Goodbye Shinji

We lost our dear, sweet Shinji to a brain tumor on Friday, July 22. It was a tough summer between the two weeks leading up to his death and the grieving afterward. I never realized exactly how much I cared about him or how big of a hole he would leave in our lives until he was gone. To this day, it's hard to walk around the house and not get choked up as I pass one of his favorite spots or remember that he's not around to greet me at the door anymore.

He was the nicest cat and always loved greeting visitors and making them feel welcome. He had the smoothest, silkiest fur and was always ready to be cuddled or petted. His love for eating Cheez-its and licking plastic bags was unmeasured.

Whenever I want to feel even more depressed, you can count on me to be looking at senior, special needs cats up for adoption on petfinder.com. Jon has pretty much banned me from looking at the site because of how emotional I get. I'm not sure when or if we'll get another cat. Shinji was just the best.



My library did the sweetest thing for me in honor of Shinji! They plated a picture book in his memory for our bookmobile collection. I was so touched! The book perfectly describes him and is a darling book if you are in search of a sweet cat book.

Mail Sack

I've had the Pink Chalk Studie Mail Sack pattern sitting around in my stash for at least a year now. In an attempt to use what I have, I decided to finally put this together a few months ago.


The pattern was extremely well written and I was able to put this together in a few hours. I'd definitely recommend it!




Now, if only I could walk around the neighborhood with a kitty in tow and not get strange looks!

Playing Catch up

It's been a busy few weeks around here, so sorry for being light on the crafty posting these days. Here's the brief, bullet point list of some of what's been going on...

- I finished knitting and blocking my Hela cardigan. I tried it on for kicks and nearly died of heat stroke. The words "Get me out of this thing" may or may not have been yelled to Jon during the process. Once I pick out a zipper, I'll begin the steeking process.


- I (along with the kitties) cast on for Jon's Icelandic Sweater, Stapi, last Wednesday, but have not touched it since. He picked out the yarn colors and pattern on our trip to Toronto in March.




- Jon and I discovered the most fabulous ice cream bars! If you like Almond Joy, you'll love these So Delicious Dark Chocolate Almond Coconut Bars. Yum Yum!


- I'm a bit behind in my bee blocks, so I'm going to be busy this weekend playing catch up. If all goes well, 3 out of 5 of these will be on time!



- I'm also participating in the Doll Quilt Swap #9 this year. My partner likes bright colors and graphic designs, so it's right up my alley. I've been tossing around ideas in my head for quite a while now and hope to finish up the quilt this weekend. My quilt from round #7 was featured on Angela's favorites list on the Doll Quilt Swap blog last week. Thanks, Angela!

remind me to never spend time sewing a cat bed

Our little kitties would much rather sleep in a ratty takeout box (our remnants of Thai food on the 4th of July - sacrilege really).

cute overload

Jon called me into the living room on Sunday so that I could see this...





eek...those kitties are too cute! He couldn't get him to leave his lap for some extra space for his computer for the life of him!

reading time

I started a long to-read list while I was doing my library practicum last semester and as soon as I was finished with school I placed a bunch of books on hold. Now, I've been playing a game with myself by trying to read these books before they're due.

I've also been more diligent in keeping my goodreads page up to date. You can friend me and see what I've been reading by clicking on the goodreads link in the sidebar of my website.


It's fun to sit on the couch with Jon and the kitties at night and lounge and read instead of researching or writing papers on my computer.

PS. My Kandinsky quilt was featured on the blog, quiltporn, on Sunday. Wendy has been featuring gorgeous quilts on her blog. Check it out!

afternoon treats

- Talking to Jon on his way to class

- catching a cat nap


- Discovering a new brand of Peanut butter (and a dairy free recipe for homemade Nutella - thanks Jodi!). I will definitely be trying the Cinnamon Raisin kind next.


- Finishing up another quilt top (in all it's wrinkly goodness) - made using this tutorial

catching up

I spent Sunday catching up on life around our house. Now our pantry is stocked, laundry is finished (and put away!), soups are stored in the freezer and my head is clear and ready for another week. It feels good to get things accomplished.


I made the most delicious loaf of Mediterranean Olive, Sun Dried Tomato and Walnut bread from The Joy of Vegan Baking. So delicious! I'll share the recipe later this week. The second favorite recipe I made was the Pickle Soup from Love Soup...so yummy!


I started working on my failed Ravelympics project again. It's coming along much better now and I hope to have it finished by this weekend.


Jon and I have been burning the candle at both ends, so it was nice to have a day to get caught up on things and relax before the start of another busy week.

green projects

It seems like my big craftwind last week has died down. I managed to
tweak out these two projects before life got the better of me.

First
up is a few cat pillows for around the house. I found this microfleece
blanket for $5 and was able to make 3 pillows out of it (with lots of
leftover fabric) for the cats so I was glad to find such an inexpensive
piece of fabric to use. The pillows are your basic rectangle stuffed
loosely with fiberfill. The cats like to sleep on the floor in front of
our heating vents, so I made two for in front of the vents and one for the couch. (Mental note: buying a dark couch is not such a good idea when you have light colored cats...we are constantly vacuuming fur off the grey surface). As soon as I finished the first pillow and set it
on the floor, NukuNuku jumped off my lap and splayed herself across the
pillow. It's always nice when someone appreciates my work! Even though
we have three pillows, they always seem to be fighting over the use of
whichever pillow the other cat is using.

Nuku Nuku thinks I iron everything too well...she always likes to make sure everything is sufficiently scrunched up.

I also finished my green quilt top. This was modeled after my other
baby quilts (here and here) and the blocks in this quilt are 5" square instead of 2.5"
square. I used 10 fat quarters from the Timeless Treasures Apple
Collection and 3.5 yards of fabric for the top. I was able to cut 12
five inch squares out of each fat quarter, for a total of 120 squares
that were then cut in half. I cut the green fabric into 5" wide strips
and cut out 120 squares from each strip and used the remaining fabric
for a border.

The quilt is 14 blocks wide and 16 blocks tall with a 5" border of sashing around the edge. From my estimates, the quilt is approximately 72x81. I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt this yet. I was thinking about doing some straight line stitching a quarter inch in from each seam to make concentric squares, but I might just stick with basic stippling. Any ideas?

I was planning on giving this away as a gift (I don't think the person reads my blog), but after I told Jon my
intentions, he became very protective of it. Hopefully he'll let me
part with it!

shinji's shennanigans

All cats are strange. Sometimes, Shinji is really weird. He's totally in love with Jon and, if he could, he would spend all day on Jon's lap looking up into his eyes lovingly. Because that's not possible...he gets a little creative with his poses...

study time and no room on Jon's lap. No problem, position yourself precariously on his shoulders and the back of his chair

 

Jon leans over to check to see if the amount of liquid he's measuring is correct...perfect time to jump on his back to rest!

Merry Christmas!

learning to knit

Last night I finally was able to sit down with Jon and teach him how to knit (along with the aid of knittinghelp.com). I knew he would catch on quickly, but even he surprised me with how fast he picked it up. About an hour into his lesson, he was searching for techniques to increase speed. He finished about 8 inches of a scarf in three hours. He'll be making sweaters like Jared Flood in no time.

Of course, the cats were slowing him down a bit. Now he understands how hard it is for me to knit when the cats are chasing after my yarn and sitting on my projects! 

summer afternoons

there's nothing nicer on a hot afternoon than a long nap under a cool fan (other than ice cream, that is)!

the kitties want more screen time here!

I shot these photos last weekend when I caught Shinji and Jon catching up on some bonding time. Shinji has a major crush on Jon and often looks up lovingly into his eyes as they share a special moment together (much to my dismay). Shinji has always been jealous of me because I took Jon away from him. In fact, just after we got married, I woke up to find Shinji sprawled out between us, pushing us toward opposite ends of the bed. Jealous much?! Shinji still sleeps between us, but he has finally started to warm up to me. One out of ten times he will even choose me over Jon. Success!

Lately, Shinji and Nuku Nuku have become very enamored with the world of blogging and emailing. They're always trying to help us out by pushing the space bar to scroll to the bottom of the page while we're reading and by highlighting text whenever we need to do a quick copy/paste. And they're especially good at helping us type posts and emails. They're spelling isn't so good, so they often type words that contain only one letter continuously, but we're holding out hope for improvement in this area!

And, horror of horrors, Nuku Nuku has figured out how to press the "num lock" key on my keyboard with her paw. The first time she did it, I was majorly panicked because I thought my computer had died, but luckily, I figured out what she had done just before I went to call the Apple helpline. I'm glad I didn't embarrass my self with that question: "Only the 9 center keys are working, and they are just typing out numbers. What should I do?" I'm a smart one, you know!

Stay tuned...the kitties are pressuring me to finish their cat nip toys. Will I finish them before the cat nip goes stale? Hard to say...

new hat

I finished up my first hat last night. I found a pattern for an easy hat here and then adjusted it for my yarn. I used Red Heart Soft Yarn from Joanns and cast on 104 stitches on size 6 16" circular needles. From there I followed the pattern until the end. I ran into a few problems at the end when I realized how useful double pointed needles would have been. The ends of my adjustable circular needles just weren't cutting it, but I made it work and was able to finish the hat without

having to purchase a new tool.

I wanted Shinji to model the hat for me, but he was clearly not a fan!

Don't worry...he forgave me two minutes later after I gave him a nice head scratch and belly rub!

happy halloween

It's our first halloween in our new house and consequently our first time passing out candy to all the neighborhood kids. Shinji is being a good sport greeting all the trick-or-treaters at the door while we hand out the candy. He's been very popular with the kids.

And Nuku Nuku is holing up in the basement enjoying my new quilt.

embroidered tote bag

While Nuku Nuku was busy napping this weekend, I made a little tote bag to replace my current handbag.

I made the little circle pattern on the front of the bag in photoshop and then used a transfer marker to trace it onto the fabric. I just used the standard stem stitch and embroidery thread that matches the bag lining.

The bag came together quickly until I got to the handle assembly. A few hours, two sore thumbs and two sore forefingers later, I was able to turn them inside out and top-stitch them. Ouch that hurt. What hurt even more was reading about a much easier way to sew handles with linings in Bend the Rules Sewing...oh, well, next time right?