on the third day of Christmas...

i am home all alone 
with three cats and a stinking cold

life does not always rhyme. get used to it.

i think it's fair to say that i am over the worst part of this cold. however, as he got sick almost a week before me, and he is still coughing quite frequently, i know it is going to be a bit of time before the last of it is out of my system. oh joy!

this really sucks, as i was looking forward to us being able to spend some time doing totally pointless stuff together during this week. we are catching up on the Marvel films i/we missed—which required starting over from the beginning, as my OCD would settle for nothing less.

we were also considering taking a drive out to visit a wildlife park about and hour outside of Montreal. it is one of those places where you drive through the grounds, and you are encouraged to bring carrots to feed the animals that come up to your car. we went there during the Summer (i will talk more about that in a few days), and we wanted to see how the place looks during the Winter. that will have to wait till my lungs are up to inhaling sub-zero air again.

the one thing i was most looking forward to though, was a visit to a shop right here in Montreal that sells supplies for making things like soap and candles. i can easily order those items online, but i wanted to go sample their full range of fragrances, so i can finally get around to making some scented candles of my very own. he even agreed to help with the sampling and the candle-making. however, choosing scented oils would prove quite difficult just now, especially with the tissue shoved up both nostrils and three solid days of breathing only through my mouth. such an attractive picture, i know.

so, he abandoned me for a couple-few days. he is off having winter-time fun with the nephews, and i... well... i am working my way through an impressive amount of tissues and over-the-counter cold medicine.

then there was that other thing i had hoped to get done during this week. i finally have all the pieces completed to put together the Bright Star blanket i was slow-knitting for the past two years. cat sold separately.

the second i finished arranging the last piece, she showed up out of nowhere, and plopped herself down smack-dab in the middle of the thing, and she absolutely refused to move. i finally convinced her to shift far enough so i could get a picture of the center of the motif. ta da!!!

then i realized that the top corner pieces needed to be switched around, so i sorted that bit. ta da (for real this time)!!!

it is going to take a whole lot of patience, and a lot of alcohol, to assemble this thing, and i was hoping to get that done while we were watching stuff together this week. instead, i am wrapped up in bed, alternating between pulling the covers over my head because i am shivering, and tossing them aside because i am burning up. but i can sorta-kinda taste again, so i guess that is something to be happy about.

a beautiful time of day...

it is the "orange hour of the day". that being the time when the setting sun is at or near horizontal alignment with our windows, sending a wash of warm, golden-orange light flooding through the whole place. it is a breath-taking experience, even at this time of the year when that hour is really more like an orange five minutes.

this is the closest we have come to a bright, sunshine-filled day in weeks here in Metropolis North. pardon me... Métropole Nord. almost forgot where i was for a moment. it has been cold, wet (with either freezing rain or wet snow), and depressingly grey... day... after day... after day. so, while it is currently well below freezing—even in the middle of the day—i am pleased as punch (i still have no idea what punch has to do with being pleased) to see sunlight filling the air.

i had toyed with the idea of doing a blog-a-day during December, but i simply could not muster the enthusiasm to get it done. unlike the usual 'countdown to the holidays' that tends to fill most vlogs/blogs at this time of year, i planned on talking a bit each day about the thirty-one movies we watched during October, when i foolishly allowed myself to be talked into a movie-a-day in the lead-up to Halloween. maybe i will save that for January, when i will (hopefully) be in a slightly-less-unexcited frame of mind.

there is one thing i am super-excited about at present. i am in the homestretch on that blanket i was working on more than a year ago. [scroll past the baby blanket my mom conned me into knitting for her co-worker, and you will find the Bright Star blanket by my favorite designer Norah Gaughan.]

ta da!!!

okay, so there are still quite a few gaps to be filled in before i can call this one finished... plus all the pieces have to be sewn together... and all of those ends have to be woven it... and i would probably want to add some sort of border around the edges. all of that aside, this blanket is practically... almost... nearly finished. trust me... sorta.

i am done with all of the multi-colored full squares, as well as what i am calling the "notched" squares, and i am currently working on the solid-colored squares and rectangles. it should be noted that i had little-to-no problems working on the color-blocked bits. those solid pieces (light-grey, in my color scheme), however, have proven to be quite the pain.

i set this project aside for a while, and it seems that my knitting tension has changed significantly in that time. so much so, that i had to re-knit the first of the light-grey squares a whopping SIX TIMES before i finally got something the same size as the color-block squares. turns out i just had to swap for a smaller-sized needle. [you can mentally insert the sound of me growling like a rabid lunatic here.]

once i get done with that step (hopefully, tonight), i will need to knit a few smaller multi-colored blocks for the corners, then i can move on to the assembling stage. i should (hopefully... maybe) have all of the pieces ready to go by the end of this week. then i can start sewing them together to make a blanket. however, there is always the possibility that i may stuff them into a handy storage case and forget about them for a few more years.

this blanket-to-be is made from some super-scratchy alpaca (i think) yarn that i had in my stash for ages. my delicate princess skin cannot tolerate such things, so it will become a future couch-blanket for everyone... but me. and, while i may occasionally feel left out to see my favorite animator wrapped up in said blanket, snoring away on a sofa, with a kitty or three napping next to him for company, this epic project will have earned me enough crafting-karma so that my next few yarn purchases will (hopefully... maybe) go unnoticed.

the sun has slipped almost entirely out of view by now, and all that remains are the  slivers of clouds tinted salmon and lavender-grey along the horizon. there is a small cat pressed up against my thigh, fast asleep, recharging her energy for all of the antics that will take place later in the evening. it really is a beautiful time of day.

somebody somewhere somewhat somehow sometime...

i finished that blanket for somebody's baby, and it is currently sitting in a post office somewhere in Brooklyn. i hope mom likes it, and that the lady she intends to gift it to likes it even more.

this is the Daisy Garden Baby Blanket by Stephanie Boozer. the yarn is a light clayish-beigey-taupelike color, as mom instructed requested that it be gender-neutral, but non-white, in case the recipient wanted to use it for future babies. i could have made a sweater in the time i spent working on this thing. that being said, it is rather lovely (she says modestly).

the alternating solid and textured blocks separated by bands of seed stitch create a patchwork effect. i opted to go for seven blocks across and seven blocks high, because it is the most awesome of all the numbers. i was not willing to risk my life on a ladder to prove that there are in fact forty-nine blocks, so you will just have to trust me on that one.

there were a few balls of yarn remaining, so i picked up stitches all around, and extended the seed stitch border. said border could have been wider still, but i had to tap out before i completely lost the will to live, so there are a couple balls of this yarn floating around in the stash.

a quick flip of the corner reveals the ridge created by the picked-up stitches.

the blanket is lovely and squishy, thanks to a round yarn that allows the textured stitches to pop.

it feels like you are running your fingers over teeny tiny bubble wrap.

i wanted that dimensional element to carry through to the bound-off edge, so i opted to finish with an applied i-cord. the i-cord was only two stitches wide, but it was enough to provide the desired definition along the edge.

there is somewhat of a picture-frame effect with the added border and the i-cord edge. i like it!

this is a lovely design for a blanket (for a baby, or otherwise), and i would recommend it to anyone looking for the same. [i mentioned in my last post that i had trouble finding the free pattern in the location linked on Ravelry, so i contacted the designer who sent me a copy. the link has since disappeared from the pattern page, so it may take a bit more effort to track it down in future.]

i was absolutely drained by the time this was done, so i needed an instant-gratification project to recharge the crafting spirit. i purchased some lavender last summer, a tiny portion of which was used in my soap-making adventure. [aside: that soap with all the nubbly bits of oatmeal is a-maz-ing if you, like me, enjoy serious exfoliation when you bathe]. this seemed like a good time to (finally) put the rest of the lavender to the original intended purpose. note three containers, each one a different variety of lavender.

what was the point of buying three varieties if they were going to end up mixed together, you ask? because i do so love a blend, i reply.

i had an assortment of those little bags people use for handing out favors at cheerful events. keeping moths away from my fiber stash seems plenty cheerful to me.

the next part is a bit tricky. grab a bag...

shove a bit of lavender in there somehow...

and tie it all up. repeat until you run out of bags or lavender... or both.

i made about thirty moth-repelling sachets in total, most of which have since been tucked away inside bags of yarn. i may toss a few into my clothes drawers. sometimes you want a bit of floral freshness, even when you are just searching for socks.

(wo)man-listening and other attempts at tying up loose ends...

i am working on a baby blanket, and i may have to disown my own mother before it is done. now, let me just take a moment to clarify (for anyone who may be jumping to so-not-ever gonna-happen conclusions) that this blanket has less-than-nothing to do with me.

mom: one of the ladies who works downstairs from me is having a baby.
me: uh huh... [but mostly wondering why she is telling this to me].
mom: i have to get her a gift before she goes on leave.
me: uh huh... [i think i see where this is going].
mom: i was wondering if you could knit a blanket for the baby.
me: uh huh... [just as i suspected].

i do not usually take special requests, but mom is extra-special, so knit a blanket i did! the pattern is the Daisy Garden Baby Blanket by Stephanie Boozer. it is a free pattern, but i could not find it where it was supposed to be posted. i contacted the designer, and she emailed me a copy. thank you, Stephanie! there is technically enough blanket to call it quits at this point, but i really want to get every last inch centimeter of this yarn out of my home, so i am going round and round the edges to use up as much of it as i can before giving it a quick wash and tossing it in the mail. hopefully i will remember to take a few quick pics when it is done. till then, it will remain a scrunched-up mass that i carry from room-to-room like my very own ball-and-chain. thanks, mom.

there is also the never-ending project i like to call the "slow burn", parts of which are currently housed in a box that once contained a pair of men's snow boots (sized US11, if you really need all the details), but i will soon have to find it some more spacious digs.

open the top to reveal... a colorful square.

it is actually a whole stack of colorful squares.

i mentioned, somewhere back in August last year, that i had unearthed some yarn from deep-stash that i planned to use for a long-term project.

that project is the Bright Star blanket by... you guess it... Norah Gaughan. you probably already know how i feel about Norah, but i was genuinely obsessed with this blanket for at least a few years before i found the courage (and the yarn) to give it a go. the blanket consist of large mitered squares that will be joined together to magically form the overall design. i am almost done making the first set of squares (all sixteen of them) before moving on to the next motif. for the record, these are not dainty little squares. oh, no no no! note Altoids tin for comparison. the people over at Altoids are gonna owe me big time when this becomes a universally-recognized unit of measurement.

this is a paid-for pattern, so i will not go into any specifics of the design, other than to say that it employs a whole lot of intarsia, which involves using different yarns to create blocks of color within a piece. an eponymous technique is commonly used in woodworking to create end products that are pieced together almost like a jigsaw puzzle. in knitting, this requires the juggling of more than one ball of yarn within the same row. for this project, i am using four balls at a time to create most of the square before switching over to the lilac section.

this is the setup at the start of a new square. note the use of four balls of yarn at this point.

for the sake of sanity, i keep the active balls in a plastic bowl. yep... not gonna touch that one. moving on.

to make things even more joyous, i am using the yarn doubled (as it was too thin for the project), which means twice as many ends to weave in when it is done. yep... definitely gonna be taking my time with this one.

in other news, the seedlings are coming along just fine. i added a light over the table to give them a bit of nocturnal encouragement. it is not a regulation grow-lamp, but i figure every little bit helps.

the kitties have had already had a go or two at the cat grass, so it looks a bit mangled. i would like to say that it is a reward for good behavior, but there are no words for that concept in their language.

as expected, the zukes were the first thing out of the soil, and they are already outgrowing the container. if you look closely, you just might spot a cat.

seems she has found a new fave place to nap.

then there was that minor epiphany while washing shampoo out of my eye. [random aside: do not ever try to make sense of life while soap suds are sliding down your face]. i had just finished a long conversation with mom before hopping in the shower, and i was replaying the conversation in my head. well... i was replaying my behavior during most of the conversation inside my head, when it hit me. that must be what man-listening feels like.

she said something, and i responded with "uh huh". she even paused a few times to ask if i was listening, which is when i switched briefly to, "yep... still here", before going back to the standard "uh huh". i could not wait to share this new revelation with my favorite animator.

me: i have to talk about this in my next post.
him: you know your mom will kill you if she sees that, right?
me: she doesn't read my blog.
him: you told her about it.
me: i may have mentioned it once or twice... but i doubt she was really listening.