End of year summary…

Our end of year has alternated between shoveling huge amounts of snow and resting and playing a lot indoors. There's a big COVID surge in Manitoba so we're doing a lot of hibernating and no one seems to mind. I am thrilled by the snowfall as we are in a drought and every bit of moisture matters.  Still it requires a lot of work to shovel out several houses and that's most of what we've been doing these days.  (It was maybe 10" or 25 cm of snow or maybe 12"/30 cm, and we helped out some 80 year old family friends, too.) Needless to say, we all like a rest afterwards, as you can see from Sadie the dog's photo.

We seem to also take part in a lot of toy sorting and match box car demolition derby.

I've also been doing some occasional making, spinning, knitting and sewing.  I've just washed all these skeins of handspun and tucked them away for the future.

I got an email from Yarncanada asking me to let people know about a charity knitting project giveaway. 

Here's an opportunity to get yarn for free to make things for charity.  Please apply soon if you're interested!

I'm continuing efforts to improve my "me made wardrobe."  This is a wool tweed tunic, based on the 100 acts of sewing dress no. 1.  It's a great warm layer with pockets, which is always good. I got this fabric for $4 as part of the MB fibre festival fibre trail and Costume Museum's sale in September. It's an amazing tweed, it looks very serious at a distance but up close, is full of bits of very bright colour.  Hot pink, neon yellow and green, electric blue.  Very cheerful, and of course, only very special people are allowed "up close" these days.  (Basically, the professor, twins, and a dog!)  

I'm continuing to spin up some well-aged brown Polwarth wool on my Quebec wheel, and I'm also working on a simple sewing project...but a sweet housewarming project.  Six napkins in a linen/cotton fabric - the gorgeous pattern matches the new owners' future dining room to a tee.  I could not resist the fabric when I saw it, and I'm rooting for things to go smoothly so that these napkins end up in use on a dining room table soon.

I've also been working (as I can) behind the scenes. I've had op-ed articles run in the Winnipeg Free Press and the Vancouver Independent.  Another article ran in PLY magazine, and I'm still very proud of that Winter 21/22 Vogue Knitting article that ran on moths and how to avoid them.  It's not been world's best year in terms of my freelance life, but considering how complicated the pandemic has been, remote schooling, not seeing family, and construction disruptions to our home life, well, I'll take what I can get. In just a few moments, I'll be bundling up twins.  It's -14F (-26C) right now, and that's the warmest it's been all day!  I'm looking forward to getting out in it so we can walk over to a medical clinic to go get their second vaccine dose, and I couldn't be happier or more relieved to have access to this opportunity.  Thank you, science.

Wishing you a peaceful, healthy, and happy 2022. 

Sunshine, Sales, and Charitable Give-aways

There's one last chance to take advantage of the "Making, Not Buying" Sale!  The sale ends at midnight, Central Time (US&Canada) tonight, November 30th.
Get 25% off all my Ravelry knitting patterns with the coupon code:
Making

If you'd prefer to buy your patterns right along with the yarn, Loveknitting.com is having all sorts of great sales. Nearly all my patterns are available for sale there, and most are linked right up with the right yarns for knitting the patterns.  Instant, easy gratification!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!
If you're a knitter who donates her/his work to charity, Yarncanada.ca is having a special yarn giveaway.  Enter your information here to be eligible to win a huge amount of yarn for your good deeds!
The home front:
We've had a challenging week.  One twin decided it would be fun to hide and disconnect all the landline phones, for instance.  (Things got fixed after Mommy freaked out and pointed out that no one could call out in case of emergency this way...)  And yes, I have a cell phone, but you're also inferring that it would be on my body, turned on, and I'd be able to focus to speak on the phone...none of which were the case at the time!
I wanted to snap a photo of my homemade cast-iron skillet cornbread.  True, we ate some slices for snack...but I could have still posted a photo as it continued to cool, on top of the back of the stovetop. However, I did something crazy and trusted my husband, the professor, both boys, and two dogs to behave themselves and manage the situation while I (ahem) went to the bathroom.  When I returned?  It looked like a bad news pie eating contest, gone horribly wrong. Most of the cornbread was gone. Crumbs everywhere.

Sadie the dog was making weird coughing noises. (Hint, this is what happens when you eat half a skillet of cornbread without benefit of butter or a glass of milk...) And no, I am not giving my dog butter or milk to wash down the cornbread she ate while no one was looking...  AHHH!

A day later, she decided to open her plastic container of dog treats with her teeth, and eat those, too.  Her tummy is maybe a little upset now.  Just a smidge.  And Sally, our old dog, is not 100% better yet herself.  Fun times.

I've just made a fudge brownie pie and an apple cake--we're going to Shabbat dinner at a friend's house.  I took precautions.  Sadie is locked in with me on the third floor-thank you, baby gates- and I sort of barricaded in the desserts with heavy jars, etc. so they could cool in safety.

OK, I am not going into anything else, it's too long a list!  Here's a quick look at the sun light pouring into our dining room after a big snowstorm passed.  Winter sunlight is the best, it really lifts my spirits!

On the making front here, well, it hasn't been the best week for wild bursts of creativity.  I've done the basics--written and edited some articles.  I'm knitting a solid black cardigan for myself (boring but necessary) so there's nothing to see there!  I'll leave you with this multi-colored piece of art, produced by a kid at our house.  (OK, he was kept inside for recess due to some seriously bad stuff he did at school, but whatever.  The art came home....)

I'm wishing you a peaceful weekend.  With lots of cake.  Maybe some snow, colorful art, and umm, did I say peace?  Yeah, please pass me some of that as well.  In the interim, I might just need more cake.

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.

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!