No photos tonight, but I’m checking in anyway. It’s been a busy, social weekend. Friday we had the non-knitting friends over for dinner. This was the compromise with Christer so that I could have a crafting party with the knitters (and some extras) next weekend. Saturday Christer and I had a little date night and recovered from the socializing. And today we were supposed to host a Christmas party for the church youth group–but an ice storm halted those plans. I started cooking early this morning, before we realized how bad the ice was (and really, it wasn’t that bad, but don’t tell that to families with teenagers happy to sleep in on a cold morning!), so we invited a few friends from church home to help us eat up the party chili. Adult party, score! And later in the afternoon we stopped by another Christmas party, thrown by one of Christer’s co-workers.
Now I like the socializing, and I have fun with it and all, but I am, in the end, an introvert. And that means that a busy weekend like this requires a few hours in front of a computer screen, or a book, or a sewing machine to give me some time to recharge. So here I am, catching up on some blogs, fiddling with facebook and ravelry, and blogging even though I have no pictures, just so I don’t have to talk to anyone for real for a little bit.
And speaking of the sewing machine, I pulled out my grandma’s old machine earlier this week, and I’ve been going crazy with the Christmas presents all weekend. See, I haven’t seen the pedal to my newer machine since we moved. And I’ve been looking and looking, but I finally gave up and pulled out the musty old Singer “featherweight”. It is fun to use, but the lack of a zigzag, button hole, or way to attach a zipper foot–not to mention the smell–all guarantee that I’ll need to find a solution for the missing pedal soon. But not before Christmas.
One more thing. Try this recipe. If possible, make sure it stays slightly gooey in the middle.
December 9th, 2007
One way to make the transition from fall to winter? Recycle the decorative pumpkins by turning them into pumpkin pie!
I had a bunch of pumpkins out on our chilly enclosed porch for Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations. And I remembered that they were pie pumpkins–I liked the size and shape better than the huge jack-o-lantern pumpkins. So it seemed a shame to throw out good food.
One pumpkin was looking a bit soft and wrinkled, but the other three looked good enough to eat. So, they got chopped and scooped (and pumpkin seeds were separated and toasted–an odd treat for this time of year).
And popped in the oven. The pumpkin has since been mashed, drained, and divided into lumps of puree for several upcoming recipes. The goal is to have pumpkin pie sometime this afternoon… but the crust is Christer’s project, so we shall see.
Kind of fun to go through the process, don’t know that I will do it every time I want a loaf of pumpkin bread, though. Oh, and have I mentioned that I haven’t even started making lists for Christmas gifts yet, let alone doing any of the shopping or crafting? Misplaced creativity strikes again.
December 2nd, 2007
Remember me? I am going to resist the urge to get all meta and write a post about why I am so bad at posting lately. Clean slate, today is today, I have the day off and I am cleaning and Christmas decorating, and I want to share my staircase:
Those little circles are Ikea gifttags. Cute, eh? Too cute to be giving away as toss-out wrapping paper. Slowly I am making the transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Having a house to decorate is fun, in that it is a big blank canvas. But it is time consuming in that the blank canvas is something of a mess. The thing about decorating is that the surfaces have to be clear for there to be room for decorations.
Lots has happened in last few postless weeks–nothing newsworthy, exactly, but enough to keep me busy. And while I compose little posts in my head almost daily, the only two things really worth post-posting about are our Thanksgiving travels and visitors.
As usual, we spent Thanksgiving day with Christer’s aunts in Wisconsin. Watery turkey soup in the nursing home kitchen for Thanksgiving dinner was made worthwhile by the catching up and conversation. It is always fun to see this crew. That’s Mae, Joann, Alice (sitting), Christer, and me, in order.
Then, when we got home Friday night we were met by Christer’s sister and her husband, up from Alabama. Here they are, with Christer, at a local hockey game. After watching skaters compete (and beat the heck out of–seriously, too much punching for my taste) on the ice we gave skating a try ourselves. But no pictures of that, because then my camera broke. Just the lense cover thingy is broken, not any of the inner-camera-workings–but that makes throwing the camera in a purse or pocket more difficult. You’ll be seeing a lot of pictures of my house for a while on this blog I’m afraid.
Ah, it is good to be hitting family season. I’m counting the days until we’re off to see our families over the Christmas break. Until then, there is decorating to do!
November 30th, 2007
I’m doing it! I’m stranding!
Two colors, two hands. I’ve fudged two-color work before, but this project is my first time getting the rhythm of throwing with the left hand and picking with the right. I’m a bit over halfway through the first chart on the Veggie sweater’s yoke–and I’m going to get right back to it as soon as I finish posting.
Today was another outside day with the church kids. A church member invited out to her cabin in the woods for hotdogs (veggie hotdogs even–she’s a 94 year old vegetarian, and this is her way of evangelizing to the young’uns. I love it!) and s’mores. I woke up to thunder this morning, and I was worried that our plans were ruined. But we were able to cook our snacks in an indoor fireplace, we took a long, chilly walk through the woods, and we came back in for hot chocolate and cards for the rest of the afternoon. It’s the sort of rainy cold day where you want to stay under the blankets all day. And while that can be quite theraputic as well, being forced outside by prior plans was a nice little blessing. Yellow leaves, shiny with rain, covered everything outside. The mist was cold, but as long as we kept walking it wasn’t unpleasant. This is the time of year when I don’t get out enough–it’s dark by the time I get home from work. A little time outside, even on a cloudy day, is helpful in preventing the blahs.
And after seeing all the golden leaves, I am ready to celebrate some Thanksgiving! I’m entertaining a gaggle of old ladies at my house this week (don’t ask, really, don’t), and I’m enjoying pulling out decorations with fall colors and pretending I am the sort of person who remembers to decorate before holidays. And then there’s the Veggie sweater, which just oozes with harvesty colors… and I am going to get back to working on that right now.
November 11th, 2007
Why swatch when you can hat?
I’m really glad I made the Veggie Hat before attempting the colorwork on the Eat Your Veggies sweater. I worked out a few color, tension and gauge issues–and I got a cute hat.
As written, the hat pattern has some decrease issues. The decrease round is meant to be done every three rows–after about 4 decreases I shortened that to two, and the last 6 decreases were done every row. And still, as you see from the side, the top is a bit elfish. But I’m too busy getting started on the sweater to go back and round it more. The original picture in Vogue is taken from below, so you can’t see the ugly top of the hat–sneaky Vogue. It’s a bit disappointing when a respected magazine pulls tricks like that.
The last couple days I’ve been adding a few inches to the body and sleeves (cuddly is sounding better than cropped right now), and connecting them. I’ve got a few more rounds of plain green, but by the end of the week I plan to be stranding again. Yipee for finally learning me some colorwork!
November 7th, 2007
A couple of weeks ago my friend and co-worker had a new baby… about 6 weeks earlier than anyone was expecting! The little guy weighed in just under 4 lbs, and he’s been a trooper in the hospital ever since. He should be coming home soon, and until then he’ll be stylin’ in this tiny vest.
Most of the preemie clothes out there are very functional–basically t-shirts with lots of velcro and snaps so that they’re easy to get in and out of, even around tubes and monitors. And I don’t think he’s going to have a whole lot of use for an argyle vest until he’s off the tubes, but now and then, even a two week old needs to look good. So I used the measurements for 4 lb babies that I found around the internets, made a little vest, and instead of seaming I gave the edges a sturdy seed stitch border, and used snap tape to close up the sides and top.
This little guy’s arrival meant a big change for me, too–I think I’ve hinted at it a few times around here. I’m filling in for his mom as our church’s youth director while she’s on maternity leave. I’d been shadowing her all fall, learning the ropes and getting to know the kids–but with the baby’s arrival I’m on my own. This is work I’ve done before, but it’s been a while, and it’s a new group… so it’s been a busy few weeks around here. But it’s worth it, because they are a fun group. Today I had the change to take them walking through a labyrinth–a sort of meditative maze/path. The one we visited was outdoors, the path was marked by bricks and covered in fall leaves. And it was chilly enough outside to believe it was fall, but otherwise it was bright and sunny and beautiful out. And they walked through the path thoughtfully, and, bless them, didn’t say a word for 30 minutes. Even if they didn’t pray a bit on the walk, even if they just got to enjoy 30 minutes with mouths shut and ipods off, I’m considering that a success. Funny, so many of the things that we decide to teach teens, in our schools and churches and community groups, so many of those things are the things that the adults haven’t learned yet either. So it was nice for me to have half an hour unplugged as well.
November 4th, 2007
My main sweater challenge for the month is to pull out my “Eat Your Veggies” sweater from, oh, two years ago, and finish it up. I think — if I remember right — that I’m ready to attach the sleeves to the body and work on the stranded design on the yoke. So before attempting my first “real” colorwork, I figured I needed a swatch. But I don’t swatch, so luckily the sweater comes with directions for a hat.
Oooo, this stranding is fun. I’m slow, but I’m getting the rhythm of knitting with both hands pretty well. And the colors are working, I think. But I hit a roadblock last night, preventing me from staying up too late finishing the hat. The way the hat is made it has a 3 inch hem. That hem is knitted into the outside body of the hat after the first three inches are knit–enclosing the strands, and the loose ends. I got halfway around closing the hem before I realized that I needed to do some end-weaving to avoid some awkward holes and lumps. Blah. End weaving is bad enough at the end of a project, it should not disrupt the mojo midway. So that tangle needs to get sewn up before I go any further.
Oh, and for those of you who don’t remember what I was knitting three years ago–”Eat Your Veggies” is actually Sweater #11 out of Vogue Knitting Fall 2005. It earned the name when I was picking out KnitPicks yarn–the colors I ended up with are Avacado, Carrot, Asparagus, Cherry Blossom and Hollyberry–other options included Pumpkin, Tomato, and Wheat. Yum, it just sounds like fall, doesn’t it all?
November 3rd, 2007
Halloween is over, and it’s time for some of this!
Actually, I snapped this Monday. But unlike the strip mall, I have the good taste not to put up any Christmas until after Halloween.
October was get-me-healthy month. And it mostly worked. I’ve been “running” regularly, except when I had a cold and could not breathe. I’ve been to all my Tai Chi classes except when Tim and Cathy were here. I usually use up the CSA veggies before they go bad. And I made it to all my doctor appointments–but I still have a few lingering lab tests that I need to get in before I can say I’m done with doctors for another year (or three). Blah. They handed me the lab papers as I left the doctor, and I was crushed that I had to go and make yet another appointment.
So November is all sorts of things around the blog-o-sphere. Some folks are trying to blog every day–but that seems too big a commitment, especially as sparse as the blog has been lately. Some are trying to write a novel, and that is not happening here. I don’t do fiction. Research with big works and citations, sure. But not fiction. And then there’s NaKniSweMo–which is just fun to say, and I think I might jump on board. The idea is to make an entire sweater, start to finish, in one month. That would not work so well around here, though, because there are already so many sweaters on the needles. So I’m trying to pick which one to finish this month. But I think I could get at least one done, don’t you?
Horray for November, because after November comes Christmas, and after Christmas the days start to get longer again. Horray for November!
November 1st, 2007
There was a lot of kiddy crafting before and during our friends’ visit. Beforehand there was the rush to finish semi-matching sweater and dress for godson and his brand new sister. Generally I think that intarsia is a bad idea–but I always end up drooling a little over Lucinda Guy’s designs. Still, her small gauge and big-kid sized patterns weren’t going to do the trick–so I stole a few of her motifs and pasted them onto other patterns. Like this little puppy, pasted into a sweater out of this book.
For the new baby I used Kate Gilbert’s Anouk — an easy and flexible pattern that I really enjoyed making a few years back. And it’ll fit the kiddo for a year or so because it’s more a pinafore than a dress. Instead of Anouk’s flowered pockets, however, I used some old school Cotton Ease (same colors as godson’s sweater), and some of Lucinda Guy’s flowers. Sound cute? Well, it was, but I never took a picture. I remembered this just as they were leaving. And I have done some silly things to get pictures of my knitting, but I would never be so crazy as to disrupt the packing-and-leaving ritual of parents with small children.
I was still adding some finishing touches to the kidswear when they arrived, but that was kind of fun, because the godson got to see that I was making it for him, and he seemed to get the connection between the yarn and the sweater. He also brought along his “Buddy” that he got for Christmas last year.
Poor Buddy had an accident, perhaps involving the family dog, that resulted in a large puncture wound. (I did not try to conceal my pride that it was a bite, and not a frayed seam, that sent Buddy to the doctor.) I didn’t have leftover of his hair fabric, so a simple patch was out. At his mom’s suggestion the little guy picked out a couple colors from the felt I did have, and I stitched on a little bandaid.
Just for fun, I pulled up the Make-A-Long story on the internet for the kid while I was working. And he was absolutely amazed to see his Buddy on the computer. By the end of the story I think he also caught on that there were more clothes that could be made for the doll… more kid crafting coming soon, perhaps?
October 21st, 2007
Busy, busy, fun week! And the highlight was a visit from good friends from Madison–Tim, Cathy, our godson and his new little sister. A nearly three year old and a three week old. We got to play at all the parks and kids places around Fort Wayne that we usually just pass by. Like the preschool room at the library, which features this tree:
I am impressed with their bravery traveling with such a little one–although I suppose in some ways it’s easier traveling with her now than it will be in a few months. She slept and slept and slept, except for at night. It was a treat to spend some time with a baby so little–you just don’t get to see them that little very often!
I skipped running and Tai Chi on Thursday, and we forgot to pick up our CSA veggies–but hopefully the health benefits of seeing old friends will counteract all that. It is very good to reconnect, even if they were a bit sleep-deprived. And the kids were a lot of fun. Last time we saw the three year old he was just starting to use a few words… this time he was quite talkative and it was fun to get a glimpse into his world. An example: as they were leaving Cathy, after grinning for two days at our childless fascination and sometimes-cluelessness with their kids, joked that oops, they forgot to leave a diaper for Christer. As in, a chance for him to change the baby. But the little guy heard that, and piped up “No Mommy, Christer wears underpants.”
Small kids mean lots of excuses for pictures and crafting. I’ll post some crafting pictures tomorrow–until then, yes, I made the red sweater the little guy is wearing in the photo.
October 20th, 2007
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