kmkat and her kneedles

Ankles and Angie.

Although I am about as far from a fashionista as it is possible for a human to be -- I mean, I buy most of my clothes at Wal-Mart and Fleet Farm, with an occasional foray to Tarzhay -- I have The Sartorialist in my Bloglines because I like to know what I am missing. And occasionally when I gaze at the Beautiful[ly Dressed] People he photographs I find myself saying, Huh?

Like these two, featured on different days, the first in Milan, the second in Paris. What exactly is going on with their ankles?

Clearly, this is a fashion trend that has not yet made its appearance in rural Wisconsin.

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One of the unexpected joys of blogging is meeting other bloggers. (Yeah, there are actual real people behind those blogs you read.) Today I met up with Angie of Purling Oaks, who was in my corner of Wisconsin on business.

The little town of Cumberland is a very pretty 30 - 40 minute drive from my house. We tried to meet here:

but they had the bad manners to close at 5, which was when we planned to meet. Instead we found a sports bar with a sort-of lake view, ordered beers, and pulled out our knitting. That's what Wisconsinites do -- order a beer and [fill in the blank].

Our waitress obliged us by snapping a photo. Angie is the pretty blonde; I am the gray-haired laugher.

In case you were wondering, Angie is a delightful person and I immediately felt like I had known her for years. We talked knitting and blogs and bloggers and jobs  and remodeling and cats and plurking* and college. Turns out we both started our college careers in the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota, she in industrial engineering and me in math. No wonder we are both knitters ;-)

* Angie's cell phone had Internet access so she showed me how it works, and now I am plurking myself. Just what we all need -- another time sink...

Let's check the mailbox.

It is a nice walk, albeit almost completely uphill, from my house to our mailbox. Wednesday was a beautiful day so I strolled up the hill to see what goodies Gary The Mailman had left us. In a small town you know everyone. Gary's wife is the librarian in the next town south of us.

I wasn't expecting anything special so I didn't take my camera with me. You will just have to imagine the lovely picture presented to my eyes when I opened the box. A largish white plastic mailing envelope, plump and soft. Could it be... yarn?

It was from a certain knitblogger so yarn was an excellent guess. Either I won something in her recent contest or she was just being a generous friend. I forget which. Aren't knitbloggers just the best, most generous people on earth?

ETA: Okay, I went back and re-read her post about the winners of her blogversary contest. I was not an *official* winner as chosen by the Official Random Integer Generator. She was being extra-special generous to send me something. Wowzers.

Let's take a look, shall we?

What is not visible in this photo is the lovely peppermint fragrance wafting from the envelope's contents.

First, there was what every knitter needs:

A knitting-themed [temporary] tattoo and a feline-themed bookmark. The latter is actually one of Cathy-Cate's Moo cards, I think, but it is destined for a new life  in my house as a happy bookmark.

There was a chocolate-nut-caramel confection that lasted about 5 seconds, or as long as it took me to rip it open and pop it into my mouth. Mmmmmm, good.

Here are the official contents, in a less-than worthy photo:

The soap is Queen Bee Driftless Flood Relief Soap, with lemon & peppermint, proceeds of whose sales benefited, through the Sow the Seeds Fund, the farmers in southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin who were flooded out last August. (In case you are wondering, "driftless" refers to the terrain of that area, which is the only area in thousands of square miles of the Midwest that was not scraped flat by glaciers in the last ice age.) A worthwhile cause, to be sure.

The yarn -- that's what you are waiting for, right? the yarn? -- is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK, a 100% superwash merino. Cathy-Cate e-mailed me to ask my color preferences, to which I responded "jewel tones." Boy, oh boy, is this jewel-toned or what? The color sends little thrills up my spine.

There are a few random strands of blue-brown in there, too, but I missed them in the photo. I have never knit with Cherry Tree Hill, so this will be extra special. The yarn will soon become a pair of woolly warm winter socks for me for next winter. I've been looking forward to making myself some heavier socks -- these will be my first pair.

Thanks, C-C! You are the best.

Knitting fun, kitties, and kontest(s).

Don't panic, you are in the right place. I repainted the walls here at Le Blog du Chat (no, I don't speak French -- how could you tell?) That brownish-orange at the sides is the same color as the walls of my office at home, the home on the lake that I haven't seen ::sob:: in about ten years. The new theme reminds me of home. [/pity party]

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A couple weeks ago I joined Chris and Jeanne for their regular Wednesday night knitting. Cursing Mama was there, too, but Deb was home nursing a sick husband. I could tell you about the wine and what everyone was knitting and what we giggled about, but I know what you are all really interested in: kmkat got to meet Chaos! and Mayhem!

Yes, it's true, I did. And I am going to reveal the dark truth about those two famous black felines. They may be extremely fond of Chris, but they have a deep distrust of strangers, even strangers bearing yarn and Addis.

Chaos kept a watchful eye on me from the top of the cat tree.

 

His gaze was the pure definition of baleful.

I swear I got multiple pictures of May, too, but they have mysteriously disappeared from my camera. I think my batteries were failing; or maybe it was May's magical powers of disappearance, I don't know.

When I first arrived, May came to investigate me. Being well-versed in the manners of cats, I held out my hand and let her sniff me thoroughly. Once that ritual was played out, she deigned to let me scratch her under the chin and pet her, much to Chris and Jeanne's surprise. Apparently May is generally not that tolerant of strangers offering affection.

Then I broke the the unwritten rule -- I picked her up. She let me know, albeit very politely and without claws or teeth or any unnecessary violence, really, that she didn't care to be picked up and would I pleasepleaseplease put her down Right Now? So I did.

She was very interested in my knitting and Addis all evening, though. Luckily for me, Chris is attentive to Mayhem's destructive interest in such things (nom, nom! snickety snick! tooth marks on the Addis! yarn now in multiple pieces!) and warned me (repeatedly; I was all oblivious to the danger lurking at my elbow) when she got too close.

* * * * *

 

Awhile back I won one of Jeanne's prizes for knitting preemie caps. She brought these prizerly goodies to our knit night for me. (Not Tabby; she's been mine since 1992.) Jeanne gave me some fine chocolate (yeah, like there is any other kind) and a wonderful Debbie Bliss book. Can you tell which one of those two chocolate wrappers is actually empty? Didn't think so. I'm soooooo sneaky; I opened the milk chocolate one v-e-r-y carefully so I could recreate its original pristine-ness when I could take a photo. Thank you, Jeanne! and thank you for helping me not to break my no-yarn-in-2008 pledge.

* * * * *

Speaking of contests, it's about time for one here, don't you think? Take a gander at this photo and give me a caption. Yes, before you ask, that is Chaos under the ottoman and Chris* with the knitting.

 

Random number generators are fine and good, but for this one I'm gonna go all subjective and judgemental on you and pick the caption that makes me laugh until coffee comes out my nose. I may ask Chris's opinion, or I may not. I'm quirky that way.

You can put your entry in the comments, or, if you don't want any of your own personal inspiration leaking all over the other contestants, you may email it to me privately at antlerkat-typepad AT yahoo DOT com. Deadline is, um, midnight CDT, Friday, March 21. Prize TBD, but it will definitely include something fibery and something chocolatey. And maybe something furry and purring... the winner will just have to wait and be surprised.

*Chris thinks I either should have cropped out her entire face or left it all in. I like to think my half face crop is way oh so artsy-fartsy and creative and gives it a sense of immediacy and stuff. What say y'all?

D is for...

dumb.

If you are here to see pictures of the Friday night fun at Deb's, you are out of luck. I'm pretty sure I took some great photos, but although I had my camera, the cable is 75 miles away. Dumb. Damn. You'll have to check out Chris's and Deb's pictures. We had a great time knitting, eating, chatting, and playing with the animals. And I got to meet Vicki Knitorious. She's famous, you know.

Saturday I worked all day and well into the evening. But that meant that Sunday was... a day off!I slept in, ate some yummy fettucine Alfredo left over from dinner the night before, read blogs, did my laundry, and knitted. It was a lovely day.