I'm teaching on September 13th!

Yes, it's true!
I'm teaching a class on how to use recycled materials to make yarn...at the Manitoba Fibre Festival!  (The photo's from my book, Knit Green, an oldie but a goody...)
Check out this lovely kind blog post for more information..and
  To register, go straight to this page on the Festival website.

Other things, in brief...
Strippy McStrippit, my new cardigan design, is now live on both Ravelry and Lovecrafts.com.  (If you live in North America, Lovecrafts even carries Einband, the yarn I used for the pattern sample, so it's easy one-stop shopping.

On an entirely different topic, if you want to read one of my newspaper articles--this one's about Canada's federal voting date, religious minorities, Jewish holidays, and reggae.  (No kidding, I had to throw in reggae...)  Check out this piece, published last Friday in Vancouver.
We are one people, one heart 

Strippy McStrippit is live!

If you know me in person, you've seen me carrying around a little pouch of knitting forever.  It's now a real pattern, it's live on Ravelry, and it's called Strippy McStrippit!

It's late at night while I am posting this and it's still summer vacation and I'll be up early with kids, so here is the description.  If you're anything like me, you long to have a mindless sweater on the go, but in small, light pieces...and here it is!

Too tired to carry a top-down sweater project on your commute, to kids’ lessons or the doctor’s office?  This design’s for you.

 

Strippy’s an A-line, modern open women’s cardigan, in seven sizes with a trick up its sleeve. This is a bottom-up, simple sweater knit in pieces…seven pieces, to be exact. You’ll work towards a sleek and flexible cardigan while enjoying completely portable, simple patterned knitting that fits in a purse while you’re on the go!

Strippy requires knitting, purling, increases, decreases, and sewing up at the end.  This design uses written instructions and a schematic.  It calls for a double strand of lace-weight or a single strand of Aran yarn that knits at 17 sts sts = 4"/10 cm after blocking on a size US 7 needle.

Strippy McStrippit will also be live on Lovecrafts.com...coming soon!

Gone swimming

At the last minute, we lucked out.  We got two spots for swimming lessons at this gorgeous lake.  It is about 30 minutes’ drive from home, and the lessons are every week day for 10 days.  I did the first week mostly on my own with kids...the professor came along for Friday.  This week, my folks are visiting from Virginia and they are doing the lake run.

I miss the mini vacation of each trip but have also enjoy having a few hours off each afternoon at home to do crazy stuff by myself. (like make dinner, clean up, walk dogs, etc.)

I wanted to share the view with you.  Also, imagine the trip: some traffic on the way out of the city, and then a wide open prairie view of blue skies, puffy clouds, and fields of sunflowers, corn, hay, cows and horses. All that and home in time for dinner...

Summer projects

Sometimes keeping everything afloat in the summer time can be tricky.  The professor has been gone for the last week (he just got home last night) as he had a conference to attend.  We were busy.  A lake, two wading pools, a bakery, a book store, a grocery store, two dog walks a day, the human rights museum, a special robot coding workshop for kids...and more.  

When I fit in work last week, it was late at night.  It is a miracle anything work-related gets done at all!  This article just went live on the CBC though:

No need to reinvent the wheel with 'Made in Manitoba' solutions...

It's about how our growing city can come up with urban solutions by simply looking to cities who have already dealt with things like noise pollution, drug crises, and infill strategies.  (We are not the first city to face this stuff!)  It featured this great photo of taxis in NYC.

On the making front, I just mended a small tear on one of the Professor's shirts.  It is 100% silk, so I would not want to just throw it out (think of all that silkworm work!)--and it was a very quick fix.  Hurray for darning...

And, I have just finished the latest Nanodistal.  This is a dark photo of this, as was still wet when I shot the picture.  However, it's one strand of a boucle silk yarn by Handmaiden called Rumple and another strand of Knit Picks Lindy Chain (a linen blend yarn.)

This was my purse knitting project and I whipped it out whenever I was with kids and I needed to do something to stay busy until the next thing....piano lessons, appointments, and playgrounds.  I need a new mindless project to stuff in my bag now!  Must dream one up...

Summer in Winnipeg has been beautiful and --well-- hot.  (I think I maybe am really a Canadian now, as it hasn't been nearly as hot as summers when I was a kid in Virginia!)