It’s fun getting to know people from around the world through Ravelry.
I participated in a bookmark exchange and got a very lovely bookmark from Mopsyroebuck.
A first time for everything
My first laceweight shawl. I managed to knit this without once ripping back and getting confused.
The first time I ever blocked anything of significance. The transformation is amazing.
Now I want to knit more of these!
Not one of our pets
I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but never got around to it.
The spider, seen below, is not one of our pets. Admittedly, he was inside and he was hanging off of our archway, and he was large enough to count as a pet. But, unfortunately, we decided we didn’t really need another pet. And we didn’t want him frightening the cats.
Spider Spider
We took him outside. Maybe that was cruel. It was warmer inside. I’m sorry, spider, but I didn’t really want to adopt you.
Seen on the Maple City Walk
Seen on the Maple City Walk (in no particular order)
- Many happy walkers talking amiably with one another. Someone said that there were 170 walkers.
- A few runners who did not look quite so happy at the midway point. They looked more like they were in pain.
- Mist covering the trail at CR 31.
- A paceline of bicycle riders.
- A couple out riding bicycles with their dog, a collie, who was sitting smartly in the doggie trailer being pulled by one of the bicyclists. The collie looked very happy.
- A couple who walked the entire route and then some with their very small, very short-legged, terrier like dogs. Even though the dogs had walked over 13 miles, they still looked happy.
- A couple who was walking the route holding hands.
- A number of squashed beetles on the paved trail. I hope the squashing was unintentional.
- A little chipmunk who ran across the trail and dove into his little chipmunk hole, and then proceeded to turn around and peer out, with only his little nose showing.
- Several fuzzy caterpillers. I petted one.
Categories: Miscellaneous
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The Pantry
The Pantry - Fall 2010
This is our wonderful pantry – Fall 2010. Pickles from 2009 are on the top three shelves on the left. Middle top has cherries from 2010 and blueberry jam from 2009. Going down a shelf are more 2009 pickles, 2008 chutney, 2009 kale, 2009 Victoria sauce, and 2010 hot peppers and 2010 tomatillo salsa. Going down another shelf is the 2010 pear sauce. The rest of the middle is filled with tomatoes or tomato sauce. On the right are the various and sundry habanero hot sauces, habanero hot salsa’s, and more tomatoes.
Not shown is the little freezer, packed with blueberries, strawberries, edamame beans, green beans, rhubarb, kale, pesto, and some 2009 butternut squash.
Also not shown are the jars of 2009 grape juice, still waiting to be made into wine.
Altogether a very successful gardening experience!
Sometimes I try to fool myself
There are times when I am delusional about what I’m knitting. I start making something and it isn’t turning out quite like I expected and wanted and yet I keep going. That happened with the BIG sweater that I made for Pete. I should have known, while I was knitting it, that it was way too big. But I pressed on, thinking that a little washing will make it shrink down in size. Never mind that it was 4 times wider than it needed to be. So I finished it, contemplated it, decided to try to shrink the heck out of it, and succeeded only in making an enormous sweater that maybe can work as a blanket.
It happened again this past month. I wanted to make a cool Harry Potter themed tie. I used a pattern for a book mark. The bottom of the tie would be this cool Hufflepuff Badger tracks pattern and the rest of the tie would be solid. I’m knitting away, using a technique that I’ve never done before (double knitting) and wondering why my book mark is the size of a book. Ever optimistic, my mind puts aside any misgivings I may have and I continue merrily along. Surely everything will sort itself out in the end. It takes me an entire month and I finally finish the cool pattern. And then I hold it up to see how it looks.
It’s enormous, the knitting is sloppy, the fabric is loose. Even after this realization, I forge bravely ahead and start doing the solid part. And now I’m finally admitting defeat. I just don’t like it. The tie is too wide; I’m never going to wear a tie that wide. The knitting is too loose; shrinking it down (which is what I though I would have to do) may make it thinner but it will probably ruin the proportions and make the fabric thick and stiff.
Maybe because I am a product knitter I dismissed all the doubts I had earlier. I want the thing to be done. But now I realize I don’t want this thing. I do want a tie like this. But I’m going to have to start all over again and try to knit tighter. I looked again at the pattern and now I know what one of my problems was. I read the needle size as 2. I know I am a loose knitter and so did my tie with size 1 needles. What I didn’t do was read past the 2 to see that what was given was 2mm. That means a size 0. Which means, given my tendency to knit loose, that I would need a 00 or a 000 (none of which I have).
I hate ripping out. But I just might need to do it this time. Take the whole thing back down to the yarn. Sigh…..
Process versus Product
In my crafting, am I a product crafter or a process crafter? Is my main focus the final creation or is my main focus the act of creation? I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, especially as it relates to my Ravelry activity in the Ravelry Group HPKCHC (Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup). In this group, we are sorted into houses, the same houses that are in the Harry Potter Group. Each month we have six classes in which to do homework. In each three month term there is the opportunity to propose and complete an OWL, which is a more complex project intended to take more than one month to complete. There is also Quidditch which usually encourages us to make things for charity. And there is also other challenges to complete. Between every three month term there is a holiday month; no classes but sometimes other activities to encourage us to complete any WIPs (works in progress). Completed projects earn points for your House, so it is also a competition. Also, there are individual prizes that are offered to extraordinary projects. It is a fun group and a fun game. I’ve done a lot of things in conjunction with the group since joining it in September 2009. I’ve knit a lot of things, used up a lot of stash, found new patterns that I liked, got motivation to complete some of the things that were in my queue, spun some yarn from fiber that had been sitting around a long time, crocheted a lot of hats for charity. This is my third term. August will be a holiday month and I hope to get back to a sweater I had started back in April and which I put aside because I think I will run out of yarn.
So it is fun. But it appeals to the product side of knitting. I have mostly made things that I was somewhat interested in, even if they are silly little things like the Niffler House or the Masquerade Mask or the Turtle Hat or the Broomstick Bookmark.
Niffler House
Masquerade Mask
Make Me a Turtle
There have been other times where I just made something because it fit into one of the class descriptions, like the Ninja bunny, which was a Hufflepuff house project for Charms May 2010 or the Broomstick Bookmark.
Charging Bunny
Zooming Along
There have been times when the HPKCHC group and game have really inspired me to get going on something that, for one reason or other, I had been putting off. Spinning some laceweight cashmere/silk was one such project.
I Dream of Lace
And, just recently, I spun three silk yarns for a History of Magic OWL The fiber had been in my stash for a very long time and I really am glad that I finally got all of it spun.
But, as I was contemplating what I will do for my OWL(s) in September when the new House Cup term starts, I was wondering if somehow the game is restricting me and boxing me in to being a product crafter. I have ideas and projects queued which I do want to make. But now I’m starting to prioritize the projects as to whether or not I feel I can complete them in the three month time period. In September I will be teaching a class (a class in Real Life, not in a Ravelry Group) that is new to me. So I know I won’t have a lot of crafting time. And so I’m thinking that perhaps I won’t start on the Faerie Ring sweater that has been in my queue for a while. I just don’t know if I will be able to complete it within that three month time period, especially since there are some modifications that I want to do to it. That may be perfectly OK because there are other things in my queue that I think I can do in three months and that I can do within the guidelines for the game. Now I know that I am a product knitter. I like to start a project and get it done. I don’t experiment with all the different ways one can construct a sock; when I start on a pair of socks, I want to just finish them. If I make a mistake that I can fix pretty well without ripping all the way back, I will do that. So product knitting and a group that encourages product knitting is probably fine for me.
But …
I think I am a process spinner at heart and that’s where I finding a bit of tension within myself. I usually spin for the sheer pleasure of spinning. I don’t usually have a project in mind. I don’t usually set deadlines for myself. So, even though having a deadline did spur me to finish my cashmere/silk laceweight yarn (and I am very happy that I finally mustered up enough courage to start and complete this), having deadlines in spinning is really not where I want to be. I like to have something on the spinning wheel and be able to sit down, whenever, to do a bit of spinning. I wonder if I can find a balance between spinning something for a deadline and spinning for pleasure. I don’t know if that is possible. If I have a deadline will I lose that meditative aspect that I find in spinning.
I’m competitive enough that participating in a game, such as HPKCHC, does drive me. But I don’t want to lose myself either. I will have to think about this some more.
Goodbye Kiddieland
Ah Kiddieland …
Photo credit: pixeljones on Flickr
I have such fond memories of you. You were just a couple of miles away from my home and you had such colorful rides. It was at Kiddieland that I experienced my first amusement center rides: the Carousel, the little Ferris Wheel, the Autos, and the Elephants (!), the Bumper Cars. There was a tiny baby rollercoaster and the bigger rollercoaster called the Little Dipper.
Photo Credit: stormdog42 on Flickr
I wondered what had happened when, a couple of weeks ago, we drove past on our way from Gene & Jude’s Hot Dogs and saw that you were abandoned.
Kiddieland Map
And now I know. I heard it on NPR.
For 81 years, Kiddieland was a fixture in Melrose Park. Yesterday it was demolished. It will now be replaced by a Costco. A sad end for a colorful and wonderful tiny little amusement park. I found some photos for reminiscing.
Categories: Miscellaneous
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My Secret Garden
My favorite book when I was a child was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This is my secret garden.
Through a wisteria covered gate, you can see the wild garden beyond.
The poppies …
The peonies …
The rhododendron …
The irises …
My own secret garden
Apologizing to the worms
I apologize to the worms. That is, perhaps, a bizarre thing to do, but I still do it.
For Lent in 2009, I gave up eating meat. I had considered doing this for quite some time. I never really liked cooking meat just because I didn’t like handling it. But I still ate meat, even if I felt vaguely uncomfortable about it. Several years ago, as we were driving through Kansas on the way back home from a Colorado vacation, we passed numerous feed lots. The smell was overwhelming, the sight of hundreds of cows in a small muddy enclosure standing in their own feces with nowhere to go was appalling. After that, I determined to only eat locally grown meat, from pastured cows. But still I was uncomfortable. I am a city born child. I never saw an animal being slaughtered for food. I bought animal products all nicely packaged with little resemblance to the animal they came from. I don’t think I could kill an animal I raised for food, so why could I buy something that someone else killed? Did I have the right to kill an animal? These were the questions I thought about.
So finally, for Lent, a year and a half ago, I gave up meat. And I found that it wasn’t hard for me. And after that Lent I continued in this new lifestyle.
I freely acknowledge that I am not consistent. I still have leather shoes and leather belts. I don’t know if I will continue to purchase leather products, but I’m not going to give away the items I currently have. I still drink milk and eat cheese. While I try to be very conscious of where these dairy products come from, I know that milk and cheese come from cows that have babies and the babies are likely killed for food. Fish oil is supposedly good for my health. Do I stop taking those gelcaps? It can get very complicated and I am not consistent. I know that.
I also know that, even when I am eating only fruits and vegetables, I am still disturbing nature. I am not just a gatherer. I plant. And when I plant my garden, and turn over the soil, I see the worms scrambling for shelter. I am disturbing their habitat. So I apologize to the worms. Maybe that’s weird. But it is what I must do.