Hermione’s Adventure

Our Maine Coon kitten, Hermione, had a horrifying day yesterday.  It started at 5:30 am when I woke up to her piteous crying outside our bedroom window.  Our neighbors have a tall skinny dogwood tree that soars up towards the third story of our house.  That was where Hermione was.  She was about 25′ up in the air.

The husband kept telling me not to worry.  That she would come down.  But I was worried.  I’ve talked her brother out of trees a couple of times, but she was too high up.  I went out about every 15 minutes to talk to her, but it was clear she wasn’t coming down.  We tried a neighbor’s extension ladder and I even talked to the firefighters down the street.  No help.  She started to look like she was giving up to me — she retreated to the very top of the tree, sort of sprawled down where the branches came together, and seemed to be less and less alert.

After dinner, even DH was getting worried.  We brainstormed and decided to try a board stretched from a little landing we have outside on our second floor up to the tree.  Even standing on a ladder at 6’2" I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to reach her.  He did–just barely.  But she wasn’t interested.  We called, we sang, nothing worked.  Finally, we had the idea of making a trail of cat food, the good, wet, squishy kind, down the board.  We finally got her midway across, and dh managed to whisk the board away from the tree and onto our little landing, where I made a mad grab for her.  Poor baby.  She was shaking all over and it took her a long time to calm down.  We fed her enormous quantities of food and water, and when she finally felt better, she crawled under our down comforter, settled down between us, and purred very very loudly.  All in all, it was a very traumatic day for everyone and I am so glad she is safe!

She didn’t venture very far from us today.

She loves my new socks (the ones I tried to picture yesterday as the camera battery was dying).  The are made from Cascade Quattro.  The subtle color patterning in tone in this yarn makes it the perfect sock yarn.

Hermione was also very helpful as I prepared a swap box of art supplies for one of my friends in the Altered Art Divas group.

I spent most of the day in my studio working on the background for a collage I have been fooling around with and playing with some ATCs as the layers were drying.  Hard to get a picture of the background because of all the shine on it, but here it is anyway.

I have an abundance of yarn in the studio just now.  My ongoing affliction with Colinette is forcing me to stock up before the first of the year, when my annual yarn-fast starts (it will undoubtedly last about as long as the annual diet)  First off, I have this Giotto, which I think will be a sweater for Ellie.

God I love Ebay.  Really.  I also got some Giotto in Peaches and Cream to do a sweater for me.

Also, just to stay in the clear on the yarn fast/use up your stash thing, I pulled some of my favorite yarns that I have dyed, mostly Suffolk and Cashmeres, for my own use.  There are few things as decorative as a bowl of beautiful yarn.

And then there is the beautiful Elm bowl my MIL gave me for Christmas, which is full of some of the organic wool I dyed earlier this week, and a bit more Colinette.

The organic wool is really turning out to be the love of my life.  Although I’m doing lots of blues and browns because much of this yarn is earmarked for the boys, I decided to also do some deep wine reds too, just for fun.  I have no idea what I’m going to use this for, but I am in love with the dark, rich colors.

And then, there’s one last little bag of yarn (Colinette) on my sewing machine chair because I’m all out of baskets and bowls.  There’s a bit more of the yarn I did my shrug out of to do up a sweater for Miss Ellie and the red is for a dress for her for next spring.

The ways you have to rationalize this much yarn are endlessly embarrassing.  In my own mind, I justify it all as a way to insure I won’t run out of yarn if bird flu suddenly strikes and we’re stuck at home for, say, six months.  I have it all worked out.  I have enough to keep the entire family happily knitting away.