This year, even though nearly everything was different (the whole family was together, there was much more coffee than tea, and I didn’t really have time to watch anything since I was making some very complicated dinners for Xmas Eve and Xmas Day) I found myself back in December, making a second Terra.

The first Terra, was made from two skeins of Noro Sock and some leftover Organic Wool.

All the yarn had been slated for other projects, but they somehow came together harmoniously to make an extremely cozy and thick shawl that is probably best suited as a lap blanket than anything else.

There was a very small amount of yarn left. Pretty awesome ending if you ask me.

But, that’s not actually the end, since this is only the first Terra. The second started back in… June 2011 when a very dear friend announced his engagement to a very lovely girl. I consulted with him about what to make her, and came up with the following suggestions

1. Nothing too fancy/lacy

2. PURPLE

Done and done. I found some Madeline Tosh Light Merino (my current obsession) in a pink/purple color called Flashdance and set to finding a pattern. My first choice was Gale, but it was scrapped after several dozen rows. I wasn’t really happy with the way the yarn and pattern were working out together.

Next up was the Shieffelin Point Shawl, also scrapped soon after it was started. I don’t really think that the fingering weight was suited to a DK weight pattern. I probably should have known better, but sometimes substitutions like that work out fine.

Take three was Herbivore. Once again, there was probably a pattern/yarn problem… I honestly don’t remember anymore. All I know is that for take 4 I decided to go with Terra again. It had the things I wanted (a textured but plain body and some not-too-fancy edge bits), plus I had made it before so I knew it would work out fine.

Deja vu all over again.

I finished this shawl less than 24 hours before heading to Boston for a visit. (It would have been less of a crunch if I hadn’t made an annoying mess during the bind off that made me put the shawl on hold for a few days while I calmed down.) I boarded a bus on a Saturday afternoon with a still slightly damp shawl and delivered it to a very happy soon to be married lady that same evening.

Once again I was left with a minimal amount of yarn (no photo of that).

Is this the last we’ll see of the Terras? Probably not. While I doubt I’d make another for myself, Terra is a great pattern and I may need to whip up a shawl for someone in the future. There may in fact be a Terra three before you know it.

Well, I haven’t really been hanging out on the internet, for starters.

I’ve been working on semi-secret projects. The holiday season is coming, after all.

I have been getting to know my new cats.

I have been WRITING like a fiend. I am less than 3,500 words away from finishing NaNoWriMo.

And I did this. Eep.

I think you’ll recognize something in there.

I’m having a lazy Sunday. My Mr. made me some tea and served it to me with a bagel from last night’s outing to Mile End, and I have a 18.5 pound Muswell Hill cuddling next to me.

Wheels and birds and polka dots. Exciting!

In December I got a subscription to the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club. Unlike any other yarn or fiber club I’ve been a part of they send the international stuff out first, so I get my monthly installments on time. I have about nine months worth of fiber stored up now. I started spinning January’s installment at the beginning of the summer.

Honestly, this has been the only thing on my wheel all summer. Last summer there were a few spinning parties, but this summer things have changed and I’ve been spinning alone which kind of means not at all.

I finished the 4 ounces early last week. All that’s left now is the plying.

Minou and Mr. NotCharles helped with pinning the sandwich.

And then I started feeling sad that Minou and I wouldn’t get very much time to cuddle with the finished quilt, so we cuddled with the sandwich. Minou really loved the quilt. It sort of makes me wish I had started quilting years ago, since it was something we could have enjoyed together.

Once the quilting was done I swiped some extras from the baby quilts for the binding (it was the perfect choice). The backing was an old sheet, which fit in with the vintage sheets look of the Dream On fabric.

Then I washed the quilt and put it on the back of the couch, where Minou could nap on it if she wished. When I came back from vacation in late June and Minou had moved out, there was lots of her fur left on the quilt, which I could not bring myself to remove.

Now that the quilt is finished, I’ve found that it’s very good for napping with, kind of like I’m still napping with Minou.

Pussycat approved.

Making three quilts as a initiation to quilting may sound crazy to some, but it sounds just right to me. While a lot of people are interested in making things perfect, I am more interested in making things and while they might not turn out picture perfect in the end, I end up learning more from any mistakes I make than I would learn from reading about the process in a book.

Here’s a timeline for the two baby quilts. If you’d like to see photos of the quilts, they can be found here, here and here. (It turns out that I barely took any photos of this huge project, despite the fact that it spent a year in my house.)

mid September – Three of my friends and I find out that two of our other friends are with child, and this lady convinces us to make two baby quilts despite the fact that none of us have ever quilted before in our lives.

late September – We all take a trip to the fabric store to choose fat quarters. We spend much more time there than we first planned, choosing, debating and rechoosing fabrics. In the end we end up with some that were thrown out in the first round, much to my amusement.

early November – We all get together for all-day square construction followed by pizza and beer. As soon as we decide how big the squares should be Sarah decides to make a square two inches larger than that. One of us gets frustrated with a rotary cutter. Another cuts her first batch of triangles the wrong size. I burn myself on an iron. We split up all the fabric and take it home. No squares have been finished.

December – We chat off and on about the quilt timeline. To date, I have completed the most squares. “I’m almost done.” I say. “You guys had better get to work on your squares.”
We decide to take advantage of free time over the holidays and set a deadline for ourselves: all squares will be finished by mid January.

mid January – I return from my vacation to find that everyone has finished their squares except for me. Oops.

early February – Mr. NotCharles has a birthday party. I abscond with the ladies to the crafting room to finish squares. We talk about piecing the quilt top soon, because the babies are nearly here. We reassure ourselves that the quilts don’t need to be ready before the babies are. I finally finish all my squares.

mid March – Mr. NotCharles goes away and Sarah and I spend an entire weekend at my place (with each of the other girls working one of the day shifts) finishing the squares by adding borders to ALL of them to match Sarah’s squares, which are all two inches larger. Saturday involves marshmallow peeps (not for me) and both Ghostbusters movies and Sunday involves a trip to Fabricville to buy binding, batting and backing. All of us have colds or something and we all feel different shades of terrible, but we must quilt on! I keep cutting the fabric wrong. We drink cider and eat tortilla chips and finally finish all the squares. Every conversation that begins with “I think I messed up…” ends with “…the babies won’t care.”

mid April – Sarah and I piece the quilt tops and pin the sandwiches together (with help).

Meanwhile, the babies are born, and sometime in early June we remember we were making quilts for them. We decide to get back on that, and I quilt both of them and hand them over to Sarah for the binding, which she hand sews over the course of a day or two. Now we have quilts.

But because we’re busy ladies, it took us until late August to get the quilts to the babies. The grand unveiling was this past Sunday though and it went well. The secret was out, everyone was surprised and our year’s worth of hard work was worth it.

I bought the yarn back in March to possibly make some socks for my mom, but she had other yarn for me to work with.

I started them on a train somewhere in upstate NY and finished them in a hotel room in Toronto.

They were pretty much the only thing I knit on this summer. I’ve been doing other crafty stuff like quilting, embroidery and rearranging my studio space. It’s still in a state of chaos at the moment, but it’s coming together. I have all my fabric and yarn organized and I even have things set up enough to do some sewing (like those bicycle blocks I made the other day).

These fabrics are from a pack of coordinating half yards I bought at the end of June. It’s going to be a bike quilt! Very exciting.

She didn’t go far, only across town to live with her father. It was bound to happen someday. Minou was never officially my cat, I merely moved into her bedroom almost six years ago and took on the role of her human, providing warmth, comfort and entertainment for her, as requested. In return she became my best friend in the whole wide world. It was a pretty good deal. I feel extremely confident in saying that there will never be a better cat in the world than Minou and I think most people who met her would agree.

Minou turned everyone she met into a cat person. She sat in your lap like she belonged there. She loved wool (to a fault) and caves and being chased around. She wasn’t a smart cat, but she knew what comfort was.

It’s a little silly to be talking about her in the past tense though, as she is alive and well and living in Rosemont. I’ve even gone to visit her in her new digs, where she’s the only cat in the house and has two balconies and her father all to herself. Even though it’s sad to not have her around anymore, I know she’ll be fine.

Just a few days after getting the news that Minou would be leaving I read this blog post. After that I pretty much knew what I had to do. These boys had to come live with me. Just a week before, the only way I ever could have taken another cat in (let alone two) was if I had one less cat (not to mention an extra bedroom). When I think of the other ways that situation could have happened, I figure this one was the best possible. This way everyone is still alive and everyone still has a loving home where they’ll be taken good care of, we’ve all just been rearranged.

So last week, after lots of cleaning, some new furniture delivery, and about a month of Diva thinking she was the new queen of the apartment, the dudes moved in.

And so far, things have been… pretty much the way you’d expect when two chill dudes move in with a high maintenance lady cat.