Introducing... Swee'pea!

I finally landed on a name. And it fits him perfectly. He is very sweet but he's got spunk and so Popeye's little orphan is the perfect name for this little one. And I don't even mind that he stole the ball of yarn I've been working on. It's good to know what they like to play with, then you can make sure to furnish them with appropriate toys so they don't take things they shouldn't play with. Problem is, I'm not sure what to replace it with. Maybe Aunty Mellie needs to make us another large felted eyeball? (this was one of Jacques favorite toys pre-blog times).

This little one is full of the cutest antics. He will hide behind something in order to surprise Jacques. The surprise is for me because when he leaps, all four feet leave the floor and he looks more like a gazelle gliding through the air. Hopefully I can catch it on camera one day. He also doesn't quite understand toys on a stick. There is one they both love, an elephant with a pink bunch of feathers tied to it. When we first started playing, Swee'pea wasn't sure what to do. He decided this was prey and he had to walk away with it, and when we played with it the other night, he wouldn't let Jacques anywhere near it. Every time he let go of it and the toy would go flying (because of the elastic) he would chase after it, catch it and walk away with it in his mouth, growling at us. This must have gone on a good ten minutes. Jacques just looked at me with a look that said, "See, you brought this dumb little thing in here..."

And there is definitely a "cuteness" competition going on, except Jacques is the only one who knows it. Swee'pea is just cute and still kind of a kitten, so everything is fun to play with. But the other day when I left a ball of yarn on Jacques chair he hopped up and started to play with it. Now he's never really done this ever, but this time it really felt like he was trying to show me, look I can be cute too - why did you get this other thing?

And so how are we getting along? Well, it's hit and miss. Jacques' agenda is to assert his vertical dominance. Big Time.

He hops around on top of the furniture to get around whenever he can. If Swee'pea is in the room Jacques will be sitting up on something. He has begun to accept that this little pest is here to stay.

They touch noses, sniff each other can walk past each other without incidence, but then there is the "playing". Hmmmm, lets just say it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Then there is yowling and hissing and growling. Thank goodness Jacques has started to assert himself - maybe a bit too strongly sometimes. They don't really know how to read each other yet. Sometimes one or the other is just sniffing and the other will go into defensive mode with a raised paw the peace is shattered.

We always have to be on the lookout.

In both directions.
Jacques needs a lot of extra love right now. He needs reassurance every time I pet Swee'pea or show him any affection. Jacques really asserts his dominance in the bedroom (haha!). No seriously, Swee'pea gets chased out of there regularly, and is not.allowed.on.the.bed. period. When Jacques has had enough he comes and tries to get me to go to bed for the night. The little one sleeps under the basket. It's his-self designated spot. I'm so glad that is not an issue and that he does actually have a space to go to.

When I'm not worried about kitties, I started knitting a new sweater:
Except mine will be red. This is the yarn I bought with my Aunts way back in October. It's perfect for this project.

While still dreaming of Kauaii...

ah.... the Napali Coast.... warm sunshine, cool ocean water, everything green and blooming...

Oh, right I'm back in Philadelphia where the snow had finally melted.

I spent the New Year's weekend organizing my yarn stash and trying to play peace maker with kitties.

I started by pulling all of my yarn out of everywhere. I have so much! Unfortunately not enough to make lots of things. This is the problem with purchasing one ball of yarn because it's beautiful. You only get one hat, one mitten or something tiny out of it. I need to not do that so much anymore. I do have enough to start another sweater which I did, and then some more.

I also discovered this snarled madness:

I was extremely tempted to chuck the whole lot. But I diligently sat there pulling strings apart and ended up with one ball of red cashmere, three balls of turquoise wool, and several more balls of different red wools. Probably about $60 worth of yarn. It was worth it. Plus I got to play with cute kitties. Although Jacques was still very. put. out. He has asserted his dominance vertically. He jumps on everything, chairs, tables, stools, me, etc. while the little one stays on the floor. This is apparently a good strategy as validated by my friend Rachael. Whew!

So after two days of organizing, winding, and so on, I was able to color organize my stash.

Isn't it beautiful? (Yes, I'm a yarn-aholic nut - I admit it). But it feels good now to know that

when I go into a basket of yarn, it won't explode out as one giant yarn monster.

The little one was very helpful. he was good at pouncing on balls of yarn, or carrying them (such as the blue one) into different locations.

But best of all he was so helpful at winding things. He would either chase the yarn being wound or watch the winder intently.

Most of the time the two stayed in their separate corners. Jacques stayed up on a stool,

the little one stayed inside the basket. He claimed this place pretty quickly after coming into the house.

As of yesterday the growling and yowling (from Jacques) had mostly subsided. There was still some hissing but they were able to eat dinner almost face to face in peace.

Unfortunately the little one discovered a new game - chase Jacques. It boggles the mind sometimes how smart all these little critters can be - but they have zero concept of their self-image. Jacques is 16 pounds. The little one is maybe 6, if we're lucky. Instead of turning around and whacking the kitten once, Jacques kept cowering and running away. The game was making Jacques really miserable so this morning I had to put a stop to it. Every time the little one stalked and chased Jacques I squirted him with a water bottle. He learns quick that little one. I came home today and both parties were calm and came to greet me, the little one only needed to be squirted one more time. They even touched noses a few times without anyone freaking out. Maybe this is a good sign. The little one sure is cute:

That's my empty knitting basket. What a comfy place to hide from Jacques. I'm leaning towards naming him Romeo. We'll see.

Two MAJOR events!

Finished. Finally! finally. whew! I am so glad to have finished this sweater. And it is actually really beautiful. It is so warm and soft and I have even already sewn the ends in! This is the part I usually neglect for quite a few wearings before sewing them down. But I wanted to put this project behind me - so that I could start a new sweater, guilt free. But now, I have to assess my yarn situation because I have so much sitting around I don't know what to make of it all! Wish me luck!

And now I need some more well wishes and luck.
I have a new kitty.

I stopped at the Morris animal shelter yesterday and came home with this little guy. he doesn't have a name yet because we have to see how things go. So far, not good. Jacques. is. not. happy. He was so shocked last night that he crawled under the papazan chair in the corner and growled and hissed all night - and even went after me. He finally gave up on the living room and went into the bathroom to claim territory. Then he slept with me and the little kitty decided to claim the bottom of his standing basket.

This morning didn't go much better Jacques couldn't believe it wasn't all a bad dream and just wanted out of the apartment. So I let him out. Now I'm blogging and Jacques is trying to reclaim his territory. The little one is holding his own. But I'm worried. Jacques is still. very. unhappy. I fed them and Jacques was growling the whole time he was chewing. It sounded like he was saying, yumyumyumyum, over and over. Now he's stalking around growling at this little thing. The little one just wants to meet him. I really want them to be friends. Jacques needs one.

I got the new kitty because Jacques was SO lonely while I was gone in Hawaii. I've always known that he misses me and I've always wanted to get him a buddy. I really hope I did the right thing. This new little guy is so sweet. He just wants to be loved, is about 1 year old, and doesn't jump up on things (yet). He does, however, scratch everything. So we are going to have to nip that in the bud. He has the longest tail I've ever seen and when Jacques growls at him, it poofs out like a bottle brush. I've decided to give them until next weekend, 10 days. If things don't get better, the little one will have to go back. Too bad, he is so sweet.

Aloha, Aloha

Hello and Goodbye to the beautiful Island of Kaua'i. Today was the last day. Tomorrow I fly to California to spend Christmas with my dad and Ann.

But today... I saw the moon set over Hanalei Bay:

and the sun set over Kekaha Beach.

It doesn't really matter what happened in between.

Aloha!

Ah - yes, I am on the beautiful island of Kaua'i with my friend Mary - a fellow book artist. It is about 9:30 in the evening, we had Island Sangria, (Gewürztraminer, little gin, soda water, sugar, pineapple, rambutans, bananas - yum), and now I'm sitting on the balcony - it's about 80 degrees and I'm blogging. This is part one.

What is a Rambutan? - it is very similar to a lychee fruit. Except that it comes in this very funny outer covering.

Pretty yummy.

We start everyday with the alarm clock of the island:

I wish I were kidding. These birds are all over the place - there must be at least five that live in the bushes under my window. They start about 5:30 am. As of today I don't hear them so much. But it takes a night or two to get used to them. What I really want is a handful of those feathers.

Everybody seems to get along. There are a few cats and they pretty much leave the big fowl alone. I would too.

Its the rainy season at the moment, and so there are flowers everywhere. The beautiful yellow one (at the top of the blog) grows on giant trees 20 feet high and they are covered with them. They are everywhere on the island. When the yellow flowers fall off, they turn this beautiful red color.

The trees grow next to several of the rivers and so you see the flowers floating along.

We did a hike of the Na Pali Coast today. There were tiny purple orchids everywhere - guavas were ripe and falling off the trees and then there was this little passion flower.

Doesn't it look like it should come from outer space?

It has rained for two days straight. Pouring rain all day, well, it comes and goes but the sun doesn't shine and you don't get dry. So yesterday we did a tour of a chocolate farm. It was fascinating. Not only to they grow cocoa trees, but they have vanilla (which is an orchid!) they grow and harvest bamboo and several other things. It's a completely organic farm.

Here we have two cocoa pods.

and here are the vanilla pods (still green).

The tour of the farm ended with a talk about the history of chocolate, and how it is produced. Then we had a blind chocolate tasting of 10 different chocolates. It was very interesting to compare them. I now know what my favorite american made chocolate is (they didn't include any swiss or german chocolate. Hmmm - maybe because they can't compete with them?). And I can get it at Whole Foods. Speaking of whole foods:

our haul at the farmers market. We got green beans, bananas, papayas and rambutans. Plus I found a plumeria at the Kaua'i Coffee plantation. We also manage to put away two pineapples since we got here.

And believe it or not - it is even Christmas on the Island. We have seen some amazing decorations to say the least. From a tree decorated with lays, to one with soda cans, to this bougainvillea that was decked out with silver and gold balls.

Quite beautiful! And then last night we were hoping for a reprieve from the clouds and rain and such - and our wish was granted. We got to see the end of the lunar eclipse! We left the apartment and ran out to the golf course and just watched the stars and the eclipse. It was amazing! This morning we discovered we'd been eaten alive by the mosquitoes, but it was worth it.

If you double click on the image, the little white dot in the middle of this black photo will turn into the moon at the end of the eclipse.

We've spent some time at Hanalei Bay.

And the other day we ran into the man himself at Safeway.

He said he was resting up for the big night and graciously took a picture with us. That is - a friend of his (wearing a baseball hat that said, "I believe in Santa") took the picture. There is more to come, more to blog about, but we did the hike on the Na Pali Coast today to the waterfalls. I am pooped, but I will post more soon.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you had a wonderful day, filled with cheer and warmth and good food! I spent the evening at a Friends pot luck which was lovely and cozy. I ate too much, and didn't regret that for a minute.
I did actually brave the Black Friday madness to run a few errands. Luckily some of them were in Chinatown - where apparently Black Friday doesn't exist? Because I had no problems there.
I came home and checked when the first day of advent was and it's today! Well, then I think it's appropriate to spend Thanksgiving weekend decorating. I knitted my Christmas tree. And then knitted a few more. I found this pattern online and have wanted to try it since last year. It is a lot of fun and the trees look amazing. I will probably try to sell some this coming weekend and Book Paper Scissors, we'll see.
I also FINALLY got my rear in gear and planted over 200 more tulip, daffodil, crocus and allium bulbs. I soaked them in garlic water for a week and then spread red pepper flakes all over the place where I planted them. Let's hope that keep the darn squirrels away. I've been wanting to do some planning of the back quarter. I decided to start with a daffodil trench. Here's the garden before:
Then I dug this trench:
And put the extra bricks along it. I want to have rows like this all the way back with things planted in between. Like vegetables and flowers and stuff. I have to see the the forsythias bloom this year. If they don't they will be fired. I have no use for plants that are supposed to do beautiful things but which don't.
This year I got smart and kept all of my leaves for composting. So all of the flower patches got a nice blanket of rotting leaves. They should be thrilled.
Hmmm, I'm looking forward to making more plant beds. This looks a little bit like my pet python died and I buried it, don't you think?
And the dogs next door? sigh, well at least they are getting fed a bit. Poor Petey (the black and white) doesn't like anyone near his fence. My making this bed just about made him bonkers.
The little one stays way out of his way when he's in a mood like this.
But then sometimes they come begging anyway. Doesn't that look just melt your heart?

A new baby, a Thanksgiving recipe, and Misc.

My friend Rachael had a baby! A little girl, all of 6 whole lbs! I was furiously knitting before her arrival to make sure there were some home made things there for her. I knitted the yellow one first. This is a great pattern and I'd actually really like one in my size. To bad the pattern is for "new born, 6mos and 12mos". Not exactly my size. After I made the yellow one I thought, well that's pretty big. Maybe I'll make a little one that she can wear for about 5 minutes after she's born.

Rachael sent me this picture of beautiful little Isabel:

wearing the purple sweater. Oh she's so tiny! That sweater can' t be more than 6 inches across! I'm so glad there is room for her to grow. I can't wait to meet her. She's not in Philadelphia, so it will be a while.

The Thanksgiving recipe - to-die-for was made today! Oh boy - this is really good.

Pumpkin stuffed with everything good. (that's the title. really.)

1 pumpkin (3lbs)

salt and pepper

1/4 lb stale bread

1/4 lb cheese - Gruyere, Emmenthal etc.

2 - 4 garlic cloves

4 strips bacon -cooked to crisp chopped

1/4 cup snipped fresh chives or scallions

1 T minced fresh Thyme

1/3 heavy cream

pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Mix ingredients 2 - 7 together. Stuff into the opened and cleaned out pumpkin. Mix cream and nutmeg together, pour into pumpkin. Bake at 350 for about 2 hours. This is SOOOOO goood!

Yum! You can hear the original NPR clip here. Just click on "Listen to the Story" It's only about 6 minutes - so you should! I will make this on a LOT! and I'm going to experiment. The next experimentation will be to make the recipe vegan. I think the key things are the bacon, garlic and the cheese (I used Gruyere). I can get fake bacon, but the cheese flavor will be interesting to recreate. Although - maybe I'll abandon those flavors altogether and try for, something with coconut milk, pineapple, nutmeg, rice and cashews??? worth a shot right?

Roasting the pumpkin today made me nostalgic for the summer. I really miss being a farmer. Last weekend I cleaned out all of the tomato plants, dumped coffee grounds and eggshells into the soil to help boost it back up. I've been planning on planting my (200) tulip bulbs in new spots, but I realized today, I really miss the fresh harvest. Next year I want to grow all kinds of things. Tomatoes, zucchini, squash, onions, garlic, pumpkins, collard greens, as many herbs as possible... There really is a difference in the taste, a satisfaction in the food that isn't there with store bought stuff. Sigh, it's going to be a long winter.

What Happened to October?

Yeah, I'm not sure. I sort of blinked and it was over!

Maybe because I had soOo much to do! Every weekend was occupied. The first weekend I spent at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I was asked to show my artist's books for family day. They thought it would be a kids event. Hmm - won't do that again. Kids don't understand how to handle special books. Not their fault - neither do their parents. However, there were so many other people who came, who'd never seen artists books. One woman was almost in tears she was so happy to see "the future of the book" And she was so excited. There were several people I had very good, long conversations with. It was a feel-good afternoon - that's for sure. Plus I got paid! How nice.

The following weekend (Wed. - Sunday) I was off to Tuscon AZ, for the Guild of Bookworkers Standards conference. But the take off of that trip just couldn't go smoothly. I finally managed to rent the 3rd floor on the Tuesday before I had to leave for the conference and they were itching to move in. So they did and promplty found that the toilet had an issue. Something was leaking and it had soaked the floor under the linoleum. It smelled so bad. So I called the plumber who came on Wednesday and did fix the issue - but the tennents had to deal with the smell until I could get back in town. Fabulous Jeff came and saved the day again. I haven't seen it finished but the tennents love it! A nice new clean floor - how can that be bad? Jeff wasn't sure about the linoleum I picked out he said it didn't really stick. So we'll see what happens with that. If it's not one thing it's another.....

The Conference though,.... It was pretty great. The first thing I did was go on a tour of the Arizona State Museum - and was confronted by a blast from the past.

In one of my past lives I used to teach high school ceramics. I always did a unit on Southwest Pottery. We were led into the showcase room, and there was a vitrine with all, and I mean ALL of the pots I used to show my students to get them an idea of what they were making! What a pleasant surprise. I can't believe I said, "I recognize that pot!" They are really beautiful.

Next we were given a tour of the conservation lab. Jealousy jealousy. What a nice lab. On the tables above is a buckskin suit with real silver thread which is waiting for a display form so that it can hang on the wall in the museum. They also have those great overhead fume vacuums and over head electric outlets! And if I'm lucky I'll get to order one of those amazing tables. It has a hydraulic lift and can change heights up to 8" difference! They are also on casters. sigh. how nice.

They also had a beautiful facsimile of one of the Maya Codices. That's something to look up on Wikipedia. Those books have interesting histories.

There were four workshops to attend, one on 18th Century French bindings, Byzantine Bindings, a Book Arts (she was really a caligrapher who talked about her working process. The books were beautiful), and then a fabulous workshop on the "forensics of the book"! That was really great. And it was in Arizona! The weather had just had a cold spell in Phila. and it was still 90 degrees when we landed in Tuscon at 10pm. I got in my bathingsuit and went into the pool! it was lovely.

I came home on Sunday night and my aunts from California came to visit on Tuesday!

They brought be some beautiful Alpaca yarn. Someone in their upholstery class raises Alpacas and these are some of the yarns which come from them. Aunt Lois had brought me some other colors in the spring. I finally had time to wind them all. They are so beautiful and soft. I've been writing up lists of things I might knit out of them. Hmmm....

It was so much fun having them here! The first thing they did was take a mural tour. Then they came to my work for a ghost tour! They were the hit of the evening that's for sure. We had to discuss them in the meeting the following day with the program committee.

Then it was off to drag them all over town! We did the marathon of Philadelphia.

We took Aunt Alice to see the Maxfield Parrish designed Tiffany mural in the Curtis Building (where the Saturday Evening Post (Norman Rockwell) was published).

We went to the first post office, Ben Franklin's printshop, and where his house would have stood had his silly children/grandchildren decided to tear it down.

We also went out to Amish country on a Saturday and it was jammed with people! I couldn't believe it! We spent money on stuff and they bought me this beautiful lamp. It's been fun having it on.

We did so much, shopping, Bartram's Gardens, and we went to the ballet. And of course we also had time to cook.

We cooked from Ellen Emlen's cookbook:

That is collard greens, cauliflour with whitesauce and broiled chops. So the background is that I found a manuscript cookbook at work. It was in pieces. I fixed it. And then the madness started. We want to publish it. But that is sort of like trying to move a mountain. I guess if you keep at it you can though because we might actually succeed. The food from the book is amazing!

The white sauce is basically cream white pepper and nutmeg - that would make anything good, even cauliflour, and the broiled chop (which should have been "the finest mutton" which ended up being a chicken breast), is marinated in lemon juice with salt and pepper. Then it's breaded in 50-50 bread crumbs and grated parmesian cheese. yum. Aunt Lois will have to let me know if Uncle Ralph was able to recreate it.

Here's the work table for cooking:

And we all had jobs: Aunt Lois working on the collard greens.
Aunt Alice crushing garlic.
It was so nice to have them here. Really fun. It was sad to see them go on Monday. But maybe there will be another visit in the future? :)

Last weekend I was sort of in lala land, realizing how much other stuff had to happen the following week. I had to finish boxes for Katie. She ordered five boxes for a "book" she made from an installation. It is really beautiful. I delivered the first three (four?) boxes on Tuesday and saw close to the final product. Wow it was amazing. And yeah, promptly this past weekend, Katie won a major award at Pyramid Atlantic. ! I'm so happy for her! She's been working so hard. Here's a picture of the project:

I'm really honored that I got to be part of the project.

I also had to deal with the end of the garden season. Lots of green tomatoes. I picked almost 5lbs. of green cherry tomatoes. Then I tried to pickle them. I might have ruined them. We'll have to wait three months to find out.

And this weekend? I cleaned. Yup - I cleaned like a mad crazy lady ALL weekend. I did everything, washed curtains, cleaned windows, vacuumed walls, pulled things down and washed them off, cleaned the fan blades, lifted rugs and mopped under there, got on my knees to mop even so that I could really scrub, scrubbed the grout in the bathroom (it's white again) and I even combed the fringes of the rugs. Poor Jacques. He was outside for the big part of cleaning. When he came back in things just weren't right.

He had to make a new nest on my shell pillow. He was not happy at all.

and lastly, I made a batch of Ellen Emlen's jumbles. At first I thought they didn't work, but they were really good in the morning. butter, flour, almonds, 1egg, sugar and rosewater. You really can't go wrong. Jumbles are the precursor to modern cookies. Nest time I think I'll add some lemon zest.

That's in for October. Maybe I can get back to working on this house! I still want to finish the windows. Things will have to be winterized and the winter project was supposed to be to parge the basement, so that it isn't damp anymore. I'll keep you posted!