Such Sweet Hands

(I started this entry sometime in March or early April)

I started this granny project about a year ago, but it went into certain hibernation for many months. One reason for the hibernation? The cubby box that holds all the yarn for the grannies became the favorite cute and cuddly curl up spot for Tiger Lily. What can I say? The girl has great taste. I’m sure if I ever finish the granny project she’ll want to sleep on the blanket, but probably enjoys the fluff of so many skeins and balls of yarn piled on top of each other even more. When I finally reclaimed the box from her I found skeins shaped like trapezoids. All the yarn had just been flattened and squooshed… at least I know they were squooshed with the loving attention of a sweet cat making her bed. Of course I did cover the yarn stash, I placed a couple of layers of towels on top of the cubby so her “nest” didn’t become a nest of fur in my yarn! Yeah, if I wasn’t such a weirdo, if I was practical, I wouldn’t have let her sleep there anyway. I would have moved the cubby box and kept her away from it. I did try to make her a bed with another cubby box, but no amount of folded towels could create the same cat approved nap spot as a pile of Blue Sky Cotton and Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille.

So I rescued the yarn and grannies from the cubby, replaced it with yarn I’m less interested in, and put some towels on top in case Tiger Lily decides the cubby is still worthy of her naps.

I was in a real funk at the time. Unsure whether I wanted to continue to contribute to the craft world as a designer and often overheard as saying I just wanted to send all the yarn away and turn my “office” back into a dining room. So, while I was feeling totally uninterested in making any designs that had to be pitched, written up, edited, and such, I found myself laying on the couch and staring at this small collection of grannies spread out on the rug in front of me.

Shuffling the squares around like puzzle pieces or building blocks led to catching up on weaving in their ends. A few days later the squares still lounged on the rug while I started sorting out all those squooshed balls of yarn. The balls of yarn got thrown into the mix on the rug and finally I couldn’t resist grabbing a hook and playing with all those great colors to make some more squares.

So the whole time I was babbling about getting a job out in the real world and saying I had no crochet mojo left I was cuddled up to all these granny squares…

Insert balls of yarn instead of sweaters and you have my Tiger Lily…

I’ve mentioned before that Tiger Lily (sometimes I spell it Lilly, just because it looks silly) is camera shy.  She’s simply shy about most things.  But she trusts me.  She’ll sleep curled up close to me at night, she follows me around the apartment sometimes, when she’s bored she’ll come get me to play with her, she’s developed a pesky but adorable habit of “begging” for table scraps without begging, and she’s simply the sweetest little thing.  Of course this sweetness is multiplied many times because she trusts me more than anyone else and only trusts two people at all.

The girl enjoys an afternoon sun nap.  Note, she’s not totally crashed out. She’s aware of the clicking camera, at any moment she may spring into action and dive behind her couch.  Yeah, she has her own couch….  that’s another story.

Kal grooms himself in the late afternoon sun.

A bird or other sound will distract Kal from his important task, he’ll sit like this a bit, then dive back into grooming.

This is all anyone in our household feels good for right now:

My sticky miserable sweaty waiting for handyman to fix the kitchen sink kind of day was instantly cheered by the smile on the puddle of fur.

I think this pose is worthy of Cute Overload, for more pics see my flickr.

~~We indulge our cats and let them have the tiniest bit of milk left at the bottom of our cereal bowls. This means that the sound of a spoon clattering in an almost empty bowl calls them to sit and stare at the cereal eater, they don’t blink when they sit like this. Why am I telling you this? At this moment, I’m slowly eating a bowl of Kashi Strawberry Fields while working on this blog entry. Kal has been sitting at my side (unblinking) for what he considers to be too long to wait for that tiny bit of milk. He’s attempting to take matters into his own hands, standing on his back paws with his front paws on my desk, trying to see the cereal bowl. He is very concerned he’s not going to get his milk… ~~

I visited Kinokuniya in Little Tokyo for a Sunday Japanese Craft Book Happy Spectacular with my friend Bridgid. Bridgid is the kind of cool librarian who really keeps up on things and looks for cool stuff for the young adult readers set. She has a knitting group going and everything. And of course, she’s been curious to see if she can find an amigurumi book that would be appropriate for her library.

Bridgid and I had a good time catching up on each other’s lives while flipping through the books. We went through almost all of the craft books, I found so many inspiring things. I certainly got some ideas for an upcoming podcast. I poured over the amigurumi books and Ooohed and gushed over the cuteness. And don’t get me started on the way Japanese quilt books inspire my crochet thoughts…

In the end I only brought one book home with me. This book rocks. I love stitch pattern guides and this one has some combos I haven’t seen before. Each stitch pattern has a clear symbol guide. There is no need for language in this book, only some understanding of crochet. If you need explanation of a specific stitch symbol in one of the patterns, that symbol can be found in the back of the book alongside step by step illustrations. A variety of yarns are used to showcase the feel of different patterns and all of the yarns seem to be no thicker than a DK weight. It will be interesting to see how these patterns play out in thicker yarns.

The Book: ISBN 4-529-02890-9

And why don’t I visit Little Tokyo more often? That well of fantastic craft books not to mention all the other inspiring Japanese twists on my Los Angeles life. I feel so silly for not visiting for years. When we get back from London I plan to spend another lazy afternoon perusing the shops.

Kal considers some swatches.