keeping it clean: summer edition

 Years, ago, I wrote an article about how hard it was to keep my kids' bedroom cool in the summer when we had to shut the windows...their bedroom at the time was near a bus stop. Folks leaving nearby bars and waiting for the bus on a summer evening would smoke cigarettes, talk and sing, and even smoke pot.  They didn't look up 20 feet to see the open bedroom windows, and of course, it was always after kids go to bed.  This was one of a series of articles I wrote about air quality and pollution.  Nothing has improved in Winnipeg in the past few years, either.  I suspect lawmakers do not live near the density corridors and probably have air conditioning, too.

What I found is that if you have air conditioning, live in a quieter residential neighbourhood, or have no health challenges (like asthma) to begin with, nobody thinks much or cares about these things.  I can certainly tell the difference now that we have moved to a quieter neighbourhood away from a major road, patios and restaurants.

Then the wildfires happened this year, and the smoke spread farther than usual.  Suddenly people in the US and all across Canada suffered from wildfires the way we do, every summer.  Sandwiched between western fires in Alberta and Saskatchewan and the fires in Ontario and Quebec, Manitoba gets wildfire smoke every summer.  Of course, we also have wildfires in our province, too. Air quality issues are part of the summer experience in Manitoba.

When I wrote those articles, I got an email out of the blue from someone offering me an air purifier for free.  I was shocked- in those days, if I got a freebie, it might be a skein of yarn! However, they said they felt bad about our predicament and offered this to help us keep our kids' bedroom air safer at night.

Well, this was in 2018.  Five years later, this thing is still running all the time in my kids' room, in a new house, and has made such a big difference when coping with wildfire smoke and allergens.  After all this time, the person who sent me this as a marketing intern has moved on, I'm sure...but this was a gift that made a big difference, so I'm passing along the information.

This is the model that I think I was sent. I can recommend Honeywell purifiers. It's done a marvelous job of helping us breathe through challenging air conditions. 

Note: If you click on this image, it'll take you to Amazon.  I think 5 years is enough of a trial period, I recommend this.  If you're struggling with smoke this summer, this might be worth a try.

Summer on the move

It turns out that moving twins, a dog, and a household about a mile is a huge undertaking.  About 13 years ago, I documented our move to Canada on this blog, and I wrote a lot about it.  It involved a continent's drive, two bird dogs, a lot of boxes and plants, a moving van, my professor and me.  I've since learned that moves with tweens can be, umm, more complicated than that one.

The short story behind this is that our beautiful old house, featured in many blog posts, got damaged.  This issue continued to cause a lot of friction for us, along with a dead tree hanging over our power lines, increased traffic nearby and a lot of construction around where we were living.  It seemed like we needed to find somewhere else to live.  During the pandemic, this was no small thing.  It took us almost a year to accomplish this.  How we ended up with our "new" old house is a story for another day.  This story is a little about the summer...

It has involved moving things slowly, one at a time.  Here's my Quebec Production wheel, and the two customers who helped me move it from the third floor of one house to the third floor of the other. (Note, I still have two great wheels left to move!)

Meanwhile, my parents visited and my mom helped enormously by hemming curtains with twins. (Both twins went to a sewing camp for part of the summer and were very keen.)  Just beyond this photo were boxes, a refrigerator and a dishwasher, appliances for our as-yet-unrenovated kitchen.  Partly demolished, in fact.

Here's our old house, which is now for sale.  I will really miss things about this house, including the front porch.

However, our new backyard is quiet at night, and I can sit, watch the dog wander the yard, and there's little to no noise or light pollution - and yes, it is right in the middle of the city.  That bright light in the photo is the moon rising.

The inside of the house still looks like this though.  Our furniture was used to stage our old house, but it's being moved to the new house soon.  In the meanwhile...things are a bit hard to put away.  Necessary renovations are still happening as we have one lovely working bathroom (nothing else is functional yet) and a kitchen that needs a lot of work.  Note tiles at the front of this photo.

Despite all this transition, I tried to find space every day to do something fun with kids and dog, too.  This was an amazing art exhibit we 'toured' - it is painted on fences and garage doors in a backlane in Wolseley.  We were able to walk there from our new house.  It was a long walk on a hot day, but well worth it.

There's a lot more to this story, but now, kids are back at school and we adults are still trying to make order out of chaos.  (Sometimes the blog silence is because I am silently screaming in the background?!)

Knitting for kids-a new article

It's been a long time since I've posted...but this is a good one, I hope (...whew, it's been a long few months.)  Like most moms with kids in remote school, I had to cut back on -everything else- to manage our lives during the third wave here in Manitoba.  Even so, I wrote at night, and when I thought everyone could manage...and today, one of those long awaited pieces came out!

This article, Why I Value Making Clothes for Kids, is in the new online publication Digits & Threads is about why I knit for (my) kids and why, if we makers value 'me made" wardrobes and slow fashion, we should be offering that, when we can manage, to our kids, too.  It has some fun photos of my favourite knitwear models, at different ages, and some thoughts on why everyone in our household values handknits.

(It seems ridiculous to be writing this as Winnipeg faces a heatwave, again, but...obviously, from October to May, we wear a lot of sweaters around here!)

Digits & Threads features Canadian textiles and fibre arts, and it's the only Canadian publication of its kind--well worth checking it out. 

Now that school's finally out, kids are spending a lot more time playing in the shade while I spin or read or knit, so that's a plus, too!--We adults have gotten vaccinated -hurray!-but nothing's available for kids under 12 yet, so we'll be doing lots of playing in the yard, on our own, a while longer.

Gone swimming

At the last minute, we lucked out.  We got two spots for swimming lessons at this gorgeous lake.  It is about 30 minutes’ drive from home, and the lessons are every week day for 10 days.  I did the first week mostly on my own with kids...the professor came along for Friday.  This week, my folks are visiting from Virginia and they are doing the lake run.

I miss the mini vacation of each trip but have also enjoy having a few hours off each afternoon at home to do crazy stuff by myself. (like make dinner, clean up, walk dogs, etc.)

I wanted to share the view with you.  Also, imagine the trip: some traffic on the way out of the city, and then a wide open prairie view of blue skies, puffy clouds, and fields of sunflowers, corn, hay, cows and horses. All that and home in time for dinner...

Summer projects

Sometimes keeping everything afloat in the summer time can be tricky.  The professor has been gone for the last week (he just got home last night) as he had a conference to attend.  We were busy.  A lake, two wading pools, a bakery, a book store, a grocery store, two dog walks a day, the human rights museum, a special robot coding workshop for kids...and more.  

When I fit in work last week, it was late at night.  It is a miracle anything work-related gets done at all!  This article just went live on the CBC though:

No need to reinvent the wheel with 'Made in Manitoba' solutions...

It's about how our growing city can come up with urban solutions by simply looking to cities who have already dealt with things like noise pollution, drug crises, and infill strategies.  (We are not the first city to face this stuff!)  It featured this great photo of taxis in NYC.

On the making front, I just mended a small tear on one of the Professor's shirts.  It is 100% silk, so I would not want to just throw it out (think of all that silkworm work!)--and it was a very quick fix.  Hurray for darning...

And, I have just finished the latest Nanodistal.  This is a dark photo of this, as was still wet when I shot the picture.  However, it's one strand of a boucle silk yarn by Handmaiden called Rumple and another strand of Knit Picks Lindy Chain (a linen blend yarn.)

This was my purse knitting project and I whipped it out whenever I was with kids and I needed to do something to stay busy until the next thing....piano lessons, appointments, and playgrounds.  I need a new mindless project to stuff in my bag now!  Must dream one up...

Summer in Winnipeg has been beautiful and --well-- hot.  (I think I maybe am really a Canadian now, as it hasn't been nearly as hot as summers when I was a kid in Virginia!)

It's summer!

I wrote an article that came out today in the Jewish Independent, and the photo featured Burger King!  (Yes, some people think I can shut down fast food restaurants....and I let them think that!)
Maturation entails practice

In other news, I am swatching and starting knitting new things.  Yesterday, I got to sit out on the back porch and spin some lovely muga silk while enjoying the sunshine.  Summer is here and it's gorgeous in Winnipeg...sorry for the delays between posts!

If you're looking for a quick knitting project, please check out my Rav designs here or on Lovecrafts (the new name of Loveknitting.com) for something fun...

Happy sunshine!

Gallery: Seen and herd

Some of us have been very busy--becoming famous--this summer.

Check out this link to see a Free Press article link that features some famous people in my household:

Gallery: Seen and herd: From the safety of a tour bus, visitors to FortWhyte Alive can spend a summer afternoon getting up close to the centre’s bison and learning about how North America’s largest land mammal shaped Canada’s history.
FortWhyte offers the bison safari four times a week until the end of August, then once a week in September.

On another day, some friends came in from Brandon to play with our twins.  When a big girl offers to hold your hand when you cross the street?  It's magic.  Especially when you are having sushi with her for lunch!

Meanwhile, my article ran here, while I was cutting up snack, walking dogs, visiting with guests...

It hurts and it ain't at all fair

This might be where I admit that I'm looking forward to the start of school and "quieter" times. :)

work/life balance

A new article just came out last week! (and yes, I almost missed it...)

Here's a link:
Talmudic advice on Lifestyle, Work

Note: This ran in the Vancouver Jewish Independent but if you get the Winnipeg Jewish Post & News, it may seem familiar.  It ran in both places...

A couple comments:
1) Yes, my sale is still on!  See the below post for more info if you need more knitting to balance out your work life.  (Or in my case, to do some work while balancing out the writer with twins lifestyle...)
2) August and early September may be a bit hit or miss on the blog front.  Summer camp ends today, and it will be me, twins, and dogs for the foreseeable future.  Lots of time for playing in the front yard, going to wading pools, taking the dogs on walks, and maybe even some time for knitting and spinning as I watch everybody.  All work or email responses happen at night, when the Professor is home, or in between adventures...please forgive any delays.

If you're curious about August is like over here, feel free to check out the blog archive...yes, the boys are now seven, but I suspect the sunshine and games will be mostly the same.

sale! Making shade...

 To celebrate the launch of Fissure, my new pattern, I decided to have a sale. 

Save 20% off all my Ravelry patterns!

Use the coupon code:

Fissure

The sale ends July 31st at midnight (CT, US & Canada).

While I've been away from the blog, I've been busy.  The Professor travelled to Ottawa for a second conference, the boys had summer camp, and Sadie the dog has needed an endless supply of walks, kongs filled with peanut butter, and other entertainment.

Also, it's been warmer than usual here, and we don't have air conditioning.  We don't feel we need it, but our living room was heating up.  I used an old sheet, some masking tape, and made a big curtain, and voila!  Shade.  However, it wasn't terribly elegant.  I missed seeing the dappled sun through the leaves, but also?  Our bank of windows cooked the room.  So, I spent $20 on curtain rods at Corydon Hardware Store.

I got out a bolt of muslin I bought years ago.  I made curtains. It was easy to hang them.  Old houses mean someone has done this before; we just used the holes they left on the window frames. We think we may take them down at the end of August, when it gets cool around here...but I didn't spend much on the effort, and it sure is cooler in our living room now. (I've purposely made this a small photo so you can't see the mess, right?!)

Don't forget the 20% off pattern sale!  The coupon code is: 

July-the mending and making edition

The professor was invited to give a talk (lecture) at a conference in Naples, Italy.  For a variety of reasons--the cost of airfare, finding stuff to do with twins alone in Naples while he was at the conference, and well, the fact that I speak no Italian, among other things...I chose to stay home with twins and dogs this time while our professor did a very speedy trip to Europe.  He came home with treats for everyone.  For us though, one of the tastiest treats was the 10 Euro he spent in the duty-free shop on real Buffalo Mozzarella.  He carried it, in a little cooler, through many airports.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it!  (See above for the tomato and basil, plain, and dressed with Italian herbs versions...balsamic vinegar and olive oil were optional, too!)

When he got home, we took a walk in the neighborhood to do some errands, and this bag was on sale at a boutique.  It's made of recycled fabric and made with fair trade workers in India.  I love it-- (I kind of have a bag thing...) but it needs some more pockets and a closure.  I haven't figured that out yet.

Also this past weekend, we had other projects going on.  The twins and the professor picked our cherry bushes completely clean of ripe cherries-and those are now sitting in the frig, waiting for me to make cherry jam.  First though, came strawberry picking.  Usually this is a family trip, but Sadie the new dog is not quite ready yet for long stretches on her own.  So, I hung out at home and they went off to pick berries yesterday.

When they came back, one twin's lightweight gray pants were, umm, trashed.  Mending needs to happen, but when we thought on it, we all concluded that really, he just needed more warm weather trousers that he would agree to wear.

After some discussion, we decided that his most comfortable, holey, patched jeans would make good "long" shorts--essentially surfer length, if not longer.  Three pairs of pants rushed up to my office sewing machine last night.  50 minutes later...2 pairs for the kid with the urgent need...and 1 pair for the other twin.  (Maintaining parity is always good!)  We will see how these work.  In any case, the cut-offs look slightly nicer than some of the patches at this point. :)

Over the weekend, I took a quick trip to a fabric store I love, and I found this Marimekko-style remnant.  It was slinky and a weird shape.  Definitely not super useful, but I had to have it--and at $2.60 CAD, it was a cheap splurge.  While I made cut-off shorts, I pondered.  I had a linen tank top that never fit right.  It was sitting in a pile to be mended.

I hemmed the remnant and attached it to the tank top in a sort of handkerchief pinafore style.  We'll see if it stays assembled when I wear it...but at least now I can look at this pretty block print flower style some more.  The fabric was so sheer and slippery that pins made holes in it.  It was hard to work with--and I am not sure I'd like to try sewing something bigger with it.

Today though, it was all about strawberry jam.  17 cups of jam later, we still have two flats of strawberries left in the refrigerator.  There is one fabulous thing about seven year olds though.  Hand them a cutting board and a butter knife?  And the whole family hulled strawberries at once.  This saved me hours of prep work on my own.
I love making homemade, local "fast food" that goes on my pantry shelves for winter...but it also takes work and a chunk of kid-free time. (I find boiling water baths and kids do not mix, especially when trying out their new palm sized Italian race cars...)

Tomorrow, I start doing the cherries...wish me patience...I might need it!

Prioritizing Play

This article, which I wrote a long time ago, just went live on the CBC:

Prioritizing play: Splash pads, parks and wading pools are vital infrastructure, Joanne Seiff writes

..and my kids are playing with enormous balls in the front yard as I post this on a Sunday afternoon.  It's been a strange time to work on editing this piece for publication.

Here's to hoping all kids, everywhere, (regardless of immigration status, which of course, they do not control) can have safe, loving opportunities to play, with hugs and kisses from loved ones after a tumble or when resting and taking a break.

Garden alert

 The last few days, our weather has been sparkling.  Sunny, dry, gorgeous days with highs around 25C (77F) which I've heard some folks calling "hot!"  (I tried not to snort with laughter, but hey, when I lived in the South, I would have killed some days for a low temperature of 25C/77F!)  Every night the temperature drops, we turn on the fans in the windows, and we need blankets at night.  It's all good.

The front walk way is covered in chalk.  (That is an underwater ocean scene and two dinosaurs, by the way.  What, you can't see it?!)

The flowers we planted a couple weeks ago are going bonkers.  This is because it doesn't get dark now until after 10:30 or so, and it is dawn just a few hours later.  Ahh, the longest days of the year are here...no one is sleeping enough either. :)

Our beans, peas, squash and cucumber plants are growing, as are the nasturtium seeds I put in.

Last year, one hot day, I made the whole family wander down a few blocks to visit our neighbour Audrey, who has an award-winning garden.  She had invited us to dig up some of her lovage, which was growing so much it was taking over the back lane.  She'd already given me an enormous number of stalks for soup one day as I walked by!  So, we dug up some and planted it.  Nothing seemed to happen, in fact, the stuff above ground seemed to die back.  This past week, we were weeding and trying to find Sadie's brown squeaky ball (the weeds were tall...) and WOW!  We found the lovage coming up nice and strong!  Two separate clumps.  I'm thrilled.  I've circled it here for those of you who couldn't, uhh, see it in the picture.  We are not topnotch in the weeding department...

In the corner of the front yard, the professor planted a mock orange plant a while back.  The professor takes the long view.  For several years, I kept asking what this weedy thing was and whether we should pull it out.  This year, it got enormous.  And it smells--well, it smells like somebody's surrounding you with a magic fragrant (but not stinky) perfume.  It is gorgeous.  It's also right near the bus stop, so hopefully others smell it too while they are waiting there.

Each year, the professor also uses some bags of garden soil as temporary gardening space.  He puts them in a part of the garden that gets good sun but has been invaded with a very stinky invasive weed.  The bags (and black plastic) kill the weed, while we continue to use the sunshine to grow tomatoes.  He uses the soil from the year before to fill in holes left in the grassy corner boulevard by the snow plows each winter.

We have some very good looking tomato plants this year, and one of the twins is already looking every day to see if there are tomatoes to eat.  He doesn't care if they are red or not. My mom, who visits in the summer, is convinced that we are bad at gardening because she never sees any of these cherry tomatoes we plant!  (There is a reason for that, and it isn't because we are that bad at gardening.  It's because we are good at raising her grandchildren to eat garden produce!)

All these shots happened when I went outside to take photos of the new yarn I got a few weeks ago, to play ball with Sadie, and to do a couple other projects.  I'll show you those photos in another post.  For now, I thought you might enjoy a little sunny green break.  I sure do!

Kindergarten, summer's end, new and old projects

We're still playing outside every chance we get...it is still warm enough, too.  While the twins are at the same school for starting kindergarten, they have been absolutely worn out by the start of school.  In fact, we've already had our first virus, which involved one fever, a lot of nose blowing, some coughing, and use of our new plaid handkerchiefs (a gift from Daddy, the Professor).

As the temperature cools, we will have to start going through all our very special treasures.  These involve "dinosaur bones," shells, rocks, and more, all piled up on the windowsill of the porch.  Pretty soon, we'll be either taking in the most special ones, or redistributing the ones that need to find some rock friends in the garden somewhere.

It would be a bad idea to leave these on our porch (near the glass window) in the wintertime.  The winds are big, and nobody wants to sort through rocks to play when it is -20 or colder anyhow!

  We also migrate in our plastic animals:
We do a lot of categorizing, sorting, playing and reorganizing our animals.  It is amazing how interesting this is to one of our twins:  Do you think his dad is a PhD in Zoology who spent a lot of his grad. school time sorting fruit flies?

I have been knitting (forever!) it seems on a ribbed cardigan.  This is a design I did for Knit Picks in 2006 or so.  The copyright long ago returned to me, and I decided to reknit and republish the design in a different yarn: Berroco Remix, a recycled yarn that is really interesting.

However, the design, while not complicated, has been hard to do while chasing boys this summer.  It has shaping, and a stitch pattern, and button bands.  The short version is that I have already knit THREE button bands because one was just not up to par.  Turns out that in August, supervising twins at the wading pool-- is a hard place to make a really precise and tidy button band.

Keep your eyes out for the design --coming soon! --though its release has been slower than I'd hoped. It's called "Plum Ribbed Cardigan."  It is, indeed, plum in color, but the joke is that I meant it as a Southern phrase...it's full of ribbing. (plum ribbed)

After all that purple, you might just see a pair of small socks, worked up in Patons Kroy sock yarn.  These guys travelled around in my purse for months, and I'd knit a row or two when I had a moment.  It's always good to work ahead on the little boy wool sock front...because winter's always coming around here. :)  Might as well cherish this late summer/early fall sunshine as long as I can!

Societal Supports...and reinventing mini golf

Here's my most recent CBC opinion piece.  It's a serious one, about some of the violence we've been facing daily and where it might come from.  (and we face it both in the media and in the world...)
Avoiding the boiling point: Society must help prevent violence

That is a sharp contrast to our household August activities here, which involve a lot of unstructured play time.  Turns out we really needed time off--from camp and school.  It's a lot of hands-on parenting time for me.  I alternate between loving being outdoors and with all this creative kid energy, and feeling like I might explode from frustration and boredom...not getting to work, make dinner, do anything by myself or even get to the bathroom while managing twins.  :)  (a normal parental response, I expect!)  I am often trailing my guys while carrying my knitting or a spindle or my iPad.  It can sometimes be hard to keep up with work email while managing the finer points of play and arbitrating conflicts.

A few days ago, we were out in the yard, and the guys created their own version of mini golf.  We'd played it last December in Florida, and apparently, if my twins have a few kid gardening implements, you spill out a toy bin or two, and the front walk?  You can create a golfing course.  Who knew?

Today, my lovely professor has both guys off at a park, racing around on their new bikes with training wheels.  This is a good break and a distraction--I'm having some more interrupted sleep- 2 and 3 AM wake up sessions with little boys- and I had so hoped we were over this already!  (at about 4.5 years old, my guys finally started sleeping consistently through the night.  Except for lately.)

 I needed a bit of twin-free time.  I canned 5 pints of bread and butter pickles...and wrote this.  A fabulous chance to catch up a bit.  The refrigerator now has 4 lbs less in the way of cucumbers, and I had a moment to connect with you.  For the moment, it's all sunshine, and it's all good.

from afar

I have been celebrating from afar.

Back in 2014, I wrote about Hillary Clinton's visit to Winnipeg.  At the time, it seemed amazing to me how quick the reporting and the name-calling became inappropriate.  Somehow, if a well-respected, well-known man visits and his speech demands a high speaking fee, it is not always news.

Unfortunately, in the last couple of years, the rhetorical race to the bottom has been speedy, with lots of horrible, inappropriate, undignified things being said... but now, I think it is safe and ok to say that I am thrilled that a woman has gotten the Democratic party's nomination for president.

It's been a quiet month around here, lots of medical appointments and things to take care of, but I woke up this morning and I still wanted a little something.  A celebration.

Yesterday, we celebrated at home because the Professor helped host the twins' summer camp for the day.  They had a visit to the biology department, the greenhouse, the museum, and to sit in a real life university auditorium and hear their daddy talk about his work with bugs.  The boys were thrilled.   Their dad was pleased.  We ate dessert on a weeknight--ice cream and sorbet--and celebrated.  (And yes, my boys play with their Bug Finger Puppets...and your kids can, too!  Download a pattern on sale and get knitting your own dragonfly!)

So, I wore Gigadistal with a dress I'd made and new leggings with flowers on them!  I went out to lunch with a friend who is an amazingly capable person (and mom of five kids...).  I wrote like crazy and I am hopeful that at least one and maybe two new articles will come out soon.  I am trying to make the most of my work time, because camp ends on Friday!  Full-court press twin summer activities begin right afterwards....and we'll be playing soccer, going to the wading pool, trying out our bike training wheels and generally having fun outside, I hope.  Have I mixed my sports metaphors enough for now?  (klutzy writer here, SO not a sports-fan...)

So I am ending July with a celebratory flash sale on Ravelry.  Get 20% off all my Ravelry designs until the end of July with this coupon code:
Julyflash


I hope your meadows are full of Doug the Dragonfly and not Manny the Mosquito.  Maybe at night you will see Luna the moth?

And all the time, we can celebrate that the first woman has earned the US presidential nomination.  No matter your politics, it is a super first for equality and equal representation under law.  It's about time.