by Kat | 1 day ago | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dear Unravelers… I hope you are all bundled in all the knits today!
I am because it is beyond bitterly cold here!
First, a bit of a Frankie update… surgery did absolutely not go as planned on Monday morning. One testicle was exactly where it should be…the other, not so much so he has a rather large incision in his belly from the removal of that wandering testicle. He also had a rogue deciduous tooth pulled so Monday night was rather long but he did manage to eat a tiny bit of dinner and got some water down. Not easy with the cone that the vet thinks he will wear for 12 more days! The cone is a velcro-nightmare… it sticks to everything so knitting has been put on the back burner for the time being.
The eyes are pleading so sweetly… but no I can’t take it off my poor boy!
In light of my temporary knitting moratorium, I thought I’d introduce you all to my 2025 stitching projects! I am doing another 100 Day Stitch Book… one I am very, very excited about. My theme… quilting patterns…in a sort of a deconstructed way. I have page one completed… the cover… and I am very happy with how it turned out. And the 15 minute time frame is just perfect!
I am also loving my January start to my whole cloth stitching this year. I am happy to say that thus far I have purchased nothing for either project… my outline “thread” is some very ancient linen that I picked up from a friend back when I thought weaving might be fun. It is Euroflax linen in a deep aubergine. My plan is to outline each days “box” and stitch inside. I am really loving how this looks!
The reading is perfection this week… I began listening to Wright Thompson’s The Barn on Monday and I am settling in with this unsettling book. Bonus, the author is narrating it so even though it is a challenging topic, hearing him retell it is very good.
For those of you who occasionally enjoy a children’s book… I have a brilliant one for you all! It is Susan Cooper’s The Shortest Day (yes, the poem) with stunning illustrations by Carson Ellis. I think Ada Limón put this on my radar… but I could be wrong. Regardless, it is an absolutely gorgeous book… worthy of a read this month as we welcome the return of lengthening days!
That is all I have for today! How about you all? How is your January making progressing?
As always, if you wrote a post to share leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | 3 days ago | General, In This Moment
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. — Martin Luther King Jr.
Today I am reminding myself that while disappointment exists… it is absolutely finite, yet hope is an infinite well and I will be in that infinite well of hope today with Michelle Obama… the woman who reminded us ‘No’ is a complete sentence.
A few other things are happening today (amidst this frigid Arctic Blast that has blown in to Pittsburgh’s South Hills)
Thing One: Franklin will soon be at the vet for his “snip surgery.” He will be six months old this week and while he retains many of his hilarious, yet frustrating, puppy antics, he has become a very lovable young man. He is absolutely housebroken (Yay!!) and even conveys to the adults when he has to go outside (double Yay!!) However, Young Master Franklin has an affinity addiction for all the yarn and most especially Kid Silk Haze (Boo!) He is quite adept at finding the KSH that I have tucked away at the bottom of a project bag. I think it is time to deploy Carole’s plastic bin with a snap on lid suggestion.
Thing Two: A quick grocery shop is in order and then a stop for some “desk organizing” items and a “project sized” plastic container with a lid!
Thing Three: (and perhaps the most important!!) Next Monday (1/27/25) is our January Word Round Up! If you are joining us this year in a word study we will be sharing what we discovered this month! The link up will go up early… by 6:30AM EST and will be up through the following Sunday! (so if Monday is not the day you want to share… the link up will be available for several days!)
And with that, I wish you all an inspiring day of contemplating Martin Luther King Jr. I will see you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Jan 16, 2025 | General, Poetry
If ever there was a month for poetry it is January. We have had some very winter-like weather this month and for that I am truly grateful. While I might not appreciate the snow and cold, nature surely does. I look around my snow-covered back yard and all my bulbs tucked safely away under the blanket of snow… and I smile! This snow and cold will mean that spring will be all the sweeter!
I have a bonus as well… Franklin absolutely loves the snow and it is impossible to be a grinch when his delight is so overwhelming!
A new book of poetry by Billy Collins – Water, Water: Poems – has been much on my mind recently, especially the poem I am sharing today. And when Ann Shayne read it last week at the inaugural MDK Society Zoom, it cemented it for this month’s selection! I hope you enjoy it too!
Winter Trivia
by Billy Collins
It takes approximately two hours for a snowflake to fall from a cloud to the ground.
—THE BOOK OF TRIVIA
In the roughly two hours
it takes for a snowflake
to fall from a cloud to the ground,
we managed to get back to the house,
bang the snow off our boots,
shake out our coats in the mudroom,
then stoke the stove back to life,
open a bottle of wine—
I think it was a red from Oregon—
heat the white bean soup from last night,
which we spooned up
sitting close to the splintering stove,
after which we carried our bowls
to the kitchen and opened
an inlaid wooden box full of chips
and fanned out a fresh deck of playing cards,
which you shuffled and I cut,
as the house was warming up,
and you tossed in a modest bet
with a red Jack showing
and I saw you with my nine
just as that singular snowflake
landed without a sound
in the general darkness of Vermont.
Winter Trivia Copyright © by Billy Collins.
You can learn more about Billy Collins here and here.
I would like to thank Bonny for gathering us all together today to share a bit of poetry!
See you all back here on Monday!
A bit of a post script… I have been having issues posting comments on some of your WordPress blogs. I am not sure why just some of the WordPress blogs and not all WordPress blogs and I have yet to figure out the issue. If I have not commented on your blogs this week, this is the reason… if anyone is having issues posting comments to my blog, please let me know (you can email me here). Thanks!
by Kat | Jan 15, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dearest Unravelers!
We are halfway through January… the days are just steadily marching along.
I have some finishes to share with you all today and a new beginning! Or should I say a finished project and a “technically finished, but still lacking” project.
It is the perfect length
First up… the Marled Sequence Scarf! This scarf is entirely based on MDK Field Guide No. 19: Marls with patterns by Cecelia Campochiarro. Originally, this sequence of stitches was used in the Color Explosion Throw… lovely… truly lovely. But what might happen if you just focused on the throw as a scarf?! Pure joy… 1000% pure joy, that’s what! Cecelia put together the kits with Ito Kinu… 6 colors eager to become 15 unique marls.
A peek inside my new way of tracking my making this year…
I mapped out my journey, cast on and soon the pattern became a meditative mantra as I knit and purled my way across the rows. To say I loved this project is an understatement… it was pure knitting joy! A project to bring myself back to the most basic of knitting… just simple knits and purls in sequences. I truly wish you could feel how this scarf feels… it is soft and the silk “stickiness” makes your hand want to linger. It is brilliantly warm… I gave it a test drive pre-wash on a walk with Frankie and it is perfectly cozy… with not one bit of the tingly-ness that wool sometimes feels like.
And yes! I did not run out of any of the yarns though some got close…
I love how the colors flow one to another.
And there is no right or wrong side… which makes it even better!
With all that is perfect about the scarf, I share my December Gnome that is currently feeling less than perfect to me. While Gnana the Gnome is technically done… she feels incomplete.
My finished Gnana… she seems lacking to me… unfinished.
She needs some tweaking… I want her hooded cape to be different. I have this vision in my head of the cape attached with the hood hanging down, but I have not been able to accomplish that without some further fixes that I have not yet figured out (what I have tried has not worked thus far.) It needs a clasp of some sort. The hood needs a small tassel as well, I think. And her “attached” gnome hat needs some help as well. I am at the drawing phase of trying to figure out what might work/look best currently.
The hood needs a tassel and some way to hold the front closed.
However, I do know that Gnana is going to be a welcome addition to the Gnome Village… she is the bringer of Christmas (as you can see by her wreath) and everyone is very excited about her arrival in the Blue Cupboard.
I also swatched and began a new sweater. After a few fits and starts on the cast on, I settled on an entirely different cast on (Thanks, Patty Lyons) and I like how it looks! I am inching along on 2×2 ribbing and am very happy.
If anyone is wondering how spacing out my reading is going… well, wonder no more! I am loving the “digestion time” and I just finished listening to Niall Williams Time of the Child (and really, I don’t want to depart from Faha… so I am lingering) I loved it… the writing was perfection! At night I am reading a chapter or two from a Netgalley read… a new novel by Jo Nesbø, Blood Ties. Fantastic writing, a riveting story as only Nesbø can do! I have miles to go before I finish it… so good thing I am enjoying it! Ha!
So there you have my week of making! What about you all… what is exciting you about your January days?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jan 13, 2025 | General, In This Moment
Is for reveling in winter!
Yes, we have snow! Yes, it is cold! (although this morning’s 31°F felt downright balmy!!)
I cannot tell you the last time we here had snow that stayed on the ground for more than a day or two! It is simply delightful.
Winter might be even more delightful because I finished one Marled Sequence Scarf over the weekend! And, to be entirely honest with you, I was more than a bit sad to bind off that last stitch! This was truly knitting perfection… the colors pair with simple knits and purls. Glamor shots coming!
But… I had also signed up for Patty Lyons Beginnings and Endings Class last Friday. I got through one part, with two more to go but can I just say… Patty Lyons is a treasure! I could sit and just listen to her talk for hours! She has encyclopedic knitting knowledge! Anyways, I also swatched over the weekend and cast on a couple of times… with “meh” results. But once I deployed Patty’s first cast on… with rousing success… I knew I found my new knit project to see me through this month!
So, my dearest Mother Nature, when you bring the drop in temperatures later today with those “need all the layers” teens, I will have lots to keep me occupied inside where it is cosy and warm! And, I will have a freshly washed scarf to keep me warm!
Happy Monday Everyone!
by Kat | Jan 10, 2025 | General, Looking Back
It’s been A Week, hasn’t it?
In an attempt to keep my Clean Out List in my focus… I started with my closet yesterday while I watched the funeral service for President Carter.
I was percolating along at a pretty good clip until I discovered a box of loose photographs on the back of the shelf. I found it at the time that Steve Ford delivered his father’s moving eulogy. I spent the rest of the time remembering…
The box contained some envelopes of photos from my childhood but mostly they were photos of my kids that my ex decided were not “album” worthy. It is funny how a photo can instantly take you back… or maybe that only happens when you are decades past those children being small beings. One photo made me laugh and cry… There was a photo of 3 year old Heidi getting ice cubes from our brand new refrigerator that had an “in-door” ice dispenser! (a first for our household!) She would get ice cubes out for my beloved Clumber Spaniel, Picabo (yes, she was named after the skier!) Anyways, the image captured Picabo sitting patiently waiting for the next ice cube to come from Heidi. A treasured memory… I could hear her voice in my head.
I listened to people sharing such incredibly beautiful memories of President Carter as well… and while there were no stories about him feeding a beloved pet ice cubes… there were so many stories of he and Rosalynn working to make the lives better of people all over the world. It made me wonder how much more he did that we will never hear about… but I am sure that those tales are being shared where he and his beloved Rosalynn are.
Rest well, dear President Carter, rest well… you have earned it!
As for me, there will be no rest for me today… I have that closet to finish! Sigh.
Have a great weekend everyone! See you all back here on Monday!
Header photo by Miray Bostancı
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