Supporting change through knitting

At the beginning of August, our family took a trip together.  We flew to Montreal and saw some good friends there. They were just returning overseas from a sabbatical (with a two year old) and our flight left Winnipeg at 5AM, so we were all sort of a mess, but had a big meal together and enjoyed seeing each other very much.

Then, we headed to northern Vermont, to a big family& friend celebration.  My best friend from childhood got married quietly last year, but we all gathered for an informal weekend to celebrate their big decision.  It was held at her folks' farm, and we picked many many raspberries and blueberries, played in the apple orchard treehouse, swam in the farm pond, and had fun together.  We stayed at a hotel near a glacial lake...and had a fairly big canoe tip over, too.  (All was fine, only parents fell out and it was still shallow where it happened!)  I'd seen the farm in winter  and in May, and maybe other times, too, but every season is a stunner on a well-maintained farm! (click on the links for more photos)

After that, we drove to upstate NY and visited the Professor's family vacation place, an old dairy farm.  While there, we shot more photos of Fissure.  I now wish I'd waited to release the pattern until I had these photos as I think they are much better than the first ones I featured in the pattern.  However, something more important followed.

My sister-in-law bought me this lovely yak yarn as a present a while ago.  She lives in Manhattan, and lovely high-end yarns are not hard to come by there!  However, in the meanwhile, she has been working very hard.  She is a lawyer, and is about to become a judge in New York City.

I'm enormously proud of her.  It's so important to have women in democratically elected positions of authority in our society.  Women are half of our population, but often never manage to get into positions where they can make such a big difference in the lives of others.

 While we were at the farm, our nephew, age 1, got sick with a virus and she took him home-so I could not feature her in the photos.  We stayed on with our niece (the same age as our twins), brother-in-law, the Professor's father and his wife, and spent a day or two more out and about.  Climbing on hay bales, going to Lake George, and hanging out.  We also caught a few more glimpses of Fissure before it went off to its new big city Manhattan home.

 I finish things very slowly these days...so I have only turned out one of these...but was so pleased to find out that the second completed version of this pattern is going to support Chase the Chill, a charity that donates hand knits scarves to people in Winnipeg who might need them.

I wanted to say in words how important and exciting it was to me that my (younger) relative will take on such an important and powerful position in the near future.  Words failed me, and anyway, there were three 6 and 7 year olds racing around, a toddler crying, and well, too much noise for adult communication.  Instead, I could hand her something I'd made.  So I did.

The pattern for knitting Fissure is now available on both Ravelry and Loveknitting.com.  
Let's make a break (a fissure?!) for good....making change is important.

sale! Making shade...

 To celebrate the launch of Fissure, my new pattern, I decided to have a sale. 

Save 20% off all my Ravelry patterns!

Use the coupon code:

Fissure

The sale ends July 31st at midnight (CT, US & Canada).

While I've been away from the blog, I've been busy.  The Professor travelled to Ottawa for a second conference, the boys had summer camp, and Sadie the dog has needed an endless supply of walks, kongs filled with peanut butter, and other entertainment.

Also, it's been warmer than usual here, and we don't have air conditioning.  We don't feel we need it, but our living room was heating up.  I used an old sheet, some masking tape, and made a big curtain, and voila!  Shade.  However, it wasn't terribly elegant.  I missed seeing the dappled sun through the leaves, but also?  Our bank of windows cooked the room.  So, I spent $20 on curtain rods at Corydon Hardware Store.

I got out a bolt of muslin I bought years ago.  I made curtains. It was easy to hang them.  Old houses mean someone has done this before; we just used the holes they left on the window frames. We think we may take them down at the end of August, when it gets cool around here...but I didn't spend much on the effort, and it sure is cooler in our living room now. (I've purposely made this a small photo so you can't see the mess, right?!)

Don't forget the 20% off pattern sale!  The coupon code is: 

Chase the Chill Features Fissure

Back in June, I managed to corral the Professor, both twins, and Sadie the dog to go to Assiniboine Park for a few minutes on a Saturday afternoon.  I am usually spending time with my family and going to services on Saturdays when we can pull it off, but that day--It was a chance to support Knit In Public Day --which is hosted locally by Chase the Chill, a Winnipeg knitting charity which I think is fantastic.  Chase the Chill provides handknit scarves to Winnipeggers in need, once a year.  All  year long, people knit for Chase the Chill's annual event.  It happens in early December, when it is already plenty cold here.

It's simple.  The folks who run it go out with some helpers, and tie all those handknit scarves all over the trees in one downtown park with notes.  The notes say who knit the scarves, and invite people to take and wear the scarves to stay warm. 

Today I looked up Chase the Chill's twitter feed, because one of its organizers was the very first person to purchase Fissure.  Thank you, Val!  What I discovered on the twitter feed made me feel even more connected...

See this photo?  It topped the post for WorldWide Knit in Public Day 2018 for Chase the Chill in Winnipeg.  (See anything familiar?!)  Those are my hands, knitting the sample for Fissure.  Seconds before and after this shot, everyone was passing around the yarn label and fondling the yak. :)

Thanks for coming out to #wwkipday2018 !
“I can knit. I knit all year, day in, day out. It is my passion, and I rarely knit the same thing twice the same way.” ~ Elizabeth Zimmermann #chasethechillinwinnipeg#chasethechill #WWKIP2018 pic.twitter.com/jTNPCqvrGi

— Chase the Chill (@CTCwpg) June 9, 2018

Today, I discovered this on their twitter feed:

Fissure is a lovely new shawl pattern from local knitwear designer Joanne Seiff! What would you knit it with? https://t.co/iY8AOPkoYH

— Chase the Chill (@CTCwpg) July 15, 2018

Thanks so much to Chase the Chill for connecting with local designers--and featuring us!  I so appreciate it...and of course, I appreciate what you do all year as you knit for cold Winnipeggers, too.

Fissure

Fissure is live!

Yes, it's been a long while since I've released a pattern.  Here's more info:

Fissure

A knitting pattern by Joanne Seiff

/ˈfɪʃə/

NOUN

1. a long, narrow opening or line of breakage made by cracking or splitting, especially in rock or earth.

synonyms:

opening, crevice, crack, cleft, breach, crevasse, chasm

Ever thought of how life goes along, with all its texture, until something breaks? A fissure can be an illness, a career challenge, a relationship break-up…something that disrupts life’s texture. Fissure is a rectangular wrap to express that kind of disruption…but in knitting form.  This design features Cecila Campochiaro’s Sequence Knitting, a 3 stitch, textured repeat, until a Stockinette stitch, scalene triangle splits it apart.

The sample uses 2 skeins of Reywa Fibers’ Embrace, a DK weight, fair trade Tibetan Yak Down yarn, to create a wrap that drapes without elasticity.

Fissure, like life, is flexible: adjust the yarn type and weight and gauge by choosing a needle two sizes larger than called for and create a design all your own. With approximately 400 yards (366 meters) of DK weight yarn and size 8 (5mm) needles, the shawl measures approximately 60" (155cm) long by 12"(30cm) in width.

If you'd like to learn more, here are three ways to check out the pattern!

Loveknitting has the design for sale here.

Ravelry also has the pattern live here.  (Psst. You can also just favorite it for later!)

Finally, if you know what you want...and you want this PDF download right now?!

buy now 

Happy summer knitting! :)