Kitty Cat Laws of Physics

You might be familiar with the Cartoon Laws of Physics, which are quite different from the laws of physics that the rest of us follow.

I suggest that there are Kitty Cat Laws of Physics. The main points are that A) a cat body at rest will gain mass the longer it is at rest and B) it will molecularly bond to the surface it is resting on. Here's why I believe this. This cat weighs no more than 10 pounds:



Normally she's pretty jumpy and moves at smallest noise or movement. However, once she settles herself on the bed at night, she becomes nearly immovable. You practically have to pick her up and throw her off the bed. And somehow, she finds the perfect location for preventing the human(s) from getting comfortable. Also? She steals the covers.

Fortunately for her, she's also very cute.

I think I mentioned that I spent the first day of the new year in my sewing room attempting to organize my beads, and getting distracted in the process. It continues....


Blue beads on navy wire with silver spacer beads and coordinating (but not matching) earrings


Blue and turquoise beads with gold beads and bead caps and matching earrings


More stitch markers (!)

I mostly made all that stuff because I didn't want to store the beads anymore. As is it, I still have more beads than fit in my rather large bead box, so I now have a large bead box with many organizers in it, a smaller box with more organizers in it and another separate organizer. I don't need any more beads.

Or beaded ornament kits:



I made four each of these which are 6-8" long or so. They're bigger than I imagined when I ordered them (even though the dimensions were listed). I kept two each of the straight ones, and one each of the ones with the stars. I kept all of the blue ones, because I like them even though they're big.

Sad thing? I still have a whole tray of various beaded ornament kits in a different craft box. I can't seem to stop...

In other news, I can now blog one of my stealth knitting projects - fingerless mitts!





They are the Keep Me Warm Mitts in Queensland Merino Spray yarn in the lime colorway. The recipient loved them. She works in a data center and is always cold. Which is why I thought they'd be a perfect project for her. I also made her this 2-strand bracelet:



I was less excited about this part of the gift. I made it mostly because I liked the silver and crystal beads and knew she'd love the color. This was my 3rd or 4th attempt to get the two strands the same length. It was a lot harder than it seemed like it should be. I told her she was welcome to take it apart and re-do it, or scrap the whole thing altogether and use the beads for something else. She was very nice and said it looked fine.

For a change of pace, a (crappy cell phone) dog picture:


My friend, Buddy

That's Buddy, my friend Beth's Doberman. I went to her house to bake cookies before Christmas. She let Buddy out, then I let him in and gave him a treat. After that, I was his best friend. He's a really good, gentle dog.

Public Service Announcement

The weather is cold and nasty. If you have long stretches of time with not much to do and aren't opposed to some violence and frequent utterances of "Dammit!," Best Buy has all seasons of crack - I mean 24, on sale for $13.99 each. I haven't been able to find used ones that cheap. I already ordered my copies of the seasons we don't have yet, so I figure it's safe to share . ;-) Hurry, they're only on sale Sunday and Monday

Now I just have to wait till May for Season 8 to come out on DVD. I'm not sure I can watch it week-to-week and stay sane.....

Funny related note: I'm reading Patient Zero, by Jonathan Maberry (I like it so far, though I did dream about zombies one night after reading it). The main character has just been told they want him to lead the team to find/stop the zombies. This follows:

"....Why were they asking me? I'm just a cop. Where are the guys who actually do this for a living? How come none of them were here? Where's James Bond and Jack Bauer?...."

I laughed out loud. Jack Bauer would be perfect for fighting zombies. But we decided that adding zombies to 24 would be jumping the shark and we're not ready for that yet.

Kathryn doesn't like posts without pictures, and I haven't made any progress on anything crafty since Friday. So you get this:


"This is our chair!!"

Distraction 2010

Happy New Year!

And none too soon, if you ask me. 2009 was not a good year - full of vet bills, hospital visits and stressful events for friends and family. I'm definitely ready for a fresh start. How about you?

I met very few of my 2009 project goals, though I did accomplish a lot of other things. I've upped my goal on my Dear Jane quilt to 2/3 done. I thought about leaving it at half-way, but where's the challenge in that? I hope to make it to two UFO weekends the year so that should help. If I don't take anything else to work on, I should be able to make good progress. Don't quote me on that, though. :)

We spent New Year's Eve at home, as usual. We actually fell asleep on the couch and managed to wake up just in time to see the ball drop. We had a toast and went to bed.

Party animals:


Notice Max's extra long tail wrapped behind his shoulder

A few minutes later, they were joined by Runt:



Yesterday I spent all day in my sewing room, but not sewing. My goal was to organize my beads and craft supplies, get some of the newly-acquired yarn put away and generally dig out my sewing table so I can use it for it's intended purpose. Once again, I was distracted by shiny objects.

I found some more beads that I thought would make good stitch markers, so....



I'm not in love with the larger ones, but I couldn't really remember why I bought those red beads and I wanted to get them out of the bead stash. The small gold hearts were in a mixture of beads, like the purple ones from a week or two ago. I put them on smaller rings for use with smaller needles. One of these days I might take my friend's advice and open an Etsy shop. We'll see.

Then I found some old beads and a couple of snowflake charms that I really didn't want to store anymore. The beads have an AB coating on them and are pretty, even though they're plastic. I figured they'd work fine for Christmas ornaments that won't get much action.



The red and green beads on the smaller, center one were leftover from some old ornament kits. Yes, I am a pack rat, which is a good thing, since I needed more beads for that one. Let me tell you, those snowflake wires are a *LOT* harder to bend than the stuff I'm used to working with. Also, an arm (leg?) broke off one of them broke part way through so I had to start that one over. My hand is sore today.

This spool ornament was a make-and-take project from my December guild meeting. I skipped the make part at the meeting, and just took the supplies.



I finished it yesterday so I can put it in with the Christmas decorations.

After spending all day standing on a hardwood floor and bending over my sewing table, I curled up on the couch to watch an NCIS dvd. Emma decided to join me.


"I crawled under the quilt all by myself. It's warm under here...."

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Santa was good to us:


There are very few ornaments on the tree, due to the cats' love of taking them off.

I still don't have any crafty stuff to blog about, but there's no shortage of cat pictures.

Max decided he wants to go to work with me next time I go.


"This bag is just my size!"

We seem to have a new fetch player at our house.


"It was fun having Mama throw the mouse for me today!"

And this one spend a good part of the day in time-out:


"But Mama, your glass of milk was just sitting there. And after I got out of the first time out, I was hungry, and your rolls are so good..."

Easily distracted by shiny objects

I had Monday and Tuesday off this week. Today, too. I *should* have spent the time working like crazy on my stealth projects, since they are Christmas gifts.

Instead.....



I made a boatload of stitch markers and a pair of earrings. Actually I made 4 pairs of earrings. It's just that two of them were more peppermint candy earrings, and I've already posted those twice. The other pair I just didn't get a picture of.

I also re-strung my peppermint bracelet, which I dropped last week at work. Marble floors are *really* hard and glass beads are very brittle. I put a different toggle on the bracelet, so now it doesn't come undone when I move around.

I put this together, too.



It needs more of those glass beads inside, but I only had one bag of them. I'm thinking about mixing in some red beads instead, just to get some color in there. I should probably add some pretty ribbon around it and a bow on top, too. If/when I get around to that, I'll post another picture.

I did finish one of my stealth projects today. That just leaves one more to go. I'm not sure I 'm going to get it done in time. I better get busy.


"I'll help you, Mama!"

Mouse Wars 2009

One of my coworkers, Lisa, decorates our office every year for Christmas. This year, she brought in this calendar.



There's a little mouse that travels the pockets. Lisa says it's a count down calendar and started the mouse at 24 on Dec 1, as in 24 days till Christmas. The rest of us say it starts at 1, so Mousie goes in the pocket number of the date.

Thus started Mouse Wars. We kept putting Mousie in the pocket number of the date and Lisa kept moving it back, eventually stapling it in place. It was then unstapled, moved and safety pinned in place. Mousie disappeared, the calendar itself was moved out of a public area, and finally removed altogether. Mousie has been spotted around the office, though.





I have a feeling he'll really be getting around....

Personally, I think the calendar's defective. If it's meant to be a countdown calendar, the numbers should start at the top with 24. If it's meant to be more of a regular calendar, it should go all the way to 25. Confusing.

In other news, a friend of mine is an Uppercase Living consultant and she and couple of other consultants held a project night on Thursday. I made a couple of lamps. Here's the first one:



And the second:



The design wraps around 3 sides of both lamps. If you like the lamps themselves, you can get them at Ikea. I think craft stores carry vinyl stickers to put on them. Or you could contact and Uppercase Living consultant to get their stuff.

We also each got an ornament. I decorated both sides of mine:



We all got another expression. Mine is a "Welcome". Oh, and I won a $25 gift certificate. :-)

See this?



That's Blue's collar. Notice it's not around Blue's neck. I've been finding it in various places around the house in the morning, or when I get home. This morning I found it about 4 feet up in the as-yet-undecorated Christmas tree. He won't tell me how it got there. He got a new collar this afternoon. Hopefully it will stay on better.

The scene last night on the couch:


Yes, they're laying on a Halloween quilt.

A few minutes later:


Yes, that's the Christmas tree in the background. And....?

More beady goodness

We went to Crop Bistro for lunch today. I had the Mac and Brisket, which is a really yummy mac & cheese topped with pulled beef brisket. We were admiring the artwork but couldn't figure out what one of the pictures was. Any guesses?



Apparently it's Monstera Deliciosa - a weird fruit that grows in kernels on a central stalk, like corn. The whole plant is poisonous except the fruit, and that's only okay after it's ripe. Crazy. It sounds a little too dangerous for me - like eating blowfish. I think I'll pass

I had the day off Wednesday. I'm still working on my stealth projects, but I had intended to spend the day sewing. I did spend most of it in the sewing room, but I was playing with beads instead of fabric or yarn. Here's what I can show you.



I got the hematite rings, beads and crystals in the clearance bin at JoAnn's. When I went to put the toggle on the bracelet I noticed there was no eyelet for it, as you can see. I improvised a loop with the small beads instead.

I had a few of the beads leftover so I made some tiny stitch markers, for use with projects on smaller needles, like socks or lace.



The red and green peppermint earrings are for my friend KB, who requested them that way. I also made a couple of dozen beaded icicle ornaments that I gave to the women's club at work for their craft sale today. As far as I know, none of them sold. And a bunch of the fabric ornaments I made a year or two ago were still there, too. It's kind of depressing, actually. I won't waste my time making crafty stuff for them again. :-(

Ripley loves me, at least. This picture was taken a week or so ago, but it's a good one of my senior baby.


"Who you callin' old, Mama? I make 17 look good!"