Skip to main content

What? It's 2017!

The last four months of 2016 were full of family and friends and fun.  There were trips to the farm to see Mom and my brothers; a meeting of extended family to see Miss A in Minneapolis; a birthday party for Miss M; a family Octoberfest with homemade pretzels and all the other German fixings; the U.S. Thanksgiving and a whole lot of family dinners.  Then there were meals and outings with friends and a few knitting adventures.  I loved it all, so much so that I didn't write about it but instead savored it.  When I returned home there were two kittens who needed to be trained, to be "fixed" and who needed lots and lots of human time.

But now 2017 is here and I am ready to dive back into sharing.  There are new knitting classes in my future, more shawls to knit and a couple of Xmas stockings that simply have to be completed this year.  But before I get into 2017, let me give you a photo retrospective of the months missed in 2016.  I promise there will be details to follow, but for today here's a photo montage.

The many faces of Miss A, but she is mainly all smiles 
Miss M celebrating three as her shirt says ~ Young Wild and Three
Miss A chillin' for a road trip

Miss M at what could have been a historic vote for females but wasn't

Miss M and her requested sprinkle cake

The absolute dearest photo of the year, as Miss M gives her sister a kiss she holds her hand
And then there are Mike and Mara, the kittens.  As a reminder, Mike is the grey, referred to as Blue for his breed of Burmese; Mara is off white or Platinum.  He is now about 5.5 pounds and she is 4.5 at the ripe old age of 5 months.  Two kittens is like having a live circus in the house, when they are awake.  Luckily for me they sleep a lot.  I didn't know how much I missed old Mike until I spent some time with these two.  Photos generally have to be taken as they are falling asleep or as they are sleeping.  When they are awake they are moving a lot.  

This was taken about a month ago; they still look kittenish

One of their pastimes, grooming one another

The great bird hunters, from inside of course

Mara, taken in the dead of night

And today's photo, they are looking less kitten-like and more like cats
I hope your 2016 was good.  I know once I got passed the first quarter of 2016 things really improved.  There is plenty to look forward to in 2017, and tomorrow I will start sharing what is being planned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
10 comments
Read more

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...
9 comments
Read more