"Still Alive" and Cat Smarts

Yep, "Still Alive"!
(I'm hearing Cloris Leachman in my head a la "The Croods" {a movie with which I became surprisingly smitten...and re-smitten with Ms. Leachman.}).

I'm not quite back at work yet. 

My temp had been pretty normal for five days, I was approaching my work-release date, the cough was essentially gone, and I thought I was on track to be free from strict home quarantine, go to work, and back to COVID-world normalcy. 

And then my normal temp went up .6 degrees yesterday morning, the cough came back yesterday afternoon, and today - headache. I am terrified about possibly spreading this thing so I told work I'd be holding off a few more days and went about trying to contact my GP - who I have seen exactly once - over a year ago. 

The GP was already overbooked so I am scheduled to have a video chat with someone else in his office. 

What is it about Wednesdays and COVID? First two fevers on Wednesday. Skip a Wednesday (lulling me into thinking I'm getting better...) and then my temp climbed again - on a Wednesday. {Wednesday used to be one of my favorite days...}

Per the conversations I had with a variety of folks today, COVID affects people in different ways but it is somewhat common that it doesn't leave when it should. So, yes, I'm wondering if it's going to be an annoying, mild lingering thing or if every odd passing pain I get means my spleen is failing. 

The good news....I stopped being queasy last week {VERY happy about that} and my eyeballs don't hurt anymore. My work is being super supportive.  {Thank you!!}

The husband is doing quite well and has been back at work for over a week. 

And Simon has a new trick. 

Simon is one of the kittens we adopted almost 2 years ago. He is a handsome fellow with crossed blue eyes and is a champion snuggler. I understand from his rescuer that he was a bottle-baby so he loves to be snuggled and adored but I have to acknowledge he is a bit self-oriented. 

See - extremely adorable.

So, Simon's newest trick relates to the fact that he has realized we keep certain string-y kitty toys up on a shelf on the husband's side of the master closet. He was complaining for a while and doing laps below after the last time I put the favored toys away. 

Have you ever wondered if your cat is a genius or Forest Gump? (There are smarts on both sides of that question.) 

Simon has discovered if he climbs up the clothes in the closet he can walk on top of the shoulders of the hanging clothes. Thus far he has climbed up the back of the clothes and he finds himself stuck behind the bar. 

When assisting him out of this predicament, I parted the hangers and he climbed onto my back - and then he tried to climb up to the kitty toys on the shelf (hence our realization as to why he was suddenly so interested in climbing the clothes). 

So he's climbed up the back of the clothes a few times, gets stuck, and he ends up on my back. 

For now, we're keeping the closet doors closed. Simon is not pleased. 

Making me Laugh

 Well, of course, the main source of entertainment in my life is … our Cats:

And other people's cats…Simon's Cat has a new video out! "Crazy Time".
(In our home, when the cats bolt around the house, pell-mell - we say the cats have "Happy Feet".)
{This phrase predates the penguin movie by several decades.}

From Reshareworthy:

• Tally the Dog thinks she's a Cat. {I can relate - I too was raised with huskies and cats.} ;-)
• Duke the Horse takes over the Kiddie Pool.
• Because of this gent, I'm craving pancakes. But the pancakes he makes are too spiffy to eat! Saipancakes!

Lastly…ok, this is a two-part bit of admiration.
I enjoyed seeing the movie "Frozen". The animation is strikingly beautiful and very well thought out.
And I have admired Idina Menzel's talents for years. {"Rent", "Wicked", appearances on Glee}
So I have been enjoying the excerpt of "Let it Go" from Frozen on YouTube.

Ah, but the credit for the video that made me laugh with delight goes to The Tonight Show.
Jimmy Fallon, The Roots, and Idina Menzel performing "Let it Go" - with an unbelievable range of instruments (kazoo, melodica, toy blocks, ukelele, lemon shaker…).
This version is fun, charming, and clearly demonstrates the talents of the musicians {you'll understand after you watch the video!} and Idina's amazing voice, skill and presence.
Kudos to you all and thank you!

Things that made me laugh today...

Last week, I tripped over the copy of Mark Twain's semi-autobiographical "Roughing It" that I had been reading but put aside for a while. This morning I was reading a bit and this part made me laugh so I thought I would share it with you.

The setting from the Table of Contents:
"Chapter XXXI
The Guests at "Honey Lake Smith's" - "Bully Old Arkansas" - "Our Landlord" - Determined to Fight - The Landlord's Wife - The Bully Conquered by Her - Another Start - Crossing the Carson  - A Narrow Escape - Following Our Own Track - A New Guide - Lost in the Snow…..171"

The Setting from me (and Mr. Twain): 
Our hero, Mr. Clemens, and a few other gents have been trapped by a flood for a little over a week at Honey Lake Smith's Inn on the Carson River. They are attempting to leave because "life at the inn had become next to insupportable by reason of the dirt, drunkenness, fighting, etc.".

The waters have receded and after a failed attempt to cross the still over-full Carson river (where the canoe overturned, saddles were lost and another night had to be spent at the inn) our group is again attempting to leave.
But now it is snowing heavily. Following the instincts of Ollendorff they set out for Carson City, assured that if Ollendorff were to "straggle a single point out of the true line his instinct would assail him like an outraged conscience". After a short time they come across some tracks in the snow and Ollendorff is positive his instincts have them going in the right direction. The company hurries to catch up to the folks ahead of them on the trail.

These are the comments made me laugh out loud:
"Boys, these are our own tracks, and we've actually been circussing round and round in a circle for more than two hours, out here in this blind desert! By George this is perfectly hydraulic!
Then the old man waxed wroth and abusive. He called Ollendorff all manner of hard names - said he never saw such a lurid fool as he was, and ended with the peculiarly venomous opinion that he "did not know as much as a logarithm!""

{Happy Sigh} Gotta love the wondrous mind and writing of Mark Twain.

And a more modern collection of giggles - "I'm Climbing Up the Christmas Tree NEOW 2013" by Shorty and Kodi.

{This pretty much embodies why I haven't put up a tree since we got Gryphon aka The Gryphon-ator.}

WWKIP continues and Gratuitous Cat Pictures

The week of WWKIP (World Wide Knit in Public) continues.

I have not been taking pictures of all my recent WWKIP-ing {sorry} but here's a couple more instances:

She is knitting a lovely feather/fan lace shawl with a silk blend.
The bottom of the picture is my continuing sock-swatch. 

I met with a knitterly friend at a Starbucks for a very nice visit, crunchy/cool/vanilla/creme refreshment, some WWKIP time, and to transfer a tub of donated yarn from the Tucson Handweaver's & Spinner's Guild to my friend who will take to the Old Pueblo Knitter's Guild for charitable knitting.

This tub o'yarn.
{Which Mikale claimed for the time it was at our house.}

 

I also met some friends at Barnes & Noble and a few of us Knit in Public. One friend finished a dish cloth and continued work on second dishcloth. The green stuff on the bottom is my "Comfort of a Friend Woman's Shawl" from the What (Else) Would Madam Defarge Knit knit-a-long.

{grin/sigh Altered 6/16 to remove the upside-down picture comments because the picture load issue seems to have sorted itself out.}

I used the iTouch reverse feature to take a picture of myself knitting {in public} Friday morning at breakfast. I was part of a group from the Tucson Handweaver's and Spinner's Guild out that morning to shift the guild's stored items to a new storage room. We started early (to avoid heat stroke) and got everything shifted (!Yes!). Then we went to breakfast. And I knit. ;-)

This is the larger panel of the Origami Pullover.

As promised, {and since I seem to have a lot of these stored up} here are some Gratuitous Cat pictures featuring the ginger cats!
Mikale is the strawberry blond and his brother Nikoli is the orange tabby-tuxedo.

 

These two often sleep yin-yang. Snuggle Bumps.

Guess Nikoli isn't the only cat he'll sleep yin-yang with... ;-)

 

Mikale up in the kitty tree with Nikoli - or by himself:

And here is a bonus, hurried iTouch picture of a hawk poolside at a friends house.
He's a youngling from a nest in a huge pine tree next to the house. He flew off a few moments later when my friend's spouse walked into the yard.

What Hue are Your Socks?

Early in the Color and Composition class, we were assigned dates upon which we would do a 5 minute, show-n-tell presentation on Color in our Lives.

Of course I wanted to do something on knitting but it took me a few days to narrow down the topic to: Sock Yarn!
That quickly became a bit too much to cover in 5 minutes so I narrowed it down to my sock yarn experience from my own hand knit socks...with a few bonus sock yarn skeins thrown in for interest.

I created an outline and then wrote the presentation, trying to consider the timing, Color & Comp. vocabulary, what I wanted to impart, the socks/yarn to include, cues for showing during the telling, and especially considering what would keep the interest of my (mostly) young, non-knitting audience. I practiced and timed myself and organized the socks/yarn so they would be where I wanted them to be when I needed to pull them out.

And I think it went well. Particularly well when you consider how much I enjoy public speaking. {shudder}

I gave the presentation, speaking very quickly (as I do when I'm nervous - but I did remember to breathe enough that I wasn't gasping for air), pulling out socks and yarn to illustrate my points, although in my nervous haste, I'm pretty sure I skipped over a section in the middle.

There was some polite applause and my classmates asked questions about my colorful socks and knitting.

One young gent asked about the cost of hand-knit socks.
I couldn't help but to think of the Knitting Time Calculator and explained that the average pair of socks is made up of 20-30 thousand stitches and even at minimum wage, a pair of socks would run $250.00 to $300.00.
Moreover, I noted he was a very tall young gent and I was betting his feet were proportionately large so his hand knit socks would have to be larger/more expensive. ;-)

Please find below a less nervous but link-blessed version of my presentation:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Hue are your socks?

Black? Brown? Blue? Athletic White?
Are they lacy, stripe-y, or covered in Flying Pigs?

Some of my socks resemble the above.
More and more of my socks are now created because the color or fiber truly delights me.

My first pair of hand-knit socks were from a variegated superwash wool from Cherry Tree Hill. Those socks are...in the Laundry right now, but here is a small name-tag sock I knit from the same yarn.
{Show tiny blue sock}

At least with this tiny sock, the deep blues and purples that originally drew me to this yarn have not faded from wear and washing.

FYI - a superwash wool is a wool that has been treated so it can be machine washed and dried. The treatment will eventually wash/wear out and the wool fibers will begin to full and cling to each other, shrinking down to a felted fabric - or - a kitty toy.

The yarns being created now-a-days are varied, interesting, fascinating and fun. I tend to stick with wool-based sock yarns. Sock yarn will generally contain nylon along with the wool to improve length-of-wear. Wool has great spring and memory, returning to it's original knitted shape with little coercion.

And - wool takes dye very well.
The dying of yarn is mostly a mystery to me. I am aware that it can be hand-dyed, hand-painted, vat or kettle-dyed, immersed, or machine dyed. Some fibers are dyed and then blended together.
Most of the colorways I'll be showing you are machine-dyed.

{Show Kaffe Sock}

This is a Regia colorway designed by Kaffe Fassett - an artist known for his colorful quilts, needlepoint, painting, ceramics, and yes, yarn.
The "who" that put these colors together was not what made me pick up this yarn. It was the colors - the rich, deep Blue and Green on the unusual Milk Chocolate brown base that pulled me in.

I do tend to be a sucker for color.
I am particularly fond of blues. Especially when it shades into purple.
But the socks that I've knit - for myself and others, cross a wide range of colors and levels of intensity. And many times the fun of the yarn or the knitting - is in the "how" or "why" of the dye or the clever results.

{Show Lenore Sock}

This in-progress sock is being knit from Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Yarn in the Raven Clan "Corbie" Colorway. This is a hand-dyed yarn. This dyer created the Raven Clan series as (in her words) a "homage to Raven and study in shaded black". This particular colorway, is "Indigo and evergreen suffused in black". It strongly reminded me of the iridescent colors of a shiny black Raven feather. I continued the "Raven" theme by coupling it with a pattern, "Lenore", inspired by the lady in the Edgar Alan Poe poem.
Interestingly enough, the saturated black overdye on this yarn seems to stay pretty well. But when I knit with it, my fingers tend to turn a bit blue.

{Show Carol's sock swatch}

This swatch hints at a possible fair-isle or a checkerboard pattern in the yarn. The sock had similar hints that a pattern was possible, but it was vague.

These next colorway patterns are not vague. They are deliberate, fascinating, and sometimes computer-generated.
{Show grey stripey skein}

This Patons yarn lays out in a fun repeating pattern of color and grey stripes.

{Show Navy/Blue stripey sock}

This Regia yarn was dyed to create a particular pattern of thick and thin stripes.

{Show Entrelac sock}

This Steinbach Wolle was dyed so that it would produce specific stripes of grey, black, and blue. The designer of this sock pattern used the woven-looking Enrelac knit stitch to convert the stripes of this yarn into diamonds.

{Show Little Brother's green sock/skein}

I call this these "Frog" socks, because the colors remind me of frogs. But the Garnstudio yarn was planned and dyed to emulate an intricate fair-isle pattern that would be challenging (and much more bulky) to knit with all the separate colors.

{Show blue sock from sock blank}

The color on this sock is fading a bit. It does represent my favorite blues and purples but what was the most fun about knitting with this hand-dyed Conjoined Creations Yarn was this:

{Show blue sock blank leftovers}

To knit these socks, I had to unravel a sock blank - originally dyed with circles, splotches and stripes of vivid color.  It was great fun and very interesting to see how the colors on the dyed blank unraveled and played out into the knitted sock.

Some yarns are dyed so the color changes are long and gradual, like this Crystal Palace Mini Mochi yarn.
{Show first rainbow sock}

{You are correct. The original presentation was Not
assisted by Ginger cats.}

I felt a bit smug whilst knitting the 2nd sock. I thought I was going to have matching socks - as staged by the manufacturer in how they wound the balls of yarn.
{Show second rainbow sock}

However, there appears to have been a break in the yarn and a truly professional splicing job that I didn't even notice until I realized the color I was expecting next (green) hadn't turned up and the color flow on the second sock was now reversing.

Some of my sock yarn is plain by comparison to the bright shades of the ones I've already shown you - but they all have their charms.
{Show speckled blue skein}

This Regia yarn is a speckled Tweed - containing tufts of other colors spun into the base yarn.

{Show plain black skein}

And this basic black yarn is intended as a pair of socks for my husband. He might wear athletic shoes in colors that make me pause - but he prefers his socks to be a bit more subdued.

In writing this and considering my class notes, I realized -

1. With the exception of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Raven Clan colorway, I have not previously considered the Value - how much black, white or grey - is in a yarn. 
2. I have previously lumped in the Intensity of a colorway, how bright or dull it appears, as part of the color. 
3. And most obviously - I find certain hues irresistible. 

Thank you.

{Oh - and then I showed them the hand knit socks I had on my feet that very day!}

Coiling and Finger Crochet

When we last visited my Mixed Media Class project attempts, I was having some "core issues". {grin}

{And Gryphon was helping...}

When I started on my large Coiling project, I had a grand scheme to coil a pitcher and create a flow of beads pouring from the pitcher like water.
I had the beads, wire, fiber, and coiling core all planned.

Yep, nice concept.
However, time limits and reality interceded and I quickly revised my grandiose plan. I coiled a nicely shaped bowl with a subtle edging effect that could be turned in on time.
I am rather pleased with this project and would definitely like to revisit coiling and wrapping for another, larger project. {perhaps with some beads involved...} ;-)

Our next Mixed Media was Finger Crochet!
I smugly thought "I'm all over this - I already know how to crochet!" and then I promptly discovered that without a hook and actual yarn, I am inept at crochet.

We were using sisal and, well, our fingers.
One of my table-mates is an avid crocheter and she quickly, quietly and competently accomplished the finger crochet in-class assignments from our instructor. I did not see a hint of "smug" but she could have easily supported any smug-ness with her proficient finger crochet.

I did eventually wrap my brain around crocheting via fingers to make the 3 shapes assigned by the teacher:

See - a Circle, Rectangle, & Triangle.
{No? S'ok - use your imagination. }

We then turned the 3 shapes into...something else. I made a ship with a sail out of mine, but I don't have pictures of that creation. ;-)

And then we were asked to draw a simple design on brown paper, attach it with tape to our Work Board (several thicknesses of cardboard bound with duct tape), and use T-pins and finger crochet to make that simple design.

After floundering so badly when trying to make a simple finger-crochet rectangle I rather foolishly drew a Cat head and set to crocheting.
And....it went pretty well.
Based on the shape and the curly aspect of the crochet, I decided I had actually crocheted a Lamb or Sheep:

And then we learned the Large-scale Finger Crochet assignment would be....a Group Project.

The already-handy-at-finger-crochet table-mate mentioned above, myself and two others formed one of the groups.  We were charged with creating a large-scale Finger Crochet Art Installation that would go out in the common area of our end of the campus for a week.
To be continued! 

But wait....we started this post with help from Gryphon so here's what Gryphon was up to at about the same time I was attempting finger crochet:

Gryphon thought the roses the DH had gifted to me for Valentines were lovely delicious.

UPs - Event Heads-Up and Catch Up

Greetings and Salutations!
My humble apologies for being absent for...jeez...over a month.
Here's a variety of updates and an Event Heads up:

Event!
I'm not sure if I have previously included in the blog a notice of this Stellar Free Concert:
The 11th Annual Music and Memories Concert will be tomorrow, Saturday, May 11th (6:15 PM - 9 PM).
I understand the Mayor has declared that day to be "Cancer Wellness Day"!
Yes, the concert is free however, any donations, silent auction, or raffle proceeds benefit the Academy for Cancer Wellness' Under-Insured Cancer Patient Endowment fund and Wellness Grant fund.

I have attended this concert for the last few years and have enjoyed each one.
Many of the professional musicians that donate their time and talents to this event are from our Tucson Symphony Orchestra and the Arizona Repertory Singers. I think they take this opportunity to perform pieces you may not hear at the Symphony performances. That is correct - this concert is not all classical music. Charming, fun and interesting!

The concert will be at the Grace-St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams.
Hundreds of door prizes are also distributed. During intermission cookies are served along with punch and a selection of chinese teas from the nifty Seven Cups Teahouse.
I think it is an amazing evening of music benefiting an excellent charity.

School
For the most part I have been hip-deep in projects for my Fiber Arts Degree. We are nearly done with the Spring semester and, although I haven't been doing "finals" (as in tests), I have been doing a variety of projects for all three of my classes.
I'll try to do individual posts on those projects but I will say I was able to include knitting in my final project for the Mixed Media class. A knitted bag with plaiting. It came out pretty well, although the handles are a bit long. Over-all, I'm pleased.

CooPurr discovered I was working with WOOL and
he plopped himself right down!

 An "aside" under the School topic - Podcasts. I have been listening to A LOT of podcasts as I worked on my projects and I have adopted a new method for Podcast-listening. It is my habit to go back to listen to the beginning of an adopted podcast and work my way forward. I have "caught up" on several of my favorites but I have been languishing in the past on many others. So...I have started to listen to the podcasts in two times - past and present. {wry grin} This way, I can feel included and be current - on Raverly, current topics, KALs, events, etc. And I can also enjoy the entire podcast - from beginning to end. Eventually. ;-)

My grateful thanks to the lovely souls who create and share their charm, time, expertise, and general cleverness in their Podcasts. Thank you all for keeping me in such very good company: Heather at CraftLit, Paula of Knitting Pipeline, Jasmine and Gigi of The Knitmore Girls, Dr. Gemma of CogKNITive, and Brenda of Cast On. You are appreciated more than you know!

Health
In case anyone is curious, the Little Brother continues to pursue good health. He excels at controlling his Diabetes and his doctors keep decreasing his insulin dosage. Woot!!

My health...pretty decent, actually. For the most part, unemployment/school seems to agree with me.
I did over-do it with late-nights/standing for many hours working on school projects last week and on top of that I got to experience my first-ever, real reaction to my weekly allergy shots. Jeez.
I'm alright but looking forward to some down-time before the Summer semester begins.

Knitting
Not a lot of recreational knitting here...

School-Knitting:
As mentioned in the School section, I did some knitting for my Mixed Media final project so there was some concentrated school-knitting there.
Also - a pair of for-Holiday-gifting Fingerless Mitts were completed via between-class knitting and a 2nd pair are nearly done. But I haven't knit a stitch on those for weeks. Mostly I've been dashing from school project to school project...
Oh.  Yeah - Please see the "School" update section. Sorry.

Recreational Knitting:
As per the last blog-post, I did finish the Scarlet Shade of Shades of Grey Swirl Coat around Spring Break.

There has been a smattering of knitting on the Origami Pullover, a pair of fingerless mitts, and some minor headway on the Lenore Socks (started years ago). 

I did pause briefly in the school endeavors to cast on the "Comfort of a Friend Woman Shawl" for the "What Else Would Madam DeFarge Knit?" Knit-a-long. (I'm a bit behind...)

Gryphon re-exploring my fulled knitting bag I originally created when he was a kitten
(he would play and sleep in the under-construction bag).

Cats

The Monster Cats are doing fine and they continue to be a major source entertainment and the focus of  any tweets I send out.

As you've probably already noticed, I've included (rough iTouch) pictures of two of the Monster-cats.
To round out the Cat-inventory and finish up this post, here's ginger-cat-brothers Nikoli and Mikale!

Kitty-TV has been showing "Bird!!" a lot lately. ;-)

And...Sweet-faced Mikale.

They could tell it was chopsticks!!

So I continue to be boggled, delighted, optimistic, stumped, and sometimes fatalistic about my drawing adventures.

After my first meager attempts at drawing....well, there have been more meager attempts at drawing. {grin}
But I am "drawing at home" now. ;-)

We were sent home with an assignment to draw 4 things from our kitchen. One had to hold a liquid and we were supposed to draw it as though we were looking down at it.

Ok.
I pulled down a mug, a pair of chopsticks, a lemon recently gifted from friend's tree, and a kitty kitchen timer. I added some water to the mug and tried placing the above in a pleasing arrangement on the dining room table.

And then I took pictures with the iTouch so I could minimize the time spent {wasted} away from the drawing homework {disengaging cat paws/persons from my "still life".}

I liked this arrangement:

So did Gryphon:

Yes, I did consider doing the drawing including Gryphon's head. {Very tempting}
However, I wasn't sure I could do his ears justice. And if I included them I'd have "5 things" instead of four and, per my rules, Gryphon is not part of the kitchen.
{Per Gryphon's rules....well, Gryphon and I "discuss" those rules on a too-regular basis}.

Gryphon LOVES to drink water out of cups or drinking glasses.
It is WAY better than the {exact same} water I put into the kitty fountain he shares with the other 3 cats. He feels still water in a kitty dish is not as good as still water in our drinking glasses. {sigh/grin}

"What?" Isn't this water for me??

One more Gryphon-pic. You know that thing cats do when they reach around something 'cause they're not sure how the thing "works"/where the bottom is/how much space and time it occupies in the universe?

{Yep, right through the handle of the mug.}

After I stopped laughing and Gryphon had had enough to drink, I put everything away, hid in my craft room, and did my homework.

In class, we pinned our drawings up in the "gallery" next to the classroom and one by one, we reviewed each other's homework.
We considered if we'd kept the viewer's eye within the 4 corners of the picture (balance), format, placement, and line/negative space. My review was pretty decent, although I can't remember most of it. Something about I need to draw more assertively/darker - better value and shading.
I don't remember most of it because I was entirely thrilled that my class-mates could tell that I'd drawn chopsticks!! Woot!!