It's been too long

While I've been away, making--doing a lot of making, it seems... blogger's gone and changed my ancient interface.  So I am going to throw up a lot of photos here, give you some quick updates, and hope it all comes out ok on the interwebs.  

It's been my habit recently to update everybody about what's been published lately.  Alas, between managing twins home for the summer (without camp, as we thought social distancing would be too hard) and the state of things during a pandemic, I haven't gotten to write or sell much.  Here's a link to my column over at the Jewish Independent, my only steady gig right now.

To keep myself sane, I'm fitting in sewing, spinning, knitting, and more.  I'm washing fleece and canning dilly beans, raspberry jam, gooseberry golden raspberry....you name it, we're considering making it.  Fancy desserts and all sorts of other projects, some with kid help,... and some despite it!

Every weekday morning, I help my kids do some learning.  We're in a reading group together.  We practice cursive, typing, math, and do some art and design.  We've done science, some sewing, and a variety of other stuff.  It keeps their brains busy and hopefully means they aren't falling too far behind...sometimes it's fun.  Sometimes, there is a lot of yelling.

We've gone on berry picking outings (social distancing is easy on farms!) and once to Delta Beach (it's big and was pretty empty).  We go to the wading pool right when it opens in the morning, and leave as soon as it gets crowded.  We play in the sprinkler, pick cucumbers from our small garden, and focus on keeping things close to home.

We make strawberry trifle, plum apple rustic tart, or whatever else I throw together really fast...

I do a lot of spinning in bits of time while kids do two pages of cursive, a page of math problems, or practice measuring parts of the furniture....whatever today's effort may be.

I have ended up with two new free fleeces lately, one Suffolk and one Texel/crossbred.  The effort to wash these as resulted in the rediscovery of several, much older fleeces that also need to be washed.  It seems that since 2010, when I got pregnant with twins, I've accumulated some wool...and haven't done a great job keeping up in processing it.  So, you know, I think I have at least three more fleeces in the queue and I hope the warm weather lasts that long!  It is a lot easier to dry a fleece quickly outside than in the basement!

I'm baking challah.  I do a batch nearly every week and share a loaf with some good friends who are both over 80.  The professor and the kids bike over there, drop off a loaf, and have a socially distanced chat in the yard every Friday.  It's a good routine.

A new "McStrippit" sweater design is in progress.  I also have a mitten design waiting to be written up.  That said, since Ravelry has rolled out its new reformat, I've been somewhat involved in discussions around accessibility and how to make my designs available elsewhere.  Why?

Seizures and migraines are no joke...and people with vision impairment are also struggling with the new design.  I spent the first several months of this year reformatting about a third of my patterns to be accessible for those with low vision needs.  Now?  Many of those people can't access the site easily, even with the toggle switch to 'Classic' Rav.  Their screen readers don't work on the new site.  It's hard to navigate even with all sorts of 'fixes.'  It's been weeks now, and it's been made much worse for many with disabilities--it's not a good look for Rav.  I used to be such a fan of the site.

I've witnessed someone having a seizure....and my dad had migraines as a young man.  I know how debilitating this is.  I take this seriously.  So, I'm still knitting, but I'm not pushing out designs at quite the rate that I used to.  My designs are all also available on Lovecrafts.com.   If you're having problems and need me to email you a Low Vision Accessible pattern, please let me know.  I'm happy to help.

In the meanwhile, spending lots of time in the sunshine or dappled shade of our yard is a curative.  The world is out of control these days....so I'm making jam...cause if you want the best jam?  You've got to make  your own...

The making season

 I am showing off my gear...I am getting ready to demonstrate spinning, weaving and knitting tomorrow (Friday) at the Manitoba Hydro Building for “Made in the Middle”-a big curated craft sale put on by the Manitoba Craft Museum and Library.

One of my twins came home with a mitten from his reading teacher with a big hole in it.  Could I fix it?  Yes, I did. Mommy mending to the rescue! (Pro tip: I used my handspun naturally cream colored wool that matched)

I may also have ordered more fabric, since my sewing machine has been serviced and is good as new, aside from being very oily...I am currently trying to teach myself how to line a wool jumper I'm working on.  That's my new sewing project.

 And, I cranked out some challahs, as Friday comes every week and we eat some every Friday!

I find when it is cold-and it is, we have ice and snow outside now-, I do a lot more making...(and a lot less running around outside with twins.)

It feels to me that there is not as much in the publication department to announce, (everything else seems an anticlimax after being mentioned in Vogue Knitting, go figure!) but plenty of things are still being baked, mended, spun, knit, sewn and more.

Thank you to all my readers for sticking with me so long! We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving this year in October, but I am grateful for you all year round.

Striving and building more

Here's a photo of a long-ago sukkah, I think we put this one up in 2010... (before our twins were born)  I'm hoping we can manage to get ours up this year before the start of Sukkot.

This is a link to an article that came out today in Vancouver on the Jewish independent's website:
Striving and Building More

Things here are barreling onward at a breakneck pace.  I'm still rushing around trying to catch up with a work backlog, feed everyone a pile of holiday meals, keep up with the paperwork that seems constant at the beginning of school...it's been a few days since I knit more than a row or two or even mended the pile of holey jeans waiting for "Mommy's help."  Stay tuned, I hope to get back to the fiber arts portion of things soon.  In the meanwhile, I have more round challahs to bake.

The post-vacation

Written on Thursday, 4/20...to the tune of the chain saws and chipper
So, today is the first day back to kindergarten after a (long) school vacation.  I was celebrating this day like it was a national event (it's not).  I am so tired and ready for this return to a normal schedule!  I longed for quiet and for a chance to catch up on my work.  Maybe do some necessary shopping errands without holding onto a twin with each hand.  Maybe even (gasp) nap or knit or read without interruption.  Hah.

Today was also the day (long scheduled?) when the streets would be cleaned, since they are covered with grime and sand from winter...and I figured it might be a little noisy.  It, however, seemed very noisy indeed.  I finally heard the street cleaning truck honking continuously as it crossed the busy street.  When I looked out the window, I realized that honking was loud, but ....the crew taking down a very large tree directly across the street?  Louder.

I had noticed that the fine dining restaurant had posted something about having a summer patio with a liquor license.  Great, we thought, directly across from the kids' bedroom...but no, that was not everything.  Apparently also, a tree had to come down.  This picture here shows a cloudy cool day, a cherry picker, guys in bright yellow, with chain saws, a chipper....can you sense this noise?

Ok, whatever, I thought, I will proceed onward.  I started challah rising (I had carefully planned things so we would run out just before Passover.)..and that worked.  However, while waiting for the bread to rise, I realized the extent of the noise.  Ok, no catch-up nap, I thought.  I will try to work.

Freelancing is a thing that takes momentum.  I do it best when I work at it every day, even If it is a little at a time.  Facing my work after nearly two weeks off due to school vacation?-- has felt overwhelming.  It was so even after I got up to my computer.  I answered a couple of emails, and reviewed the situation.
Right, there was the super nice rejection from a newspaper editor (fine) but no idea where to send that piece next or how to revise it.  Next, another piece I thought really needed a home, about finding ways to normalize breastfeeding....it too had been rejected.  Why?  Apparently the feminist/religion oriented place I had sent that didn't have any interest or room for it.  (Instead, of course, publishing articles on shopping, actors...very important topics for women, I'm sure). Was I being too essentialist in my focus--that breastfeeding should be pitched to a "sisterhood" kinda place?  Should I rewrite?  Was it because all this work,no, all my writing was subpar?

(Chain sawing continues) it hit me then that I was too tired to try to rewrite or attempt work.  In fact, it felt like I was trying to start a new job or something, and clearly, that was not the case, just re-starting after a stretch of nonstop five year old twin activity...so, I went back to challah, eating lunch, cleaning up, etc.  (Watching challah rise is not rewarding...but if I fall asleep, I won't get it into the oven promptly.). If I do not get the challah baked, I will not have time to do the errands.

Yeah, this would be the kind of work day when either you would do menial stuff on auto-pilot, or take a sick day.  And then you would come home to this weird, intermittent chain saw noise.  Oy.

You may have wondered why there wasn't a blog post for a while.  I was discussing dinosaurs, making a lot of kid snacks and meals, moderating fights, chasing bikes on training wheels, going to parks, supervising art projects...and now, I clearly need time to recuperate after vacation!

PS: I re-evaluated late last night (Thursday evening.)  Chain saws ended by 1:30 pm.  I made dinner from scratch, baked 3 weeks' of challahs, answered emails, ran necessary errands, took care of little boys and even bought them "work books" after school.. (a new and exciting twin craze, where we practice numbers and reading at the dining room table)  For me? A 20 minute nap, a cup of coffee, a good audio book while I cooked...and...time, over two days, to write a blog post about a rough and loud re-entry into our regular schedule.  It should all get easier from here, right?

Focus

I'm still here.  I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed lately.  I've got too much 'on my plate'--still not feeling too well and taking antibiotics for Lyme.  The latest info I've learned is that even after I finish taking the antibiotics, it might be six months to a year before I really feel better.  Of course, there are the usual things, too: two little boys, work deadlines, and some volunteer obligations I took on before I realized how much time everything took.  Oh, and the news.  It is a bit much, the news these days...
On Friday, I took some time to listen to an audio book and produce lots of food...or what I thought was a lot...

Here are some "cauliflower bites" made with two heads of cauliflower, cheese, eggs, and seasoning.  I thought they were fine, healthy snacks.  Two out of two twin kindergarteners disagree.  I froze half, and now I suspect that I have to eat through the rest on my own...I have not even heard the Professor's opinion! (He's not a big cauliflower fan in the first place)

 I made three big loaves of challah, and I froze two.  I'd been coasting by for a few weeks on some kind "gift challahs" from a friend, and bread machine challah (it comes out in a rectangle, which no one likes).  This buys me a couple more weeks!

The best way to catch up on your work?  A little at a time.  It boosts productivity if you have good company like Harry the dog.  He follows me up to my office to keep me company, and hops into my warm spot if I get up.  He's helpful that way.  I have been working at night when I can stay awake--I have a couple of great editing jobs, but they require a lot of focus.  I can only do it for an hour at a time before I need a break.  Harry is happy to provide breaks.

The subject of this post is this: one of my twins gets overwhelmed, and his teacher taught him to pause, put his hands on his chest, and take deep breaths.  He then waves his arms around and says "Focus!  Focus!"  It helps.  I am trying to do the same.

Otherwise, we continue skating onwards towards March.  (literally skating, the boys are learning to skate, although the ice is very bumpy from our weird warm weather.)  What's going on with you?  Do tell.

Additions and deletions

So, I think the whole #slowfashionoctober movement has passed me by, because I'm not on instagram.  I'm a bit retro: when we moved to Canada, we didn't get cell phones here, and I eventually gave up on the US one I had.  I haven't kept up with the smartphone, texting, selfie stuff that I see people doing all around me.

In fact, I found it to be a relief.  We don't get a lot of phone calls and to be honest, I don't miss it, mostly.  Life with twins and two dogs is noisy.  I don't think I always have to be available--and juggling the folks in my household takes all of my attention a lot of the time.  Truthfully, the only time I really thought I should have a phone was back in the spring time, when I had my little surprise trip to the ER and was too sick to use one myself anyhow.

Although I have dropped in on the instagram conversation as a lurker, I realized I wasn't debating things in the way others have.  I haven't been wondering how I could make all my own t-shirts, or spelling out the origins of every piece of fabric or yarn in my stash.  I haven't sworn off anything much, either.  On the other hand, I don't buy a lot new in the first place.

My only recent purchases have been out of necessity.  I bought another pair of All Birds Wool sneakers when I visited the US.  They are all wool and biodegradable materials, and I have fallen in love with how comfortable they are...and since I am not really up for making my own shoes right now, I'll settle for an ethically made pair, ready for next spring, summer and fall, instead. (winter time in Winnipeg = boots from November to April)

Then, I had (gasp) an underwire pop out of one of those essential female undergarments.  I was down to way too few of those anyway, and had to go to The Bay and check out their lingerie sale.  Now, I think I bought all of "last year's models" and saved a lot of money.  Were all those bras and pairs of underwear made in a place with good working conditions?  With a decent minimum wage?  I just don't know...but Rome wasn't built in a day.  I have to take a middle path about this.  There's no way I'll have time to figure out how to make underwear this month.  It's just not in the schedule.

This month, as usual, I've fixed lots of things.  I mended and patched many pairs of little boy pants.  I knit up an extension on this sweater.  Instead of cutting off the old ribbing, I left it in place, picked up stitches right above it, and knit down.  Luckily, I had matching yarn left over, although I have a feeling the kid in question would have been fine with contrasting yarn, if that were on offer!

I debated cutting off the ribbing at the end, but felt it was risky.  This kid is narrow in the hips, so instead, I just basted down the ribbing on the inside, and it forms a double layer band towards the bottom of the sweater.  It looks tidy enough on the inside.

Now, in this action shot, over a hand me down polar fleece, if you undo the sleeve cuffs, you can see there is still room to grow this season, and the sweater has already been in action again...worn out and about.

The kid in question is pleased as punch to have his sweater back.

I haven't done as much writing about Slow Fashion this month as I had intended.  However, maybe I have some excuses to fall back on.  Pre-twins, I did write a whole book about this back in 2009.  You know, about making ethical and green choices when it came to choosing knitting yarns and textiles in general...Knit Green.

I also realize that while I may not be snapping so many perfectly staged photos, I am indeed spending those moments trying to mend, recycle, reuse, and maximize what we've got at home when it comes to clothing.  Yesterday, I showed someone the knitting in my purse.  It's the sleeve to one twin's fall sweater (each kid gets one handknit sweater a year, if I can manage it) and one half of a handknit kid's sock.  It's all from my stash--no new yarn purchases.  I'm still trying, one stitch at a time, to make things from scratch in a responsible way.

Today, in other activities: I've made 3 loaves of challah, one loaf of banana chocolate chip bread, pureed the soup (and froze some) that I cooked yesterday, put chicken and potatoes into the slow cooker, got my freezer lamb for the year delivered, dealt with another house upkeep issue, and submitted an article on a deadline to an editor.  You know, nothing much... there's still time to fit in a little more mending and knitting, I hope! (and all before I pick up boys from kindergarten, too...)

It's that time again

This month has just flown by.  I try to plan ahead, really I do, but somehow, I got a few of the dates and details mixed up.  A week or two ago, I realized we were nearly out of challah for Shabbat.  (this is the sweet egg bread that is traditional for some Jewish families to eat on Friday nights, for the Sabbath.)  Anyhow, I jumped into action and made bread...and even shot photos.

I put it all in the freezer, and then?  I don't really know how it happened, but it is now very nearly Passover.  (In Hebrew: Pesach) So, we're heading into the "we're not eating any bread" period anyhow.  Oops.  I guess I didn't need to bake so many loaves?!

We've been getting ready.  My boys have been learning about the holiday at preschool, and even invented a holiday of their own: Pey-Socks.  It involves putting socks on all their stuffed animals' feet and making necklaces for them.  Then all the loveys and stuffies will go to a wedding every day during the holiday.  Exact dates of Pey-Socks have not been scheduled yet; it's a holiday in its formative stages.

Note: This has no resemblance at all to the actual holiday, but it sure was fun finding all the too-small kid socks all over the house and dressing the stuffed animals.  Hurray for Pey-Socks!

In other news, I also seemed to have double-booked us; for a while we will have dance class and swim classes on Sundays, which is just too much.  I thought it was only one week of the "double-header" schedule, but unfortunately, this lasts until June.  Luckily, we're shaking things up a bit--going to a concert one weekend, going out of town for a bit...so I am not working preschoolers to the bone.

There was a look of wearied exhaustion from a four and a half year old when I said "Yes" when he asked "Is it another double-header Sunday?"....Oh.  NO.  Obviously time for a holiday and a big rest.  Hurray for Pey-Socks! (and Pesach!)  Time off of preschool to rest up. :)

Chag Sameach! (Happy Holiday!) if you celebrate this one.

What I did this summer...

What I did this summer...
by Joanne Seiff

Among other things, I spent hours outside in our front yard as my boys dug in the sandbox, in the dirt, in the garden, played and argued.  Usually, I knit or spin on a spindle to keep from killing anybody, due to unnecessary sibling arguments or sheer boredom...I need to be close by in case of disasters.

This year, I tried something new and attempted a big project.  I wound 2 plies of handspun alpaca-silk singles (yarn) and 1 ply of handspun merino wool together into a ball on my nostepinde.  (that long black wooden thing in the photo)  I then used the nostepinde as a distaff, by tucking it under one arm.  (usually my left, mainly by using my armpit)  Then, I used that turkish spindle in the photo, and starting and stopping all summer, I made a big ball of three ply yarn.  I skeined it up and measured it recently.  It's about 110 yards of three-ply...all spun on a spindle.

I also knit a new sample for my Turkish Lace Camisole pattern.  I used Rowan Pure Linen, and I suspect I'll get good use out of this version!  Of course, I finished it right before Labor Day, and it is already beginning to get cool here...there's always next year.

I spent many hours on adventures with my twins, who told me firmly that their favorite parts of summer were spending time at the wading pool and with Mommy and Daddy.  So, this summer, we went on lots of trips..including to the Aviation museum, the Firetruck Museum, the Railway museum, the zoo, the Assiniboine Park Conservatory, the gardens, the Forks, and of course, several different city wading pools and their adjacent sandboxes.

Finally, while I dangled my feet in the wading pool a fair bit, I also continued writing, creating knitting designs, and freelancing where I could by staying up late, writing through naptime, and using PBS on occasion.  (we love some Curious George, Sesame Street and Clifford around here...)

  (I'm SO looking forward to getting back to work in the new year!)

Also, we're celebrating the start of preschool.  Hurray!  I have had 3 full days off of twin duty so far, and it has been nothing short of miraculous.

However, the high holidays are coming...and with them, many interrupted weeks of school so we can celebrate them.  I looked at the preschool calendar, and my guys will not have a full 5 day week of school until after Canadian Thanksgiving, in mid-October.  Right.  So, I spent part of this week cooking and getting ready... here's a shot from my baking session.  I made 4 round challahs, two plain, and two with raisin.  Here are two explanations on why a round challah is traditional for Rosh HaShanah.  (A note about the links in that last sentence...the first one is short and sweet, the second is more detailed, and finally, the last one is about the whole holiday and not just baked goods!)

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy, sweet, fulfilling, healthy and prosperous 5766.  May we see more peace in the year to come.

L'Shanah Tovah U'metukah!

A happy and sweet new year!