glimpses of growing and learning.

Our tubing evening didn't happen, partially due to bad head colds but mostly due to the hill closing a week before Jeff thought it was going to close.  We're not sure why it's taken us this long to utilize the little ski/snowboard/tubing hill near us, but when Kaatje started asking for snowboarding lessons around Christmas time, we knew where to look.  Lessons one and two went great... lesson three's backside turn practice led to a painful wrist sprain.  Ah well, she's already asking for lessons next year, and we've already marked it on the calendar.

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A huge horray for homeschooling in our lives:  we made the trek to our local homeschooling store (how many people can say that?!  we're very blessed.) and Kaatje and I chatted with the invaluably helpful owners about the "math issues" we were having.  Now we're happily using new curriculum where I'm remembering statistics and proof theory from college, and Kaatje's learning mice can't read.  (Partially kidding, she's learning more than that, too.)  My math major heart loves that she's happily learning set unions, and her math-is-stupid (not hard, just stupid) heart loves that she's not doing repetitive long division problems.  If you're a homeschooler with a voracious reader who finds typical math hair-tearing-out-boring, check out Life of Fred.  The pure greatness of homeschooling is that this might not even be the end-all... I might come back later saying how Fred's not working anymore and we've made another change, but where I was at the end of my rope before (and so was Kaatje), we're once again contentedly remembering why we do this.  Must always keep in mind that the best way to move forward sometimes is to talk to those wonderful homeschool pioneers around us, from the friends at church with highschoolers to the now-grandparents of another generation of to-be-homeschooled kids.  Our girls' learning won't look anything like anyone else's, and the ones who know that best and can help us grow are the ones who've already been there!

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Lots on the needles lately;  since our LYS closed (*sniff*) I picked out some yarn on their closing day to make the girls whatever they wanted.  Greta picked a short-sleeve cardigan in bright pink wool (Ravelry here), Kaatje a hat in greens and browns (same pattern as this one).  In a fit of cold late winter knitting, both are finished except for the fox ears Kaatje wants on her hat... need to research those a bit.  I'm forever working on a shawl out of some gorgeous soft and so very splitty rowan cotton/silk, from the market in Ireland.  Splitty means despite an easy pattern, I have to watch what I'm doing:  sad for movie watching, fine for piano lessons and car rides. 

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Despite snow in the forecast, the paper flakes have been peeled from the windows.  I don't seem to be able to come out of the little chain speciality grocery store without another plant, somehow a shamrock has been added in the window.  (I'm a sucker for anything that says "full sun;"  until the leaves appear, our huge south widows will kill lesser plants.)  Snow covers most of the ground still, grimy and gritty, but I've been watching the garden plants slowly be revealed.  No garden plans yet, just some spindly tall basil whose seeds Gret and I threw in a pot a while ago, pampered in our funny little greenhouse.  Nothing like the smell of basil as the first day of spring approaches.

this week in knitting.

I enjoy the "I'm knitting this" or "I'm reading this" posts on other gal's websites (very rarely do the websites I follow by men talk about their knitting, but sometimes their reading.  I guess most geek men don't knit.  Or at least don't admit they do.  hmmm.  Um, I digress.), though my knitting (and sometimes reading) moves along so slowly perhaps this wouldn't be a good regular post, but I thought I'd throw my hat, or sweater, as it were, in the ring and show you what my hands do in their off time.

This lovely cotton yarn is by Cascade Yarns, called Sierra.  It's nice to knit with and easy on the fingers.  (and frogs easily, which was helpful!)  I has started with another cardigan pattern, a yoke neck, but didn't like how the random staggered increases were looking with this yarn's stitch definition, so I frogged it and found a shrug in One Skein Wonders (called the Eyelet Lace Shruglet) that I started.  Note:  this pattern does have, um, "issues" as written in the book, but the designer is a wonderful lady who directed me to her website here for help.

The pattern is for only one size, a Sm/Med, and although I'm pretty "Sm" I have broad shoulders, so sized it up a bit by continuing with the raglan increases a little longer than indicated.  I'm also hoping to make this "shruglet" into a full-fledged summer cardi, with, perhaps 3/4 sleeves, depending on when yarn runs shy.  I don't particularly claim to know what I'm doing with such things regarding pattern changes, but I did cross-reference the great Mrs. Zimmermann to see if my thoughts might work.  (They might!)  Time will tell.  Fortunately, I have a 11-year old waiting in the wings to see if the sweater is entirely too small for me, and then she will be the fortuitous one! 
(and if all else fails, a 7-year old.  Oh, my.  I hope I'm not *that* bad at pattern modification.)

read and eat (and knit)

Today I'm not going to get into what it's like having a super-picky eater in the family;  honestly, I never really like talking about it much at all, because it seems to be a topic that's full of judgement. (At least I feel like I'm being judged.  I can see those mental eye-rolls, you know:  "oh, yeah, your kid's picky, uh-huh (push-over parents).")  So I'll just move on through all that to say My Problem is ambivalence toward cooking...the endlessness of the constantly arriving dinner-times.  (I'd be happy opening a can of organic veggie soup and making grilled cheese every night of the week, thank you.)

So, I've been working on that.  Jeff and I really do like eating fun and different things, and I do think we're finding some that will work well for our family.  Thanks to the library, I stole some of Rachael Ray's great ideas, like making alfredo pasta, then adding a homemade lasagne sauce on top, layered with mozzarella and asiago.  (Completely ignoring her ingredients and instructions.)  We had a winner:  Kaatje eats the plan alfredo pasta with asiago, Gret eats some of the meat sauce with hers and a bit of cheese, Jeff and I can have it all together in its full glory.  That's just an example.

Although all us moms (and dads) do it, I first thought about this idea specifically while reading Jenny Rosenstrach's book, Dinner: A Love Story.  In this great book, Jenny talks about the winning dinner strategy of making one thing that can be disassembled then reassembled into things everyone likes to eat.  This helps me a lot, since I like to make one-dish meals.  (Note to Minnesotans:  this does not mean I like to make "hot-dishes;"  that's "casseroles" to the rest of us.  I rarely layer ingredients and bake, unless it's lasagne.  I am part Italian after all.)  I like soups, stews, stir-frys, things to eat over rice or pasta.   I also rarely make a slab of meat with a "starch" (I hate that word) and a veggie.  I'd much rather cut the meat into chunks and make something out of all those things.  I'm learning to do this and create a whole meal with parts for everyone.  Jenny has a very cute (though incorrectly labeled, the math-major in me must add) Venn diagram in her book that shows how her family eats one of her meals.

I guess this is a wordy post about how, after having kids for 10 years, I'm learning to cook.  Maybe it's a post about how we're always learning?

~
Oh, yeah, there's some knitting up there, too.  I was going to post on a knitting and reading link-up on another blog, but went off on this cooking tangent, then it went all over from there.  Hey, though!  I'm continuing to knit this scarf that's been around for, oh, a year or so.  There's another addition to the learning discussion:  this pattern is *way* easier than when I first started knitting it.  (Not to say that's making things go any faster, just more enjoyable, I guess.)

weekly making

Much goings on about here this chilling-down, battening-up season.  Way too much time on the computer for me, therefore, more for the girls, too.  They still manage to be busy around the house, mischief and whatnot, but also some fun for themselves.

"The Lotsa Stuff To Do Book" (copyright 1981 - and believe me, it's classic!) I've had since I was a kid; I mostly remember the pictures and the things I couldn't do from it (i.e., the toad home aquarium, which, also, Kaatje would like to do and she can't either).  She did, however, make up a 1/2 batch of the "homemade clay" on her own, as I have little patience for anything more than play dough.  This is, in essence, play dough one shapes and bakes, or air dries, then paints.  The painting part is what Kaatje's been after, and this seemed to fulfil her need.

Oven bake play dough:
2 C flour
1/2 C salt
about 3/4 C hot water

Mix the flour and salt well, gradually add the hot water - only enough to make a kneed-able ball.  Kneed 5-10 minutes to make smooth.  Create your chosen objects, then bake on a foil-lined pan in a 200-degree oven for 2-3 hours (or more).  We baked them in the toaster oven for closer to 4 hours, and the dog pictured above still didn't sound hollow when tapped.  Now, days later in the dry cold weather, he's pretty cured.  I don't think we could do this mid-summer in the humidity, but it did work.  After cooled from the oven, you can paint as you wish.  The girls used watercolors and tempra paints, both seemed to work.

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I'm finishing up my second leg warmer.  I like skirts, but the winters are too cold for that, and wool knee socks are expensive.  I'd say it's a pattern from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson, but seeing how that pattern is simply "K1, P1," and I changed the yarn, the needles, and the pattern (added an increase at the calf), I suppose my pattern is simply inspired by that one.  Still do love that book, though!

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Gearing up for December, our weekends are already booked through the new year.  (Jeff - and I - groan)  That being said, we're going to try to keep to simple fun through our days and take things easy.  The girls are wishing for some good snow, I'm happy with the sun!  On comes winter!

tiny stitches, waning light

A few years ago I purchased the lovely Alicia Paulson's yearly handmade ornament kit.  (Something about the knitted scarf for the polar bear;  I simply needed it.)  After receiving the package, I opened and marvelled at all the little parts and (to me) complicated instructions, and carefully set it away.  For more than 2 years.

As I got the package and little parts out a bit ago, Kaatje was immediately stricken with the red coat, and Greta insisted on sewing her own polar bear (I think the sequins were a major part of that decision).  I was only sad I couldn't give them real felt to use, as I wasn't about to fork over the lovely bits of (Expensive) 100% wool felt from the kit, that being all I had.

Though I'm reminded again how good ingredients make for the best finished results, and wish I had real felt on hand, the polyester "felt" they use is fine and they enjoyed sitting in the dimming afternoon and stitching.

I'm so glad I put this away and can share it with them now, instead of fighting for a minute here or there to have to myself to do it.  We're constantly fighting the battle of feeling like whatever struggle now will last forever, then when the next step gently comes, we don't even realize we've made that next step, through and beyond that particular hard spot.  Until I'm sitting and watching polar bear faces being stitched and coat pockets being placed, while I do my own.

Now to finish a teeny seed-stitch scarf knit on #1 needles.  For a polar bear.

on and off the needles; a confession.

I've done a lot of summer knitting (still in the process, mostly).
But they hide a secret.

I suppose if my grandmother was here, looking over my shoulder or examining a piece of knit I work, she'd have taken one look and straightened me out right away.  As it is, now that I know, I've been looking through all my old pieces and thinking "Yup, there it is again.  Wrong."

*sigh.*

Skimming through a circular knitting book from the library, I stopped and read a page twice.  Then a third time... that's why my loops are never sitting right on my needles!  All this time, while I listened to the great EZ on purling, and I purl away superiorly, I never realized I was making each and every knit stitch twisted.  every.  one.

If you're not a knitter, this doesn't mean much to you.  If you are, you know why, for the life of me, I could never ever ever make gauge. 

I spent an afternoon with the feeling that I should rip out the many projects on the needles and start over (yes, I am an oldest child), then the feeling that I should re-knit everything I've ever knit, just to see if it would be easier.

Then I sat down and made a bracelet.  (The size was spot on.)
And went on with my other projects, without twisting stitches. 
(Different, but you can't really tell.) 
Taking a deep breath and getting on with my (knitting) life.

~~
By the way, I checked, and little Greta's "in-through-the-front-door, run-around-the-back, peek-through-the-window, and-off-jumps-Jack" stitches are perfect. 
Obviously I'm the only one confused around here.

around the house this summer

~ yesterday my lovely neighbor gave me 3 tomatoes.  I immediately made caprese salad.  (And immediately ate it.  Nevermind Jeff was warming up dinner at the time.)

~ this sour cream is lovely with meat, or on sandwiches.  Especially if one has a tarragon plant that thinks it is a perennial in zone 3 and is now 3 feet tall.

~ lots of projects on and off the needles.  Anyone else with a fall baby?  I've found the Perfect Baby Sweater (thank you, all in the round).

~ the girls know they're on borrowed time, those evenings outside after our late suppers...we're pretty sure that's why they play so nicely. ("five more minutes, please!!"  and we usually give in...)

in which there is a birthday hat, but not mittens.

I made the mistake of starting mittens whilst on Jeff's and my little vacation (but found extreme pleasure in knitting mittens at the beach), so didn't have that little hand to compare while I was going along.  of course, even with a tracing of her hand, mitten one was too small.  (note my aforementioned gauge problem.)  frogged... and soon easily replaced by $1 mittens from the big box store.  ah well.

all the more time for knitting a birthday hat!

we used to have a red wool hat in this pattern, nicely worn in by big sister so it was soft.  red hat disappeared after our vacation last September (!?), and Gret asked for her new hat to be the same one.

alas.  new wool = scratchy wool (even if the wool itself isn't particularly scratchy, wool vs. forehead often is) and I was a bit bummed that she didn't put it right on and forget to take it off, as she has done with past hats.

we put pink scratchy hat aside for a bit, and I thought for a bit.

Kaatje likes to play with polar fleece, and I had a bit of soft thin grey left from Christmas... and just enough there was!

simple whip-stitching along the edge and up the seam (all the way to the edge, as requested, so no scratchy gets through), leaving it open along the top edge to maximize stretching ability, and we have a new winter hat for a happy little girl!

(and happy mom, who tires of frogging sometimes!)

pattern:  spiral hat, by Marci Blank, from "designer one-skein wonders"
yarn:  lamb's pride bulky 85% wool, 15% mohair
needles: size 10 circ and dpns

and all us girls in the family do have the same blue-grey eyes...

in which I do a lot of math and eventually get a vest

so I have a little problem with this thing called gauge.

gauge is really pretty simple:  to get a garment the size in the pattern, be sure your stitches are the same size as in the pattern (given by stitches per inch).

I spend a lot of time frogging.

(really, it's a good thing I like to knit for the sake of knitting.)

even if I start with a swatch, on needles 2 sizes too big, with yarn to match the needles instead of the pattern, and the gauge comes out right, it still seems to be up in the air if I'm going to get anything resembling the size in the pattern for my finished project (mine's always still too small).

so, when I found this blue sky alpaca on clearance at the sidewalk sale at our LYS, I did a quick and dirty yardage calculation, then took all the yarn home to swatch and crunch numbers.

I've admired the shalom cardigan for a long time;  it looked simple, easy, and relatively quick.  now I found myself with enough yarn, but the wrong size.  by carefully swatching, carefully counting, using the pattern schematic, throwing in a bit of fudging, and writing every step down, I managed to make do.

here is the shalom cardigan in a super bulky:
(please disregard my apparent inability to stand up straight.)

pattern:  Shalom Cardigan
yarn:  blue sky alpaca bulky 50% alpaca/50% wool
needles:  sz 13 (9mm), circular

rough notes::
I cast on 57 sts., and shortened the sections of the yoke to get the count to the right length, eventually getting to 143 sts.  the bind off of the arm holes ended up being k 16, bo 39, k 33, bo 39, k 16.  I cast back on 13 under the arms.

if anyone very much cares, I could work up more detailed notes on using a thicker yarn for this pattern, but it'd have to be a line-by-line as that's how I worked out the changes.

beautiful easy pattern and a fun knit!  I'd love to try it again with the "right" yarn... and carefully make a swatch for gauge first!

in which we wrap yarn

Now isn't this an interesting... stick?

I received this lovely carved dowel from my husband for Christmas.  kinda hefty for a wand (I have girls.  sticks today are wands, not bats or guns), too short for a walking stick.

this... is a Nostepinne.  yeah, I hadn't a clue either.  (apparently, neither had the gals at the local yarn store, which makes us smile.  leave it to the engineer to find a yarn accessory that no one's heard of.)  but what a fun, simple, tool this is!

I was never interested in a ball winder, though I love my swift, and I'm fairly adept in hand-winding center pull balls.  however, they often are too tight in the middle no matter how loose I attempt to wind, and the first few yards are kind of sticky.  this tool fixes that, since one wraps yarn around the wood, and not fingers.

for real instructions, you'll want to direct your browser to some sort of Famous On-line Video Website and type "nostepinne," but for the simple idea, here's how it works:

~ find a ball of yarn a 9 year old used on a 24 hour car trip and stored in a backpack with lego kits, pencils, and library books; or a hank of yarn, or an otherwise needing-to-be-re-wound pile of yarn.

~secure one end to the nostepinne near where you hold it.  they say you can hold the end of the yarn with your thumb, but I like the rubber band method.

~ start by winding along the dowel, keeping the winding flat.  then you'll start to criss-cross and turn (not shown;  this is where the videos are helpful), eventually starting to wind like one does when winding a center-pull ball by hand...  just like doing it by hand it starts awkwardly, then gets easier and easier.

~ when finished, tuck the end into the ball, release the tail from the rubber band, then slide ball off the nostepinne.  the tail should pull easily from the center of the ball!

Jeff found this nostepinne on etsy, where there are lots of beautiful ones from which to choose.  a neat, portable, gift idea to impress that yarn geek in your life!  (this yarn geek was certainly impressed!)

do you have any yarn you'd like me to wind?  I'm kind of addicted...