It's a holiday here in Germany today, so instead of giving you a proper blog post, let me point you to another blog: Jenny Dean's Wild Colour, where she writes about tests with Anglo-Saxon mordants (clubmoss) and lots of other interesting things - if you like to read about historical dyes and natural dyestuffs, you will definitely want to check out this blog.

And for those of you who don't care about these things, here's at least a gratuitous cat picture:



That bag she is lying on, by the way, contained unwashed Waldschaf wool... resulting in a cat that was not only well-rested and happy, but also quite definitely smelling of sheep!

It's a bit colder again outside, even though there was more sunshine to make up for it. I'm a little tired and a lot busy with all kinds of writing-related work, which sucks all the creativity out of my brain, so instead of a nice proper blogpost, you are getting today:

One gratuitous Cat Picture.

Here you go:

The cat, kind soul that she is, wanted to let me know she thinks my keyboard could use a bit of a cleaning. As she is perfectly and clearly understandable when she meows and purrs, but her human personnel are a bit slow on the uptake, she had to use drastic measures to demonstrate the cleaning necessity.

Which was achieved by hooking a claw underneath the Alt-Gr key and pulling. This, of course, was at first misinterpreted by her desk-sitting, cat-petting human as a mere coincidence, as she likes to knead when she's hanging out on the desk. The human was soon aware, though, that there was an astounding amount of dust and cat hair under that key... so obviously, there must have been a reason for the cat to do this. Right?

[caption id="attachment_3236" align="alignnone" width="902"] The culprit, erm, the graciously observant cat right after the deed, acting like nothing has happened.


So I did take the hint, and subsequently the small vacuum cleaner with a little brush (after Madame had left the desk, of course, as she is not fond of vacuum cleaner noises), and removed more astounding amounts of cat hair and dust from underneath the other keys.

Then came the fun task of figuring out how the three bits of plastic are supposed to fit together... and after two or so false starts, I managed to get them into correct order and position again.

[caption id="attachment_3238" align="alignnone" width="436"] One of the plastic bits. And cat hair.


Placing the two white parts together again required bending the smaller one to get the little axles into their sockets again; for the rest, it was the combination of sliding something into one holder, then pressing the other end down until it clicked into place - once to fasten the white bits to the key plate, once to secure the whole setup to the keyboard again.

[caption id="attachment_3237" align="alignnone" width="768"] The two white bits, reunited, waiting to be set back into place underneath the key plate.


Actually, that was fun, if a bit scary when doing the bending-to-set-into-place-bit (especially as I had to do it twice, not getting the stacking order correctly at the first go. Not something I'd have chosen to do this morning without the cat prompt, but I do find it interesting to see how things like that work - and putting torn-apart bits together is an excellent way to figure that out.

Now, though, I hope the cat will abstain from pulling out more keys - I do have actual work to do...

Things happening here, in no particular order:

The cat is sleeping. Well, mostly - sometimes she wakes up and goes "meow". Sometimes she wakes up and has an itchy ear, which results in something like this:


The first seeds from the surprise seed mix have sprouted, and it's cress:


Also green, but a long way beyond being a seedling? My hippeastrum. It's blooming.

And just in case you are wondering what I have been doing, apart from taking photos and annoying the cat by waking her with the camera click - I've been doing some weaving. Proof here:


That is silk and gold thread, and I can tell you right now that the warp is a nasty thing to handle - the silk and gold are quite, quite different in their elasticity, and the gold especially needs careful handling. I did test runs with the materials, but with a shorter, narrower warp, and it does not scale without trouble, so I had some figuring out of solutions to do (and there might have been "aaaargh" sounds along that way).

For now, though, it seems like I've found ways to compensate for the different takeup of the two materials, and should I ever do this again, I'll definitely be smarter. Well, maybe. Hopefully.

Thank goodness it's Friday! There's a few more things to write and sort and do, and then it's time for the weekend, which I'm really looking forward to. While I still have things to do, the cat is, ever helpfully, hanging out on my desk, draped across my right forearm. Which means she is wobbling up and down when I am typing (something she comments by purring even louder), which is quite amusing!

She is a very helpful cat anyways. Here's picture proof of her helping me when I was neatening up the fabrics for Bremerhaven:


And yes, these are my scissors under her left hind leg. She's sleeping right on top of them. Or rather - not sleeping, but hanging out, waiting to have her belly rubbed...

As announced in the title, here you go - a gratuitous cat picture:


I'm always amazed at the funny positions that cats sleep in. Sometimes, this furry being starts to move herself over to lie on the other side, but sort of abandons that project half-way and sleeps some more in a sort of contorted S-shape... before at some point waking up enough again to move the rest of the way.

And now I think I need some coffee before I go on spinning!

It's almost that time of the year... when most of us get a few days off work to hang out with friends and family. When the nights are longest, and the days shortest, and we know it will get lighter again, and warmer, in time.

The time of the year when all kinds of delicious things flood our tables, to be shared with loved ones and enjoyed together. The time of year to bribe small, peacefully resting, unsuspecting cats into letting you put plush toy hats on their heads and take silly photos.


Because that is obviously really necessary at this time of year, right?

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, something else or nothing at all, I hope you will have a few nice days, filled with whatever activities (or non-activities) that make you happy, and spent with people whose company you enjoy, or in glorious solitude if you need a breather and prefer to be on your own for a while.

I hope you had a good year 2016 - mine certainly was good, and full of exciting things, plus quite a bit of change. Let's see what the rest of this year will bring, and the next one.

I'll be back on the blog on January 9, sharing tales of my shenanigans again, and I hope you'll be back to read them. Until then - have a glorious time, thank you for stopping by and sharing my 2016, and I'll see you on the flipside!