May stories

It's been such a long time since I posted here...because I've been swamped with real life stuff.  Homeschooling, job issues, and a death in the family in NYC --not the virus but she died alone in the hospital because of it--awful.  

I decided to  show this last month mostly in pictures...with one article link.  Thanks to the Vancouver Jewish Independent, I still get to write a column every so often!  This one is about how three big world religions find common ideas to discuss and help us get through during these challenging days. 

Uniting in significant times

In our province, our PC (Progressive Conservative) premier, Brian Pallister, has decided that this would be a good time to cut the budgets of Manitoba's universities and also to cut public sector jobs.  

According to every economist and all the business leaders and columnists in the media, this will create an even more depressed provincial economy...think of Herbert Hoover in the US for a reference point. 

 However, our premier keeps pushing this.  It will definitely affect our household--our biology professor--and since my work is uneven or nonexistent these days, it feels very personal.  We made signs and went in our car to a couple social distance "honkathons" at the Legislature Building.  Here are the signs.

We've been doing school at home.  Kids built a 'bonfire' for Lag B'omer...and played outside, of course.  (This would be jousting with pool noodles, on hobby horses, if you have not seen this particular version of the game before.)  We also had hotdogs and I had to bake buns for them.  Cause it would not be a day outside without them...

I've been knitting whenever I can, mostly to maintain my sanity...and I finished the next Woolly sweater for the kid who is growing a lot but still really wants to wear a sweater with sheep on it.

There were some pretty great Mother's Day cards.

The professor took boys on a lot of bike rides, which gave me time to do crazy stuff like work and have an hour by myself.  (Hahah, not kidding.  One hour!!)

I've baked a lot of bread. Our local bakery is closed, we shop about once a week, and these people in my household are like locusts!  You'll note here that now I have to cool the bread on a rack on top of the refrigerator.  When Sadie the dog stole and ate an entire loaf of bread (anyhow, that's what we think happened, although she may have shared some with Sally, hard to say?)---well, I got creative.

It's been a long month...but I hope you'll still come back and check in and I'll find time to write more...
  Stay well!  Wash your hands!  Take care.

hibernation

 I know there are people who continue to rush around outdoors even when it is -40 and the windchills are much lower.  Unlike much of the US upper midwest, Winnipeg didn't shut down last week.  This meant that believe it or not, my kids still got on the school bus, my professor went off to work last week.  Things sort of stalled out for me though.  By the time I got the kid with the cold back at school, and got Sally, the old dog eating, and the food made for dinner, there was precious little time left for much else.  Dog walks were difficult, as was waiting for the boys at the school bus stop.  I felt lucky I didn't have to commute...and I put off all but the most basic errands until it warmed up on Thursday, as well.

 However, somebody didn't read the school bus manual, because after a few days of those crazy cold temperatures?  On Thursday, the temperatures warmed up--a bit--but the buses were cancelled because there were so many accidents and buses whose lines froze, etc.  Also on Thursday, we realized my car wouldn't start, even though it had been plugged into the block heater timer.  

So, we plugged it directly into the outlet in an attempt to warm up the battery.  I drove the professor's car, and he took the bus, and we still got the kids to and from school.  Indoor recess is apparently a hotbed of paper doll activity, where my kids join several others in drawing and cutting out every kind of magical creature paper doll, and building a cardboard house for them, as well.

So what did I do from January 24th to about January 31st?  I worked on the computer, knit, cooked, and enjoyed the great indoors. (which still required woolens, by the way, even with the heat going full blast, it is hard to make inside toasty when it is so cold outside.)  Here is one of the things I worked on.  This is a new Stripe Freestyle for my kid who is outgrowing his old one!  It is getting short and I've had to knit patches on the one pictured in that link.  (It has been worn a lot and he loves it.)

I am using all Canadian yarns on this one.  Leftovers from On Track and Woolly and a light gray that somebody chose, but then changed his mind about, I think.  The yarns are from MacAusland's Woolen Mill and Custom Woolen Mills.    The kid in question thinks a natural colored white yarn, leftover from Woolly, will go best as the next stripe.

However, something happened.  The sweater is a nice, dense plush 34" around, on a size 8(5mm) needle.  And I did all this in a week, and I inflamed my upper back/shoulder a bit.  So, now I am back to only a few rows a day, until things calm down.  I've changed knitting styles and positions, but it still hurts! That's what comes of being too enthusiastic a knitter, I suppose...?!

Meanwhile, the conversation around hate doesn't take time off in the winter.  The restaurant where my knitting group meets was targeted recently.  So, today, it's -30 windchill, 6" (15 cm) of new snow blowing around, and we're still talking about hate crimes.  Dang.

Sunglasses at night?

We're into the really dark days here in Winnipeg.  Although our temperatures have been warm (almost 0C! 32F!), I checked and we are in the period where we get around 8 hours of daylight each day--if we're lucky.  If it's sunny and not cloudy.  Dark.  This accounts for why all my blog snapshots seem so dark.

However, if you need to see crazy amounts of energy and verve, look no further.  Here is a favorite knitwear model, sporting Woolly one of his favorites, as he demonstrates the awesome power of a flashlight, sunglasses and trying to look like an orangutan (his description, not mine.) You can also purchase Woolly here, and buy yarn at the same time...

We returned (almost a week ago) from an enormous family event in Virginia.  Each of us needed multiple dress outfits and everyone was on his best behavior.  It went smoothly, but short version is that we're exhausted... I am still in recovery.  The suitcases have been emptied, everything was washed and put away. I even managed to knit a bit this past weekend.  However, if I didn't have, say, twins in grade 2 and two bird dogs?  I would have just spent a lot of time napping in bed or on the couch.
This is a season for us when nothing much is happening.  What?  Wherever I go, adults around us seem to be in a tizzy.  However, our holiday has passed and what a relief! Now we're now going to take it easy.  I made a simple dinner a few days ago and thought I'd show you it here.  I took leftover cooked potatoes, sliced them, and placed them in an oiled pie pan like a crust.  Cooked in the oven at 350F until the rest of the pie was ready.

I then put down some shredded mozzarella and cheddar I had, on top of the potatoes.  I beat three eggs with about a cup of milk and plain yogurt, combined. (Either kind of dairy works...)  I added some garlic powder, salt, greek herb blend (Italian would also work fine) and poured it on top.  I baked it in the oven again for about 30 minutes.  I served it with a salad and some veggies and everyone seemed very happy.  It would also go well with soup.

A few weeks ago, I made some mitts out of leather scraps as part of my ongoing attempt to keep small hands dry as well as warm. It seemed like a good layer between wool mitts. When you sew mitts out of leather, you have one chance to get them to fit.  I managed to make passable mitts that fit one out of two twins well.  (I tried.)  Even so, this warm and damp weather is perfect for playing in snow, so our radiator is doing overtime as a drying rack. This is what it looks like on the average morning right now.  You may recognize the green and orange mitts?  They are The Hole Inside Mitts.  There is definitely still time to knit up a pair of these, particularly in the small sizes!

Finally,we came home from Virginia with two gorgeous handknit sweaters made by my mom.  They were also extra long though, and umm, if you have little boys, you may know that this can cause difficulties in the bathroom. :)  However, at least one twin begged to wear the new sweater right now. So, I did a very sneaky thing.  I asked my mom for some of her leftover yarn.
I then folded over the extra fabric on the inside of the sweater, and did an invisible basting stitch.  I buried the ends of the sewing yarn inside the folds, but used no knots at all.  From the front side, you cannot tell I hemmed the sweater at all.

When the kid grows, I will pull out this basting seam, wash the hand knit by grandma sweater---and it will magically grow longer.  A great solution.

My apologies for these poor photos.  It is sunny out right now, but sadly, I seemed to have missed the sunshine when it came time for quick blog photos...soon it will get brighter out, a little more every day!  It does--every year...I have to remember to be patient!

Art and Science about Wool

I also played with photos of Woolly-a kid's design that is available on both Ravelry and Loveknitting.com.  I am still learning how one adjusts photos and designs to make line drawings...it was fun experimentation.

My husband, the professor, wanted to pass along a new study about sheep and curly hair research here:
Merino Sheep provide Clue to Curly Hair

And now I am back to spring break with little boys and getting ready for Passover!

Is knitting design art?

I would be the first to say that I like to make useful things.  Things that become well-used, well loved, and worn until they wear out.  this has been true about many (but not all!) of the sweaters I make for my twins.  This year, for the first time, I wrote patterns for something I was doing anyway.  The patterns themselves were untidy and needed work before I published them (a lot of editing!), but the sweaters have been workhorses.  The sweater pictured here, Stripe Freestyle, has been worn perhaps every other day since I finished it.  The professor washed both Woolly and Stripe Freestyle the night before last, and I set them both out to dry (doing a little stretching and reblocking) on the basement playroom floor.  Then, last night, I used the Gleener on them --AGAIN--to get rid of as many pills as I could.

This AM, the sweaters were back in rotation and two little boys headed out the door to grade 1 in the same sweaters. It's hard to argue with that level of enthusiasm.

There are a lot of technical writing details to writing or knitting a pattern, and these were no different than any other.  However, I am terrible at doing sketches of my designs.  This deficit often keeps me from pitching to magazines or yarn companies' call for submissions--it just takes me forever to do the sketch, and since these pitches are all a gamble, I don't often do it.  I don't know if someone will choose my rudimentary sketches, and I'd rather just get to knitting the sweater and writing the pattern.  My architect father-in-law showed me an app long ago that turns a photo into a sketch, and C4LA sitting around on my iPad ever since.

I decided to play around with the photos of Stripe Freestyle to see what it looked like.  The funny thing is that Woolly sells more patterns (so far) than Stripe Freestyle...but Stripe Freestyle is more useful on a daily basis.  It is getting more wear.  So, what makes a sweater more usable, more beautiful, more serviceable than its sibling?  They both use the same yarns and were made at the same time, in roughly the same size...

I think that it has a lot to do with the personality of the person choosing the sweaters...Woolly's owner feels that many more of the handknit sweaters fit him and are acceptable to him.  Stripe Freestyle's owner, twin A, basically would live in his sweater, day and night, if he had the opportunity.  Nothing else compares.

I am enthralled by the ease of clicking a button, doing a little editing, and getting these sketches instead of the photos.  Does it make anything art?  I don't know--but as long as we end up warm in the winter time as a result of the sweaters?  I keep knitting and designing.

Hydro rates: Increase Demand, We’ve got Supply

This weekend, my op-ed article on our province's energy surplus (and potentially huge rate hikes) went live on the CBC-Manitoba webpage:
The answer to Manitoba Hydro increases?  Use more electricity, not less


Meanwhile, on the home front, we had busy times.  Another 'I've turned 6!" birthday party (we've done 4 in 3 weeks, and it's wearing this mom out!) and our last fun music class of the year.  Both kids needed haircuts, we shoveled some new snow, and were very busy.  The birthday parties (loud, often chaotic events) really make me realize that I'm an introverted old curmudgeon. 

To that end, I've just finished the second "twin" sweater.  It's my tradition to knit a sweater for each kid every fall, and sometimes more than two... The first this year was Woolly, and for the first time, I decided to write that kid's sweater pattern.  I'm blocking the second sweater, and we'll see if I manage photos and perhaps publishing a pattern before 2018!  In the meanwhile, despite choosing the colors and being near me whenever I was knitting, twin #2 seemed to have forgotten entirely about his sweater.  He seemed very surprised and pleased when trying it on, but told me "Mommy, I could not have chosen these colors."  He did....  :)

Making as a way of giving Thanks

As a dual citizen (US/Canada), I'm often feeling betwixt and between this time of year.  We celebrated Thanksgiving in October in Winnipeg, but right now, everyone --my family and friends--in the US is running around, getting ready for Thanksgiving.  We will be having school and work as usual tomorrow... but I can be thankful anyhow...

1)So, I'm throwing my own party here on the blog.  First, if you've been wanting to buy any of my Rav Patterns , including my brand new pattern, Woolly, you can save 25% off any of these patterns on Ravelry from now until November 27th at midnight (Central Time, US & Canada) with the coupon code:
Thanks

2) Second, if you are the kind of person who wants to say thank you by knitting for others, well, that is awesome.  Yarncanada.ca wants to help you by giving yarn for you to knit for your good cause.
They are offering free yarn (with a contest) to knitters in both the US and Canada who like to knit for good causes.  So, if you knit for charity, hop on over there and enter their competition; the deadline is December 15th.

3) I cannot really cope with this time of year without cooking stuff.  So, I'm making a roast and some potatoes and sweet potatoes and some squash and kale---and....my Professor bought me this cool set of things I had to tell you about.  Here in Winnipeg, we have lots of root crops.  We have an extended season vegetable share this year, so we're getting a lot of cabbage, carrots, etc and there's only so much slaw a person can eat, let me tell you.

As my friends know, my attention span for cooking is about 24 hours.  After that, I seem to forget things like sourdough starters or sauerkraut and, at least when I lived in the Southern US, they would grow strange pink or green colors and the Professor would come along and throw it out to protect us from keeling over.  (He took those university health and safety classes while I did Arts& Social Sciences. :)

But I still was curious about fermentation.  Small batch fermentation in a cooler climate seemed like more of a sure thing, so he bought me Pickle Pipes and glass Pickle Pebble glass weights to try this out with canning jars and rings.  (We already had loads of those) I'm making my first small batches of sauerkraut and pickled carrots now.  They sure look good sitting on the counter...and these silicon pickle pipes have a little valve at the top so the fermentation gets air without introducing anything else into the concoction.  I look forward to seeing how it comes out.

--Canadians, here are links to Amazon.ca for these things, I used the US links above first--
 Pickle Pipes and Pickle Pebbles

(I'm using a handmade book by my friend Janet as a way of keeping notes on my kitchen experiments.)

Have a wonderful holiday, or a great Thursday--wherever you live!

Two new articles

A picture is worth a thousand words.  (Good thing I write a lot, then?!)

This opinion piece ran on the CBC-Manitoba site this past weekend.  I'd written something much longer that talked about how "the system" doesn't work in several ways--but an editor pared it way down.  Through careful editing, it became sharper-more relevant.

I was doubtful about some of the editing. Then I got an email from someone who founded a non-profit organization to strengthen legislation against domestic violence.  She felt the article was just right.  There you go then, good editing wins.

The system is broken- but it's not fair to ask victims to fix it

About a week ago, another piece came out in Vancouver, for the Jewish Independent:

Lifelong Jewish Relationships

---oh wait!  I do have a picture.  Last week, I launched Woolly. 
This is my first ever published kid's sweater design...after 15 or so years of writing knitting patterns.  If you're a knitter (or even if you aren't!), please go check it out on Ravelry or on Loveknitting.com.  I'd be grateful for a "favorite" or two... what's not to like about sheep with horns?

 

Woolly is live!

Woolly is now live!  This is a knitting design for a kid's sweater, available on Ravelry and Loveknitting.  This sweater was designed in large part by this kid, pictured, who wanted these colors (He chose them himself in Alberta at the woolen mill!) and explained he needed sheep... with horns, please, Mommy!

Here are some snapshots and the full description, below.  It's fall, time for knitting up some sheepy goodness!

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Woolly is also available on Loveknitting.com.

 Here’s a child’s raglan sweater featuring sheep with horns included. (Shetland or Scottish Blackface? You pick!) Knit in 4 colors from the bottom up in the round, this design uses stranded knitting, written instructions and color charts, but never with more than two colors at a time. The sweater is completely reversible. If the kid spills on the front, as kids do…turn it around. It requires virtually no sewing at the end, just weaving in ends and joining up the underarm stitches. Woolly uses an Aran weight yarn that knits at 15 sts = 4'/10 cm after blocking on a size US 8 needle. This pattern requires the knitter to increase, decrease, knit with two colors at a time and follow a color chart.