Ducksies and Suitcases and Storms, Oh My!

I haven't knitted for two days. Something to do with visiting libraries, being passed a steady stream of Discworld books by my son, not having a knitting project, and an amazing amount of tree branches which were disconnected from their trees yesterday morning, no doubt. I hope to remedy the situation today. I did finish the Duck hats. They came out just as I had planned, not too small, nor too large, and Just Right as far as yarn usage went. I had a few yards of green left over. They're a present, but I am fairly sure the recipients don't read this blog, so I present to you ....

Vir was away to Atlanta the week before last, for a reunion of his college housemates.  It's always interesting when one receives a phone call saying that one is owed a new suitcase, due to a small fire, but just about everything else is okay.  (The 'everything else' did not include the cell phone charger, table charger, a pair of shorts, a shirt, the back cover of an appointment book, and a few toiletries, however.)  I image it was quite a surprise to load up the luggage carrier, settle down in the car for a nice long drive, and arrive at the destination with a hole in the luggage carrier and smoking luggage inside it.  Farewell, blue bag.  You served me through trips to college, Iceland and Scotland, Tbilisi, Omaha, Baltimore, California, camp ... but not more.  And I didn't even get to say good bye. 

Yesterday morning, we made national news!  Some storms passed through the area.  Before they passed through, our main concern was not getting caught in a nasty downpour during the morning paper route.  Thunderstorms can make one exceedingly wet in a very short period of time.  It was dry when the papers got delivered, but there was a band of clouds the size of Pennsylvania lurking a few minutes west of us, so they were delivered by motor vehicle instead of bicycle.  Good thing, too.  Before we'd been inside a minute, God opened the fire hose on us and visibility dropped to 'not across the street.'  After a while, the rains dropped off and the winds picked up. 

Lots of winds. 

Turns out, we should have been concerned about getting walloped by a tree or trampoline or roof during the paper route, not getting wet.  One article in the papers says there are more trees down in town than there are people.  That *is* an exaggeration, but not much. 

Across the street. 

Happily, our willow tree did not lose any major branches, nor did any other tree in our yard.  It was the work of a half-hour to gather up the debris from our trees and from other trees that landed into our yard.  I was a bit curious how we would GET all the debris (two solid pick-up loads, perhaps) out to the compost facility when it opened up on Saturday, but thanks to some neighbors and a flat-bed tow truck, it is gone already. 

The back yard ... our property goes just a wee bit beyond the garden beds

Our neighbors don't usually have a whole tree laying down in their yard.  And they usually have a power line connecting their house to the grid, too.  Once the power company got the line properly dealt with (it's under the tree in this photo), a chainsaw or two and a skid loader made short work of the tree.  As the day progressed, I learned that we might have been the only ones in town who had power (except for a minute or two in the afternoon, probably when the rest of town got reconnected.)  Us, the empty house next to us, and the church next to that, are the only places I know had power.  An amazing blessing - and we didn't even know it wasn't a common blessing!

Canis was MOST unhappy when the power flicked off in the afternoon and the carbon monoxide detector beeped. 

I got two packages of yarn yesterday.  One for a test knit, and the other for playing with.  Alpaca laceweight .... mmmmm! 

Smoke Alarms and Oregon Ducks

Filius is a scientific sort.  He did some research and learned that smoke alarms need to be replaced every 10 years.  We have lived in this house 20 years minus one month ... and have never replaced a smoke alarm.  So, that got put on the to-do list. And do you know what happens when you put a battery into a smoke alarm?  It beeps.

So, as we were getting ready to install a new smoke alarm yesterday, I thought it prudent to have pooch be somewhere else in the house while I put the battery in.  Maybe on the other side of a door and down a set of stairs.  It didn't work. I am his safety blanket, and when the thing beeped, he dashed up the stairs and burst through the door.  Which wasn't latched.  Old houses, old doors, and all that.  But we now have a functioning upstairs smoke detector.  Next up on the agenda is to replace the wired-in one that caused all the panic (for the dog) in the first place.

I have been casting around for something to knit, and remembered that I have some Oregon Ducks hats in my queue.  And I have yarn for them!  I do not have yarn for the Antifreeze balaclava-y thing I owe Filius for running his former one through the wash.  It would now fit a much younger Filius.  But I do have John Deere Green and Yellow for the Oregon Ducky hat, and a picture of a hat.  Take those two things, and I shall come up with a hat.  Two hats, actually. Yayyyyy!  Something to knit!  Over the weekend, I was reduced to knitting swatches for projects I didn't quite have in mind.

Today is a beautiful day, perfect for working in yards.  So that is what shall happen.  The canine will be delighted to chase rabbits far, far from nasty smoke alarms that go BEEP. 

I leave you with a nice tranquil photo, albeit one without the chipmunk I was trying to photograph.  This is the view from my front porch.  The trees are apricot bushes, theoretically 4-6 ft tall.  They overachieved. 

Garden!

Cilantro, Sage, Parsley, Chives. Thyme, and Lavender

Tomatoes and Basil

Kale, Lettuce, and Asparagus

Peppers and Beans and Peas, Oh My!

A pound of fresh oregano

Yesterday morning, today was going to be a nice quiet day at home. Yesterday afternoon, today was going to be spent in town, running a few errands after picking up some now-working power wheels for a wheelchair. And this morning, the phone call came in which said that yesterday morning's plan was actually correct, and today WAS going to be a nice quiet day at home. So we get to pick up the wheels when we're supposed to be getting 1-2" of rain (followed by 1-2" more at night. I don't think I need to water much today.) I now have rhubarb-pineapple jello in the fridge, along with a quart of rhubarb syrup for rhubarb-lemonade slushies, 2 cups of oregano pesto, and a half-gallon of minty sun tea. A kale-banana-rhubarb smoothie is in the plans for lunch, and homemade yogurt will start incubating around then. Three loads of laundry have come out of the dryer, too. But it's been a quiet morning.

Yesterday was another matter.  Yesterday we ran some errands in town (mostly to get groceries for starving teenagers), did some work at my mom's in 90+ degree heat, and then came home to an Utter Mess.  Our poor pooch (whom we have had for 5 years as of today, according to Facebook's memory thingy, making him 13 years old!) had stayed at home and things had not gone well.  Puddles and a pile greeted us, plus a dog that wanted OUT.  NOW.  My first thought was that the chocolate he had consumed Sunday (sniff.  MY chocolate, from the 4th shelf of a bookkcase) had given him some tummy issues.  So out he went, and I began cleaning things up.  Then Filia noticed that the electric smoke detector was giving the 'low battery' beep.  On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is l put it on a to-do list and ignore it for a few days, and 8 is clean the poop off the kitchen floor from in front of the sink, low battery beeps are around a 3.  So I didn't think anything of it, grabbed a mop, and began to make the kitchen a safe place to walk-n-wheel.  I wondered if the pup had gotten into the compost bucket as well, since there were things that looked like sweet potato peels laying around the kitchen too.

Oddly enough, the glass with asparagus in it had been knocked over on the counter, but the asparagus hadn't been eaten.  That's a serious indicator of an unhappy pooch.  He will, given a chance, climb into your LAP at the dinner table to remind you that you must share your asparagus ends with him.  He adores asparagus.  (And radishes, and dill, and parsley, and sweet potatoes, and pea pods, and and and ... but not iceberg lettuce)

As the clean-up progressed, I found four piles, a knocked-over trash can, a knocked-over harp (EEEEK!), and zig-zaggy splashes all throughout the downstairs.  And the windows were a mess.  Kinda like some kid with dirty hands had reached up as high as he could and then dragged his hands down each windows several times. 

This was strange. 

So I checked on the pooch, who was laying down in the shade outside but quite happy to come in. He came in, had a huge drink of water, ignored the food in his dish, and looked most unhappy. 

Until the smoke alarm beeped.  At which point, he jumped out of his skin and halfway up the stairs. 

Poor thing.  For whatever reason, our electric smoke detector, which has not had a battery for some time, decided that it was going to beep once every few minutes while we were gone.  And the pooch got stressed.  So stressed that our house looked like a textbook example of 'What happens when a dog experiences severe stress.'  (Except the textbook left out the asparagus on the floor, the paw-streaks on the windows, and the splinters from trying to chew and scratch his way out of a door or two.  And the harp.  They didn't mention anything about knocking over a harp.)

Fixing the beepy thing became much more a priority.  But how do you make a smoke detector stop the low battery beep when there is no battery in it?  Happily, my intuition gave me an answer that worked: whap it a few times with the mop handle. 

(we interrupt this blog post to accept a box of unexpected chocolates from the UPS man. I will keep them UP two feet further than the last box of chocolates was kept.  The one which met its demise on Sunday.)

Clean-up continued for an hour, and I still have some windows to clean (didn't notice yesterday that he reached the upper pane of the windows) and will probably mop again today, and maybe if the smell lingers still tomorrow, wipe down more walls and cabinets.  The stressed pooch just wanted me to settle down so he could sack out and collect his poor tender nerves.  Eventually things got tidied up, the groceries got put away, and he settled down.  He's not letting me out of his sight today. 

Poor, poor pooch. 

When life throws you juicy stories ...

When life throws you juicy stories, you get distracted.

Seriously distracted.  I can blame Filia for everything, though, and back up that sentiment with hard facts.  Of course, we will have to skip the fact that she has my genes.  Or else blame the genes on my mother.  She was writing county courthouses looking for records and probates and such before I was even born.  I have the checks and the letters to prove it, thanks to a trunk or two from the garage. 

Because, as I have neglected to mention earlier, the juicy stories are of the family genealogy sort.  The internet has revolutionized genealogy for genealogy hobbyists, like me, who dive into it for a while, remember there is more to life than dead ancestors, and carefully extricate themselves from the tangle of begats and bequeatheds, and resume a normal life.  So much more data is available without even leaving the house. 

Like www.findagrave.com and www.familysearch.org and http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.  And learning that the nearest Family History Center isn't two hours away, but is practically visible from where I sat in the library while Filius was in class this past year. 

Oh, my. 

The first story was that a great-great-great grandfather of mine may not have died in Michigan, as reported, because there is a probate record for him in Iowa.  Except the microfilm I looked through didn't have any mention of wife and children, like the on-line index did.  So it may not be him.  Then again, it may.  We've never found anyone with the same name as him elsewhere.  (How DO people whose ancestors are named things like John Carlson ever manage?) 

The second story was that a great-grandfather of mine figures prominently in four newspaper articles from 1898, involving the sort of wrong-doing that would have him and a few family members show up on a talk show.  We had no idea!

And the third story was that, thanks to Filia ferreting out relatives on Findagrave and linking all sorts of family members on there, a third cousin of mine found us and we have been having way too much fun mutually expanding our knowledge of family and family stories.  The third cousin isn't related to the great-grandfather of the second story, above, but her great-grandmother is.  And they had no idea either. 

With all that fun genealogy floating around, who has time for knitting?  Well, me. But it has not been easy, and I'm about ready to set a Real Timer That Goes Ding for my genealogy work, and leave more of the day for actual things which are useful.  (Not that finding new third cousins isn't a good thing ... and I do plan to write two relatives this week to stay connected with them, and perhaps get caught up on new things in their nook of the family since 1999 ... but losing entire days to the Genealogy Bug is just not something I want ought to do regularly.)

The garden grows.  Asparagus, Rhubarb, and Radishes are still being picked regularly.  Everything else is growing reasonably.  The weeds are, dare I say it, under control.  At least at my house.  Mom's yard is another story, but it is still an improvement over last year.  A great improvement.  Whenever I am up there weeding and lopping, I thank God for the mowers who are doing a superb job and not letting the weeds encroach on the yard around the edges.  In fact, they're doing the opposite ... each mowing sees some areas being expanded by a few inches.  Yay! 

I have just a few more samples to knit, and then there will be some blocking and seaming to do, and then that job will be done.  Which is good, because I have material for another job on the way.  And another job arrived today!  I am delighted. 

One of these days I will have charming knitting photos, but not yet. 

A conundrum

How does one write a blog post about sitting back and enjoying life, when stepping away from the computer to sit back and enjoy life is the next thing on the to-do list? 
Quickly, I think.
The weather has warmed up, the Encyclopaedia Britannicas have found a new home, and my minivan is full of things to distribute around Mankato tomorrow as we begin the summer adventure called "Clean Grandma's Garage."  The checks my dad wrote in 1967 will be getting recycled, along with the rest of the checks from the late 60's and early 70's, once we pull the ones with social security numbers on them.  In the olden days, you sometimes needed to put your SSN on a check. 
And phone bills were $8.64. 
The garden is growing beautifully, and we are enjoying radishes, asparagus, and rhubarb.  The little beanie heads have popped out of the soil and should be snaking up my PVC trellis and overwhelming it in the next month or two.  Mom's nettles are beginning to take over parts of her yard, but we are managing to keep them out of quite a swatch that they reigned supreme in last year, so I am pleased. 
Yarn for the miscellaneous small items arrived as scheduled, and I will be continuing to work away on those once I finish this post.  Knitting is my idea of sitting back and enjoying life.  Especially when I can sit by an open window, listening to the nearby birds and the not-so-nearby lawnmowers (since Filius mowed our yard earlier today), and watching the activity in our willow tree.  I may also be listening to a dog snore.  He's been VERY busy at my mom's this week and seems to be catching up on his rest today.
Filia and I put in a few hours in the kitchen today, and it now boasts Rhubarb Apple Salad, Rhubarb Pie, German Potato Salad, and Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies.  It no longer boasts a puffed oven pancake or a rhubarb lemonade slushy. Those have been consumed.  And if the breeze is doing what it is supposed to, there is a large pile of clean and dry dishes in there for me to put away! 
Anyone have a favorite rhubarb recipe to share? 

Life continues

It's been almost a week since I had a daily drive to Bethany Lutheran College. (Not) oddly enough, I do not find myself putting together my purse and knitting basket, preparing to head out the door.  I do find myself on the computer more, writing blog posts and e-mails and the like.  That needs to stay within bounds.  Life is more than being on the internet.

Life would be a lot more gardening and yard work, too, but for the fact that is has been COLD and wet.  It's May 19th, and we had a frost warning this morning.  I thought about covering my 8x4 bed of tomatoes and basil but opted to live dangerously.

The hummingbirds and orioles are back.  The mourning doves are back in evidence too, and my new friend the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker makes daily visits to the willow tree.  The bleeding heart is still in bloom, and the columbines are adding to the color with their red and yellow flowers.  The beans are keeping their little heads under the soil yet.  Someone must have told them that the 80-degree weather wasn't going to last.

I'm in a decluttering and cleaning mood.  Yesterday saw the evisceration of the storage space above the master bedroom closet.  Yesterday morning, it was full.  Today, it is half-empty.  Today's target has not yet been decided upon.  Anyone want a set of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1976?

It's Molly's Fault

I spent some time last week wondering what to knit after I finished a pair of gloves and one mitten, which were all that was on my knitting calendar.  My wonderings were answered in the form of an e-mail, and now my knitting calendar has two more mittens and several miscellaneous small items.  I figure in 2-3 weeks, I will be wondering what to knit next.  And by then, I am sure a new answer will crop up.  Worst comes to worst, I can knit a summer tank top.  That should put off the decision for 2-3 days.  Unless the weather is good and I spend those days outside eradicating uppity weeds. 

Molly's Fault was finished on March 30th.  It was a long time in the making, mostly because I ignored it for a very long time.  It is (in its current size) 17 diamonds wide and 24 diamonds tall ... or 816 wee little diamonds.  I love the result, and may make another one sometime during my time on earth.  But not with my current yarn stash.  I sort of used up all my miscellaneous sock yarn! 

On the needles now is a mitten, minus top and thumb.  When that is finished (this afternoon), I will start a second mitten.  And by the time that is done, I should have more yarn and be able to start in on the miscellaneous.  If that package hasn't arrived ... oh dear, I need to figure out what to do in that case.  Hmmm.  Something to ponder while knitting!

See you next week!

The End of an Era

When Filius exited Honsey Hall yesterday around 11 AM, it marked the end of an era.  The end of his high school years.  Even though he has been enrolled full-time in college for the past two years, it was dual-enrollment and therefore somewhat, kinda, almost sorta homeschooling.  But that is no longer the case.  He has finished the course of his high school years, run the race, and has a summer stretching before him before he returns to college to continue growing in his knowledge of all things Chemistry, plus whatever liberal arts the school requires of him to graduate. 

He is not a fan of the liberal arts, or at least liberal arts as they relate to him.  He's fine with liberal arts for other people.  He would prefer a full schedule of chemistry, or perhaps chemistry and computers. 

Filia is home as well now, and we are beginning the process of settling into a summer routine.  Pray for me, gentle readers, as I endeavour to nurture two teens with learner's permits into two independent drivers. 

Gratuitous Knitting Picture

The garden is in and protected from the average bunny, my mom's yard is not overrun by weeds, and the summer stretches before me, just filled with opportunities.  My twined gloves are moving along.  After a week of little progress, caused by a week of sunshine and abundant opportunities for yardwork, things are moving again and I have only 3.75 fingers and 1 thumb left to finish. Since it is rainy today, I hope to reduce that quantity by at least half before I go to bed tonight. 

And if I am to do that, I will need to get off the computer.  Staying off my tablet won't be a problem.  It's in the repair shop.  The jump off the top of a mini-fridge onto the concrete was too much for the screen.  And I have an aversion to glass splinters in my fingertips. 

A Tale of Two Yards

Another week has gone by, and the school year is one week closer to completion, and the weeds have one more week of the growing season under their belt.  At least, some weeds do.  My yard is in pretty good shape.  If there is a weed with more than two leaves on it, it's probably not in my flower or vegetable beds.  And Mom's yard is looking good, too.  I put in four hours of nettle pulling yesterday, and made decent progress.  We found a relatively non-toxic (to humans, pets, etc) weed-killer made of vinegar, dish soap, and epsom salts.  It works nicely on small weeds in sidewalk cracks.  Two of Mom's four weed raised beds are covered with plastic, and even if the other two don't get in coverable shape this year, that's two beds more than last year! 

Two of my four veggie/herb beds are protected at least reasonably well from the bunnies.  I hope to lash some chicken wire to the remaining PVC frames later today, and then can get them up tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting, and pop my tomatoes and remaining plants into the ground.  Asparagus and rhubarb production is in full swing. 

The First Frame, protecting the First Asparagus

Next week, I start a Bible Study on the Sermon on the Mount.  And I'm not leading it!  Two wonderful things.  To prepare, I want to finish memorizing Matthew 7.  I've heard that one part of the homework for the study is reading through the Sermon on the Mount each week.  Nothing like being able to do part of your homework while laying in bed in the morning with your head on the pillow and your eyes closed! 

Knitting has gone slowly this week, due no doubt to how gorgeous the weather was and how much time I spent with a pair of loppers and fist-fulls of nettles.  The leather-palmed garden gloves I got this year -- in April, I think, but possibly in March -- have a split seam, several serious scuffs in the leather, and a spot on the thumb that looks suspiciously like a popped blister, about the size of a nickel.  They're getting serious use.  I wish they looked like they were longer for this world.  It's not every garden glove you can use to pull Russian Thistles without getting stuck! 

I did, however, get One Single, Solitary Thumb knit on the first glove.

And five ticks off of my dog.
 

Spring!

I think it really is spring in Minnesota.  I have done oodles of knitting, and would talk about it, but with the nice weather comes the green growth, and with the green growth comes another year of nettles and volunteer trees taking over my mom's yard.  And branches falling down from old volunteer trees. 

So, rather than put together a post with pretty pictures of twined gloves, I will say instead that I am hoping to spend 10+ hours pulling weeds at mom's house this week.  And keep up with the smaller weeds in my own yard!  I'll be picking up anti-rabbit fencing tomorrow, then carving up some PVC pipe and making frames to lash the fencing to, then mounting them on the raised beds.  The theory is that I will be able to remove the frames for weeding, winter, etc, but keep the bunnies out the rest of the time.  We shall see how it works.

The asparagus harvest has begun, and I do believe I will make some rhubarb something this weekend.  I've transplanted cilantro, chives, sage, and thyme into my new herb bed ... more parsely, basil, thyme, sage, and perhaps one lavender will be transplanted later.  The peas are in and starting to come up (unprotected from the bunnies, eeeek!), and the radishes are starting to poke their tops up as well.  The mint and oregano survived the winter, but they are NOT going into my raised bed.  I will pop them into planters, where they will stay put and not take over the bed/yard/neighborhood.

Florally, I found a lot of volunteer columbine under the bird feeders, so I have transplanted a dozen or two into places where they won't get mowed over.  Columbine aren't supposed to like being transplanted ... we'll just see how they do.  I moved some hostas, and unknown nursery plant, daylilies, and irises around as well.  And today, two peonies. 

Only two and a half weeks of driving back and forth to Bethany left.  And then ... I have no idea what life will look like. 

Anyone want a tree branch?  Fresh rhubarb, vitamin C-rich nettles, and walnut trees are hiding underneath it.

The Fiasco (part 2)

I'd rather be knitting ... but my to-do list included a blog today, and so I will blog.  Then I can knit with a clear conscience.

Where we last left off, dear reader, I was in the middle of knitting a fourth mitten and realizing that the second mitten did not follow the prescribed color theme.  Or at least, it did not follow the prescribed color theme above the wrist.  Below the wrist, it was fine.  No, I managed to  mess it up ABOVE the wrist only.

From the first mitten, I learned 'Write down the color names/letters CAREFULLY.'
From the second mitten, I learned 'READ the color names/letters, not only when you start the mitten, but also when you are in the middle of the mitten.'

What could go wrong from there?

Not all that much, actually.  A healthy dose of paranoia kept me checking the color combinations every 3-4 rounds of all the remaining mittens. (That made a total of 6 mittens.  Two botched, and one correct.)  I knew I wanted a mix of thumbs -- some on the left, some on the right -- and by not paying much attention to things ended up with 3 left thumb and one of the right thumb.   On the correct mittens.  The botched mittens had right thumbs, through no fault of their own.

At that point, I weighed yarn, considered, and the decision was made to make pairs out of all the mittens.  With an eagle eye to matching colors, I successfully knit a purple mitten to match the purple  mitten, and a green mitten to match the green mitten.  By diligent observation, I managed to make the second mittens of each pair so that they would fit on a standard pair of human hands.  No 'two left mittens' for me!

And then, it was decided to have a yellow pair and a red pair.  Botched, but paired.  And for this, I pulled out a Very Special Bag of Tricks.  Because by the little gremlin that was throwing monkey wrenches in everywhere she could, I had two yellow mittens with two left thumbs (or rather, a left thumb and a left thumb opening), and two red mittens with two right thumbs.  AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

 Fear not.  I am an intrepid knitter.  And I have friends who simplify some of my convoluted ideas.  (You know who you are.)  

Step 1:   Pick up stitches in the row below the waste yarn, and the SECOND row above the waste yarn.   Remove the waste yarn, and gingerly snip the yarn in the first row above the waste yarn in the middle, so there will be enough to weave in.  Hopefully.
 

 Step 2:  Work a simple single-color graft across the unneeded thumb opening.

 Step 3: Cleverly use Swiss Darning (aka Duplicate Stitch) to add four green stitches just where they belong, more or less.

 Step 4:  Pick up stitches for a thumb on the right side.

 Step 5: Remove the sacrificial row of yarn between the two rows.

 Step 6: Knit a thumb in four colors. 

Step 7: Take a picture of the finished fix, to delay weaving in all those ends.

Fixing the second mitten is another excellent way to put off tail weaves.  Let's see how this one goes!

Step 1:  Pick up stitches all around the top of the mitten, just beneath the first tip-shaping row. 

Step 2: Undo all the tail weaves at the tip and unravel the mitten top.  Only down through and including the first decrease round, not down to the thumb.  Why ever did I think that would be needed? 

Step 3:  Squoosh the mitten so that what was a right thumb is now a left thumb.  While leaving the beginning of the round where it was, work the decreases in what was the middle of the palm/middle of the back, so that the right mitten is very neatly converted to a left mitten. 

Step 4:  (Not shown.) Weave in ends, and ends, and ends.

Enjoy!

The Crayola Mitten Fiasco (part 1)

Once upon a time, there was a knitter.  Now, this knitter was fairly proficient in her craft.  She was so proficient that often she knit while doing other things.  Usually, this resulted in getting many things done simultaneously. 

Sometimes it resulted in a bit of a mess. 

One day, in the not-too-distant past, this knitter began to knit a mitten collection.  Each mitten in the collection used four colors.  The same four colors.  What was color A for one mitten was color B for the next mitten in the collection, color C for the third, and color D for the fourth.  And color B in the first mitten became color C in the next, and so forth. 

What could go wrong? 

Quite a lot, as it turned out.  See that lovely green fringe?  It's supposed to be purple.  But did I the knitter notice?  No.  Not until I the knitter was working the decreases at the tip.  Because I (oops) the knitter was busily pondering various themes found in Romans Chapter 9, as expounded upon by John Piper at Desiring God.

And so the knitter sighed deeply, worked the last dozen or so rows of the mitten, and set it aside.  Why bother weaving in ends, or work a thumb, if the whole color scheme of the mitten was faulty due to a copying error when colors B and C were jotted down?

With a renewed attention to detail, the next mitten was begun.  (One in each of the four color schemes was the goal). 

Five mittens later, she had the desired four correct mittens.  It wasn't until knitting the fourth mitten than she observed that the third mitten was flawed.  And it wasn't until the following day she figured out that no, the third mitten was fine ... it was the SECOND mitten that was wrong.  And it was only wrong above the braid, when the purple and greens got reversed.  Again. 

(To be continued)
 

Back! Or am I?

I never particularly intended to have a year-long hiatus on this blog.  Somewhere between the busyness of life and my intentions not to spend more time documenting what I am doing than actually doing it, the blog faded into the background.  The serious background, rather like the back of the cave the Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves took refuge in while they were traversing the Misty Mountains, and which just faded into blackness that seemed to be impenetrable but which wasn't, sadly, and which really had repercussions for a good night's sleep.  At least for them.

I'm not particularly schooling two any more.  And 'one' may not be exactly what I knit.  I knit lots.  And I could write about that, and about what I am reading, and memorizing, and gardening (just not at the moment ... something about 'earth stood hard as iron'), and stuff ... but is this a useful vehicle for that? 

Weigh in, all you existent readers!

And a blessed last few days of Advent to you all. 

Shawl Progress

As some of you know, my homeschooling these days looks more like a taxi service. Drive Filius to college campus. Wait for Filius. Drive Filius home from college campus.
It's not without its perks. College campuses don't have dog hair on the floor, dishes to wash in public areas, or dirty socks lurking in corners of public areas. So I can settle down to reading, or knitting, or writing letters, or just about anything portable. Or even not-so-portable. After all, there's a library -- and I don't even need to check the books out to read them! (Although I confess, I did get a community user card. My library card has three bar codes on it and my signature has worn off. I love libraries.)
There's an additional benefit.

View to the front

This is the view from one of my waiting spots.  I love sitting here during storms.  You can see them roll in over the valley -- or else, you can see the valley slowly disappear in the storm.  Lightning is pretty spectacular from this vantage point, too.  Earlier this month there was a bald eagle at eye level between me and the lonely tree in the middle of the photo.

Williamson Shawl and view to the left

While I sit, I knit.  (Of course!)  The Williamson Shawl is growing at a reasonable pace.  It'll be close, whether or not it is finished by Christmas.  I got a tablet for my birthday to distract me from knitting.  I've got 3 repeats of the center pattern done so far.

Williamson Monday

Day 1

3 days later

Finishing A Sweater

It's fall.Fall is one of my favorite times of year (right up there with winter) and I am delighting in the weather, the pattern of life, the hot tea (Hot Cinnamon Spice from Harney and Sons is delightfully yummy!), and the knitting.  And the Spiced Chai Honey, too.  It's disappearing rapidly.

I have been knitting a LOT.  For pictures of Filus' sweater, the Fair Isle Bag, and the yarn for the Williamson Shawl, you'll have to look at Ravelry.  Except for the last one -- I can't figure out how to add a yarn photo to something that's not cast on yetm so you'll have to go to Fleegle's store.  If you aren't buying yarn, don't go there.

The Fair Isle Bag was a quick knit for a friend.  It's not worked in the round, which means that one gets to either mess with a LOT of slipped stitches, or purl with two colors.  After purling with two colors for Skråtrøje, I figured I would purl with two colors.  The pattern teaches how to purl with two yarns in the left hand.  I now purl with two yarns in my right hand.  For Skråtrøje, I held the yarns similar to how one holds them for twined knitting, but didn't twine -- just popped the one I needed over my index finger and purled.  But for this bag, halfway through the first stranded section, I started figuring out how I could tension the yarns so as to have BOTH yarns on my index finger.  And that was a scary thing.  I worked the last 3/4ths of the bag with both yarns on my right index finger.  Even for knitting.  Except for the parts when there were 3 yarns, and then I held one in my left hand.

The door opening to the world of 3-color knitting just got a little wider. I tremble to think what I will choose for my next Latvian mitten pattern.

But, this post was supposed to be about finishing a sweater.  The sweater's not done, mind you -- I don't have the chart for the sleeve cuff, so it's currently sitting nicely in my knitting tower while someone is searching for the chart or a good photo of the cuff.  But the body is done, and I have lots of interesting-to-me documentation of it. 

Some project needs blocking more than others. Uncurled, this is 8". 

Original picot edging for slit

The pattern calls for a particular number of stitches to be picked up around the slit, and then a 4-5 row picot/folded edging to be worked.  I wasn't thrilled with how it looked.  Part of the problem was the stitch count, and the other problem was the color.  I like dark edges.  A row of crochet around the neck edge wasn't going to help control the curl there, either ... I tried two of the three one-row edgings suggested, and didn't care for either of them.  So I ripped everything out and put in a facing.  It needs blocking yet, but I am much happier with it. 

Revised edging for slit and neckline

Next, I turned my attention to the bottom edge.  Some knitters can work this k4p4 edging and transition into stranding with no problems.  Other knitters can't.  Me, well, you can see which category I fall into by looking at the wee sample sweater's ribbing. 

An uncooperative bottom edge

Since I had a handy sample, I thought I'd see what things would look like if I made a braid. 

Trial of a braided edge

I liked it, so I amputated the bottom edge of the sweater ...

Preparing for amputation

And replaced the uncooperative ribbing with a braid.  It still rolls, but it's not been blocked and the rolling of a curled braid is a whole lot less noticeable than a flipped-up swatch of ribbing.

The finished lower edge

The Road to the Williamson Shawl

The road to the shawl has been entered upon.  I give you advance notice that this is the road TO the shawl ... it's not the road OF the shawl.  Here's what's been up since my last post:

• The yarn for the shawl arrived.  
• I knit a cabled, reversible cowl for my LYS and perhaps invented a new seaming technique.  
• Skrå-trøje has grown a lot.  There are only 32 rows or so left on the back, and then it's sleeves and finishing!  (Finishing includes plackets at neck and cuffs, plus regrouping on the entire bottom hem.  It's nothing simple like mattress stitch.)  I'm getting pretty decent at purling with 2 colors, too.  
• The yarn for Filius' Gotland Sohljul has been ordered.
• Tea has been ordered.  I usually order from Adagio, but this time I decided to order from Harney and Sons.  
• The downstairs has been rearranged (as of this morning) into a 'post-homeschooling', two computer set-up.  It's in flux, and will be in flux for quite some time.  I'm using a temporary desk found on Craigslist while I look for the Perfect Desk -- something more writing desky (but with a keyboard tray) than Huge Executive Hutch, but not so writing-desky that I can't run the house from it. 
• The weather has been atrocious.  Last weekend, it was so chilly on the paper route that Filius asked for a pair of gloves.  Monday afternoon, I gave him the finished gloves.  Yesterday, it was 87 degrees.  Bleagh.  We seem to be heading into normal fall weather now, though.  (The gloves were a modification of a WWII glove pattern.  A fun knit which came out beautifully, thanks to swapping the pattern-specified size 1 needles and fingering-weight yarn for size 2 needles and sport-weight yarn.  I just don't DO 7.5 stitches/" with Brown Sheep Fingering unless I'm going for gauzy.  And who wants gauzy gloves for a Minnesota winter?
• I made Spiced Chai Honey.  The recipe originated with Irene Wolansky and was published in the latest Mary Jane's Farm.  My mom was kind enough to flag it for me, and mmmmm, is it good!  Here's the recipe:

16 oz organic, raw, local honey

1 t cinnamon powder

¼ t clove powder

½ t cardamom powder

1 t ginger powder

Small pinch of ground black pepper

Mix everything together, and enjoy!  It's delicious on oatmeal, wheat berries, granola, yogurt, in tea, and probably many more places.  Good for sore throats, too, mixed with warm water and a squeeze of lemon juice.

I'm going to try to keep up with the weekly updates.  See you next week!

Posting and running ...

Picking up stitches that are going to become free

Ready to start reknitting!

A partial Skråtrøje, uncurled thanks to steaming. 

The Queen Susan, dangling in front of a fake fireplace

Ahhhhhhh.

 

This is going to be a 'post and run'.  I uploaded the photos a few days ago, but haven't made the time to write and publish the blog.  Before this runs into next week, I want to hit that 'publish' button.  There are, after all, pretty photos. 

Sunday, I mended the cashmere hap shawl.  I think this is the 3rd time something in the edging has needed reknitting?  And that's only if you don't count reknitting the entire border AND edging due to an insufficienty of stitches.  Cashmere is a lovely yarn to work with, but it doesn't agree with household chores.  I need to make myself a normal hap shawl, I suppose. 

My Skråtrøje was in time out for a while, since it had an incredible amount of curl.  The nice, flat sweater bottom you see curled up so much that the right side of the fabric wasn't even visible.  Having to uncurl the sweater from the needles just to find the stitches to knit got annoying, so I stuck it aside.  Then I ran out of reasonable knitting (Sorry, Molly's Fault!) and decided to take the plunge and steam it.  The drawback would be that I'd have some REALLY lively yarn if I frogged it after steaming.  However, it behaved itself, so I'm knitting onwards.  The next row has the underarm bindoff.

Today, I received the yarn for the Williamson Shawl.  Ahhhhh.  Pictures next week, if I'm good.  Pictures of the Gotland Solhjul hats, too.  And maybe even the cowl I'm working on for my LYS. 

Time to run!

Dusting off the blog

The Queen Susan, Minnesota State Fair 2013

It's been a long time since I wrote here, and much has changed.  I finished Fili'i first Christmas present, deemed it too short (despite making it longer than the pattern called for), and knit a second Christmas present, which he's not worn yet.  He likes the first one better, although it barely reaches his belt loops.  Filia has graduated from high school, worked her first job, and moved into the college dorms last month.  Filius has switched from being taught by me, and only me, to taking 15 credits at a local Christian college.

Wait ... does that mean I'm not homeschooling any more?  I think it might.

For two years, homeschooling has been a challenging mix of taking Filia to HER classes (at a local Christian college), while homeschooling Filius  Now, I still have taxi duty, but nothing to juggle.  The dawning gleam of delight in my eyes when I began to realize the implications of that fact would have caused my dear mum some concern, had she seen it.  But wait ... she did see it, and she knows me.  Three hours with no dishes, cooking, cleaning, e-mail, tidying, errands, yardwork, fitness endeavours ... it's a small slice of daily paradise.  Although, I suppose I could run errands in town, or walk/bike in town.  But why?!  Filius likes to run errands with me after his classes, and I can do fitness stuff at other times.  Like when I'm avoiding yardwork and tidying.

My library days have settled into a pattern. The first hour, I listen to an audiobook and knit on something boring - lately, the Swiss Cheese Scarf.  The second hour, I read.  I'm in a college library ... I can read anything!  Bonhoeffer's biography by Metaxas has finally been read in its entirety, and I finished The Once and Future King by TH White this week as well.  Next up is Murder on the Orient Express, because Filius requested I read that.  The third hour, I knit more.  Currently, I'm swatch-hatting (swatching hats?) for this year's Christmas sweater.  My circular gauge changes with diameter, so I need to make something at least hat-sized in order to get an accurate gauge ... and I end up with a hat!

My knitting has been somewhat humdrum of late.  I was all set to dive into a sweater and relish it, but the gauge and the yarn and the me didn't quite agree, so it went to Time Out while I cast about desperately for something that wasn't Molly's Fault.  After a long run of uninspired projects (ending with this Swiss Cheese scarf, I'm happy to say, and that may be done tomorrow), I resolved to listen to the siren call of The Williamson Stole.  And, after an e-mail exchange with Fleegle, and a poll on Facebook, I've decided to knit it in Soft Black, using redyed yarn leftover from The Queen Susan.  Ahhhhh.

Also on order are yarns for a replica of The Gotland Soljhul (you might need to be a Ravelry member to see that one.)  I'm not sure if replica is the right word.  I don't have the pattern, but am going to knit it from pictures, in a size to fit Filius.  And I'll make it three inches longer than the longest I think it needs to be, because it won't be as easy to lengthen as the ganseys were.  We've decided on dark blue and natural for the colors, but to complicate things I've ordered six skeins -- 3 dark blues and 3 naturals.

Thus much, the knitting.  (There is another article that I need to be writing about knitting, too ... due next month.  I *will* work on it tomorrow.)

And thus much, the first dusting off of the blog.  I'll definitely revive the tradition of weekly updates once I get going on The Williamson Stole, but that might not be until the sweater is done, and I don't even have the yarn samples to choose from to order the yarn for that yet.  It could be a while.  (Or maybe, I'll get the stole yarn and dive in, and knit the Christmas sweater second.  Couldn't possibly have them both going at the same time, could I?)

I have PROJECTS!

Since finishing Queen Susan, I've been drifting from small project to small project.  While the weather was warm, there was lots of biking and so the small projects took a few days to get done.  Now the weather is cold, and the small projects are taking me less time to do than to decide on.  Remember, I generally work from a stash of leftovers or hand-me-downs, so picking a project isn't as easy as walking into a store, pointing at something, and buying the necessary materials. 

It gets annoying, never knowing where one's next project is coming from.  On Saturday, I got to the whiney point.  (And settled on making Rikke out of some second-hand yarn which came from Wisconsin.  Hi, friend in Wisconsin!)  I also decided to make another pair of fine-gauge mittens.  And on Sunday, I dropped a note to another knitter to ask if a) she had any knitting that had my name on it, and b) had she seen any gorgeous motifs that would normally take up a whole afghan, which I could use for my mittens?  (Remember ... if it's 20" across in a worsted gauge, it's 5" across in my tiny gauge.  Or if it's 2" across in real life, it's less than a half-inch in my little world.  I could put a hornbook on one of my mittens. Maybe.)

Her reply to my e-mail started a deluge!  I am now happily settled with

1. A Christmas project for my son.  The last skein I needed to get started had been backordered since September.  It came in Monday.
2. Motifs for a mitten pattern (13.5 spi, not 20 ... but still fun!)
3. An article to write
4. A sweater to turn into multiple sizes and write a publishable pattern for (and knit a New and Improved version)
5. Ideas for my second pair of fine-gauge mittens.  

And, never one to let grass grow under my feet, I have written to some yarn companies to ask about samples for 4 and 5.

Ahhhh.  It's good to have knitting.

On the 'this could be a disaster' front, I'm skipping a swatch for #1.  Yes, it's Fair Isle and requires close gradation of yarn colors, and yes I did change yarn companies and every single color -- but there is simply NOT another gray that I can use to shade one spot more, and the other colors will work (I may even drop some, as they're so close I can't tell the 4 apart in the project).  I already know my gauge... we'll see if the project gets relegated to swatch status at some point.  I hope not!  

Now, if I can just get my Kindle to behave without too many problems.  Yesterday, the text-to-speech developed a personality quirk in which the use of the 'pause' button actually meant 'no more text-to-speech until you restart the Kindle.'  That got fixed by a hard reset, which also depopulates the entire thing.  It's doable.  Now the 'go to' application is not working, which means if I'm reading a book that is a compilation of 70 books which are each 300-400 pages long, and I'm in the 275th book, the only way to get to my location (which I wrote down - 324211) is to go One Page At A Time.  It's worth another phone call.  Because I have LOTS Of knitting that will require good books to listen to. 

And I want to know if Harry and Bertie ever found the Golden Sands of the Incas so Harry could get wealthy and marry the gorgeous Miss Prendergast, who had a crotchety guardian.