Worry Bear for Women

A friend graciously tested my Worry Bear pattern.  She has already given the first bear to a friend who is going through some mental health challenges.  Her second is destined for an older lady with dementia.  I feel like if this design is all I did for International Women's Day this year, so be it.  I was very moved by her images in the projects and how her handknits have such power to show care for others.  She gave me permission to repost them.

We had a quiet moment doing reading before bed this week, and I caught a funny photo of these cherished (but pretty worn) woolly socks I knit long ago.  They were dangling off the edge of the bed as we made our way through a Rainbow Magic Fairy book together.  --And, if you are looking, you can see an old baby blanket doing double duty on the handmade dog bed and the wool crocheted rug, a little worse the wear now, but well-loved by several dogs after 13? years or so!

After working at the computer, and getting groceries and other chores, I made myself a fabulous snack.  That's Greek/Turkish/Middle Eastern coffee....(1 tsp sugar, for those who wonder) made in a briki, a tall glass of water, and plain popcorn topped with a bit of olive oil, salt, and a tablespoon of maple syrup.  (Don't worry, I saved a lot of popcorn for twins' after-school snack, too.)  It was delicious.  May you have something similar soon!

Snow time is here

Everything takes twice as long when it gets cold out. (Think 0F or -20C.  Nippy.)
Car has to be scrapped off or snow removed. (no garage)  Kids need parkas and boots, etc.  Dog walks become opportunities to bundle up.  However, we also have opportunities to just hang out together inside. 

One of my twins feels that "playing quietly" is an important Canadian cultural activity and he featured it in his recent school presentation.  (I tend to agree...which is why I knit and spin. Hint: I love playing quietly!)

We recently had a cold go around the household and plenty of time to sit on the couch and sniffle. I broke out (wild mom that I am) and insisted we go to Canadian Tire yesterday to buy a new non-skid bath mat.  We could not all agree on the frog and snail one, so we got a plain one too.  Twins got so out of hand debating which one went best in our claw foot tub that we had to leave.

Later, I returned with only one twin to purchase a $10 non-skid rug for the front hall. (Everything takes twice as long this time of year, with twins, and winter, and holiday shopping crowds.  Yup. Deep breath, anyone?!) 
I love our hard woods but cannot keep up with the paw prints and boot melt every time we step inside.  I came down the stairs and found this. Sadie, our new dog, is very active, but apparently this boot mat absolutely meets with her approval!

She did eventually move.  You can see a pile of quick to knit woollies on the side table there, including a Riverbend Garden Hat or two.

Kid sweaters have been in heavy rotation here.  On Track is particularly popular and has been a big seller on Ravelry so far as well...you could definitely knit one as a present pretty quickly, too.

I haven't made any big plans for pattern sales yet.  Is anyone waiting for one? (Do tell me, so I take time to set one up?!)

However, if you're looking to support women entrepreneurs, I know of a really special holiday shopping guide.  In fact, I chose to include my downloadable design pattern sales in it. 

I generally believe in making, not buying, but...we don't make everything.  So, please check this out!:
 I'm proud to be part of the 2nd Annual #ShopWithHer Holiday Shopping Guide produced by Spotlight: Girls.  Get your copy and support women-owned businesses this holiday season. 
Available Black Friday - http://go.spotlightgirls.com/shopwithher-holiday-shopping-women-entrepreneurs-artists-2018

A normal snow day

Scene from the back door, 8:15 AM today

Growing up in Virginia, any day that looked like this would be a day off school.  Hah.  The truth is that in a northern climate, winter snow is a way of life--and nothing is cancelled unless it's dire.  In fact, we need the precipitation, it has been a 'dry' winter so far without much snow. We have a blowing snow advisory, and maybe it could be called a blizzard, if the wind picks up.  It's messy, and I have a medical appointment later on today.  I haven't even seen any plows.  And yeah, the school bus came by as usual at 7:50 or so.  There were some half-hearted attempts by twins--at play-shoveling while waiting for the bus.  (We'll do real shoveling after the wind dies down.  Right now, there is just no point.)

I had a brief exchange recently with someone about how to clean a throw rug.  Note: I do not do this while recovering from pneumonia...  I recommended the "clean in the snow technique."  

Take it outside, put it on a patch of clean snow.  Stomp on it. Flip it over, and stomp again.  Hang it up on a porch railing.  Beat it with the stick end of a snow shovel or broom.  Let it air out--outdoors.  Bring in, hang to dry.  Put on floor.

"What an interesting use for snow!" She responded.  (I'm paraphrasing here.)  ...Uhh, when the snow is around from November to April?  We manage to find things to do with it... although both boys seemed chatty and excited about the prospect of a possible indoor recess rather than sledding today, given the windy, snowy weather.  (Yes, we have outdoor recess until the windchill is -28C.  That's about -18F.)

In the meanwhile, I'm passing a long a link to an article I wrote that went live online and in the Vancouver Jewish Independent last Friday:

Continually coping with our deficits

If you like to read these occasional links, you may be interested in downloading a copy of From the Outside In. It's a collection of some of the older essays in this vein...You can also buy it online in hard copy.  (These are the Canadian links, if you want to check it out in the US, it's right here.)

Is it snowing where you are? If so...Stay warm!  Wear your tuque!  :)

meetings?

I am at home today, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. In fact, I am really excited about not going anywhere at all. On Monday, I was supposed to have a work meeting. It got cancelled. I was so relieved...turns out that teaching spinning while pregnant with twins is more work than I'd expected and I needed an entire day to recuperate.

On Tuesday, I had a meeting with the buyer of the Winnipeg Art Gallery Shop. I love this shop and several people had suggested that I see if my handwoven rugs would possibly be something they would be interested in stocking. The short answer is no--they don't have room for it, and tend towards chenille handwoven scarves and painted silk ones. While these are nice things, my scarves are all, umm, warmer, made from natural fibers and planned with actual use in our cold climate. So, even my wool/silk/mohair/pygora scarves were not appropriate for them at this time...they seem to like stocking the floaty impractical ones instead. That's ok though, if they are looking towards spring, good luck to them! (spring is a long way off here!)

All this said, it was a fine experience because the buyer treated me with respect and was a real professional. I never felt like I did bad work or that my rugs weren't worthy. "Not enough room for things this size" was an ok outcome. I could live with that and maintain my self-esteem. Good. I still have a lot of 2 foot by 3 foot handwoven rugs on hand, but someday, I'll manage to sell them or give them away...I hope.

Afterwards, I got to go see my friend Margaret (who organized the spinning class) and who works at the Cornish Library. The Cornish Library was built in 1914 and has just the right mixture of old library hush, good organization, and friendliness. I was over the rejection quickly.

Yesterday I had a business meeting for a freelance editing opportunity. It was downtown in a building with 24 floors. I had to park on the street, negotiate some icy/melty sidewalks, and spend a good deal of time during the meeting worrying whether my 2 hour parking meter was up! It was also scheduled over the lunch hour (11-1:30) which wreaked havoc on the pregnant-with-twins eating schedule, which is near constant, these days. (That is, when I am not having heartburn or throwing up, both of which also happened this week.) I was likely the most on-task person in that meeting, because between thinking about food, the bathroom, and whether my car would get towed, I wasn't in the mood for small talk! Turns out I don't like meetings as much as I used to.

All this coincided with reading When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads: Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy, 3rd Edition--well, I don't know that I had the 3rd edition, but reading an earlier edition from the library still worried me. Apparently I should be eating and resting a whole lot more than I am doing right now. If I do enough eating and enough resting, there is some chance that my future offspring might be born at a good birthweight and maybe, just maybe, not born too prematurely. This seemed sort of important information that no one has told me at the doctor's and I'm trying to take the advice to heart.

So, I am thoroughly enjoying a whole day at home. I am trying to keep my feet up. I'm off to eat again...and I'm going to try to take this seriously.

Good thing that I can do editing while sitting down...babies also need a roof over their heads, and our ice dam experience means we likely need a lot of insulation and a new roof this spring.

That's the news from here! Hope you're well and considering putting your feet up too...

tumbling down

The Craft on the Loose exhibit is over now, but before it ended, I shot photos. Here is a photo of the river...with bright knitted things right out in front. The plaza was full of people and I caught this spot at an empty moment. You might remember that red pylon? It looks like this in the winter time.

I found my rug, hiding in plain sight. I was surprised by how well it hid on this concrete pylon.

This summer, I realized that when I need to get a lot done, I find an intense focus. I organize the heck out of things, I keep my head down, and I just keep plowing through. I knew that I'd had it in the past, but I'd sort of lost sight of it. I think it was hiding inside of me--in plain sight.

The Professor and I happen to choose old houses in neighborhoods that can be "on the edge." This was the case for us in 3 different neighborhoods. Our families encouraged us to look for something a little less transitional when we moved to Winnipeg. We did...I'm sure you've seen the photos of the tall elms in our neighborhood on the blog?

Well, the way we could afford this neighborhood was by buying a house on a busy corner. It also happened to be right across from this house. It was a nice house that had seen better times. In 2008, a year before we even bought our house across the street, we knew it would be torn down--some day--so that someone could build new "green" condominiums. We thought that seemed reasonable, given that this formerly lovely home once housed squatters, its foundation fell in, and it had a few other difficulties. (Our house was on the market in 2008 and we happened to see it when trying to decide to move to Winnipeg. In 2009, it was on the market again and we bought it.)

This year, we saw that the builders were thinking about tearing the house down. We waited to see what would happen. Yesterday, I was grading papers at home. Meanwhile, directly across the street, right out my office window, this was happening.


The wind blew towards our house, so I had to shut the windows. There was some dust. I kept grading. When next I looked up, it looked something like this.

Oh. Right. No house. Huh, I thought. When did that happen?

I had no idea that it took only a day to tear down a 100 year old house. I also had no idea that it was so quiet. ("Quiet??," you're thinking? "She must be nuts.")

Well, when I did look up and think about it, I realized that the noise that bothered me all afternoon was a jackhammering sound. It was road construction in the opposite direction. The demolition happened --rather quietly--right in front of me, with a minimum of fuss.

Funny thing how that happened. I found a whole new vista right in front of me, when I least expected it. I think maybe that intense focus allows creative people a chance to look up at the ordinary...and maybe see something entirely new.

At least, I hope that's what is going to happen to me in a week or two, when the teaching ends and I get to go back to creating again.

Geri said kind things about my radio interview and asks if I am going to Rhinebeck this year. As you probably know, Winnipeg is pretty far away from Rhinebeck, New York, and I don't think I'll be getting there this year...it's a long distance and a big expense. Sorry about that! The good part is that I love where I live, so I don't mind staying home...:)

running in place

I occasionally feel as though I cannot keep up with my own expectations. That is what's going on lately. I've got so many things happening that I hardly know what to post about. At the moment, the piano tuner is here (ping ping ping! PONG pong pong!) so I can't think clearly anyway. So, here goes...

Since my last post, I've dealt with those two loaves of whole wheat, made 4 loaves of challah, and 12 muffins. (all freezer bound...) I've cleaned and made a bed or two. In the end, I just made a list. My list has at least 29 things on it, both work and household related and any way you count it, I'm only able to cross off 12 of those things so far. I keep adding to the list too. Oh, and technically, this is Shavuot and I should be taking some time off as it's a holiday. Instead, I went to an evening program at my synagogue last night, stopped on the way home for some gelato (eating dairy products is a custom during this holiday) and went back to my regular routine. Oh well.

The photos in this post are "slides" I am gathering up. I'm going to try to enter my fiber art into some juried shows and sales this year. That first photo is some of my handspun. The second is a 2 foot by 3 foot rug with "dreads"--essentially locks of wool, interspersed with mill end rovings.

I've also done some textured patterns, including this one, which has variegated stripes of hand-dyed Cotswold wool. I think with the depth of greens, it looks like spring. I think this last photo with the flat white zig zag rug looks a little like a blizzard here in Winnipeg. Here the wind blows the snow around a lot, so it flies all in different directions. It's a bit weird to be talking about snow right now. It's sunny and 28C ( 80F or so). Anyhow, I'm working on trying to catch photos that look like what I've been creating, and that can be difficult. It feels like a test of my photography rather than of my fiber art.

Since we'll be having lots of house guests this summer and I'll be teaching a fair bit, you might not see me here as often. I'll try to be consistent, but we'll see how that goes.

It does also look like I won't be traveling or taking much of a vacation, but that's ok. I can always look back at Fiber Gathering and remember a time when I travelled an awful lot! If you're looking for some armchair travel, that might be just the ticket. :)

Now, on to the question I meant to ask you,dear blog readers. I need to put a theoretical price on each of the things I submit for this jury. I'm a bit challenged there. I can't afford to get less than $100 for a 2 by 3 foot rug, I think, when considering materials and the bare minimum for my time. What do you think a fair price is for a handwoven fleece rug? What about a handspun/handwoven scarf?

Advice is welcome. I'm not even able to show my darker colored weaving here, as the photos don't come out as clearly yet. I'm working on it. Also, list management suggestions also might be a help. I'm not making fast enough progress here, possibly because the ping ping ping of the piano in the next room might drive me over the edge first...

Humility is my friend...

I'm not even sure I want to relive this enough to blog about it, but I suppose it happens to everybody sometime, so you'll likely understand. I sent my friend this email yesterday, so I'm just revising it slightly so you'll get the drift.
(To illustrate the post, another photo of the rugs I've woven so far. This one is naturally white and brown Romney and hand-dyed Cotswold. I dyed the Cotswold and used some of this in Fiber Gathering for the Sit Upon pattern. There were leftovers...ideal for rugmaking!)

Yesterday I went over to a boutique that is literally a block away from the house to show the owner my rugs. I'd been told by someone I met at the weaving guild (and that I respect) that this might be a good place to go. I was so embarrassed by the experience. Awful.

The first hint should have been when the owner of the shop did not expect my visit or realize who I was after we spoke twice on the phone previous to meeting her in person--which I did at the time she suggested I come over.

I know I'm not a good retailer or a seller of my stuff, I know that. I took out the first rug, the rug I thought would be best for the shop, and of course the owner touched it right away and said "This isn't our thing. It's too yellow." (Of course, the shop is decorated in home furnishings in cream, gray, black, and white, and gosh darn it, wool is cream colored.)
"Couldn't it be more white or gray?" She asks "...could it have tufts? Couldn't it be without that binding on the edge?"

You know, the binding that keeps the ravelling warp threads secure, in place, and ready for hard wear on the floor. That binding. The one I handstitched on and that matches that rug perfectly.

Oh. My heart sinks and I want to run right out of the store. I explain that I've met these sheep, that I process it or supervise its processing from start to finish...that this is the color this sheep came in. Naturally cream colored. That each rug I make is one of kind, like the yarn I spin and the fiber art I've had in galleries.

Never mind. Maybe it was not worth the trip over there and it isn't worth recounting. I felt embarrassed by the whole experience. I did manage a polite enough exit, rugs in hand.

The good thing is that the boutique owner suggested I try the art gallery in town, and they do have fiber art in their museum shop. It might be a good idea to try that next.

Humility is good for me, I know, but being embarrassed while trying to find a place for my work is just the worst. I hate it. I also know that some part of me is my own self doubter. Instead of being an unconditional champion of what I do, that voice says, "well, you know, maybe it's not good enough and that's why she didn't want it." It's only the first shop I went to, and I need to be brave.

Later, my professor took me out to dinner, and made me feel better. I even worked on weaving part of another--equally delicious rug, this time with a weft of Border Cheviot wool--white, springy, and just a little bit smooth.

OK, I'm done telling this sad tale. I needed to tell someone who would understand this experience...in the meanwhile, the first thing the owner did was put her hands on it to feel it, and she kept touching the rugs even as she rejected their color-- so I know that roving rugs are a good idea. A luscious idea, for people who understand... and hard to capture in a photo. That's why I really think I need to find a place that maybe wants to sell these lush handmade things in person.

With a sign that says: Please Touch.

very slowly warped

Well, it's March, so it's time to get a new warp on the loom. Now that I've run out of warp chains that the loom's first owner made that are appropriate, (there is one more left, but that's for another project someday) I have to learn to make my own.

When I set the warping board that came with my loom, I thanked my lucky stars to have this equipment that came with the loom. I remembered, in my long ago past, knowing how to do this. I'd carefully studied books which showed how to use it (note book right next to warping board) and indicated that one person should wind the warp in one day, working continuously, to maintain the right tension. Yeah. Hah. Right. Well, that's not happening here. I am planning to commit the afternoon to this, but the short version is that I see why people might could go out of their mind with boredom while doing this...and I'm not even doing a big warp, as far as I know. That there is not even a third of my warp. Whoa. Long haul ahead.

I am taking the advice of the nice weaving guild ladies, who suggested I do my next rugs at 4 ends per inch, and double, triple or quadruple my warp threads if necessary to get the thickness I wanted. 4 ends to the inch, and 4 strands per end, and ....that's, hands down, a lot of thread. Luckily, my stash is deep, and the cones were there already. I even overheard several of the nice weaving guild ladies suggest that they wound more than one warp at a time, and invited people over to do it with them. My basic ineptitude and the piles of mending (on left side of photo there) and the fact that I'm warping on the patio table (indoors) has kept me from inviting any audience to speak of!

I can just imagine saying hey brand new acquaintances who seem like proper ladies my mom's age... welcome to my house! Whoops! Watch out for those dog toys. Here's a pile of books to dodge. Oh, and over here, next to the patio furniture? Right, just climb up to the second story over here--that's my loom set up. Next to the bedroom, where the dogs are sleeping on the bed. Come on in. Nope, not quite yet...maybe I'll have them over for tea first. Maybe I'll even clean up first.

This handy tool here, on a patio chair, is holding up two cones of yarn and threading that yarn through these eyelets so it feeds easily as I measure the warp. Ingenious! Amazing! I have been waiting for years for something like this for managing cone yarns. I'm so lucky this came with the loom too.

If you're a knitter and your eyes are crossing with all the weaving (I felt this way about weaving myself about 4 months ago, so don't feel embarrassed...) I've just started a scarf design experiment with Zitron Loft yarn I had in my stash. It is roughly based on the Gator Gaiter in Knit Green. It's not the same gauge or yarn weight or even, maybe, exactly the same pattern, but I'll see how it comes out and get back to you. In the meanwhile I am also still working on a stranded sock pattern and a sweater pattern that I'm knitting from an actual pattern. None of this is going along with the speed of light. I seem to be in a very slow- but creative- holding pattern.

One problem with this slowness is that I am spending more time online than I really need to. I'm trying to decrease my email/internet time, as I'm not being all that productive. I am, however, reading every single comment and even responding to them sometimes. I also try to stick to posting here twice a week, too. I enjoy the blog (I hope you do too?) and want to keep it up if I can...but I need to figure out how to hold my internet usage up "to a light" and examine if it's all really worth that much time per day.

Talking about light, I have struggled with catching a photo of my new rugs that were February's project. This is my favorite one, a twill rug woven with Icelandic wool. I'm slowly sewing on the carpet binding and this one is done. I asked the professor how to catch a light colored textile properly with a photo and he said, "Use side light." I was completely mystified...was this piece of equipment someplace in our house? "What's a sidelight?" I asked.

"You know," he says, "light that comes in from the side." Oh, right. We've got more of that now that March is here. It's getting lighter every day. It is bright and shining off the melting snow...and distracting me a little from this warping thing...

snowscapes

Remember this Icelandic yarn I spun up for my dad? Here's a photo of my father wearing the vest my mom knit for him. I'm featuring just the vest, as my dad's blue plaid flannel shirt didn't coordinate well with this Mother-Daughter & sheep masterpiece. :)

My family in Northern Virginia are all snowed in with an enormous blizzard. (My mom's had a lot of time to knit!) There's been a flurry of emails back and forth about it, as they are all completely snowed in. In fact, there was a period where some of them didn't even have electricity. I'm relieved to say that everyone's fine (and the electricity's back on) but they seem to be getting a little bored when it comes to shovelling and staying indoors. After 3 feet (90cm) of snowfall in a week, one could get tired of shovelling! Here in Winnipeg, we get our snow just a little at a time, but it never melts in the winter. So, I thought I'd post some photos of what some winter landscapes here are.

This here on the right is my front walk. If you make the photo bigger you can see Harry and Sally's paw prints--we always leave the house from the front door for our walks. A packed snow path is standard in our neighborhood; it mostly provides traction without ice.

I find the elms that line our street beautiful in all seasons so far. They are these majestic and enormous skeletons in the snow. They also can help figure out where the sidewalk is as compared to the street itself!

I met these guys from the city out surveying the street the other day. They had to use pick axes and shovels to find the curbs and sidewalks underneath the snow! I asked them why they didn't just use Google Earth instead, and one of the younger guys smirked. Apparently they looked up the street that way first, before putting on their parkas and coming out to survey the old fashioned way!

The dogs love their walks in all but the coldest weather. They are happy outside without their coats right down to about 0F (about -17C). They do want to come in more quickly when it's -20F (-29C). The difficulty is that Harry gets these yucky ice balls in between the pads of his paws. We've had the hair there trimmed and we keep his nails short, but he's still had a hard time adapting his feet to winter here. We then attempted something we thought we'd never stoop to:

Dog shoes. The professor bought two pairs of the least expensive booties we could find, but at $30 for each dog, they weren't a bargain. Whenever I even opened the package, Sally raced from the room. So, clearly, Sally wasn't about to enjoy this as a fashion accessory. (Sally wouldn't wear a coat until she finally discovered that her short hair wasn't keeping her warm enough otherwise!)

Harry loves to play dress up, so we thought this might work better for him. First I tried putting on one or two booties. He walked around like he was drunk and his paws stuck in molasses. Then, I hoisted him onto my lap. He lolled around like a big furry baby. I put all four booties on him. I let him outside in the yard with Sally.

At first he stood still, completely scared. Then, distracted, he forgot about his paws and took off after Sally, ready for a chase. Within 30 seconds, the booties (all four of them) flew off his feet like in a TV cartoon. Oh well. So much for booties. I had to find them all in the snowbanks and, once dried off, they still looked brand new and were returned to the store.

Not all fashion styles work for all of us. I, for instance, don't wear bikinis. I'm not one for open toed pumps or nail polish. Harry and Sally? Not fans of the dog booties.

Last, but not least--Icelandic seems to be the fiber theme of the day. This is my first woven rug, done out of Icelandic wool. It's about 2 feet by 3 feet. The cotton warp's a nice long one and I'm now at work on rug #2, which will be Icelandic wool as well, done in a twill pattern. So far, they're very cushy--I think they'll feel amazing underfoot. I may make longer runners of 6 feet, too. I am a fan of these very plain solid color designs--they show off natural colors of wool admirably. The next warp will likely be dark and I'll do dark brown rugs.
(Please do drop me a line if you think a fleece rug sounds tempting...I'm thinking of selling these if I can find any takers.)

That's the news from here! Please take time to make snow angels if you're experiencing a bit of the fluffy white stuff...