Catching Up

This will be a speed post today. Sorry, no photos because I don’t have time. We’re going to a wedding this morning! Our nephew is getting married to a lovely lady with the same name as my grandmother. I finally finished one of my new dresses to wear to the ceremony. Not the orange-red French house dress though – the black Mizono one! It was quicker to sew and more elegant. (Hah! As if I do elegant. Ever.) Anyway it turned out fabulous and I promise to model it and post more details soon.

Backing up a little, on Sunday I taught my Very Last Kumihimo Workshop. Definitely the last because I sold all my teaching marudais, except one. Yay! The students were from the Richmond Weavers & Spinners Guild and they were great. I previously only knew one of them, who begged and pleaded organised the workshop with me. It was a weird day though.

I got up early to an odd lemon-coloured light and the sunrise was deep orange. The sky was overcast and there was lots of little white specks all over our “classroom”, aka my back deck. If you aren’t aware, British Columbia is experiencing the hottest, driest weather in recorded history and there are many forest fires burning, some as close as only 60k away. The winds brought all the smoke and ash to our area but luckily held it aloft until my class was almost over. Then it changed direction and plunged us into the smoke for the rest of the afternoon and overnight. It was awful! Like sitting next to a campfire right in my own home! Even though it was hot and stuffy we had to close the bedroom window just to breathe while we tried to sleep. Blech. I was born here and never have experienced such bad air but one Australian in my class said that it was reminding her of the horrible bushfires. Can’t imagine how awful it must be to live closer to the fires or worse, to be on evacuation alert. My heart goes out to all those people from BC to Saskatchewan who are right in the thick of it. And also to those brave people fighting the fires, most started by lightning. And it’s only the first week of July!

At least yesterday and today had better air quality though you can still see the haze from the smoke. Ugh. What can you do? We are now on even tighter water restrictions. My garden is starting to show the strains even though we’re still allowed to water by hand. (So TEE-DEE-US!!) And the grass is brown because we aren’t wasting any water on it at all. It usually doesn’t go crispy until August! I know those who live in hotter and drier climates are chuckling at my discomfiture. But we are really not used to this. And I don’t really want to have to get used to it! I want some rain and my normal maritime climate back.

OK, got that whinge off my chest. Off to get ready for the wedding. More soon!

Tenth Blogiversary & A Tragedy

Source

Yes, I have truly been blogging at you for a whole decade now! Who’d a-thunk it, eh? This is Post Number 1532. I think I’ve learned a few things about this medium of expression since I began way back then. At least I hope I have! This here blog is my personal forum for documenting my projects, discussing crafty techniques, sharing my holidays, pondering and musing about things in general, and occasionally whining and whingeing. Thanks so much for sharing all these things with me. And for being unfailingly polite and positive in your comments. I appreciate it. So I don’t have a huge following like some bloggers do but that’s not why I’m here. And of course those of you lovely people who do read my scribblings are the best ever. Even if you never comment, I feel you out there in cyberspace. Big virtual hugs!

Well here it is May 6th already and I haven’t posted since April. Bad 10-year-old blogger! I’ve been quite busy up in the study. I got a bee in my bonnet about cleaning up my library table that serves as a work station in front of the west window. It was piled with junk and hadn’t been sorted for literally years. My actual workspace was shrinking down smaller and smaller and I had to unearth archaeological layers to find anything. The side shelves are also filled with paperback fantasy novels that I was going to get around to reading, ummm… 10 years ago! I’ve obviously been distracted…

So I cleaned it all off, polished the dry wood (solid oak) and only put the good stuff back. I even joined Goodreads so I could keep better track of the books! I still haven’t tackled the little drawer though. I think I’m avoiding it. While I was at it, I also cleaned out the cupboard above my big computer desk. I recycled about 25 years worth of weavers’ guild newsletters (I was the editor for 13 of them) and a whole bunch of conference memorabilia. I saved the binder from HGA Convergence 2002, the one we hosted here in Vancouver, because I was in charge of the publications for it. I figure it’s a part of my history. I never look at the other stuff though so I’m not sad I tossed it all.

Just those two areas took DAYS to sort out. Now the cupboard has room for my projects binders because yes, I save paper printouts of all my project notes. Guess I’m old-fashioned enough not to trust electronic files forever! I have more work to do in this room still: re-sorting books, dusting shelves and generally tidying in, under and around. There are 6 full bookcases in this room as well as the aforementioned library table and cupboard, plus spinning wheels, spinning baskets and a Morris chair that is in desperate need of reupholstering. (I’ve been putting that task off for decades now.) And we aren’t even talking about the other room up here. The studio has been calling me to get back to sewing too. And finishing up the warp still on the loom. Soon. But sometimes you just have to give in to the Cleaning Bug, don’t you? Otherwise we’d be buried in an avalanche of our own possessions.

Meanwhile, I’ve been prepping for indigo vats in the dye studio. My Spectrum Study Group is coming over tomorrow to dip the shibori projects we’ve been stitching on for many a monthly meeting. It’s up to me to make sure the vat goes well, so today I’m going to do a preliminary test run and dye all my own stuff first. Then I’ll make more indigo stock and revive the vat tomorrow. We use the lye/thiox vat because it’s quick and reliable. The drawbacks are that it’s pretty much a one-use vat and it’s hard to get the really deep blues. I have no desire to be responsible for a fermentation vat though. It’s like having a pet that you have to feed and walk! I don’t dye enough to be bothered. However I envy those dyers with the skills and time to maintain what I consider a proper indigo vat. A blue high five to you!

OK. So what’s the tragedy that I referenced in the title? My garden, nearly ALL of my garden has been destroyed! I’m absolutely devastated whilst trying to maintain a zen-like calm. (Not working.) Yesterday we had a huge rain and hail storm that went on for hours! It hailed so hard that bits of gravel from the duroid asphalt roof tiles were washed down and tiny pieces of lichen were torn from the walnut tree branches. It hailed so long that there were drifts of hailstones on my porch at least 4” deep. This was only in the middle of the deluge:

And the veggie garden:

It went on from there twice as deep as this and completely covering the garden beds! It looks like snow but snow would have been kinder. My plants look like someone shot them up with an AK47! A sad muddy crushed salad. I can’t even photograph it close-up for you. Too depressing. A few things are recoverable: the peas, kale, cabbage, asparagus and garlic are scarred but not too broken. Luckily the tomatoes, squashes and cucumbers were in pots in the greenhouse and the basil and coleus were in the house under the lights. There’s a few flower seedlings safely in the greenhouse that I didn’t get a chance to transplant yet. I haven’t planted the beans either. Who knew I’d be glad I procrastinated? But the beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas are shredded, the coreopsis is flattened and my precious Japanese indigo are nothing but leafless sticks. I could cry.

If the roots aren’t damaged some plants may recuperate. I’m hoping so because there’s no point trying to replant most of them. It’s too late in the season for us. I may try again with the Japanese indigo but it needs long enough to make it all the way to seed before frost. The plants are tough and might continue to grow though they are awfully shredded. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about gardening now. Awwwww!!! And it was so beautiful! We were getting daily compliments from passersby. Sigh. Remind me why I bother please.

Oh yeah. Mother Nature tried to make me feel better with this evening sky:

Pretty pink clouds are SO not going to make me any happier!

OK. Enough wallowing in self-pity. I have an indigo vat to make. Onward to blue…

A Southern Sojourn

I apologise for having been AWOL for quite awhile now. My excuse is we ran away from home for a week! The forecast was for very mild and sunny weather and we had nothing important on the calendar so we dropped everything and hightailed it south in our little old VW Westie. Thom & I both had beaches on our mind and what’s better than having one’s wish fulfilled?

After suddenly deciding to go we packed up really quickly and made it down to Birch Bay in Washington State just below the Canada/US border for the evening of Day 1. Our first beach walk was along the slippery cobblestones of the bay that botanist Archibald Menzies named after the black birches when his ship, captained by good old George Vancouver, stopped there in 1792. We were happy to get an electric site as there was still a chilly bite in the wind.

Day 2 began in the fog as we travelled south to Olympia and then southwest to the very farthest tip of Washington at Cape Disappointment. Luckily it was a little warmer since for this one night we couldn’t get a power site because of the Presidents Day holiday. This day’s beach was Waikiki:

(Obviously not the one in Hawaii!) That’s the North Jetty on the right and we’re looking out the mouth of the Columbia River with a hint of Fort Stevens on the other side. From the beach we also saw a majestic pair of bald eagles near the Cape Disappointment lighthouse. Later we hiked up McKenzie Head and checked out the WWII bunker at the top. It had some interestingly rusty doors:

On Day 3 we crossed the Astoria Bridge and headed south to one of my favourite Oregon parks at Nehalem. The tide was way out revealing these salty channels between wee islets of sand:

The weather was perfectly lovely and we were wandering the sands in our shirtsleeves. We even spied a “naturist” in the altogether taking circumspect advantage of the quiet beach! On Day 4 we walked around the paved bicycle trail on the Nehalem River side and later went to the beach again but north instead of south this time. I liked the pattern the crow’s feet made in the fine sand:

I especially liked hearing the waves at night lulling me to sleep. The weather was darker and a bit drizzly on Day 5 so we decided to head back north. But first we stopped at Oswald West for a walk. The park was named after a very wise early Oregon governor who decided to set aside the Oregon shore for recreation before the business interests bought it all up. (Thanks, Governor West!) We followed the Short Sand Creek down to the beach:

You can just see the waves at the end! They make Short Sands the most popular surfing beach in Oregon but we didn’t see any except one dude coming down the trail with his boogie board. Then we carried on over the bridge and back to Cape Disappointment where we got an electric site in the campground near Benson Beach on the ocean side of the park this time. The weather was still a bit iffy but cleared up enough for us to walk along the black sparkly sand:

BTW, Cape Disappointment was named in 1788 by Captain John Meares who managed to miss the river entirely because he didn’t go quite far enough. There’s a lesson there, I think! LOL!! We still haven’t seen everything in this state park so I’m sure we’ll be back again.

Day 6 had us heading back up and across Washington, this time along our usual Hood Canal route to Dosewallips. The weather wasn’t cold but it rained on and off. We did manage the muddy trail out to the mouth of the river but not without umbrellas. Not much of a beach especially with the tide coming in but it counts, right? We didn’t see our feral goose of last September who thinks it’s one of the Canada geese but we did see a flock of the smaller black brants:

Well, on Day 7 we were going to go straight home but the weather was nice enough that we changed our minds. Instead we took the ferry over from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island and got an electric site at Fort Casey, in sight of the ferry slip:

That’s the Kennewick heading out after bringing us over. Our beach walk was over those colourful glacier-rounded stones that I love so much. This time I was very good and left them all there. OK, I already have lots at home! Other people might want to enjoy them too, right?

Day 8 we finally decided to come home though again it was a near thing because the weather had gotten sunny again. However, we had run out of food and clean clothes and figured we would be pushing our luck to stay away any longer. It is February, after all! Though the alders and other deciduous shrubs were still pretty bare, it was amazing how far along all the plants are for mid-February. We saw cherries, camellias, flowering quince, daffodils and even a rhododendron or two in full bloom. We could also see views that are usually obscured by leaves which was interesting too. There still could be some cold weather coming yet but spring is very early this year.

Now that we’re back I’m starting to think about the garden and planting my usual seedlings under the basement lights. Thom has already started with the pruning and turning under the winter cover crop in the veggie garden. I’m somewhat behind with my clearing out there thanks to the Hand Incident but there’s lots of time to get caught up still. Meanwhile I’m still doing laundry! I have knitting to talk about too but that will wait until next post. At least now you know where I’ve been!

Loading Up The Musket

OK, not what you might be thinking! The RomneyX fleece I’ve been working with has the colour that in Shetland sheep would be called “musket”. It’s described as a very light brown with light grey fibres underneath, fading to beige or oatmeal with the animal’s age. Exactly. The Shetlanders have such delightful words to describe the colours and patterns of their sheep! I’m extrapolating it to a different sheep breed which I hope is not completely incorrect.

I also rather belatedly discovered a shortcut to removing the brittle tips while teasing the locks. I used one of my little 2-row Forsyth mini-combs to flick the tips:

This worked a treat though it created slightly more waste than pulling off the tips by hand:

However when I finished flicking each lock it didn’t need very much more teasing to get it ready for carding. Note that you can actually see the grey fibres in this lock though they barely show up in the spun yarn.

Spinning long-draw for me means letting go of micromanaging every inch of the yarn. It’s hard! The results are quite a lot more variable than my usual inchworm drafting style. To try and keep some consistency in my singles I’m using a sample card attached to my wheel:

I tied it on with a length of plied wool too so I can check both as I spin. Here’s a bobbin full of singles:

You can see how fuzzy it is! The spinning wheel is Klaas, my Louet S90 that I’ve owned since 1992. They are now out of production on this model. It’s a bobbin-lead wheel which has quite a strong draw-in and in this case that actually works in my favour. I can’t hang onto the yarn very long before letting it pull into the orifice which helps to keep the twist light and airy. I only need to use the leather brake when plying this yarn because I don’t want to over-ply it either.

Here’s the four skeins I’ve spun already:

These haven’t been “finished” yet. I still need to wash them and full the yarn a little by rinsing in cold water and slapping the skeins on a hard counter. They will be a lot more durable then and hold up better in a man’s sweater. This is just over half of the total that I think I’ll need.

So I’ve been kind of neglecting the blog lately, haven’t I? Bad damselfly. Nothing exciting going on around here really. It’s beginning to look like spring though:

Photos were taken by Thom on his iPhone while we were out for one of our long walks. We didn’t have a very cold winter this year at all. Even some nice sunny days though they were mixed with a few visits from the Pineapple Express – warm and very wet. Sorry to anyone reading this who lives in a colder climate! If it makes you feel any better, we pay dearly for our moderate Pacific Maritime climate with outrageous property values and very high taxes. Today though it’s raining and dreary so we’re staying in and doing some housework instead.

Changeable Weather

I think it’s definitely autumn here. Day before yesterday we woke up to wind and rain and this interesting pattern of leaves on the back porch:

There’s bits of all the neighbourhood’s trees all over our yard, including varieties that aren’t really all that nearby. It was a wild and stormy night. And then it happened again at least for awhile the next night too. I’m getting kind of tired of sweeping the deck now. Every time you think it’s stopped raining and the sun comes out so you decide to go outside, it immediately starts sprinkling on you. Yep. Autumn in Vancouver.

Oh, speaking of trees, I found out that our shelter tree in Death Valley was a Tamarix aphylla, aka athel tamarisk, listed as an invasive species although this one isn’t considered as naughty in North America as its smaller relatives are but is more badly behaved in Australia. I certainly was happy for its continued existence. Your weed tree is my saving grace. A rose by any other name…etc.

Meanwhile back at the loom, I actually finished that darned warp! The one I started to weave so long ago before we went away to the aforementioned desert. I was so concerned that it wasn’t going to work out! I was wrong. It turned out very cool indeed:

The yarns are Jaggerspun superfine merino and 2/15 natural tweed silk. I actually followed a recipe, Big Bumps Scarf from Madelyn van der Hoogt, former editor of Handwoven magazine. I should have trusted her! It was hard to beat to the equivalent of window screening but eventually I got the feel of it better with practise. My more experienced buddy Kirsten also gave me a confidence boost when she said that it didn’t matter if it was uneven because the fulling process hid a lot of problems. And she was right! You can’t even see my treadling errors. I did try to even out some of the wefts that had slid badly when it wrapped around the cloth beam but even that wasn’t really a problem in the end.

I did have a moment of panic when I was unwinding it carefully off the loom. The sticks that I’d used instead of the recommended paper (because they were there and the paper wasn’t) fell off at an angle and I had to get Thom to come rescue me before the whole thing hit the floor in a tangle. I was actually surprised that the fabric wasn’t quite as delicate as it looked! It survived without any obvious damage. I knotted the warp stripes and tied the beginning to the end before fulling it by hand in a wash pan. I alternated hot soapy water with cold to help it full faster and then spun it in the machine to get out the excess water so it would dry faster. It went from 13.5” wide down to  7.5” and 120” long to 84”. Amazing really! It didn’t shrink quite as much as Madelyn’s version but that could be because I used silk instead of wool as the non-fulling yarn.

With this type of weave I learned that you have to let go of the results. They will be what they will and you really don’t have a lot of control over it. I fulled the scarf until the wool areas weren’t sliding around and they seemed cohesive. The silk areas bumped up (or down) in their own topography. A surprising amount of colour came out of the wool, green at first and then shifting to blue as the yellow was cleared out. I was hoping that it hadn’t stained the silk because I was using Orvus as the detergent and not Synthrapol which is helpful in keeping excess dye from redepositing. Synthrapol is usually used with Procion MX dyes on cellulose fibres so I hadn’t thought that I might need it with silk and wool. However I can’t see a difference now that the fabric is dry.

The scarf is dense and warm but still fairly light and flexible. Now I want to put on another warp! This time maybe for placemats? The ones I made in the 1980’s are wearing out. Quelle surprise.

What else? Oh yeah. Alternating with the Antelope Canyon Socks I’ve been knitting the Silken Haruni Shawl, probably more like a scarf since it’s going to be pretty small. Anyway, I decided that I didn’t like the look of the lace – too thready and the yarn-overs and the central spine stitch were loose and wobbly. Can you see what I mean?

Anyway, I started again with the second ball of this yarn and 2.75mm needles and not only do I like the results better, it’s actually easier to knit on the thinner needles. It’s pretty small still:

I also knit the central stitch on the right side through the back loop. The twists every other row keep it much more contained and neat. Now I have to sadly frog the first version. Oh well. It’s only knitting!

I spent a goodly part of yesterday trying to catch up on my paper notes of all my recent makes. I was surprisingly far behind! I guess once I’ve blogged it I think I’m done but I do prefer to also have all the notes together in a binder. I have quite a few of these now! It helps me to see at a glance all that I’ve accomplished and gives me a quick reference if I need it to make something again. Ravelry is fabulous to keep track of your knitting (and crochet) but is only recently expanding functionality with weaving, spinning and dyeing. And of course it’s not at all useful for sewing. For some reason although I’ve been a member of Pattern Review forever, I’ve never posted anything to it. I’m a lurker in the sewing forums. I know I should contribute but perhaps I’m just feeling to spread out as it is?

Anyhow, more soon!

Rescuing A CPW

T-Man and I had an adventure yesterday afternoon. First I’ll list the changeable weather: raining hard all morning, stopped in the afternoon, then hail along with a crash of thunder, wind picked up to gale force for a short time as finally the sun came out but it was still quite windy all evening. I mention this because it was quite spectacular! The wind was so strong that it created a blizzard of fall leaves and nearly denuded some of the trees in moments. We were due to walk down to a newbie spinner’s house to check out her borrowed spinning wheel. Luckily the timing worked well and we missed the worst of the wild weather!

However, on our walk down to Strathcona (one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city) we saw a parked car that had been squished by the weight of half a sweetgum tree that landed on it. The police were there taping it off since the tree covered the road. Who knows if the poor owner even knew yet of his/her car’s misfortune. Elsewhere we only saw a few small branches down while the wind was making the most amazing drifts out of all the gorgeous leaves. They were literally dancing! So fun to watch. Sorry I didn’t take a video.

Now lets talk about the wheel. E didn’t know what she had acquired so T and I didn’t have a clue what to expect. I was surprised to see a Canadian Production Wheel, stamped (in a number of places on the table) “Frs. Bordua, St. Marc, RC” and including the letters FB on the cast iron support for the mother-of-all. Obviously they wanted you to know who made it! Unlike some wheels where it becomes a sleuthing ordeal requiring Holmsian skills to deduce the provenance. To wit: I never did find out anything about the decorative little parlour wheel I have.

This one was easy-peasy. This morning I just googled the name and it pointed right away to an antiques website with the answer:

“The makers of this spinning wheel were a well-known Canadian family. The two brothers, Francois and Frederic, and Frederic's son Theodore, were builders of this style of Canadian Production wheel (CPW) in the late 1800's and early 1900's. These were made in Quebec, Canada (Ste Hyacinthe, Ste Marc, Ste Charles).”

I borrowed a photo from someone (since I forgot to take one of E’s wheel). This one is quite similar:

Isn’t it lovely? Distinctive characteristics are the large wheel diameter, iron treadle and mother-of-all support, wire footman and bent wire hooks, and a non-functional knob on the end of the table. E’s wheel had a little damage to the wheel rim and treadle bar but was otherwise in pretty good shape. The only real problem was that the bobbin was entirely seized to the flyer with old gunk. It took a while to loosen and clean it and we didn’t want to force the whorl off since we weren’t really sure how it was attached: pressure-fit or screw-threaded. It turned out to be screwed on and T finally got it to release so he could scrape the flyer’s rod and the bobbin ends clean. A lot of oil was applied to all the parts and a new double-drive string put on and now…she works just fine!

The tension adjustment is a bit fiddly. You have to turn a wing nut on the mother-of-all’s iron support to loosen the whole mother-of-all and then manually twist it closer or further from the wheel. Then tighten the wing nut back up again before it slips out of position. However, since it’s a double-drive wheel it doesn’t need such delicate adjustments as, say, a Scotch-tension would. It has quite a definite draw-in and a large ratio so it was made to produce fine strong weaving yarns quickly. However the bobbin is quite small and there’s only one of them (of course!) so a lot of winding off will be necessary. E will have to learn the skills to conform to the wheel rather than the other way around. Good practice.

Isn’t it satisfying to give an old wheel a new life? I was really happy that it wasn’t a “junker”! That has happened all too often when someone asks me to help them get an antique wheel going. Either something is broken or missing or it just doesn’t work well because it wasn’t made by someone who knew what they were doing. There are a surprising number of “decoration” wheels out there. Often lovingly made by a woodworker without the necessary knowledge to make sure it functions as it should. I once came across one without even an orifice for the yarn to travel through! It was just a solid rod. The wheel treadled around but that was the limit of its abilities. So sad. I have a junker in my closet right now and just haven’t gotten up the guts to dispose of it yet. I certainly wouldn’t wish it on any poor spinner. It’s impossible.

Of course missing or broken pieces can be repaired but you have to decide whether it will be worth the effort first. T-Man has always promised that one day he’ll restore the little parlour wheel.  It has a quite a lot of damage including fancy turned bone pieces to repair and a bunch of little dangly bobbles missing under the table. Unfortunately I never got the distaff that the original owner promised to locate. We’ll have to imagine what it looked like to reproduce it. Might be a fun project for him after he retires.

All Hail Spring

T-Man and I weren’t able to go for our usual long walk yesterday afternoon because it was pouring rain. It was still pouring this morning but near noon it nearly stopped so we grabbed our umbrellas (just in case) and finally headed out. As we walked along the sun even came out a few times and we warmed up enough to take off an outer layer of clothing. However by the time we got to our destination, Mayfair magazine shop, it was sprinkling rain again. As we headed back toward home it drizzled a little on and off but nothing serious. We stopped at Kin’s Market for fruit and veggies and by then it was starting to rain a little more in earnest. So of course a few blocks later we dove into our favourite sushi place for a late lunch (or perhaps early dinner) to see if we could wait it out. Unfortunately while we were eating the big black cloud overhead started dumping rain and hail like crazy. After we had finished our sushi we got out our umbrellas and dashed one more block to Black Dog Video where we picked a movie to watch tonight. Of course the deluge still didn’t stop so we were forced to head back into the by now pea-sized hailstones.

I think that was the most I’ve ever been hailed on! My goodness. It was wild! We were both soaked to the skin, umbrellas notwithstanding, in the 4 blocks home from Black Dog. Good thing we didn’t try to wait it out any longer because it only got worse still after we got home. Here’s my back porch and deck:

That big puddle just outside the back door is where the eves trough is plugged with ice and is dumping water all over. And here’s my poor veggie garden under an inch of hailstones:

You can hear the pounding on the greenhouse roof from inside the house! Good thing the most delicate stuff is still not planted yet. The cucumbers and squashes are just coming up inside under the lights and the beans aren’t going in until at least next week. I’m not taking any more chances. Global Weirding indeed. Now the sun is coming out! I’m sure it’s only temporary though.

At least now I hope I have enough food to feed the kids tomorrow when they come for dinner. I missed Easter by being too sick to do anything exciting so now that I’m somewhat better I decided to have it tomorrow instead. Along with Nana (T’s mom), our kids and grandkids, that makes 4 generations all together for Mother’s Day. No gifts or cards – just a pleasant afternoon of visiting and sharing a meal together. I’m so looking forward to it.

Out Of Spring & Into the Deepfreeze

Man! It is COLD here. OK, maybe not as cold as some other places, but for us it’s ridiculous for this time of year. Today I can’t even put my seedling flats out into the greenhouse for fear they will freeze solid. They will just have to live with reduced light but some warmth instead. Suck it up, buttercups brassicas! At least the sun is shining. Not snowing. Yet. The crocuses and catkins want to know whatever happened to their Spring?

My concerns about the fibre folks in New Zealand during the quake have been somewhat diminished by news that my weavers’ guild friend Rene and her hubby were luckily visiting on the North Island and far away. But teachers & authors Anne Field and Margaret Stove sustained some minor damage to their homes and Anne’s studio is in a more hard-hit area so may be more severely damaged. The wheel and loom makers the Ashfords are far enough away in Ashburton from the epicentre that they are just fine. My heart just goes out to those poor people dealing with such loss and devastation. Reminds us that it could happen here in Vancouver too – at any time. Yikes.

So I unfortunately succumbed to starting the Ambitus Neckwarmer pattern by Lankakomero using the leftover Berroco Remix yarn. I’m nearly done the k1/p1 section already! I should have stayed loyal to my AboTunic, but I just couldn’t help myself. At least this thing will be done quickly. Likely just in time for it to warm up around here again.

Meanwhile, I haven’t quite finished sewing together the Watercolour Quilt but I’m hoping to get that far today. I am so wanting to cross that one off the to-do list. There’s still a lot of snipping waiting for me between now and the cross-off though. Onward.

Get On With It

I’m so glad I don’t have to do any of my passions as a job for money. Judging by the way I’m procrastinating and avoiding working on my lecture, it would take all the fun out of everything that I most enjoy. Here I am considering vacuuming the whole house rather than just getting on with it! Sheesh. I only have one month to finish gathering all the information, preparing the PowerPoint presentation, spinning samples and packaging up and labelling fibres. I love finding out stuff. I love learning new computer programs. I love spinning. I even love sorting and labelling. So how come I just can’t DO IT? Because I have to. Smack me upside the head.

While I was procrastinating I finished T’s slippers:

T-Man’s Slippers

Begun: January 14, 2010

Completed: January 18, 2010

Yarn: Briggs & Little Heritage, 100% wool, 2 ply worsted, red marl, 113g = 215 yds.

Filature Lemieux Québécoise, 100% wool, 2 ply light worsted, black, 100g = 210 yds.

Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo dpns, 8mm (US 11).

Pattern: Family of Slippers by Chris de Longpré, free pattern from Knitting at KNoon Designs.

Mods: Begun on 36 sts. Foot knit 11” before toe dec. Otherwise knit the same as mine, just like regular socks but without ribbing or heel stitch.

Comments: T liked my Pixie Slippers so much that he wanted a pair of his own but without the novelty yarn on the cuff, of course. I used one strand each of the red & black. I ran out of the black wool before the end of the second slipper because I hadn’t actually started with a full ball. Luckily I had some comparable yarn in the stash to finish the toe with.

T also helped with felting the piece for his innersoles at the same time as I was fulling his slippers in the washing machine. Just like mine, it took twice through the longest wash cycle to full the slippers and 400 rolls plus finishing with the washboard to make the felt. After two days they were still damp and it took twice through the longest timed cycle to dry them on the rack in the dryer. Then I was able to cut the innersoles and stitch them in. The finished slippers fit him just right and they’re very warm!

He’s very pleased with them though I noticed he wasn’t wearing them last evening but was schlepping around the house in his sock feet. He said it wasn’t cold enough. Huh! Yes, it actually has been quite spring-like around here. I already removed the flannelette sheets from the bed and put on regular ones because I was too hot at night even with the window open several inches. (Yes, woolen blankets are toasty!) The true sign of it warming up is the fact that I haven’t worn my long johns for a couple of weeks now. Not even a sleeveless undershirt – though I haven’t given up my fleece vest. The temp inside the house is the same but obviously the drafts are much warmer! I am still wearing my slippers however.

Outdoors the snowdrops are showing white buds, the garlic is up several inches and the little mixed-greens seeds I planted in the greenhouse back in the fall have arugula leaves big enough to snip for salads. The poor mizuna that got devastated by the cold snap in December have a few new leaves on the survivors. Sadly my pelargonium geraniums never got into the greenhouse and so didn’t make it. It was a pretty mild winter though especially when compared to last year’s arctic snowfalls. A bit unfortunate for the O-lympical Thingy but they must have contingency plans knowing that this is more normal here. There’s still a couple of weeks for the weather to cooperate. Or not.

Easter Weekend

I always think of Easter as the real beginning of spring. Even though I don’t celebrate it as a religious holiday, the eggs and chicks and bunnies speak to me of new beginnings and the cycle of life. This year we didn’t have any family gatherings (nobody bothered!) so T-Man and I just hung out at home. It rained nearly all day but just before sunset we got this interesting light on the cherry blossoms across the street:

With the dark clouds behind it looks somewhat eerie, don’t you think? Yes, the cherry blossoms are finally in full bloom, several weeks late but lovely nonetheless. We have lots of them as street trees in our city. Their beauty is short-lived but really spectacular.

Backing up a bit, on Friday we took the old VW van out to a garden shop where we had lunch and bought several new plants for the garden including replacements for my dearly departed rosemary and some of the creeping thyme planted between the garden path stones. Then we went to the stone yard and bought some more of those to continue the paths. They had a sale on with 60% off on glazed pots so we got one for the new rosemary, which is a prostrate variety:

That way we’ll be able to move it into the greenhouse over winter to give it more protection. Rosemary is a bit iffy here. Most winters it will be fine but every so often we have one that’s too cold and it can lose branches or be killed entirely. That’s what happened this year. The lady at the plant store said that nearly everyone lost their herbs: rosemary, sage, and thyme. I did lose the first two but not all of the thymes although some survivors show damage. We’re still waiting on several of our other shrubs to see if they can be saved or are toast, particularly a couple of the rhododendrons and our old firethorn. Sniff! That was so pretty with it’s red berries in winter. The birds will miss it as much as I will. T will not miss it’s thorns however. He has issues with thorny plants. He’s very happy that he’s nearly finished replacing the back fence where the blackberries have being doing their best to hinder his progress. And they’re just the heavily pruned canes and barely showing new growth yet.

In crafty news, I finally finished a secret spinning/crochet project which I have put into Ravelry but have not mentioned it here. I’ll wait until Thursday to blog it since it will be gifted then. Just in case the recipient is reading. Don’t think so but you never know! Nice to have actually finished something for once. I keep pegging away at things but it doesn’t seem like there’s much progress when it’s scattered around 3 or 4 different projects.

Those Darn Rodents

Well, I guess we’re in for more winter weather now that both Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willy saw their shadows. Though what a couple of pampered groundhogs back east have to do with the weather out here on the west coast, I have no idea! Looks pretty winterish still out there anyway. David Suzuki (you might have heard of him, local lad) calls it “global weirding” rather than “global warming”. Apparently the phrase was coined by Hunter Lovins (co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute), but whoever came up with it – it works for me. What else do you call it when we’ve had the worst winter snows in my nearly 60-year memory. The weather is screwed up. Whether that’d due to human intervention or just a natural wobble in the earth’s climate patterns, I hope it gives us a wakeup call. Business as usual isn’t working. Obviously.

Speaking of business as usual, I seem to be having trouble concentrating these days. More than my normal flitting about is occurring. While I’m trying to do one thing my mind starts to wander elsewhere and I feel like I’m not accomplishing much of anything. I’m not sure what to do about it, if anything at all. Maybe it’s the weather or maybe it was the odd later shift that T-Man has been on for the last month. He’s back to the early shift today so we’ll see if that changes things for me as well. For starters I got up an hour earlier than I have been recently. It was easier without him snoring gently beside me inspiring me to go back to sleep! At least he’ll be home in the afternoons again. Though today I have a Dr’s appointment right about the time he’s due home.

A symptom of my extra flitting is that I haven’t finished a few projects that are sitting around waiting for me. This includes my pencil case which I need to have by Thursday for my Spectrum Study Group meeting. It seems that sewing projects are the least likely to get completed in a reasonable amount of time. I used to love sewing and I’m happy enough to do it once I get started. But the impetus to do it just gets pushed to the end of the line for some reason. Maybe I need to schedule a regular period to sew in and then see if I extend the time on my own. That’s the trouble when I don’t have a deadline to work to. It’s much easier to put something aside if it’s not got a due date. So now that the pencil case has a deadline, I’ll be much more likely to get it done. I hope.

Which brings me to the spinning I’ve been doing for a lace scarf. I haven’t had a spinning project recently so it’s been quite pleasant to spend a few hours on the wheel each day. Here’s the silk/wool I’ve been working on:


Turning it into this:


There’s more than that on there now! Sorry I didn’t include anything for scale but those are the little lace bobbins for my Victoria wheel. Tori has been behaving herself even though her wheel is warped and she wobbles some. She isn’t throwing her drive band or anything really naughty. It’s very easy to just treadle away on this fine stuff. The lace flyer is working out very well and I’m glad I got it a year ago to add to Tori’s functionality. I still haven’t quite decided if I’m doing Nancy Bush’s Triinu Scarf or designing my own. I’m starting to lean toward designing now. But first I need to finish the yarn so I can dye it and swatch it.

I’ve been listening to podcasts while spinning and I realized how far behind I am on my favourites. Oh well. They aren’t going anywhere now that I’ve downloaded them and it doesn’t really matter if the discussion occurred a year or more ago, does it? Not to me anyway.

My favourite quote for the moment:

“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”
- Geoffrey Chaucer

West Side Story

A quick one today. I went over to my friend’s house to play with our journals together. Enough being stuck in the house already. I brought salad and she had soup and two other members of our Spectrum study group came and it was big fun. We call ourselves the West Side Girls since we are all on the west side of town. Well, I’m one whole block west of the dividing street – my address says so. That counts! And everyone else is a whole lot further west, but that’s ok because There Is A Bus.

It’s a new one, the #33, that I can catch 3 long blocks from here and get off 4 short blocks from her house. It’s also good for Nana who loves this new bus best of all because it stops half a block from her house. If we wanted we could use it to get to each other’s house easily (though usually I get a ride with T-Man – Nana is his mom). And it takes her directly to the Skytrain so she can go shopping at the Big Mall and have lunch with Auntie 92 (soon to be 93). This city was always short on cross-town bus routes. Now it has one more. Yay!

The rain has been doing a pretty good job of melting some of the snow and the sun was shining this afternoon cheering folks up some after all the rain. But it’ll be quite some time yet before we’re snow-free around here. Judging by the slippery trip I had just getting to the main street, it’s going to get worse for pedestrians before it gets better. And the bus stops are “interesting”, shall we say. The one I used on the homeward run was a 3-foot deep well under the kiosk with a little trail dug out to the street so the bus had to stop in the middle of traffic to pick me up.

Which reminds me. I want to send a big juicy raspberry to my neighbours three doors down who, before they left town for a couple of weeks for the Holidays, shoveled the snow from their street parking up onto the sidewalk leaving nowhere else to walk but over a narrow slippery icy track a foot high. Then when they returned, they shoveled out their own walkway to the street leaving an even narrower precipice to try to balance on. Can you say “selfish” and “inconsiderate”? And they aren’t by any means the only ones who figure their parking space is more important than pedestrian safety. Pffftht!

The funniest thing to see though are all the items that folks are using to “protect” their hard-won parking spaces. Apparently after you work so hard to shovel it out, you need to put some combination of lawn chairs, boxes, clothes racks, bins and flower pots to save your space in case, heaven forefend, some Unauthorised Car Parks There! Bare spots are in short supply. In between each shoveled area is a huge pile of snow because there’s nowhere else to put it – unless you want to be like the Nasty Neighbours (whom I used to think were nice). These icebergs take up many places folks used to park in freely. Whatever is left is jealously guarded. Does this stuff happen in other cities that routinely get snow? Or is it just because we are so unused to these conditions? Inquiring minds want to know.

Normally Vancouverites wait the snow out. They peek out through the curtains as the first snow falls. The whole city comes to a screeching halt and the news carries reports of traffic problems and Skytrain delays and such. I mean, whoever heard of the Albion ferry not being able to cross the Fraser River because of ice jams? And of course, now we have flood warnings and roof collapses to go with the snow and ice. The sky is falling and Armageddon is at hand! Usually, the snow turns to rain within a day or a couple of days at most and then everything is back to its usual order and the grass is green and wet again. However, this time we had 3 blasted weeks of snow, snow, freezing, snow and more snow. Totally normal for most of the rest of the country but not here. Sadly we have no idea how to cope. The city went hugely over-budget on snow removal and salting and sanding and still never remotely did the job properly. Couldn’t we balance that off with the garbage and recycling not getting picked up for 3 weeks because the trucks couldn't get down the alleys? Don’t count on it. Different department. Different budget. Sheesh.

Well, this was going to be a quick one, until I got on a rant. Sorry about that. Hopefully we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled delight soon. Oh, and I forgot to mention that yesterday was St. Distaff’s Day or, as it’s known in my house, Rock Day. Go read Michelle’s wonderful post on spinning here.

A New Year Just Begun

Hope you all had a Happy New Year! I slept through the midnight revelries but I didn’t sleep well. There were firecrackers at random all night and neighbours out talking (loudly) about the fact we got 2” more snow. (Yuck.) Then there were cars spinning their wheels in the icy ruts that still constitute our street corner. Our world has contracted to the distance we can walk and that’s extra-short because of the lousy state of the sidewalks. Several events I’ve been invited to have been cancelled because nobody can get there and if they can, there is no place to park unless it’s shoveled out first. The poor old VW van is on the sick list since it crapped out a number of times getting T-Man home from work yesterday. We’re invited to dinner at his brother’s this evening but only because he’s going to come pick us up in his SUV. Guess there is a reason to own one of those, huh? Never thought I’d reconcile with that. We don’t usually have to deal with weather that is more like the stuff they get in Ontario. It would be much better if the darned city would plough the side streets and make sure everyone has shoveled, neighbours pitching in to help if necessary. Like they do in colder climates. Here everyone just hunkers down and hopes it all goes away quickly or goes out anyway, drives like the weather is balmy and dry, and then complains when anyone gets stuck. OK, I’ll quit complaining. It could be worse. But not much.

I spent a short while this New Year’s morning registering online for the Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds conference coming up at the end of May in Spokane, WA. Registration opened today and I plan to go with a couple of my weavers’ guild friends. Mostly for the schmoozing and shopping – not overly excited about the seminars or the fashion show and exhibits. But that’s just me and my been-there/done-that attitude. However I’ve never been to eastern Washington and by all accounts Spokane is a pleasant city. We’ll be at the Gonzaga University. Should be fun.

This here blog has been pretty empty of photos lately but what can I do? The world outside is cold, wet, white and melting-messy and my current projects are at totally boring stages. Socks are half knitted and the shawl is hardly any bigger or more interesting than the last time I photographed it. Big yawn. I’m kind of itching to start something new though I don’t know quite what as yet. You’ll be the second to know – after me.

Food for thought on my Word for this year:

“The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
- Henry Miller

Estonian Lace Fascination

I think that certain knitting authors don’t realize that their book is truly special, whether it covers a particular subject that has rarely been written about or shows it in a particularly exceptional way. They don’t understand that when their book goes out of print, we who are fascinated are left bereft, frustrated, scouring eBay, borrowing and photocopying illegally, or patting ourselves on the back for getting a copy way back when the getting was good. (Perhaps those who are selling the book for a hugely inflated price are happy though.) Some of the difficulty in reprinting depends on who actually owns the copyright. And publishers aren’t always interested in reprinting something that doesn’t command a huge market. Again the author may have moved on to other things – or moved on to the next life. But I bet sometimes they just don’t get that We Want Their Book. I think this is the case with Leili Reimann, author of the Estonian lace pattern book, Pitsilised Koekirjad. She originally wrote it in the 1970’s and it’s been reprinted twice. Copies are getting really scarce now that reserves of the last (1995) printing are sold out. I got mine last year from Martina in Germany but I doubt she has any left now.

It seems that Ms. Reimann isn’t much interested in reprinting again. Merike Saarniit, an Estonian-American knitter (Ravelry link), attempted to get permission from Ms. Reimann to translate the text of her book into English but it fizzled. Merike has done us a big service though and made a translation of the stitch chart. However I for one would love to know what the rest of the book says! I personally don’t know anyone who speaks and reads Estonian. Lots of other languages, but not that one.

OK so what makes Estonian lace knitting so terribly interesting? They do things that make you think “I didn’t know knitting could do that”! Like the Japanese knitters, the Estonians have some very innovative stitches that go beyond knit, purl, yarn-overs and standard decreases. Most notable of course are the nupps, little buds that add bead-like texture. But there are also what I call star stitches where you start out kinda like a nupp, only the (k1, yo, k1 etc.) can be into 2 sts or 3 or more together, usually through the back loops. The numbers can be equal (for instance, making 3 sts out of 3 sts) or unequal (such as the 3 into 9 of the blossoms in the Laminaria Shawl). After an unequal star, the rest of the extra stitches are decreased back to the normal number in a later row or rows. Often Estonian patterns have an organic quality, including flowers, branches, leaves and combinations thereof. The most popular and the one that most people think of when discussing Estonian lace, are the many lily-of-the-valley variations. Another characteristic is the doubled (or even tripled) yarn for cast-on or bind-off edges. This gives the outline weight and prevents some of the curl you might otherwise get.

So now that I have Nancy Bush’s lovely “Knitted Lace of Estonia” book some things that I was wondering about have become clear. She shows a number of the patterns and several ways that the lace is combined to create scarves and shawls. Her book still feels like only the tip of the lacy iceberg to me though. I know there is a lot more that I would like to understand about these particular stitches and I’ll probably need to swatch and play with them some to get it. I’m a lot farther along the trail now though than I was when I first got the Pitsilised book. At least more of it makes sense to me in spite of the teensy charts using weird symbols with lousy pixilated and tightly cropped swatch photos!

For more Estonian lace, check out the video on this page. Gorgeous - even if you don’t understand a word. And here’s a translation by several of the Estonian speakers on Ravelry of an interview with Leili Reimann circa 1996, shortly after the last reprint of her book came out.

Oy! I know everyone is probably sick to death of my weather reports but really – this is nuts. We’ve been having a bit of a thaw. It was a mostly-sunny day yesterday and a bit above freezing. We got out for a short hoof to the nearest grocery store and it was not easy walking, let me tell you. Only about half the people had shoveled the public sidewalk in front of their house and if you slipped off the foot-high trail of packed snow you went in up to your knees. T-Man and I both had a lot of tired leg muscles when we got home. For amusement he went back out and shoveled some more snow from around the van after making sure the city drains near our property were clear.

Today it’s alternating rain and snow with some really strong gusts of wind thrown in for good measure. T managed to get out to work this morning with the van so I guess it was worth all the digging yesterday. I’m amazed because vehicles are still getting stuck at our intersection. The main roads are clear though, assuming you can get out there. And back again. I used to love it when it snowed but I want my usual winter’s green back now, please! Meanwhile I’m staying home again. And knitting. It took me most of yesterday to knit just one 8-row repeat of the blossom pattern on my Seaweed Shawl. Oy.

Drippity-Drip-Drip

Look at Frosty go! But since the snow was more than two feet deep it’s going to take awhile to disappear. And before that happens we may be in for some more snow. Rain/snow/rain/snow seems to be the forecast for the next while. Bleh. Cars are still constantly getting stuck on our street. You know it’s messy when even a tow truck is spinning around. I can almost see the asphalt in the ruts now though. First time in about 2 weeks. And my killer icicles are almost gone too. Good because we’re going to need to go on a grocery run soon and I wouldn’t want to be impaled just walking out my door.

So meanwhile, I’ve been knitting on The Ninja’s birthday socks. Beeeeeggg socks. I swear I could knit a whole sweater in a larger gauge using less stitches than these babies have in them. I obviously love the big lug. Plus I enjoy knitting plain socks. I’m flying down the feet now. Photo to come soon. As soon as I can find some light.

So meanwhile, while we’re snowed in, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading online:

Have you seen the December 2008 issue of The Crochet Insider? Don’t miss the fascinating interview with Nancy Nehring, particularly if you’re a textile history buff. Also some great thoughts on where crochet is going in future. Some great eye-candy on the Gallery page too.

Here’s a series of 3 articles on Workhorse Journals from a book artist’s point of view. (Links to succeeding parts on the top of the first page.)

A nice side effect of knitting and reading on my little laptop computer is that she keeps me warm and toasty! I’ve been foregoing her battery (took it out completely) and am running on the power cord. This cord stretching across the room to the nearest 3-prong outlet was a problem until T-Man got me a new power bar/surge protector to plug in behind the bed. Even my old Palm T/X has its recharger there. Now I’ve got everything plugged in neatly and all the cords bundled up and hung out of the way. Small things like this make me very happy. And once a week or so, I plug Bluet’s battery pack back in and run it down and recharge it again just to keep it happy too.

We’re all happy here. At least until the cabin fever sets in. Or we run out of food.

The More It Snows

So this is what the rest of Canada gets for winter, huh? They can have it back now. Please. It’s snowing. Again. Supposed to turn to rain later though. Ewwww…messy. We ain’t goin’ noplace nohow. Call it cocooning.

First though, we survived Christmas! We made it out to The Ninja’s house with Nana and found a dug-out spot on the street to park in. The main roads were clear and wet even though the side streets like ours haven’t ever seen a plough and are horrible. If you can stay on the main drags you’re fine. Otherwise bring a shovel. Everyone who was available made it safely too - one bunch carpooled in the most sensible vehicle among them. We had a lovely time and the food, drink and companionship flowed happily despite the weather. I am now crowned Queen of the Gravy-Makers after my second success in a week. I won’t let the delight go to my head.

Other people might feel let down after the Big Day but I feel relieved. We have a few more invitations to social engagements in the next week but two of them are neighbours (we can just skip over) and we just won’t bother with the distant one today. T-Man is sick of shoveling snow and getting the van stuck trying to get in or out. Enough’s enough. The cupboards are well-laden and we don’t need to go out unless we want to. If it’s still crappy out there by Monday when he has to work, he can do it from here.

Hope you all had a wonderful peaceful Happy Holiday - whichever one(s) you celebrate!

Back to knitting socks and reading blogs while snuggled under a blanket…

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Really! Awful. We were only supposed to have a little more snow and maybe some rain but so far there’s a total of about 18” with drifts up to several feet high. And it’s still snowing hard. The chances are good that we won’t be going anywhere tomorrow for Christmas. Boo-hoo! We certainly aren’t going anywhere today! The VW van is buried up over its bumpers and the MINI Cooper is stuck in the garage with a ton of snow against the door. Poor T-Man is getting very tired of shoveling. The piles of snow from the deck are now higher than the deck is and the heaps at the sides of the front walk are up to my thighs. And it needs shoveling again. This is more like the kind of weather they usually get in the colder parts of Canada – not here in the Banana Belt. Sheesh! Enough already.

Meanwhile I’ve been amusing myself by alternately lazing around under the covers and cleaning the house. Knitting and reading vs. washing and vacuuming. Works for me. T’s been shoveling, reading or flying his virtual airplanes. Yesterday we braved the outdoors and walked, slipping and sliding all the way, to the magazine shop. Unfortunately the pickings were a little thin since the delivery trucks have been having the same trouble getting around as everyone else. So we drowned our sorrows in sushi and miso soup at our favourite sushi joint on the way home. We were both pretty pooped by the time we stomped home. Why are Vancouverites so lazy they only shovel up to the public sidewalk and then stop? Guess they’re waiting for it to melt almost immediately only this time they were fooled and all we got was more snow.

Another casualty of the dump of snow is that my new drum carder is still stuck on Vancouver Island. The person who was going to bring it over isn’t attempting the trip right now so I’ll have to wait until someone can deliver it over to the mainland. Sigh. Oh well. I have lots of other things to do. Indoors only. I can’t even wade out to the trash bin without turning into the Abominable Snowman. My house has some serious icicles:


And even the little birdhouse by the back door has some icicles of its own:


Going out the back door is an exercise in ducking the drips, stepping carefully on the ice and watching for falling icicles. And it’s STILL snowing. I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything else.

All Hail

And more rain. Last evening while heading out to pick my first asparagus of the year, I narrowly missed being deluged on. There was a big black cloud over my head and a few drops of rain as I headed back to the house. I just got inside when the heavens opened. Every day I gain new respect for local farmers and the difficulties in getting crops to grow in our mild but wet and occasionally unpredictable weather. It seems impossible to consistently produce anything but moss and mildew around here! Today is nice so far so I guess I shouldn’t complain too loudly.

I have to tell you the further story of the baby goslings I showed you last Thursday. Yesterday the parent geese decided to move the whole family of 8 babies to a new home. They all took off walking through a series of parking lots, across a very busy multilane street and partway across the technical institute’s campus to another pond — 3/4’s of a kilometer in total. I measured it on Google Earth! Someone (or several someones) in T-Man’s workplace took photos of the whole procession but unfortunately I don’t have permission to show you how cute the little guys were especially when trying to get over some steep curbs. All the cars stopped, students were taking cell phone pics, mommy and daddy goose herded carefully and everyone arrived safely. Whew! I wonder if they’ll stay there or go back or even go somewhere else entirely. There’s a much larger lake a couple of kilometers away so they may be heading in that direction. Doncha love how nature still happens even in the middle of the big city?

Well I’ve finished knitting the Unmentionables and they have been washed and are currently blocking on a towel. Washing instructions for Sublime say machine washable but dry flat and reshape whilst wet so that’s pretty much what I did, substituting hand wash (because I didn’t want to fill the washer for one garment) but I did machine spin to get out the excess water. I’m now braiding ties for them on my marudai using a 16-strand braid called Keiruko No Himo. I plan to attach the tie ends to the elastic so that it can be tightened and tied in place but she can still get out of the bloomers by herself by pulling them down. She’s having enough trouble with toilet training without me making it more difficult! This will also allow her to grow and still fit into her Unmentionables for another couple of years by loosening off the ties. I’m using 3/8” swimsuit elastic since it has a mostly cotton content with rubber for stretch and will hold up to a lot of washing. I’m debating on whether to dye it pink and see if I can get it close to the same colour or just to leave it ecru. I might try the dye later this afternoon and see what happens. I can still replace it with undyed if it doesn’t work. Wonder if the rubber minds the salt and soda for Procion MX dye?

I decided to use the rest of the cotton on part of a secret project. You won’t hear more until I can talk about it. Mum’s the word around here for now. OK, quit trying to guess, you guys!

Is It "The Ides" Yet?

How quickly things change! It has been mostly sunny and very spring-like around here for a couple of weeks. Yesterday we got the majority of one side of the front garden revamped and composted. Today it’s snowing! Well, it actually rained all night which shifted into sleet this morning and now it’s turned to snow. Not sticking though and I doubt it will last long. At least all the hostas, perennial cornflowers, cranesbill geraniums, and heucheras that we dug up and replanted are getting well watered in. As long as they don’t freeze their little roots off first.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling very stiff but proud that I was able to keep up with the gardening. I may still be coughing some but my energy and stamina are nearly back to normal. Yippee! Today I’m relaxing after doing some exercises to try to mitigate some of the stiffness. Of course while we were working outside, the inside gets ignored. I need to vacuum the basement where the cats track their crunchies and kitty litter everywhere. I swear that area gets vacuumed twice as often as the rest of the house. At least. Messy old lady cats! Gotta love ’em.

I’ve been slowly — and I do mean s l o w l y — working up past the armholes of the back section on my Hepburn Cardi. No, I didn’t yet start another pair of socks. Maybe I’ll get the cardi done faster if I just put that off awhile. If I have enough light on my work I can knit even while watching TV because I have the pattern stitch memorised now. The reason why the knitting is so slow is that this is a combination of cable twists every 4 rows and a ribbed arrowhead lace pattern that has a 6-row repeat. It takes 12 rows total before the whole thing repeats. There’s a lot of stitch manipulation from knit to purl and back even on the wrong-side rows plus the cable needle (which I’ve gotten pretty efficient with). The yarn I’m using is a cabled 100% merino yarn and was coned for machine knitting. The cabled structure has three fine 2-ply yarns Z-twisted and plied again with a Z-twist and can be quite splitty if you aren’t careful. However I think the sweater will be quite nice and durable when it’s finally done. My samples got a pleasant matte surface with a slight nap when wet-finished. It’s quite resilient and stretchy too and the hand softened considerably. I hope it will be something that I will wear a lot.

OK, the snow stopped and we’re back to rain. It’s colder than it has been though and I’ve got my winter layers on again. The rain blew right through the bug screen on my studio window:

Glad I don’t have to go anywhere today.

Paddling Off Sleeve Island

Yep, I did it! I finished the Hepburn Cardi’s sleeves, both at the same time. It took me all morning and I shouldn’t have been so smug yesterday about having the whole thing charted out because I found a few errors of my own making. Happily I was able to adjust as I went and now the chart has been edited in retrospect. It doesn’t matter now, I know, but that doesn’t stop me from correcting my mistakes and printing out a good copy for my notes. I’m anal like that. These aren’t blocked yet since I plan to block all the sections at the same time. I think I’ll cast on for the back next.

The winter issue of Knitty is out today and boy, Amy better get more bandwidth because it’s really really slow with everybody all wanting to see it at once! That’s what you get for doing a good job and becoming popular, eh? So far I’m totally in love with Romi’s lace wimple with beads. And just about everything else. Though it’s kind of hard to see when you’re getting “page not found” errors from too many people trying to all look at the same time! I’ll leave it for awhile and go check back later. I’m starting to get annoyed that there are so many great patterns out there to make and not enough time in anyone’s life to do them all. Wahhhh!!!

BTW, I appreciate the comments on yesterday’s post. It’s nice that someone besides myself reads my tappings. I do think about these things a lot because, like many people these days, I like to minimize my consumption and waste. But I hope I didn’t sound too holier-than-thou because I haven’t even approached the level that I’d like to be at. I haven’t even finished getting rid of the junk that’s still lurking in the corners. (Though my attic spaces are clean!) Let me put it this way: I still haven’t found the portable hard drive with all my computer backups that I “hid” back in June before we went on holiday! If I can lose something the size of a large book in my own fairly small house, then I still have way too much stuff.

Changing the topic entirely, we had a lovely double rainbow yesterday afternoon when the sun peeked out of the rain for a moment or two:


It’s showering on and off right now even though it’s supposed to be sunny with cloudy periods. Typical winter weather around these parts. Any season’s weather, come to think of it. We have two seasons really — cold and wet or slightly-less-cold and wet. With occasional sunny periods thrown in just to remind us there is hope. Just so we don’t all jump off a bridge en masse.

Gee, and I was hoping for a nice day because I really have to get out and get a few groceries. I usually shop for fruits and veggies and dairy once or twice a week and then we do a larger shopping to a supermarket in the car once a month or so. The Wobblies have put me behind and the produce is down to a few limp celery sticks, half an apple and a jicama that needs to get eaten soon. (Hmmm…that sounds like the makings of a yummy slaw, doesn’t it? Just shows you how I can continue to eat out of the food stash for a good long time before things get really desperate!) Guess I’ll wait for T-Man to get home and then we’ll decide if we’re walking or driving. And it’s brightening up.