A new member of my household

After the loss of my beloved Lucy, I waited a bit before making any changes. But Theo missed having a companion and was very needy. So I found him a little friend.

Isn't she cute?

Meet Celia. I found her on Pet Finder, a great place for finding a nice animal in need of a good home. She has very blue eyes and is a Siamese mix. She is TINY!

Her hair is longish and is filling out

The folks at the shelter claim she is about 18 months, but I think she's well under a year. She came to the shelter with a LARGE nursing kitten - I think she got pregnant in her first heat and is about 8-9 months. 

See the cute little belly!

She's very kittenish and jumps a lot on things, like my feet! And she flops over whenever you pet her, showing her belly.

Pals!

Theo hissed at first, but now they are friends! They touch noses and she head butts him in the chest (he's SO much bigger than she is!) and he will lick her. 

Celia enjoying the view

I'm glad she's here!

Tis the season

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from my place. Here's my funny little Christmas tree.

I've been cooking Christmas treats for friends and family. This is toffee - mmmmmm

And these are spiced roasted pecans. They are sweet, salty and spicy. People love them.

And meringe cookies with cereal and chocolate chips. Nummy

Finally - a view from my balcony. The sky being painted by the setting sun.

Blessings to all.... 

 

A farewell to a beloved companion

Yesterday I had to say goodbye to a companion of almost 10 years.

I had to put my Lucy down. She suddenly show signs of respiratory distress and it was found she had N stage cancer in her lungs and one lung had collapsed. I had no choice - I had to be merciful.

Lucy was such a good girl.

She was sweet and lovely, a joy to be with.

She never did anything wrong. Never tore things up, never got on the counters - ever.

She was so beautiful. I used to say Lucy was my decorator cat - she matched everything.

She could be funny. Here she is "helping" with my CPAP.

I got her the same day I got Theo. They are not siblings, but they were fostered together. Theo is sad.

She slept by my head every night.

She was my girl. And I will miss her.

New shuttles and some tatting

I'm back to tatting.

I'm still knitting, but I have been diverted into the tatting realm now.

And I bought some new custom shuttles! Woo-hoo!

I made two crosses for ministerial staff at my church. These are tatted in Lizbeth size 20 in the Mary Konior pattern Large Cross from Tatting With Visual Patterns. I love this pattern and I love this book.

You see one of my new shuttles - I bought this one on Etsy from NamiArt. She is in Poland but is Ukraini. I am happy to support someone from Ukraine - Slava Ukraini!

I love cats - this shuttle has a cat done in blue enamel on copper alloy. Tats well!

Another shuttle was bought from TheKnottedVine on Etsy. 

This shuttle is made of copper with a protective epoxy resin coating them. smooth and well balanced.

I liked this shuttle so much I bought 2 more from TheKnottedVine!

One is blue with a cat and the other is actually purplish - hard to tell, but it is. The top one is called Cool Cat, the bottom one is called The Miss Violet. They are both lovely to work with and tat very well.

I am well - just very very busy both with work and personal things. But I'm well and happy!

Knitting presents

I have some friends from a former workplace who are getting married. They are lovely people and as they are older, they don't need a lot of things that most newlyweds need. So I decided to make them some dish clothes.

I asked them about colors, and they chose black and white.

Here is what I made for them:

This is a set of 6 dish clothes, two in each color. These are all in Lily Sugar & Cream and knitted in a pattern I referenced here.  

I hope they like them. I think this is a nice wedding gift. Personal without being TOO personal. And made with love!

Also - I recently met up with some members of my college class (I'm on the reunion committee) and I brought some dish clothes for them to chose from. They were all delighted with their gifts!

Here are some of the ones I brought - I've shown a number of the other ones.

I'm still knitting. I'm obsessed. And it helps keep me from eating!

More scrappy knitting....

I liked the scrappy knitting so much that I made more.

Behold:

A Sunset-on-Water dishcloth!

I really like how this one came out. Obviously I'm doing the same basic dish cloth pattern, but it's the color that makes a difference!

Speaking of the same pattern...

These three dish clothes are part of a set I'm making for a wedding gift. I'm working on the other black one, then on to 2 white ones. All made in Lily Sugar & Cream. I think it will be a nice gift, don't you?

Best of luck to those going to Palmetto Tat Days the weekend - I hope to be there again next year!

Some scrappy knitting

I'm still on a roll with knitting. Knitting cotton washcloths.

As I've been doing so much of this, I have a lot of small balls of the tail ends of various colors. So I decided to make good use of those leftovers.

Hence Scrappy Knitting!

Behold:

I made this one with more solids than variegated yarns. I like these! 

FYI - I experimented with several yarn joins before using a Russian Join. Lily Sugar & Cream is thicker than some yarn, and I didn't want to find a knot. So the Russian Join seemed best to me. 

Here's a pic with another scrappy washcloth.

My sons want some of these, so they must be cute.

What do you think?

I've been knitting

I've been keeping my fingers busy with a bit of knitting. Nothing fancy, just some wash cloths.

Full disclosure - during the pandemic, knitting kept me sane. I made many many dish cloths and gave almost all of them away.

I don't feel crazed right now, but knitting is productive in the evening and it keeps me from nibbling on food that I shouldn't eat!

These have all been given away. The patterns are (from top left, clockwise) Easy As Pie Dishcloth, An Almost Lost Washcloth, and the classic square diagonally knit cloth. 

I made another diagonal square in blue and promptly gave it away.

And then I knit two that I might keep. These are the Spa Washcloth pattern.

I just started on another! I have a ton of Lily Sugar & Cream cotton yarn!

Public tatting is now in view!

My tatting is on view at my church!

Here is my tatted cross on the pulpit during church service

Our church is diverse, which I like

I'm pleased - I think it looks good. People told me how much they like it.

FYI - that's not a minister in the pulpit - it's a student reading scripture. 

Also of note - the great banners on either side of the dais are our Creation banners, night and day.

And the stained glass in the back shows Jesus not as a White person. We have Black Jesus. Because Jesus wasn't White.

Also there are Black disciples - and women too!

 Enjoy - keep tatting!

Some public tatting

I spoke to a friend at my church and found that they were looking at replacing some of the pulpit scarves there.

(For those curious, these are the cloths that are hanging from the front of the pulpit. They are part of  church decorations known as paraments.)

Our green pulpit scarf and grown a bit tatty. This is the pulpit scarf used in most of the year, in the time after Pentecost and before Advent, so about June through November.

I was asked if I could tat a nice cross for this pulpit scarf, and of course I said yes.

I used Lizbeth size 10 white and a very simple pattern of mine.

Here is is with a penny for scale

Plain and simple. Easy breezy.

I gave the cross to my church friend and it was sewed onto the new pulpit cloth. She got some good upholstery material for the cloth.

Looks handsome

I'm pleased! 

It won't be seen publicly until the first Sunday in June, but I think this will work nicely.

I've offered to help with other tatting for church, possible doing tatting for clergy vestments. 

Oh - if anyone wants this super simple pattern, I can post it!