying around, right?
So, what is going on, you ask? I’m knitting, and cooking, and cleaning house. I bought stuff on Amazon to fix things up. That sounds good, right? Well… I’m doing the Sharon Show MKAL and I really, really want to print out the pattern. I ordered ink, but it doesn’t fit my printer. I found an old printer from my classroom in the garage, hooked it up, and tried to get it going. Nope. I dug through office drawers and my old school supplies hunting for ink cartridges and cords. I learned how to activate wireless printing. Three hours later I had cleaned parts of the office and garage while fussing with the printers and I had gotten no where. I gave up and ordered more ink for both machines. Sigh. I need a print out of the pattern to get through the next round of clues… Hey, I’m chronically ill. After all of that I couldn’t knit anyway. Nap time!!
Round 2 of the quintessential summer game.
Last night a moth got into the house and flapped its way into the tall torch floor lamp by my knitting chair. Hannah immediately went airborne, tore right up the lamp to get her moth, and the whole thing came down in slow motion with me trying to get untangled from my knitting fast enough to grab the lamp while Hannah scrambled to get out of the way. Disaster in slow motion!. It took a bad bounce off the chair and hit the floor: the glass shade and a light exploded into shards. Standing at the perimeter of the debris field Hannah and I could see the stunned moth at ground zero; undaunted by events, Hannah just tip-toed in and took her moth away. Instead of playing with the moth I collected glass and vacuumed the downstairs for the second time in one day. Hey, I’m chronically ill and that was the end of the knitting for the night. Bed time!
The pill organizer that my sister sent me to help me keep track of my meds for the week.
Today I carefully set up my pill keeper for the week making sure that Hannah was safely occupied and unlikely to get involved. I was being sooo careful with the pills. I just needed to get this new bottle of one medicine from the drawer to finish up… and I bumped the phone cord, the phone hit the pill case, and the pill case with all of the little doors open tipped over and hit the ground. I threw Hannah out of the room and carefully picked up all the pills, counted them and returned them to the little compartments with little Hannah paws flashing under the door all the while. All good, except that there was one pill missing… I searched for that pill for 2 hours as I moved furniture, books, and then vacuumed the room again. I ended up cleaning the bathroom and laundering the bedding while I was on the search, but I never found that pill. I am sure that it is not where she can easily get it, and that will have to do for now. Hey, I’m chronically ill and I didn’t get any knitting done until late this evening because… nap!!
So, with all of the disasters, cleaning, naps and everything else, I just didn’t get that much done this week. I’m staying out of the garden because of the smoke, and outdoor pictures are really poor now, too. I’m not reading this week either because the smoke affects my eyes. I do have some knitting to show off!
Knitting
I’m finally knitting around the edges of the Far Away Dreams shawl. Next up: the lace border.
I have mixed feeling about this shawl with the light interior and the darker lace, but that’s the way the stash worked out. I already have plans for another version with a darker interior and a very light lace border. This is a nice calm knit for stressful times and I may be making a few more to gift at the holidays.
I was going to be good and not show off any pictures from the Sharon Show MKAL, but it is on Facebook now and I’m going to show off some of my efforts. If you don’t want to see any of these pictures, just stop reading my blog right now! Three… two… one. For anyone who is left, I just have to say that I am having so much fun with this!! The pattern is just a riot to read and I love the snarky cat voice of Sharon. The shawl contains many little sections showing off the colors, patterns and some texture, and the names are just a riot!
This little section is called “Scratch Marks on the New Velvet Chair”.
This section which features thorn stitch is called “Secret Spy Place”. All cats have secret spy places and this stitch also evokes the very floofy tail that Sharon flaunts.
See Hannah in her Secret Spy Place in the yarn stash?
Here is Hannah napping on the finished Clue 1 of the shawl. I am so happy with all the action going on as I knit.
This is a great, fun project and I am hanging out with people on a Facebook group as we all knit. I am thrilled with the size, and as I wear a lot of grey and black in the winter this shawl is going to work out great for me. That is, if Hannah is going to let me wear it… Today is her 5th month birthday and she is kind of wanting the shawl all for herself!!
After the whole moth/kitten/lamp adventure that’s MY shawl, Hannah!
Let’s hope that the printer ink from Amazon comes in another day or so as I am at the point where I really, really need a paper pattern to work off of.
Sharon, please don’t write me a citation for being bad and showing off the shawl in progress. I did warn people, I did!!
Have a great week, everyone!!
Read a little, knit a little, and garden like your heart can’t live without it.
I have finally finished the Suburban Wrap for my totally Knitworthy niece and popped it into the mail today. Check out this piece of wonderfulness!
I am so happy with the looks and drape of this wrap.Â
Do you remember the Knitworthy niece? Here she is flashing the fabulous mitts that I made her last winter. Yep, that it winter in California in the background there. Green grass… how odd! We won’t even talk about that tree trunk next to her!
My niece saw the Suburban Wrap by Joji Locatelli on her facebook feed, shared the post with me, and the rest was history. As soon as I saw it I knew that this was a knit that was calling my name. I dug in the stash, sent her some yarn choices, and after finishing up some works in progress I cast on and got to work several weeks ago.
My niece loves color (did you notice her hair?), and as soon as I showed her this yarn combo it was the one. All of these yarns were already in the stash… win!
This project was just one chunk of fun knitting after another. So much fun, in fact, that I got into a little tendonitis trouble because I knit too long at a time as I raced along to get to the next color section. Lace. Stripes. Textured knitting. An interesting shape and rows that were a manageable stitch count. In other words, everything that a knitter’s heart could want. My project notes on Ravelry are here.
This afternoon I popped the wrap into a box and mailed it off to California where I hope it will be useful in the cool evenings to come. It made my heart happy to send it off. I can’t wait to hear that it has arrived safely.
Then I hit the yarn stash hunting for some yarn, in more sedate colors, to make one for myself.
Yarn, Books & Roses 