Still Life, With Cats

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Channeling my inner princess

Posted on 2 February, 2022 9:09 pm by Jennifer Comment

This was supposed to be yesterday’s item except I was dithering about what I wanted to make and it turns out, 9:30 at night is not the best time to start a new project when one hopes to finish it before one falls asleep at the needles. So instead I finished it this morning.

After years and years of having super short hair, I’ve decided to try growing it out again. Fine, except that it’s now reached the stage where it’s long enough to hang in my face but not long enough to actually pull back in a barrette, and it’s been driving me crazy. So naturally I decided to knit my way out of this problem, by making myself a headband.

This is the 50’s Knotted Headband. It’s made with some random acrylic yarn from my stash, and except for some minor shaping, it’s basically just a long strip of garter stitch, tied in a knot with some ‘bow’ shaped flaps at the ends.

I wore it all day today to see how I felt. I like it – a lot – except that it is just a hair on the loose side. However, even with that, it worked great for solving the problem of the shag rug on my head, so there will be more headbands in my future, oh yes.

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.



All the days of the year

Posted on 1 February, 2022 10:02 pm by Jennifer Comment

It’s February, which means it’s once again time for Thingadailies, where I commit to making one thing a day for the entire month of February. In years past I’ve had a particular theme in mind, but I really struggled to come up with one for this year, so….my plan is to just make whatever I feel like, and we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway. To start off the month, I am bucking the rules entirely by showing off a thing that is not finished, but on which I’m doing a little bit of work every single day this year. Yes, fellow fiber artists, some friends and I have finally succumbed to the lure of the Temperature Blanket.

The premise of this blanket is that you work one section per day, for an entire year, changing the colors with the temperature of the day (in our case we’re going with whatever the day’s high was). Number of colors used is entirely up to you and how many ends you want to weave in (we’re doing a new color every five degrees), as is the pattern.

I pondered a couple different ideas (since we’re all doing different patterns for this, but using the same set of colors), but in the end decided to make mine entralac, which is a fun technique that makes it look like the finished product is woven, and is also a fantastic way to practice knitting backwards, if that is a skill you ever wanted to learn. I’m doing one panel a day (and have mapped this out completely so as to make sure that this will work). So far I’m keeping up with it, and really liking how it’s turning out (the different blues don’t all come out very well in this picture, unfortunately, but there’s five separate colors represented so far, well six if we count the black).

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.



Grey tiger, burning bright

Posted on 29 January, 2022 2:29 pm by Jennifer 1 Comment

In September of 2009, fresh from the loss of both Tangerine and Sebastian within the space of just a couple weeks, Richard and I went to adopt a kitten. We’d seen a picture of Ingrid on Petfinder, and fell head over heels in love with her from that, but knew that she would need a friend. When we went to the rescue to meet her, there was a little black and grey tuxedo floof who was pretty cute, but already pre-adopted, and two little grey tabbies, who were careening at top speed around the room, literally running sideways on the walls. We picked one of the little grey tabbies as the second kitten, and we can’t really claim to have been all that surprised by what he turned out to be.

A small grey tabby kitten sitting in a cat tree
Rupert, aged 6 weeks, 2009

Rupert was extremely active, and also extremely intelligent. Every time we didn’t think a kitten could get somewhere, he would find a way. That first Christmas he scaled the tree like it was just another giant toy, and ever since then our ornaments have been the self-placing kind. He could jump incredible heights – to the top of the fridge in kitchen, to the top of the curtain rail in the bathroom – there was really no such thing as a Rupert-safe zone. We invested in a number of cups with lids, which we referred to as Rupert-safe cups, because when he was younger he absolutely delighted in tipping over water glasses. A friend mentioned, based on her own grey kitty that Grey Ones Are Trouble, and it became Rupert’s calling card. We used to look at each other over those first few years, and jokingly comment that he would calm down when he was older. It was only in the last few months that he ever did.

Two grey tabbies sitting next to each other
Rupert with his newest minion Guffaw

He turned twelve this past August, which doesn’t seem old enough for anything to happen, but life doesn’t always work the way we wish it would. Suddenly things started taking a turn for the worse. Without exploratory surgery we won’t ever know with 100% certainty that he had GI lymphoma, but all the symptoms fit, and it was clear what we had to do. The vet came over this afternoon to help him go.

We’re going to miss you so much, Boo.



Eye spy

Posted on 24 December, 2021 7:45 am by Jennifer 1 Comment

Why yes, decorating a Christmas tree with a whole bunch of lightweight plastic ornaments in a house with a quartet of extremely energetic kittens who all like to scale the tree and view ping pong balls as one of the Best Toys Ever was a BRILLIANT decision, why do you ask?

I’ve picked up at least 20 so far and I keep finding more as I walk around.

Last night when we were decorating, Guffaw was going absolutely crazy, charging up and down the tree and smacking ornaments off as if we’d basically given him the Coolest Toy Ever (which, admittedly, we did). So I have a feeling that every morning we’re going to have to make the rounds and collect and rehang a whole bunch of ping pong balls (or else alternatively we could just put them in a bag and then perhaps by the time the tree needs to be put away again for another year, he might have single-handedly (single-pawedly?) removed all the decorations for us.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.



He sees you when you’re sleeping

Posted on 23 December, 2021 8:23 pm by Jennifer 2 Comments

Richard and I were watching one of those decorating competition shows the other day and one of the judges mentioned how Theme Trees are super in right now, and we collectively rolled our eyes because it seems more than a bit ridiculous to go spend a ton of money on matching ornaments just to fit a particular theme, which always ends up looking more like something you see in a store window than something that’s meant to be gathered around with family and presents. But then one of the teams made some ornaments as part of their specific Theme Tree, and we looked at each other and then….

…then we had an Idea.

Roughly thirty bucks worth of materials via the miracle of the internets later, and two nights spent doing a wee bit of crafting, and I present to you Our Theme Tree.

I’m calling it Eye’ll Be Home for Christmas. You’re welcome.

Want a close-up of the actual ornaments? Sure, here you go.

(Googly eyes stuck onto ping pong balls, in case you are super jealous of our tree covered in eyeballs and want to replicate the fun)

So there we go. If only one of us had even the remotest engineering skill they would all also be moving, so you probably should be glad that’s not our forte.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.



The return of the self-decorating tree

Posted on 22 December, 2021 9:07 pm by Jennifer Comment

We finally put up the tree. We’d actually been dithering about whether we wanted to do any sort of decorating at all since Thanksgiving, considering the state of the world (waves hand vaguely), and also the number of excitable foster kittens still in residence, but then we came up with An Idea (which I will talk about tomorrow), and so tonight the tree went up.

Foster kitten Chantilly and resident cat Guffaw took on the roll of Tree Inspection Brigade as we attempted to unpack the pieces.

Once completed, foster kitten Pickle joined the Inspection Brigade to make sure that the tree was assembled correctly.

And then we sat back and waited. Want to take a guess who was first up the tree?

Nope, it wasn’t who you think.

Yes, that would be Timmie, the largest cat in the house, who launched herself halfway up the tree. There are many reasons why we are glad we switched to a fake tree lo, those many years ago, but one very important reason is that they are extremely sturdy.

Don’t worry, though. Guffaw made *quite* sure to live up to our #GreyOnesAreTrouble lifestyle.

And thus, the self-decorating tree continues for another year.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.



Winter weekend

Posted on 19 December, 2021 10:41 pm by Jennifer Comment

It’s been a very cold, and occasionally damp weekend. So except for a couple outings (another cookie exchange with friends, and taking a sickly foster kitten in for a check), I have stayed inside where it is warm and cozy and dry.

The cookie exchange assortment. There were a lot of cookies!

Also I made a few things

Apple pancakes with boiled cider sauce, because when one makes boiled cider and also purchased an entire case of apples, one needs to then find ways of using those ingredients up. I shred the apples instead of chopping them because I find that makes them more likely to cook all the way through in this sort of application. They turned out super delicious and we’ll be eating these for breakfast for the next couple days.

Lemon Soup. We add sliced carrots to ours, but otherwise follow the recipe as written. Paired with homemade biscuits, it is the perfect comfort lunch for a cold day.

This awesome jigsaw puzzle. It’s ‘The Winter Fair’ by Jan Van Haastaren, and someone on my local Buy Nothing group was giving it away. Since these are my absolute favorite types of puzzles, I threw my name into the hat, and I won. I managed to assemble this in one evening, despite the ‘assistance’ of several excitable foster kittens.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.



Hot off the needles

Posted on 17 December, 2021 7:23 am by Jennifer 2 Comments

Oh hey, so occasionally I do make things that don’t involve flour and butter.

Last night I finally wove in the remaining ends, so ta da, I made myself a sweater.

The pattern is Recalibrate, since I know some of you will ask. It’s an interesting construction, in that you make the front and back panels first, then do the sides vertically, then join those with side panels.

For all the individual pieces, there’s a minimum of ends to weave in, plus the use of an icord bind off means that the edges don’t curl or flop. And while it’s done all in garter stitch, using a lighter yarn (sock weight) means it’s not too bulky. Plus, the pattern is one of those that looks flattering on any body shape (look at all the Project pictures on the Ravelry page – seriously, there’s a reason it’s so popular!).

I am very pleased with how this turned out (and not just because it used three skeins of yarn from my rather large sock yarn stash), so hooray, I finally made myself a sweater that I will actually wear!

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.



Familiar

Posted on 16 December, 2021 10:51 pm by Jennifer Comment

These past eighteen months have been just so weird. I’m a hermit by default, and was already working fulltime from home, so the lockdown didn’t impact a lot in that regard, but even with that I did *occasionally* leave the house – to go to rehearsal, for example, or to some random meeting place for my knitting group.

Things have improved a little – instead of rehearsing online, we’ve been rehearsing in person (and had our first actual real, live, in person concert this past weekend – which will be available for streaming next weekend if you’re interested in something more than the same old boring holiday carols for your seasonal music), and my knitting group has been able to gather once or twice. But it still feels a little strange to consider planning any sort of gathering.

That being said, as we’re all vaccinated and boosted, and masking up everywhere and being smart, the knitting group decided we would give our annual cookie exchange a try again, in person (Last year we did the exchange but met outside just to hand over little bags of cookies while staying the requisite six feet apart).

It was a small group of us, but it was lovely. We all nibbled cookies and drank mulled cider and hot chocolate and (decaf) coffee, and snuggled kittens and even broke out the knitting (which is harder to do while simultaneously snuggling kittens, but everyone made it work).

It is late now, and I should be going to bed, but the house smells delicious and there are still kittens to snuggle, and hopefully by this time next year it won’t feel so strange to think about gathering together in person again.




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