Why yes, I did have to go to extreme measures

To keep the neighbor’s feral kitties out of my garden and new planter box.

It has been a constant battle. Any bare batch of dirt more than a few square inches is apparently fair game for the cats. Especially the new planter box, which is filled with nice, soft, fluffy potting soil.

They have an entire dirt-filled yard, but come use mine whenever they can get away with it, which is mostly at night.

But I have finally foiled them. The trick? Laying down chicken wire over the ground, and cutting holes for the plants as necessary. The veggie garden can pretty much stay this way all season.

As for the planter box, I’ve just laid bits and pieces of chicken wire over bare areas, which I’ll move as I finish planting, or as the plants fill in.

Princess says not to blame her – it’s those bad kitties next door. And it’s true – she doesn’t usually use those areas, and I’ve never had a problem with the garden prior to the new kids kittens on the block. She also does a good job of standing guard to keep the other cats out of HER yard whenever she’s outside.

And of course, that means new projects

Now that I’ve finished one SnB knitting project, it’s time of course, to cast on for another.

The Progression Shawl is too complicated to work on in public, but I also need something a bit larger than a purse project.

I’ve had this Bliss Ranch Yarn marinating in my stash since I went to the Estes Wool Festival (in, ahem, 2007). It’s sport-weight wool, in Brindle (the dark color), and Hickory (the light color). I’m estimating from the label’s stated yards per pound that I have approximately 930 yards of the dark, and 866 yards of the light. My original thought was to combine the colors in a sweater, but I never came up with any good ideas. Tempest was one thought, but I’m not really sure I’d be happy wearing those big stripes.

Then after seeing everyone’s wonderful Stripe Study shawls, I was thinking that might be a good project, even though I have twice as much yarn as I’d need.

But I’ve also been working on a shoulder wrap out of Shibui Knits Linen. I don’t have a pattern, I’m just taking inspiration from a wrap I saw at an airport gift shop. The yarn is rough and stiff to work with, but when it’s washed, it has a wonderful drape.

When I was at my LYS the other day, where I bought the yarn, there was a fabulous Color Affection shop sample made out of this yarn. It felt so wonderful and drapey. It also reminded me of how much I like that shawl, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to buy 6 skeins of the linen yarn for it. But that got me to thinking. Could I make a two-color Color Affection? I didn’t see why not, considering the construction. So I stole this template from another Raveler (with her permission), and did a mock-up:

I think I like it. It will use up more of the yarn than using it for Stripe Study. Then I may have to consider buying the linen yarn to make Stripe Study. I think I can get by with 4 skeins.

FO: Atalanta Sideways

I’m so happy to have my Atalanta shawl finished so I can wear it before summer hits.

It will be just right for the still-cool mornings and evenings for a little while, or for all of those over-air-conditioned restaurants and stores.

This is a really great pattern. It’s well-written, easy to knit, and the border looks very impressive. Since it’s knit sideways, you can easily adapt it to however much yarn you want to use – just knit until you’re a little less than halfway through the yarn, then start decreasing. You can make it more triangular or more crescent-shaped depending on how many medallions you do in the middle section between the increases and decreases.

It worked out really well with the madelinetosh tosh sock, though the picot edge does tend to want to flip over a little bit. I think it would be awesome in a yarn with even more drape, like silk or linen. But still, I love this yarn and think it worked well with the pattern.

The edging would look really great on a knit skirt – not that I’m ever likely to make one (or wear one). But maybe for the hem of a tunic?

Pattern: Atalanta Sideways, by by Åsa Tricosa
Yarn: madelinetosh tosh sock, “nutmeg”, 2 skeins
Needles: US 3/3.25mm

Modifications:

I went down in needle size from the US 6/4mm recommended in the pattern, because I had a lot more yarn than called for, and I wanted the shawl to be more dense. As it was, I had 22 grams of yarn left from the two skeins. I deliberately used less than one skein for the first half of the shawl, partly for insurance, and partly because I knew it was going to be pretty good sized, and I didn’t really need it to be any longer.

I worked the initial increase rate until there were 24 stitches in the body, and then increased until I had 64 stitches in the body. I worked 18 medallions straight, then started the decreases.

And as promised…

My new grilling table. It’s so much more convenient to actually use the grill while standing up. And much safer than when I had it on the wood deck.

This one did cost us some money, since we had to buy the tiles for the top. But less than $7 for a table isn’t such a bad deal.

 

More woodworking projects for the garden

Larry’s been at it again. Having fun with his workshop, and getting rid of excess lumber.

He came up with the idea to make some side tables for the patio out of more of the extra cedar fence boards we had lying around. It shouldn’t be long before the tables fade to silver to match the rest of the fence and deck.

He refined the design a bit for the second one. No screws were used to hold the exterior frame in place, just staples:

We like how they came out, and they didn’t cost us anything to make, since all the materials were already on hand.

His next project is to build a little stand for our small portable propane BBQ grill. The top will have to be stone or tile, of course, but it will be much better than having it just sitting on a few stacked bricks.

WordPress is at it again

In their never-ending battle to end all interest in blogging, they have implemented yet another unwanted feature.

They have decided that it would be a great idea (!!!) to make “Notify me of follow-up comments via email” be automatically selected for you, because certainly you aren’t smart enough to check the box if you really want such a thing:

So if you’re getting weird emails about having recently followed a blog’s post, that’s why.

I do not have the option of making the default unchecked – I can only have the box there or not, so I have removed it. My apologies to anyone who actually wants this option, but I’m guessing most people don’t. If the WP idiots decide to change the default, I’ll put it back, but I don’t expect that to happen.

For other WordPress blogs, be sure to look for that checkbox when you write a comment, and uncheck the box before posting your comment.

For anyone else with WordPress, here’s how to eliminate the checkbox, as explained by tita buds, whose post helped me figure it out:

1. Go to your Dashboard, then Settings, then Discussion.
2. Scroll down until you see the two large ‘boxes’.
3. Below that there are three options. One is to ”Show a follow comments option in the comments form’‘. It is checked by default. Uncheck it.
4. Scroll on down and click Save Changes.
5. Wait for the page to re-load then check if the change you made was indeed saved. If not (it wasn’t for me at first try), rinse and repeat. [Cheryl's note - it didn't save it for me the first time either! But the second update worked.]

What this will do is get rid of the Notify me of follow-up comments via email’ checkbox. The option to be notified via email when a new post is made (in other words, to follow your blog) remains.

If you have already managed to somehow get subscribed to a blog or post, you can unsubscribe this way:

1. Log in to WP.com.
2. Open a new tab or stay on that tab but open this link: https://subscribe.wordpress.com/
3. You will be directed to a page where all the blog sites and comments you subscribed to are listed. Under the logo and the ‘heading’ WordPress.com, there’s ‘Sites’, ‘Comments’, and ‘Settings’.
4. Very important: Default view is on ‘Sites’ but you don’t want to unsubscribe from those so click on ‘Comments’.
5. Check all that you want to unsubscribe from.
6. Click on the downward arrow beside ‘Bulk Actions‘ on top, choose Unfollow, then Apply.

 

It must be a purple-and-yellow kind of day

Over the weekend I saw these violas at the garden store, and couldn’t help bringing them home. The colors just made me happy.

Today I was out in the garden, and noticed that in the next garden bed, the clematis I planted last year has started to bloom. As are the mystery iris I also planted last year that someone gave me – I didn’t know what color they were.

I sense a theme. Funny that it was totally random on my part.