Spent

the morning learning to fold a new model :

Learn how to do it  here!

The (Mostly) Daily Kittens

Already they're getting big...I swear they've doubled in size!

Preparing for Cuteness Overload

Some time back,  we spotted a little tortie cat in the yard.  She was terribly emaciated, so I grabbed a dish and food, placing it beside the bush she had collapsed under.  It was awful.  I prayed to Bast to protect her...she made it that day, and little by little she came to trust us.

Then I had a faithful yard companion, always ready to take a walk, or sit in the arbor while I read...

She made herself at home with the chickens just fine....perhaps a bit too much...LOL

She got well, stronger...fertile.

All this time, she had never shown an interest in coming inside.  She would peer in the windows...but at an invitation from an opened door, she would balk.  

She grew heavier, more pregnant by the day and one day...she came in.  I'd made the offer, thinking she would decline like always, but nope.  She marched right up to our bedroom, got in bed with us, and snuggled. Knowing something was up, I went and got the box I put in a sheltered location for her to deliver in outside, and brought it up to our room.  I quickly fixed a litter box downstairs, showed it to her, and resumed snuggling.

It got late...and I grew sleepy.  And she grew restless, more talkative than usual.  Her meows changed to groans and I knew she was in labor. She alternated between lying on the bed and the cool tile floor downstairs.  Don helped me to keep her calm and safe...the first and last kittens were especially traumatic.  By 4 am Nov 17, 2013 she had kittens...4 adorable little squishy piles of cuteness! 

Calleigh is such a good mama...and amazingly tolerant of intrusions with my camera.  

More cuteness:

Creamy cuteness...a dilute ginger boy.  Don's fave, too.

"Westley"...a sweet boy

Tiny tortie girl

Sweet dilute tortie girl...Mom calls her "Minnie"

Acorns

ACORNS I

At Spruce and Oak Streets

they are sleeping.

Their knit caps have been pulled

smugly over their ears.

Their cheeks are a rose brown,

frozen numb under inches and

inches of calming snow.

But then they feel the

sudden pressure

of a boy’s snowmobile boots

across the layers above.

They awake, alarmed,

but remember that in spring

the garrulous soil will weaken,

adopt them as their own.

They dream of sprouting green,

taking a firmer stance

against the tiring seasons.

                            Raymond Luczak

Happy Morning Spent

I took advantage of this lovely, crisp morning to catch up on some knitting and visit with the chooks and kitty...

I've been missing the beauty and discipline that only a Starmore celtic cabled sweater can offer, so I've succumbed :

Why yes, that is Cromarty lying on the chair there.  I feel like I've been holding out on you...I've been working on the back for a couple of weeks and I hope to soon finish it.

Kitty, now called Calleigh has decided that I am indeed not the Antichrist, and will sit near me, and occasionally allow a quick pat, but only on her neck and back.  She lounged beside me and spent a fair bit of time with her toilet this morning.

She rather reminds me of a Renoir bather looking at the curve of her long, sinuous back.  She still longs to hug steal away the chickens. <sigh> Yet another reason why we have to keep them somewhat contained.

The girls have been exceedingly busy, giving us between 2 and 4 eggs daily.  Though they are likely to take the next day off, if I do get 4 eggs in a day.  The sweeties are still quite young, and working out their groove.  Right now we get  mostly medium eggs--almost large really, from the Australorps, and smalls from the Easter Eggers.  No matter the size, they are so, so, tasty.

We

feasted and celebrated the Equinox at home this year.  I spent a fair bit of the day in the kitchen.  See?

Recipe found here.  Though I made some substitutions and adaptations based on ingredients and utensils.  

I used some canned milk in place of the cream, reserving some for painting the crusts.  That worked out rather nicely.  I didn't have a deep dish 9 inch pie pan/plate, but it did fit into a regular  9.5 inch glass dish just fine.  Since I couldn't find any leaf shaped cookie cutters near the house (!) and I didn't want to waste time or resources to drive all the way across town, I cut all the leaves by hand for the top.

Wow, it's so tasty and delicious! Some of the best flavors of Autumn together in one dish.  It paired nicely with the roasted pork, stuffed kabocha squash, mashed potatoes and challah.  Mmmmm...gotta go and have another piece.

Meán Fomhair

It's almost here...amazing how the time flies.

I'm making last-minute preparations for our celebration : the roast is defrosting, the ritual is coalescing nicely, and I'm working on my holiday playlist, too.

What am I listening to on the Equinox?

1. Autumn Time -- Libana
2. Coinlach Glas an Fhómhair -- Clannad
3. Harvest Chant -- Reclaiming and Friends
4. The Rain Song -- Led Zepelin 
5. The Mabon -- Damh the Bard 
6. Harvest Home -- Big Country 
7. Fly, Fly, Fly -- Libana
8. Autumn Child -- Lúnasa
9. Fields of Gold -- Sting
10. Persephone -- Dead Can Dance
11. Terminal Frost -- Pink Floyd
12. Na Laetha Geal M'óige -- Enya
13. Sparks -- Reclaiming Collective
14. Prelude in D Flat Major -- Chopin
15. A River Of Birds -- Libana
16. The First Of Autumn -- Enya
17. Mabon -- Omnia
18. The Wind That Shakes The Barley -- Dead Can Dance
19. Mabon -- Lisa Thiel 
20. Humble Yourself -- Ella
21. Demeter's Song -- Reclaiming Collective
22. Pocket Full Of Stones -- David Gilmour 
23. Cauldron Of Changes -- Lindie-Lila
24. Harvest Dance -- Gwyddion Pennderwen
25. Serpent Mound -- Kellianna
26. Scarecrow -- Pink Floyd
27. September In The Rain -- the Beatles
28. The Rain Came Down -- Steve Earle
29. Rain On The Scarecrow -- John Mellencamp
30. Marche Funebre -- Chopin
31. Scarborough Fair -- Simon and Garfunkel
32. Concerto No. 3 in F Major (L'Autunno) -- Vivaldi 
33. Which Wood -- Mostly Autumn 
34. Free The Heart/ Powerful Song -- Reclaiming

What's in your playlist?  How are your plans for the Equinox coming along?

Brighid's Mantle

Quite a while back, I got some really cute mystery yarn from a dear friend's stash and thought I knew what I would do with it right away...I was going to make a dragon amigurumi and it was going to be awesome and fun.  Hahahahaha.  That was not to be.

The yarn marinated in the stash for a while, and no, I'm not telling for how long.  We'll just say it's been a bit.  By then, the need for a cute green dragon made of a bamboo blend yarn faded, and the fascination with the idea of making my own little Brighid's Mantle began. 

Imbolc was coming, and found me making a regular vigil for Brighid every 20 days via a Ravelry group.  Reading and researching various customs and folklore for St Brigid's Day kept making references to a mantle.  You can find versions of the story here, here, and here.  I just had to make one, especially for vigil nights, and also for healing. 

I immediately thought of that yarn.   That pretty, soft, green yarn.

So I gathered up the yarn and hurried out to place the ball into one of my favorite trees in the yard for blessing on the eve of St Brigid's Day/Candlemas/Imbolc.  

Then I had to figure out what to knit it into.  It had to be knitted.  It had to be cabled.  I remembered a pretty celtic cable on a wrap from Alice Starmore's,  Aran Knitting.  Chart "C"'s cable seemed rather nice, and not too wide.  As I only had one wrapper-less ball,  I had no idea how much was there.  So I began, adding a border of 3 stitches on each side in garter stitch, slipping the first stitch with every row to the chart.  

I worked on it here and there.  And soon, I was close to finishing.  I timed its finishing to be on a "vigil night", late last month. 

 I can't wait to hold it while I keep the next one. 

My Mantle measures 4 inches by 42 inches without the fringe, post blocking.  I used almost the entire ball, save ~ one yard.  Those scraps, mostly trimmings from the fringe, will be saved for healing bundles and the like later on.  

After a bit of brainstorming, I believe this yarn to be NaturallyCaron.com  Spa in a color called Green Sleeves.  It's 75% acrylic, 25% bamboo, and I'm sure that accounts for the curl at the long edges that just won't seem to block out.    

Yum

DH came home from VT to a surprise:

Eggs!

They're so pretty, dainty and delicious!

Quiet...

is how the blog will remain for some weeks as DH heads to VT for many great camping adventures...

But here's a cutie to look at while I'm gone...

A quickie project

Poor Hubby's been pestering me for a while to make him some practice poi.  What's a poi?  This, or rather, these are poi.  Poi also refers to the performance art that makes use of them.

Anyways....so I promised him the  poi...and then I got busy with other stuff.  You know how that is, right?  Finding myself between projects, I remembered that I needed to figure out how to make some.

Bright, yes?  Hubby wanted something bright and cheerful, important since he might find himself getting whacked rather frequently with them.  You know, anything to stay upbeat, right?  He chose some Red Heart Super Saver acrylic yarn in Bikini.

I cobbled these together starting with a 24 row sphere from this pattern...but worked only to row 11...from there I worked one plain round, then decreased as per pattern (round 15) until I got down to 37 sts...then I decreased one more stitch on the following round and then decreased every other round by 6 stitches until there were only 6 sts left...then I crocheted those 6 stitches around and around until they were long enough for his arms...20 inches in his case.  Then I worked back and forth across half the stitches (3sts) until long enough to go around his finger, then I sewed those stitches to the 3 unworked ones in the tube.

As you work, don't forget to insert a baggie filled with beans, or some tennis balls into the sack before you get too far with the decrease rounds and can't get them in.  With my gauge (no...I didn't measure), the tennis balls were a tiny bit smaller around, but not enough to matter.

I will say it's a good idea to pull at the cords as you work, to simulate the stretching that will occur as the poi are swung around in the air.  I've read that too long is worse than too short, as far as cord length goes.

Having said that, I'll have to do some mods to this pair of poi...the finger rings are too loose (they stretched, too), so I'll ravel them back by about half the length they are now and then finish them off again.

I think the boy was really happy to get his poi! :)

Tasty...but mostly to kitties

Is it me, or does Boots look a bit perplexed?

I think she's having a difficult time choosing which sardine to kill and eat.  It took her a few minutes to decide.  It always does.  It's one of the most frustrating things about my mom's cat.  By the time she's decided whether she wants to play...I'm the one who lost interest.  LOL

She did come around, though.

Add caption

One whiff of the catnip and catmint from the garden that I stuffed those babies with and she was on. it.

I made this cute can of sardines using a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.  This one, actually.
Hmmm we need some better pics, no?

Aha!

This pattern was pretty easy, and fun.  Though as always, I had to do some tweaking. 

First the yarns...for the sardines, I used Caron Simply Soft in #9710 Country Blue.  Yarn Bee Soft Secret in Fog for the can.  I'm kinda used to the SS's splitty ways, but holy cow!  The Soft Secret was kind of a pain to work with.  Every time I make stuff from this ball, I like it less and less.

So for the tweaking business...

I made a different tail for the fishies.  I closed the tube by crocheting across through both layers (3 sts) and if I remember right,  ch 3, dc in the first st, slip st, and hdc, dc in the last st. Turn and ch 1, then sc x2, sl st, sc 2. Finish off.

I'm not the biggest fan of sewing up, so I made the can seamlessly by crocheting the bottom, like the pattern, picking up and sc around the bottom.  Again, just like the pattern.  Then, instead of finishing off, I just sc back and forth, picking up the adjacent edge and crocheting it with the last, or st on every row until I was satisfied with the length.  Then just back and forth until it was the same length as the bottom.

Oh yeah.  That's one happy cat.

Bienvenue

sur ma petite cuisine.  Voici ma brioche.  Mmmmmm...brioche.

I've so been looking for an excuse to make these.  What better excuse than for an AD&D game night?

I was pretty focussed on my baking and didn't pause to take many pictures...though I did find myself murmuring in *my dismal French as I mixed and rested and rolled and turned my way through this recipe.  

When I make this again...and there will be a next time,  I'll roll out the pastry a little longer side to side,  to make the roll a bit smaller in circumference.  These little pastries rose and rose.  Right over their muffin cups, and nearly onto the oven floor, had I not given them a turn half way.  I will say ma brioches took about 6 minutes longer than the recipe--about 26 minutes.  

Dig out your cutest black beret and make. these. now.

*The stuff I was murmuring made no sense to the g**gle translator thingie.  I knew my grammar was pretty bad, and now I'm also losing vocabulary, too.  So I apparently make up for it with gibberish.  At least no one has to smell of elderberries, oui?  :)

うまい

I crocheted a cute little sushi  on Sunday...it looks almost good enough to eat, eh?


Hmmmm...

    

                   wha?

   

              

  

                                 It's a fish, too!

Fish to Sushi by Irene Kiss.  

I used quite a bit of stash yarn for this...old stash yarn at that.  The nori was made with Mountain Mohair in Balsam.  Rice in Caron's Simply Soft in White.  I improvised a dab of wasabi in Loops and Threads Impeccable in Grass.  So easy, just 5 sc in a magic ring, increase by sc 2 in every stitch, then sc 2 tog 5 times on the next round,  then finish off.  The fish was made with  Mom's old yarn...quite possibly some old *Zayre yarn in Tangerine, since I found an old yarn wrapper in the box.  Even from the little I could find on the 'net, it does seem to match up.  Not sure about the cream :)

Since it's not a toy for a child or pet, I felt pretty good about using some cute little buttons for eyes.  These are .25 inch flat buttons with little shanks. Sewn on, and some yarn wrapped around the shank to give it a nice finish.

Such a fun project!

For Mom

I made a little pincushion for Mom on her day back in May...I really am catching up now, aren't I?

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do with all those pins as you're carefully ticking along at the sewing machine...it seems a pincushion is never handy.  Well not any more:

These are so cute and fun to make!  Look here for the tut!

Mom was especially glad I made it since she's been working on a quilt...wanna see?

And a close up of one of the blocks :

It's from an issue of American Patchwork and Quilting :

I tried to make her a swanky cake a la Nigella Lawson :

'Fraid that wasn't successful at all.  Oh it's pretty...but the meringues didn't hold up at all.  I think it would have been better for this cook to just have baked meringue discs separately from the sponge.

It is the thought that counted, right?