Drip drip drip

If you're looking at our kitchen faucet and wondering what the green tape sign says, it says..."Please leave water dripping."  I bet for many people reading this, they are totally confused.  Why is a person who cares about environmental issues a little bit, one married to a biology professor, purposely leaving her water dripping?

We're on the risk of frozen pipes list.

In Winnipeg, it is still most definitely feeling like winter.  Yes, the sun is a bit brighter and spring is slowly moving northward. (we hope.)  The ground is still ice and snow covered, and boy, that snow is looking dirty! This morning when I walked the dogs, it was -6F.  Right now, it is -15C, or 5F, with bright sunny skies.

This winter is the coldest Winnipeg has seen in 35 years, and the frost line-that is how deep the frost goes beneath the soil- is at around 8 feet.  (2.5 meters or so)  You might guess, if you were thinking about plumbing, that there are water mains at that depth, and you'd be right.  Water mains are breaking in Winnipeg, and a whole lot of houses in our city do not have water.

Our next door neighbor's pipes are frozen, and she has water because her water line was connected with the neighbor on the other side of her house.  We live on the corner, and our one neighbor has no water and is connected to the other neighbor.  We hope our pipes don't freeze.

In our favor, we have twin two year olds and use a lot of water so it is still flowing!  We run the dishwasher and washing machine every day (potty training, but still using our share of cloth diapers...!) and that has helped.  Then in mid-March, we heard our neighbor had lost water and we started the trickle at the kitchen sink, 24 hours a day.  The city put us on the at-risk list and may compensate us for some of the water loss...but it is a necessary cost, no matter who bears it.  We so don't want to lose water!

If I think about it (and I try not to), this situation begins to sound like one of those bad comedies where things have to be funny so you don't cry--there are businesses and homes here who have been without water for weeks.  The professor talks about our "coy pond" and makes jokes about streams, water falls, and fountains.  In between my sleep deprivation (the boys have had a cold and they just don't sleep through the night) and the dripping water and a sinus headache or two, I think maybe I am feeling a little like I know how people in horrible war time work camp environments might feel.  (just kidding, definitely a first world comment)   I am even more upset now that so many people in the world do not have easy access to clean water...just the threat of it is scary to us.

We collect the water in the pitcher and try to water plants, fill the dog bowl, our water glasses, etc. with it, but we're using a lot of water.  Luckily, we are blessed with a lot of water here in Canada.  Drip drip drip.  Can you hear it running over there at your house?

I so can't wait for spring.  Please drop me a note or leave a comment or something if you can see flowers or the ground or even a melting pattern where you live!

..but does she knit?

Oh yes.  I have to knit, in some small way, even if I am not designing.  I find a moment or two at a time and I never get an hour at a stretch like I did pre-twins.  I need the knitting.  It is necessary just to keep sane! Lately, I have been on an Icelandic wool kick.  This first photo is a size 4 sweater made of lett-lopi.  The boys will sit next to me on the couch, drinking their milk before bedtime.  We watch Caillou or Curious George (Thomas, Busytown Mysteries and Sesame Street, too) and I am working on a sweater for them.  They still share everything so both are excited about this one.  It's called Kapp and is from a Lopi Pattern book.  #31, I think.

When the boys turn three, each of them will start wearing a kipah (yamulka) at their Jewish preschool. I am making those now, and perhaps will come up with a kid kipah pattern, too...These are designed to fit more like a beanie so that they don't fly off when busy boys are playing. I am planning to make four so we have a back up for each kid in case one gets wet or dirty or gets lost.

It has taken me a long time to even shoot photos of some of this stuff as I have been busy with sick kids and plumbing, and it has been fairly overcast this winter, so I hope to do other photos another time and do another post.  In the meanwhile, below is a bath mat.  This is also made out of Lopi Icelandic yarns and from a Lopi pattern book.  I made the first bath mat more than a year ago and it worked out very well.  Wool does cope well with the constant water in the bathroom!  Eventually I needed a backup mat so I could shake out and wash one and rotate in the other.  (this was photographed in another room as the bathroom light was dim to show the yarn colors.)

Other projects lately have included more mitts for me.  I wear through mitts at an alarming rate, as car seat belts and snow shovels are not easy on my mitts!  I also designed a Lett Lopi sweater for myself which I like very much, but am not able to wear too often.  Loose bell shaped sleeves and potty training just don't work out!  (I'll leave that one to your imagination.)

On the plumbing front, today the basement floor was covered again in concrete, so we do not have any gaping holes or dirt piles left inside.  Outside, we'll have a huge pile of dirt to move, some landscaping, and fence to repair, come spring when the ground warms up enough to put a fence post in.  However, we have a new sewer line now, and flushing is a really really good thing.

Got digger?

When you feel your week is boring, imagine a lot of sewer gas coming up from the basement....a cracked sewer pipe with some perforated cast iron...and three different dates with plumbers.  Then, all of a sudden, we had a digger coming at 7am the next day.  Here is what it looks like when an outdoor sewer line gets repaired.  It is about -6F here this morning. (-20C, I think?) Before the plumbers could get to the sewer line, buried 8 feet down below the frost line, they had to move 4 feet of snow and two fence panels from our front yard.  (Never mind the new gooseberry and blueberry bushes planted last fall along the fence line...)

All this was slightly complicated by the fact that both of the twins had a virus with a low fever, so yesterday was a "stay at home" day where we missed preschool.  The day before, we missed swim class, so this was serious!  Today, they were a little better and I packed them off to preschool so I didn't have to worry about having them fall down a hole, indoors or out, in their excitement over diggers and plumbers.

Please feel free to share these photos with any two year old digger enthusiasts you might know.  Also, if you are feeling cold and sad about winter, remember that -6F is a huge warm up here.  It was -20 to -40F just a few days ago...And, you too could be replacing a sewer line to your house!  See, it could always be a little worse, right?! I am still trying to find the humor in this week's events. :)

Mary Jane Socks download-a new era

When I wrote Fiber Gathering, it was an undertaking.  It took months of travel, and constant juggling of responsibilities for my professor, so he could manage the photography and his actual work as a professor.  We had to hire dog sitters and house sitters and work hard to make it come to fruition.  In many ways, it was worth it.  I am extremely proud of that work.  I look at writing my two books as some of my most important career achievements.  I love it when Sammy (one of my twins) says that his mommy writes books in her office.  I hope to be able to get back to that reality when the twins are older and I have more time to actually sit in my office again.

However, the small advance I was given for writing Fiber Gathering just covered our travel and expenses.  I did not make any money from writing the book at all.  Despite what look like reasonable sales of the book--I have never earned anything past that advance on royalties.  Since we travelled all over the US to write the book, most of that advance went, plain and simple, for airfare, car rentals, hotel reservations, and eating while we travelled.  (For those that met us on the road, you know we weren't living extravagantly, either!)

So, when my publisher, Wiley, sold off parts of its catalog to a different publisher, I took the opportunity to ask if that new publisher would grant me some of my rights back.  I am happy to say that my requests were granted.
 
What that means is that I now have permission to publish and sell a few of my patterns online as pdf downloads on Ravelry.  I also have rights to make audio books too, and that is also exciting. Time allowing, I hope to put audio book versions of both my books online for sale as well.  Since I will be recording them myself, it may take me a while to do this.  However, it gives me hope that there is still an audience for the content of these books in a different medium.  (I will record the text only, not the patterns, as it would be hard to follow a pattern in an audio book!) 

This is all to say that my first pattern download from Fiber Gathering is now available on Ravelry.  The Mary Jane Socks pattern is one of my favorites.  Designed to use every last inch of a special hand dyed sock yarn, this toe-up pattern can also be used for any sock yarn that knits up at the gauge of 30 sts=4".  Since the book came out, it has been knit in Patons Kroy and other widely available yarns.  I know it is a versatile pattern, and it is one of my favorites.  I have worn out 2 pairs of handknit socks from this pattern myself!

If you read this blog and tweet, blog, or use social media in some way, I would be really honored if you might pass along the word that this pattern is now available as a download.  It is a small step, this one pattern, but it goes towards a long overdue launch of some really hard work.

 
(And, if you were wondering why I haven't been online much, we've had weeks of -40F weather, some serious dates with the plumber over our sewer line, and a bad virus.  I've been trying to think of something non-stinky to say about sewers, viruses, and extreme cold...but now I have something positive to say! We might just need to sell a few patterns to save a few bucks towards a new sewer line in our future. :) 

Check out the new Mary Jane Socks download here! 

More patterns soon, I hope!

 

We interrupt this program...

I am trying so hard to have a good attitude today. Really I am. Can you see me straining over here while I try to smile?

Remember the newly painted bedroom? I posted about it here. We stalled a while when it came to moving back into the bedroom...we wanted all the paint fumes to dissipate before we slept there again. We also needed a chunk of time to get everything moved and maybe a helper to make the move easier. (I'm not moving furniture these days.)

Yesterday, while I was teaching, the professor and a friend of his moved the whole kit and kaboodle back into our newly painted room. When I came home, I was thrilled to see it. The room looked bigger, even with the same amount of furniture in it. I was excited to get into bed in our "old" bedroom last night. It looked gorgeous.

The dogs made themselves at home right away too. They were thrilled to be back in their regular territory. We knew we'd had a successful home reno job.

Then, last night, right as I was beginning to put on my pjs, the professor and I looked up at the newly painted ceiling right above my part of the bed (ahh, it looked so beautiful when he painted it...) and we saw the plaster had buckled. There was cracking. The professor touched it. It was wet. This just happened- yesterday.

We said a few bad words. We tried to isolate the problem, and as best we can tell, it is a leaking or broken boiler pipe between the second and third floors. Yet, our house is toasty warm, even on the third floor. The ancient boiler is doing an admirable job. Even so, we determined that it wasn't safe to sleep under something leaky that might spew hot water in the middle of the night.

The professor sent the dogs and me down to the living room. The dogs were sleepy and curled up for cuddles and I called my mom. Who else can you call at 10 pm CT (11 pm ET-- her time...) to have commiseration about these kinds of *^#%^!! things?

Somehow, the professor moved all our furniture on his own back into the "back up" bedroom where we'd been sleeping for a little over a month. This is where the nursery will be when the babies are born. He put down plastic tarp and a trash can in our -again empty-bedroom to catch any spills.

We went back to trying to sleep a little before midnight. I was exhausted...but somehow, the city decided that last night was the time to use the construction equipment bobcats to clear large snow piles on the main street outside our house. (Beep beep beep every time they backed up, all night long) Also, we had an endless number of dump trucks, filled with snow, idling on the street as they headed to snow disposal sites. This idling and enormous gas wastage apparently must be done between midnight and 6 AM to avoid traffic problems?

This AM, the professor called the plumbers, who now treat us like family. They explained that they are very busy and that both of their master plumbers are out sick. Luckily, we still have heat so there is no desperate emergency--we're all hoping it is a small little leak...but we'll wait until they come by to cut into that section of freshly painted (and now ruined) plaster ceiling.

Oy.
Have I mentioned that it's downright cold here lately? I am considering throwing in the towel on this day and creeping back under the covers again with a dog or two to keep me warm.

Good news? The carding class went well. There are still more Florida pictures to enjoy later in the week. We're all safe and warm and no one was burnt by leaking hot water in the middle of the night...I guess it's time to be grateful for all these things...right?

Why plumbing is great...

I am sorry I haven't updated you on the drainage pipe excitement around here...it's an interesting tale. (For the sake of your stomachs, I'm avoiding any photos in this post. There wasn't anything too disturbing, but still...)

I'll preface this by saying that for the most part, we had access to reasonable plumbing last week. We could flush, we could shower, etc. We knew that the broken pipe wasn't allowing full drainage, so everything was just done very gently!

In the middle of last week, the nice tradesmen who do evacavating started dropping by. The first guy said--"let me see your basement" and "let me see this broken pipe dvd." Then he said something that was actually quite wonderful. He suggested we call our regular plumber back. He said he thought the broken pipe was actually "inside" the house, in our basement. This meant we wouldn't need a backhoe to dig up our outdoor pipes. It was a smaller problem than we'd feared.
(Think $2000 total and not, say, a potential $8 to 10 grand)

Our regular plumbing company -who are now like relatives- came along on Thursday and started fixing things. That involved:
-Cutting up the plywood false floor in our basement
-Hammering out not one but two concrete floors, complete with rubble in between them. The rubble included old lathe and plaster walls, so we know why concrete floor number 2 was unstable and the wooden floor was built. (laying a new concrete floor on top of uneven rubble is not a recipe for a stable new floor!)
-Digging down to wherever the broken pipe was.

When the plumber hit the broken pipe, the issues were obvious. A few owners ago, our house was "fixed up" by someone who lived here or somebody they hired. This person was a reasonable carpenter, an ok electrician and his plumbing left something to be desired. We knew this already--my professor has fixed nearly every plumbing fixture in the house, and we've also gotten to hire a professional plumber on multiple occasions already.

The short version? One PVC pipe forced into another pipe--without being glued together--had flexed over the years of freezing and thawing. The flexing pipe had carefully dumped out a lot of water drained from our washer over the years as someone washed clothes. This eroded all the dirt around it, and eventually, with no glue holding the pipes together and dirt holding the pipes in place, we had our little collapse this last week.

I felt so reassured on Thursday afternoon by the mere idea that the plumber was taking care of the problem that I fell asleep on the couch in the living room (just above the basement) while he worked. I slept through someone jackhammering concrete. Really.

By Thursday evening, the new pipes were glued in place. By Friday morning, the problem was nearly entirely solved, right down to a new concrete floor. We probably need to rebuild the false wooden floor above it, but that's minor in the great scheme of things. Our basement is not finished and we don't do a lot of entertaining down there!

We were reminded, over and over again this week, how amazing plumbing is and how bad it is when something goes wrong. Something good happened to us. We remembered to be grateful for one of the basics of modern life. Plumbing is an outstanding thing that really improves the quality of our lives and our basic health!

Now the professor is on to other things. Today he's trying out some new paint colors--doing a small sample paint job for our bedroom. This will be the project for winter break. The color when we got here? A very unpleasant yellowish brown with lot of sloppy paint mess ups. We're hoping for a light blue when all is done.

One last thought--we know all this is happening in part because our charming old house wasn't always maintained well...but we also know that things just happen. We know people with brand new houses who have had serious problems. Houses (like bodies) require upkeep! It's been a week where I've reflected (a lot) on how much we take for granted. If you're warm and dry, if you have a home and all the electricity, plumbing and heat work, it is a great thing. It's ok to say a little thank you about that, to whomever you thank. (The Almighty, the local House God, whoever!)

And yeah, if your body is mostly working right? That might be a great thing too. It's amazing when everything works right. A thing of wonder to behold...

Spill Over

The big juried craft show is over and I am on the way to recovery--sort of. I find that these things really exhaust me. I try hard but am probably not cut out to be a retailer! Right now, I have these little piles of stuff in the living room, loom room, etc. that are all migrating slowly to be put"away" in slow motion. I find that everything is very tidy before I go off to teach, etc., but when I come home, there is this spill over exhaustion that keeps me from putting everything away as neatly as I got it out in the first place.

The craft show itself was interesting. The crowd was a lot younger and more hip than I expected. As a result, they spent smaller amounts of money. I did sell a bunch of stuff, but it was almost entirely handspun yarn and signed copies of my books. A lot of knitters and crocheters (again, majority of them under 45) snapped up my handspun. They fondled and talked about it with me, lovingly discussing gauge, texture, fiber, and yardage. In one case, a twenty something guy who knits came up, proudly showed me his handknit alpaca toque (hat) and then saw Fiber Gathering on the table. "Hey," he says, grinning, "I have that book!! NO WAY! You wrote that book?!" That was fun.

By contrast, occasionally, it was difficult not to be snappy or sarcastic...like when people doubted that I'd made the things for sale at my table. (NO, this is all an elaborate farce where I import things from developing countries and pretend I made them at juried craft shows!)

Here's another one. These same people started picking up copies of Knit Green and Fiber Gathering and I said I'd be happy to sign copies of my books. "You wrote these books?" those folks said, in an entirely shocked and surprised tone. (NO! I thought, I'm volunteering to sign other people's books.) Luckily, I didn't let that thought out even once, although this scenario happened more times than I'd care to admit. I'm telling you, my dear blog readers, because it was hard to hold this one in, believe me.

What didn't sell? Most of my handwoven stuff...you know, the stuff I've been working so hard on this past year. I sold 1 rug to a friend (and I would have just given her a rug, honest), 2 scarves, and 2 pillows. The rest came home with me. I even had people tell me that the rugs were "too nice to put on the floor" and I told them they could put them on sofas, chairs, or even on the wall if they liked. They fondled, touched, let their babies drool and roll on, and even put their purses and belongings on the rugs as they sorted through their other purchases...but they were apparently too good to put on the floor! (that one confused me...) I haven't quite figured out what to do with those, because although I wouldn't hesitate to put my rugs on the floor, I'm not going to put 14 of them on the floor. There is such a thing as, umm, over decorating...

The second case of spillover happened right in the middle of the craft show. Saturday morning, I wandered downstairs to have breakfast and noticed a weird grassy smell on our first floor. I raced back upstairs and accused the professor of having watered all our houseplants at once. (apparently a crime?!) He apparently hadn't watered them that morning, and the sceptical look he gave me was amazing. I mean, I know I've been weird while on this wacko medicine..and maybe I've accused him of some strange things, but obviously, even his patience has limits...

I decided to check out the basement while the kettle was heating water for tea. Uh Oh. Water on the floor in the distinctly grassy smelling basement. Not a good sign. I raced back up to the 2nd floor--the poor professor. I mean, poor guy was about to step into the shower when I told him the news.

We had to divide and conquer. He stayed home to have a date with the plumber. I rushed off to the craft show by myself.

A couple of hours and $440 later, the professor joined me and told me that the drainage pipe "had been cleared" but that we might have a problem with the sewer pipe that went out to the street. We'd find out on Monday, when the plumber could come back with a special camera that saw such things.

You'll note today is Tuesday. The news is not so good and we have a dvd of the pipe to prove it. At the least, some pipe is mis-aligned, but given that our house is nearly 100 years old, it's probably time to replace all those pipes before they all misalign, disintegrate or fill up with more tree roots...yup, we saw dirt and tree roots in there. Since the plumbing pipes in Winnipeg are roughly 8 feet underground (and under 15" or more of snow)--we'll be having another plumbing appointment with a backhoe soon.

Even if I'd sold all of those rugs, it probably wouldn't pay for this. Maybe it's good I'm on this stoner medicine. I feel very accepting about all this "spillover" in my life. Mess? Complication? Plumbing problems? Par for the course. Whoa. That's very laid back of me.

If you've known me a while, you know this is SO not usual...

The professor and I are having a very low key Hanukah. We're giving each other gifts:
On night #1: We'll get to flush our toilets. Hurray!
night #2? wash our hands!
night #3: take a shower!
night #4: do laundry!
You get the picture...? Little presents and sweets?--we can skip those. Sewer drainage from our house? That's priceless.