Where is that woman?

It's been a whirlwind here...we took a trip east to visit family in Virginia, went to see long time grad school friends and colleagues in North Carolina and more.  We visited a friend's farm and went to the NC Museum of Life & Science.  Our twins particularly enjoyed checking out the bug exhibits, and it turns out that the Professor's grad school advisor and his longtime technician actually raise some of the tobacco horn worms for that exhibit.

The dead silence from the blog has been largely because I am the person who packs the suitcases for three of us, remembers the bathing suits and the sun hats and the very important loveys, toys and school homework.  The dogs came home from the kennel alive and well...and while I was glad to see so many friends and family, I am also glad to be home.

On the knitting front, I have a quick bit of news:

If you'd like to buy one of my Ravelry Patterns ON SALE!...quick, act now!  Time is limited!

I am supporting the Canada KAL, which supports Canadian design and designers.
 Save 20% off all my Ravelry patterns through June 1st. (Ends midnight, CT, US& Canada)  Use this coupon code to save 20%:
Cankal2018  

The other bit of knitting news...while I visited Virginia, some lovely linen yarn arrived in the mail for me, as well as a gift from a friend.  We visited A great Arts Centre in Alexandria, Virginia.  It has lots of programs that allow kids and adults to donate, reuse and recycle their art supplies.  Our friends and their kid took us for a kids' program, and our boys made lots of art to take home.  I visited their store rooms, and scored this:
3 skeins of Quince & Co Puffin (dark brown)
1 skein of Rowan Kidsilk Haze (dark blue)
3 skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter (dark blue, rose, and dark brown)
AND two pairs of ebony and rosewood knitting needles.
(No photos yet, it's in the freezer, ensuring no moths got brought home from Virginia.
--I paid $5 US per skein of yarn, and $3 for each pair of knitting needles.  What a great find!

Last, but not least....this week has continued to be crazy.  It's been time to make cupcakes for all of grade 1, clean up the house, and make party plans for two boys who are about to turn SEVEN.
If you don't remember back too far on the blog, read about June 2011 here.

Here's the short version in words.

or, there's this:

Happy Birthday, boys!
Here's to a whole weekend of partying ahead...and hoping for many more years of perfectly ordinary, nice days, with health and well-being every day, for many years to come.

Plastic Straws, and making things

Summer camp starts at 9:30, which means that there is time for early birds at our house to play, walk dogs, and even watch Clifford on TV before camp.  Last week, I dodged upstairs for a bit while the Professor supervised the matchbox car races and tower destruction... and I wrote something about our trip.  It happened to correspond to a great campaign in Winnipeg as well, and it ran on the CBC on Saturday morning.  Here's the link.  (and a photo...) 

Want to save the planet? Start by saying no to the plastic straw

It's been a busy few days.  Just a couple days after we got home from our trip, the Professor left to do some work research at a museum in NYC, and visit relatives.  I had my hands full with twins, but Harry the dog suffered some serious stomach issues, too and was up a lot with me 2 nights in a row.  It resulted in a lot of messes to clean up, a trip to the vet, and $174 later, some antibiotics and a much happier dog.  Sally, our other dog, was remarkably placid during all this, which helped enormously.

Once things seemed a bit more under control, I took a trip to my favorite quirky fabric store, and bought supplies.  I am making something for my nephew in Virginia.  (A quick update if you've been reading the blog since 2008?)  This nephew mostly uses a wheel chair, has some significant challenges, but is bright as a penny.  He signs and uses a communication device, and his spelling is amazing...he is lots of fun!  My kids love playing with this cousin. :)  Anyhow, his mom gave me a project to work on.  (Kids with special needs often require handmade things to help out, you can't buy everything in a store!)  I will need to figure out snaps.  For me, it's a new sewing frontier.
While the Professor was away, I juggled everything fine until things started to be, umm, not as fine.  He was supposed to return Friday night.  Unfortunately, he had one of those bad travel experiences that results in a marathon travel experience.  He spent an extra night with his brother's family in Manhattan, and he was getting on planes that don't take off due to weather (1), plane troubles (1), then missing a connection due to the late flights, and then having to take two more flights, and then well, he got home around midnight Saturday night.  A day and a half of trying to get home.  

Ouch.  However, it was also ouch for me, since I'd planned out life with twins and dogs right through Friday, but not beyond.  Luckily, an artist friend sprang into action.  On Saturday, we joined her to do age-appropriate paper marbling on her front porch, and then her husband read kid stories, and she fed us a delicious lunch.  I thanked heaven for friends who could help about then.  We came home, took a nap, played at the wading pool, and waited for Daddy.  Both boys were so excited that they could not sleep, so we did chores together until nearly 9pm.  Chores are boring, though the boys were very helpful, so eventually, they fell asleep.

On Sunday, we all went strawberry picking, as well as boy bike riding, and playing with the hose in the front yard.  

I'm exhausted, but folks will insist on continuing to eat, too, even after Daddy comes home.  Tonight?  Beef kofte, brown rice, vegan tzatziki, and a big salad.  Strawberry banana apple fruit leather is drying in the dehydrator, strawberry yogurt popsicles are in the freezer, and there are still something like 7 or 8 flats of strawberries left to process into jam or washed, frozen berries...   There's always tomorrow.

Waterfalls, fishing, and airplanes

An article of mine recently went online at the Jewish Independent in Vancouver, it's called Good relationships matter.  Around the same time, I was packing suitcases for three of us (two boys, one mom--the professor does his own..) and 2 dogs to go to dog camp.  (the kennel)

All the humans in our immediate family flew to Virginia to see grandparents, family friends, cousins, and aunts and uncles.  We do this a couple times a year.  It's a huge undertaking, although considerably easier now that both boys walk on their own, and don't need bottles or a double stroller.

 The travelling takes two planes, international border crossing, and all day, each way.
The biggest victory this time? We took 2 taxis, 2 rides with relatives, four planes, two each way, and no one threw up on me.  This, we think, may be a first, and I am very grateful.  (I engineered it through careful underfeeding of snacks, encouraging people to take deep breaths, and in one case, a kid had his head on his knees, taking deep breaths. We did it.  Whew.

On our trip, we mostly focused on experiences:  Each boy caught his first fish with Bop (grandpa), at Lake Fairfax in Virginia (heavily stocked with fish, btw).  We saw a waterfall for the first time.  For kids who live on the prairie, Great Falls is indeed, a 'great' falls.  One twin asked about fossils, and the other one focused on learning about George Washington, soldiers, and the educational movie at the visitors' center.

We experienced a lot of heat (highs in the mid 90s, maybe 35C, with high humidity) and lush green summer weather in Virginia.  We ate out a lot, and 'tavernas'--a Greek one, and a Lebanese one, remained big favorites.  We played with cousins and saw friends.  We went to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum because one twin plans on being an "airplane driver" when he grows up.

However, experiences aren't everything.  Souvenirs are important too!  Kids recall a lot about their experiences when they play with something small that they got.  My kids picked up sticks in the yard for my father and 'earned' a trip to an old fashioned hardware store/5&dime that I used to go to as a kid named Ayers.   Choosing toys that they earned by doing chores was a very exciting part of the trip.

While visiting Great Falls, they chose coloring books of US national parks and backyard wildlife, which they have worked on nearly every day since.  This included coloring at our gate with new friends named Mustaph and Leila in the airport on the way home.  (I wish I had a photo of that one, it was amazing.  Three bottoms lined up, heads leaning over the coloring on a window ledge, while planes took off right in front of them)

At Udvar-Hazy, the boys each chose one small toy: a space shuttle and an airplane, which have been in constant motion and creative play since then.

My father also built wooden motorcycles with the help of one twin, and the other colored his to personalize it.  Those are also precious.

In one airport, we chose dinosaur (for the future paleontologist) and plane (for the pilot) sticker activity books, and we met an adult twin who worked at the bookstore.

On that twin topic: on another plane, we met a flight attendant who was a twin.  We played with twin two year olds in the Minneapolis airport playground, too.

I suspect that we may remember fishing (and hooking grandpa, OUCH!) forever...but the coloring books will last a long time, too!

Undertow: a hat for strong currents

You may have guessed that I went on a little trip with my family.  My kids had a (long) school vacation for Passover, so we went to see relatives in Virginia.  It was a big adventure, complete with lots of time with grandparents, family, and friends, and many wonderful excitements:

-Metro rides (DC subway)
-a couple of trips to Ayers Variety & Hardware, an old-fashioned store where you can buy real toys for $5 and under that make for ecstatic little boys.  (a slinky, a toy goat, a plastic box turtle, a toy train...and stickers)
-a trip to West Virginia, to my parents' vacation place, to see real animals like deer, a box turtle, a huge wild turkey....and lots of bugs
-A trip to the farm where I used to volunteer and work: (to see turkeys, geese, sheep, a cow, pigs...etc.) 
-The Smithsonian Natural History Museum
-a carousel
and more.

All on the positive side of the list, including my twins, who wowed all the grown ups at two Passover seders with their firm grasp on what was going on, how it should be done, and why.  (they were astounding.  They have good preschool teachers, that is for sure!)

You may be wondering why I have all these photos here of me wearing a woolly hat.  On the "not so positive" side of the list...it rained nearly the entire time we were in Virginia.  This was good, in a way, to show two little prairie boys what a good spring soaking rain can do.  It was green, it was lush, and there were loads of flowers.  It was also cold and wet.  We had our rain coats, but I longed for a hat. (not packed, alas)

We also had the opportunity to pass along world's longest and crummiest head cold.  It laid the Professor low for 2-3 days at the start of the trip, and I am still trying to get over it.  We also had one unfortunate incident on an airplane due to preschooler motion sickness that required a full change of clothing, right down to the underwear...but these things happen... I digress. Now that I am back home...it's sunny and dry here in Winnipeg, with a high of 31C (high 80sF and beyond) today.

Most people don't launch a woolly hat knitting pattern in springtime, I know.  What can I say?  I like to beat the rush?!  Actually though, if you live in a cooler climate, early mornings and late nights can still be nippy, particularly if you are by the water, or at a sports event, or, like me, just walking the dogs.  Here is a quick to knit burst of lush Merino sweetness (or not Merino, if you choose something else!) and it is sized to fit everybody from preschoolers to an XL Men's size.  Good for a whole crowd of chilly folk.

Undertow: a hat for strong currents

Or, maybe it is good in the not-so-cold climates too.  Next time I go way South, on two airplanes, with a passel of kids and a Professor?  I might just find space for this hat.

Progress

I've been meaning to post.  However, a few things got in the way.  First, I'd be crazy not to admit that this winter (the worst since 1898) in Winnipeg really got me down.  We decided to travel east to see family in the USA for Passover, and that was a good decision.  Family visits are complicated and travelling with 2.5 year old twins internationally is not a great thing to anticipate...but just getting to see family...and all those flowers, all that grass, all those playgrounds and long walks outside made the effort worth it.

In truth, the plane rides were smooth and if you have to go across the continent on two flights each way, we somehow found the best  combination of flights to Virginia.  I figured out (mostly) what to pack.  The only person with a deficit--only two weather-appropriate pairs of pants--was me.  Luckily, we made good use of my parents' washer and dryer.

Right before I left, I finished two sweaters.  One is for the boys (the striped lett-lopi from a previous post) and I don't yet have a photo of it in action.  My mom was kind enough to sew a zipper in, and away we went out to play in it!

The second sweater was for me.  This one was amazing to contemplate, so I had to try it.  A  whole sweater from Bulky Lopi (very thick, lightweight singles yarn) on size 17 needles.  I made Nu but skipped the turtleneck and knit it a little differently, with a slight A-line so it would not be too tight.  It came out so well that I am wearing it today.  This might seem bizarre to those in warmer climes but we had sloppy snow this morning here and dark clouds; it ain't all flowers here yet.

It was hard to catch a whole body photo of it, so here is a close up of the enormous stitches and a poor snapshot of the sweater as I am wearing it.  One advantage to long term tummy trouble (finally, a diagnosis, for those who are medically inclined, you can click here) is that my sweaters fit better now.  That is, everything hangs loosely on me.  I've lost some weight in a way I did not intend to, but things seem to be stabilizing, I hope.

Another bit of progress:  When the boys were very small, many of my 5 spinning wheels stayed just where they lived before the twins were born.  Over time, we moved things to fit more toys, play pens, etc.   Also, the only time I managed to spin was while wearing one baby in a sling and the other boy was asleep or with another adult.  This was a rare occurrence.  As they became more mobile, I faced reality and moved all the spinning wheels to my office space, far away from daily activity.  One wheel remained in my bedroom, but it got dusty and dirty from lack of use.  In fact, it had been months since I spun on a wheel.  I used my trusty spindles in the basement playroom every so often, and that was it.

Both boys like to play at spinning and one "knitting" attempt involved an entire skein of yarn and many of the toys in the play room.  We had to cut off that yarn to clean up after they went to sleep!  Anyway, lately, both boys have asked me to put a spinning wheel into the playroom so "Mommy can spin on a spinning wheel" again.  They have been entranced by a Curious George episode with spinning in it, and I am thrilled.  Maybe the novelty will work, I don't know, but today I moved one wheel back to the playroom where I can use it again while they race cars and build block towers.  We'll see what happens...but it might be a small step towards getting some of my old life back.  :)

take the weather

Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you...
--Crowded House

This song is racing through my head. I think it doesn't entirely make sense but I'm going with it...

A few days ago, I went on an adventure with our resident student. (Sadly, she is not in residence anymore, but went home yesterday...I missed her presence right after she left!) The adventure involved going to Value Village to hunt up wool sweaters. It's harder than one might think to buy 100% wool sweaters in Kentucky. Winter in Kentucky gets cold, definitely below freezing, including snow and ice on rare occasions, but for some reason, retailers and consumers there don't think that people need natural fiber gear for winter.

Our visiting student needed serious winter clothing for her visit, so we gifted her with several wool sweaters and went to shop for more. Then, another friend of mine in Northern Kentucky sent in a request--would we shop for her, too? In the end, I washed and sent our student home with an extra suitcase and something like 12 fabulous natural fiber sweaters from Winnipeg thrift shops. Our student also received 3 sweaters as gifts from us--sweaters that were hanging around, including this one that I knit but never wore. It just didn't suit me in the end.

It was fun to shop for gorgeous wool, cashmere and silk sweaters for other people. As the professor has pointed out, I have more enough sweaters, so this was a good excuse to sweater shop for others!

Today is the day I prepare for my trip. I haven't actually flown anywhere since May--and that is a long time for me to go between trips. I've missed travelling. At the same time, I am finding packing hard this time around. Never mind the belly, which changes from day to day, I am confused about how to pack for the temperatures we'll experience in Virginia and Florida.

I likely won't need my winter boots on this trip. (I wear winter boots every single time I go outside here in Winnipeg from November through April) Right, that makes sense, but we've got several feet of snow on the ground here, so I just will wear shoes with good tread to the airport. What about sweaters? What weight jacket do you wear when the predicted low is -10F (-23C) tomorrow here and 29F (-2C) there?

No matter how hard I think about it or sing the Crowded House song, I don't take the weather with me! I take my Winnipeg adjusted body temperatures and ideas about the weather and hopefully my clothing, assuming my suitcase gets there. So, yeah, no wonder I'm confused. To think that I lived about 20 years in Virginia...and I can't remember the winter weather there. Sort of interesting.

So, if you feel the weather is snowy and cold where you are, you're probably right. If you were wondering if it is cold in Virginia right now, well, yes, they think it is. It is MUCH colder here. All things being equal, I'm quite sure my relatives would prefer I do not take the weather with me. :)

How much snow do you have right now? What's the temperature!? (Celsius or Fahrenheit?) What's cold where you live?

knitwear past and present

I'll start out by saying that I found all the comments to the last post very interesting and thought provoking. I've lived in lots of places (summarized list in the last post's comments) and seen beauty and scenic views in all of them. I think what I was trying to say was that the prairie "scenic views" do not have to be seen at the top of an observation tower--I see them every day. Maybe my thoughts weren't just written out clearly. On reflection, maybe I also assumed some things about travel since I've done a bit of it and lived in a lot of places.

For instance, it is not a small thing to say that a road enables good knitting time. I've been on some roads in North America and abroad (In the U.S., for instance, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Colorado, New England and upstate New York) that basically made knitting impossible. If the hills are straight up and down, the turns are "hairpin" and you're trying hard to keep your lunch down, well, it's not a good time to knit. In fact, in winter, just staying on the road seemed a real achievement in some places. You know, the places where the snow on either side makes the twisty, ice covered road feel like a tunnel?

Obviously, I should get back to knitting talk here.

Photo one is of my first sock for the KAL. I have just turned the heel (this photo was a bit before that) and things are going very well, for the most part. I think the socks will be roomy, but I find that superwash wool tends to sort of tighten up in washing, so I think roomy is fine as a starting place.

Yesterday, I took advantage of our lovely warm fall weather to wash a lot of woolens. We have a big basket of scarves, hats, mitts, and dog sweaters in our front entry. I turned out the pockets of every one of my coats and sorted things into dark and white washes. Using the washing machine as a set tub (Fill up with hot water and detergent, stop, let things soak, spin out. Fill up with hot water, rinse, spin...) I gave some hard working wool items a good wash. I won't even tell you how dark the water looked in my "white" wash.

The Professor reminded me that we get used to thinking some things don't need to get washed too often. Mittens are one of those things I could do with washing a little more often! All in all, I counted 6 pairs of handknit mittens that I wore on a regular basis last winter. These are rotated among at least 3 different winter coats depending on temperature and occasion. I tend to wear a double layer of knitted mitts when I'm out walking the dogs. This means that it is "all hands on deck" in terms of my mitten usage. In this collection, I saw some mittens I'd spun and knit 15-18 years ago (in college) as well as mittens I'd made in the last 3 years. I also have too much white in there--some of these should definitely visit the dyepot!

I washed my Cuddle Coat too, the white sweater that you can see me wearing in the little picture of me on my blog. (the one with Harry the dog) This sweater was so easy to design and knit and has seen hard wear for the last 5 years. I love it and sleep in it nearly every night in the middle of winter. None of the photos I've done or others have done have shown how truly comfy it looks/feels.

Since I can't seem to give up knitting along on my red sweater at the same time as the socks, here are a couple of photos of my progress. When I design a sweater for myself, I often do it as I go, on the needles. The directions I gave myself here were: "Cast on 300 sts on #15 needles. Knit garter stitch for 18" or so. Then you can change yarn and stitch pattern." I am nearing 18" at this point and have created a lap full of sweater. While mohair boucle can be tricky to knit, the luminous nature of the finished knitted fabric is something else. I tried to catch that in this last photo.

The complicated bits with dk weight alpaca and wool yarns, shaping armholes and sleeve lengths, edgings and neck--all that is to come. What I think people will notice about this sweater? This mohair boucle's shine and energy. That's probably true with most things--the most difficult parts look plain jane and simple...even unglamorous. (turning a heel, for instance) It's only the maker that can tell which parts were easy glitzy attention seekers and which parts were prim, proper, and took hours of care.

Ain't that life for you?

Home again

Trip stats for the U.S. east coast spring whirlwind tour, 2010:

-4 airplanes
-1600 miles of driving in cars*
-45+ opportunities to hug individual friends and family members (in 8 days)...but not including:
(1 wedding)

-1 family party (New Jersey)
-2 family dinners (Virginia)
-1 hospital visit
-only 2 huge nephew crying jags and temper tantrums (+ several days of lovely smiling moments with a 4 year old and 18 month old, so I think we did fine)
-2 opportunities to eat at the Lebanese Taverna
-1 sighting of yarn graffiti in Fergus Falls, Minnesota (at Crates of Yarn, a yarn shop--but it was closed when we drove by)
-1 trip to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival
-1 sunburn I wasn't expecting (it was hot! 90F!)
-2 pretty tired people who came home to Manitoba
-2 dogs who got baths at the kennel and then came home yesterday...and
-1 baby rabbit (or bunny sushi for bird dogs) caught and eaten before the tired humans realized what the dogs were doing to the bunnies nesting under our backyard shed in Winnipeg.

Oops.

We can no longer say that our dogs haven't killed anything in Manitoba. We're sorry. Baby bunny, R.I.P.
...and many more statistics and stories to come when I am slightly better rested.

*1600 miles in the car? That's:
-one trip from Winnipeg to Minneapolis to catch flights on Southwest. (7 hours)
-one trip from BWI airport near Baltimore to NYC
-2 roundtrips from NYC to NJ and back
-one trip from NYC to Northern Virginia
-one trip from Northern Virginia to the Howard County Fairgrounds in Maryland
-Fairgrounds to hotel and wedding in Baltimore
-Hotel to BWI, leaving dark o'clock on Monday morning
-one trip from Minneapolis to Winnipeg from the airport back home. (7 more hours)
for a total of 17 hours of travel on Monday.
-------------------------------
One Tired Joanne

vicarious qiviut

and travel...

A while back, my friend Donna Druchunas invited me to be part of her blog tour. This isn't because I contributed to her forthcoming book (information below) or even because I'm an expert on lace. Instead, it's because we both share a joy in common. We love to explore fiber arts topics when we travel. Even better, we like writing about it so others can experience all this vicariously, from home.

This qiviut story starts at least 10 years ago. (qiviut comes from musk oxen, it's very very warm and soft.) See photos, shot by my professor, for what a musk ox is! While I was in graduate school, I had an email "penpal" friendship with a spinner in Alabama. This kind spinner Ellen decided I must experience qiviut. She filled up a plastic baggie with a sample, sent it to me in the mail, and gave me a fabulous gift. That qiviut was a spinning experience! I plied it with tussah silk. I knit it into a scarf for my brother-in-law, who was single at the time.

He declared it a "chick magnet" scarf. He was right and is now happily married. I asked his wife recently, and she said-absolutely--a seriously seductive scarf!

About five years ago, my professor went to a summertime biology conference in Fairbanks, Alaska. At first, he wanted me to come with him. Then we looked at the high season airfare and other costs. (outrageously expensive!) I explained that while I could skip Fairbanks, what I really wanted was to visit the Large Animal Research Station, where the university biologists studied musk oxen.

My professor promised me a vicarious trip. He shot these photos so I could "see" the musk oxen in action. He described it to me in detail when he got home. He also purchased me an entire pound of the fiber.

I was so stunned by this gift (it's very expensive stuff) that at first, I didn't know what to do. Then, I got a grip and sent it out to be dehaired by machine. After that, I sold a couple of the ounces, and this helped cover this enormous purchase. The professor pointed out that compared to paying for my flights to Alaska, the qiviut was a trinket. This is a very rare and precious fiber. I had a hard time seeing it as a trinket. :)

Today, the qiviut awaits me--but sometimes waiting is the right thing. When Donna's book Arctic Lace came out, I had the pleasure of reviewing it. When I met the professor's new department chair here in Manitoba, she mentioned knitting a qiviut tuque (hat) for her husband as the ultimate in warm luxury. The ideas I have now are as exciting as dreaming of adventure or fiber arts travel.

This blog tour post is to celebrate a few of Donna's special upcoming events (information below) but it's also to celebrate Donna's big wedding anniversary and her trip to Hawaii. She's currently having a tropical adventure right about now!

To celebrate, I'm giving away a signed copy of Fiber Gathering! I want to encourage some more vicarious travel. If you'd like to win a copy of the book, please leave a comment, and I'll do a random drawing on Sunday, January 24th. Make sure I have a way to contact you via your blog, email address, or some kind of smoke signal if you'd like to win!

Here's information about Donna's new book:
Successful Lace Knitting by Donna Druchunas will be released in May on the Musk Ox & Glaciers Knitting Cruise, where Donna will be teaching along with Lucy Neatby. The audio book edition of Arctic Lace will also be published at the same time, so cruise participants will be among the first to have a chance to see (and hear!) these two new releases.

To enter to win 2 balls of laceweight qiviut yarn, sign up for the cruise mailing list here:

Musk Ox & Glaciers Knitting Cruise

Finally, if you don't need a signed copy of Fiber Gathering, but just want to say hello, that's good, too. Please say hey in the comments and remind me (no book please) not to enter you into the drawing! Thanks!

The Bonus Day

Even Winnipeg doesn’t expect snow in early October. The weather report predicted flurries, so I packed on Friday with confidence. Early the next day, we headed to the airport—in about 4-5 inches of snow. No plowing had happened overnight, because nobody had expected a storm yet! We still have green leaves on all the trees!

So, the professor and I made it just fine to the airport (15 minutes away, as compared to the 70 miles we had to go to Nashville when we lived in Kentucky) and I cheerfully joined the long lines. About an hour and a half later, it became clear I wasn’t going anywhere. Apparently a plane had gone off the runway the night before in the slippery conditions, and only one runway was working.

The booking agent looked relieved when I just asked if I could have a “do over” for Sunday. I called the professor again, bought myself a cup of tea and a couple of t-shirts for relatives, and went home at 9AM to spend the day at home.

Since I was all packed and ready to go, the day was there to enjoy! We took a long walk, had lunch at a nice neighborhood bistro, and I took a nap. I knit. I cuddled with dogs. All in all, a great break.

Today, I got to the airport bright and early (on completely dry and clear streets), took a mostly empty flight to Ottawa, and now I’m waiting for the next leg of my trip to DC. It’s been a peaceful trip so far. Sometimes, it’s just better to try again later.

I promised that every post for a while would have a bit of Knit Green in it, and here’s today’s. A year ago, at this time, I was knitting up the Spire Smock sample for the book. When I chose the color of the yarn, I had to think—what would look good in the photography? Would the color be appealing to knitters? I looked at the Vermont Fiber Company’s O-wool classic color card over and over. I could not resist the Saffron shade.

Now, I look pretty bad in orange colors, and this color was no exception, so I’d never chosen it on my own for a personal project. However, getting to knit this cardigan for the book gave me a special learning experience. During the darkest days of fall, I couldn’t wait to sit down and work on this project. The rich crocus colored orange just sang in my hands and truly lifted my mood. Every day (and this project took something in the range of 6 weeks to complete) I yearned towards the coffee table, where I’d left the project. I couldn’t wait to knit that saffron colored woolly goodness again.

Who does this color suit? Perhaps anyone with dark skin, or light skin and red hair… Really, anyone with a sense of daring should try saffron…especially if you wear a more flattering turtleneck underneath. Of course, this cardigan can be knit in most any solid color yarn that gets the right gauge, but if I had to do this again to create a sample, I’d still choose O-wool. A firm twist and a somewhat crisp hand makes this textured pattern pop.

Not all the patterns I design suit me. The style might not be right for my body type, or the color might be a problem for me. However, I still strive to create things with classic style and clean lines—things I’d like to wear. If I only were tall and skinny, dark skinned or a red head…I can dream. In the meanwhile, I hope other knitters see this kind of a design as a “bonus” treat. That is, an additional pattern that’s perfect for them, even if it’s an unexpected color, style, or not even why you might buy Knit Green.

Update: I made it to the DC area Sunday evening and arrived just in time for my nephew's 1st birthday party! Posting this Monday just before rushing off to teach a class at a yarn shop in Virginia. Sometimes things do work out just right in the end...

Finding home

After a crazy trip home, including a marathon sprint through the O'Hare airport in Chicago to make our connection, we're back in Kentucky. Due to a problem with our first flight out of Winnipeg, we got to go through customs and security twice! (oh joys...) Our luggage arrived home significantly after we did. It didn't matter to us at all--we decided that it was far easier to fall into bed after nearly 12 hours of travelling than to stay up unpacking dirty laundry.

In our minds, by the way, this trip home qualified as an adventure because both we and our belongings got home safely. If we'd been stuck overnight someplace, or lost something? That's a travelling disaster, or if not a tragedy, definitely not usually an adventure. I try not to complain about adventures...travelling is always easier with good humor--like anything else, there are unexpected challenges. The customs story will likely be funny after I've rested up and had a couple of good meals and a glass of wine or two. :)

I've wrested the camera back from the professor. In between the real estate photos, I found some interesting things to share.

One night, we went out for sushi at a chain in Winnipeg called "Sushi Train." If you sit at the sushi bar, you get your orders delivered on the flat bed behind this cool train that goes around the restaurant! We're absolutely certain our three year old nephew, a huge fan of trains and sushi, needs to eat here when his family visits us. We can't wait!

After going through over 25 houses, I can guarantee we saw a fair cross section of the historic houses of downtown Winnipeg. We even put in a bid for an enormous and beautiful home...but since it's a seller's market in Winnipeg, our offer was seen as too low and "upsetting" and we said ...oh well. We couldn't afford to pay more, and it was truly bigger than we need. We did manage to take a lot of photos of the house, and here's one that I will likely think on for a long time. The staircases? I'm a sucker for a beautiful staircase--I'm just sayin'.

Alot of upscale houses in Winnipeg on our river front property. Having a river view is a big deal, apparently. Now, Winnipeg is located where two rivers meet, so there's a lot of river to see. Also, if you remember the recent spring floods in North Dakota?...that river, the Red River, flows north. Yes, north...and Winnipeg has Duff's Ditch. This enormous public works program diverts lots of water and keeps the city from flooding during the spring snow melt. Even so, people invest enormous amounts of time and money to cope with river bank erosion to protect their river front property. Here's what the backyard looked like at one house we visited... and apparently, most of the time? The backyard is several yards longer than it was when we visited. Note the tree on the left, still standing but now in the flood plain of the river.

We decided maybe riverfront property wasn't necessary for us.

While looking all over for a place to live, we drove past a house that was on the market last year. I nearly jumped out of my seatbelt--it was for sale again! This house, built in 1912, struck me as as so beautiful that I was ready to buy it a year ago when we tried to decide about this job, but before the Canadian gov't approved the move. The real estate agent tried and tried to get us inside again this year so we could see it one more time. No luck. It is on the market, but apparently not available to be shown to potential buyers. (go figure.) We're still working on that...the professor may be going back to Winnipeg soon to see it again. Here's a shot of the outside.

Inside? Craftsman details, all hard wood, built in bookshelves, a second story study with fireplace, 3 floors with well restored bathrooms, complete with a clawfoot tub...and a corner lot big enough to put in a two car garage and with enough room for dogs to play. (Winnipeg yards are very small.)

I meant to tell you jokes here, and be amusing. Honestly, I'm so tired as to be incapable of spelling in my first language (English) so I'm afraid funny will wait til another time. For now, imagine the professor and me plowing people down as we raced from Concourse C to Terminal 3 in under 20 minutes. Before going on this trip, I'd been afraid I wasn't getting enough exercise. After reviewing these statistics:

25 houses---with 2 or 3 stories...approximately 60 sets of stairs. Every house had a basement. Revise that to 85 sets of stairs, up and down. One day of walking to government offices to do paperwork downtown--about 1.5 miles. One hotel room on the 2nd floor (occasional sets of stairs) and a lightning fast chase through O'Hare airport? Likely enough exercise for this trip. I'm spending a lot of time on the couch with the dogs today.

Oh, and tomorrow? I drive off about two hours to the Tennessee Fiber Festival to teach and do a book talk. It's been nice being home. :)

Good stuff? We're safely home, got lots of bureaucratic details done...and have a line on a house.

Bad stuff? We're theoretically moving in July, and we are still working on the house thing...good things come to those who wait?

creative dreaming

caption: Sally the dog demonstrates dreaming while
napping on the couch.

For me, the biggest excitement of designing is dreaming of a project. Sometimes when I can't go to sleep at night, I design things in my mind until I can quiet things down in my brain. However, for a long while now, all my designs have been secret, for books or magazines or sale. I cannot share the creation process and everything's on a deadline. While I still love knitting (and feel deprived when I can't squeeze it in), I've been dreaming lately of some knitting that is just for me.


My professor observed the 24/7, fever pitch of activity around here and he came up with a plan. He just happened to get invited to the University of Florida in Gainesville to give a lecture. He checked in with his relatives and discovered his dad and brother would be in Sarasota at that time....and wow, instant trip out of town for the professor and Joanne. He hopes that I will take some time off and maybe even knit for fun! (we'll see...)

This morning, I planned my knitting projects for the trip. First is a project on a deadline, but I hope to finish that soon. Second is finishing the second of a pair of socks (for me!) that I've been carrying about, in between work projects, for ages. The back-up, back-up knitting? A pair of mittens. I'm combining a rose/burgundy alpaca yarn, a skein of Patons Stretch sock yarn (wool, cotton, and a bit of elastic in a variegated color, and a pink cashmere silk laceweight as a carry along (extra soft warmth). Then, it occurred to me I might run out of the alpaca yarn, but never fear!! I dived into the stash for one half-finished skein of dk weight olive colored wool.

The professor happened to walk by as I did this searching. He was stunned. I thought it was because of how much stash I have (it does fair take the breath away...) but that in a full closet of yarn, I can remember that I possessed a half skein of olive colored dk weight wool that would match this project.

Once I got my head out of the enormous tupperware bins in the closet, I was able to respond. "What can I say?" I replied. "I've got a good memory for color."

I was just relieved that he didn't comment on the sheer depth of the search itself, conducted before breakfast... (Both dogs had already fled my office and abandoned the couch.)

See you soon! Keep me company here on my time off and leave a comment! Dicuss your stash diving experiences? Design dreams?