I was one of those bright eyed young feminists of the the 70’s. I was going to raise my sons and daughters equally, because you know, there’s no difference between the two. Life has taught me differently. If you’ve spent time with me you are familiar with my saying that I’ve had two girls and a shock. A shock, not because he was a surprise – he was very well planned – but because he was so different from the girls.
When the driveway was 30% done, Blogless Marsha very generously left her husband behind, leaving me to live in a house of men. Throughout the day I was gently reminded that there are indeed differences. Yes, that would be a duct taped cereal bag. I might have approached that situation differently. Or have I been brainwashed by the Tupperware parties of my past?
The men have displayed tremendous fortitude, continuing their bricking in gale force winds and torrential rain. It gave them opportunity to incorporate a hundred feet of "big O" drainage pipe into the plans. Yes, it’s called "big O," probably named by a man. I have a different interpretation of the term "big O."
Pictures from the weekend include a gift from Marsha (one of my favourite scarf kits in fall colours), the driveway at 60%, a whimsical addition to our Thanksgiving table, and the mascots – Riley checking around the corner in hopes the coast is clear of alpha female Gracee, and Grace with serious bedbeard:
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and you know what that means? Yes, turkey, yes, cranberries, yes a major home improvement project. It’s starting to become a tradition – Blogless Marsha, family, along with Airedale dog Riley, will be joining in on the fun. At the risk of sounding uncharacteristically ultra-traditional, the women will be cooking and knitting while the men work their do-it-yourself magic outside. We know we can’t turn this sow’s ear of a house into a silk purse, but at least we can dress ‘er up. Here are the before pictures:
I had no clue that a good sized driveway could be removed and taken away in four hour’s time. And yes that’s an overwhelming amount 16 pallets of taupe coloured brick, but I have faith in these guys. They were the same ones who installed the 92 foot, two level Allen block wall a couple of years back. And how about the project mascots? Keep your fingers crossed – no more rain, OK?
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving weekend!
When I was a little girl, and would find a Canadian penny on a New York street, my father told me "Hold onto that, it’s worth more than a penny." I’ve lived in Canada for the past 23 years, and not once, until Friday, was a Canadian penny worth more than a US one. You can’t imagine how that past discrepancy in dollars has affected our daily life.
We moved here with an existing US mortgage. Just five years ago that $600 monthly payment cost as much as $960 CDN. Now that we are finally rid of that payment, it would currently cost us $596.40. You have to believe that it all evens out in the end, or you’ll drive yourself crazy. Like in the case of buying a $15US skein of Touch Me back then for $24CDN. Now it would be $14.90. Not that that tempts me. Really.
A Sevillian sleeve update: picked up stitches from the cabled trim and modified the pattern to work in the round. My opinion on picking up stitches follows. When pattern instructions call for a number of stitches to be picked up, sometimes that number makes sense, and at others it doesn’t. The number to be picked up is too far off from the number of edge stitches. For example, this particular pattern told me to pick up 54 stitches from an edge of 72. If I picked up that number it would leave regularly spaced noticeable gaps around the cuff. Instead I picked up what felt natural – 72 stitches – and made the correction in the next row. I did the math, knit a few stitches and then knit two together, and repeated this, ending up with the requisite 54 stitches with no apparent holes. This is the second project on which I worked this past week, where this method has made sense.
I know it’s officially Fall in BC when I look out the window and see mist rising off the Capilano River. Another symptom? Spectacular sunsets.
But soon the rains will set in. In my past, before I accepted my current position in the non-profit world, I was contemplating opening a practice in Seasonal Affective Disorder. I had done my research, bought a light and was set to go, when this opportunity intervened. I was talking about it with some of my co-workers and they’ve asked me to bring in the light, so they can check it out. I’ve decided to go one better, purchase a light and have it available for employees’ use during the day. Maybe I should have Gracee try it out first:
Poor girl looks at the end of her dreary weather rope. I promise, promise, promise that I will learn how to get rid of that "peteye." New buttonholes were all that I could manage this week. Is the knitting content in the photo enough to make this qualify as a knitting blog?
Before I start on the topic of easily knitted buttonholes, I wanted to let my fellow Typepad bloggers know that I’m not ignoring you. For some reason Typepad won’t let me leave comments on your blogs. They’re trying to fix it, but I’m wondering if anyone else is experiencing this? If you can’t leave a comment, please e-mail me at Boesencrew at shaw dot ca.
I used to avoid all knitting patterns using the B word, that is unless Cousin Lena was planning a trip from Denmark, because I knew I could depend upon her to bail me out of buttonhole jail. Additionally, I avoided the F word (Fair Isle), the C word (cables) and I still go nowhere near the Z word (Zippers). With the support of all you knitters I’ve come a long way. I’m just wondering how I stayed out of the loop and missed this little gem.
Take a look. The one on the right is the standard easy button hole technique I always used, requiring you to knit to where you want the buttonhole, binding off stitches in one row and and picking up an equivalent number at the same spot in the next row. You can pretty up the gaping mess by overstitching afterwords.While knitting my mom’s vest I was amazed at how sloppy they looked with the loose gauge required for the project. So I tore out the band and searched for a better buttonhole.
Maggie Righetti to the rescue. My favourite knitting resource – Knitting in Plain English, had the chapter I needed, entitled Buttonholes are Bastards. No kidding, that sweet little grey haired lady on the back of the book felt the same way about buttonholes that I did. She had six pages of options. I skipped the one that required two people and opted for Virginia Newell’s Three-Row Buttonhole. It’s the one on the left in my picture. Here are her instructions:
Row 1 – Work to the desired location. Y/O twice, then through the back loops, knit the next two stitches together.
Row 2 – Work across to the Y/O’s of the previous row. P the first Y/O and drop the next one right off the needle. Continue across row. Molly says "It looks terrible,but hang in there and have faith."
Row 3 – Work across row to buttonhole. K one stitch through the buttonhole and allow the old stitch to fall off the needle. It’s neat and tidy and required no final finishing work!
Alas, my mother’s finished vest and the buttons I chose for it:
The hard drive, which is my brain, feels full. I need to delete stuff and defrag it, or perhaps find a way to increase my virtual memory. I am losing stuff. For example, I forgot the three year anniversary of this blog. Three weeks ago I entered my fourth year in the world of knit blogging, a relatively important part of my daily life, and I forgot to take notice.
I do remember, however, how to knit and I’ve been knitting up a storm:
1. Just have the arm holes and the front bands to do on my mom’s vest.
2. Finished the back and more of the cable trim on the Seville jacket. Tahki New Tweed is my new best yarn. Oh so soft, strong, and knits to worsted weight, there is more of this in my future especially since the Canadian dollar is at PAR! How about that? Never thought it would happen in my lifetime.
3. Even poor neglected Marina got pulled out of the knitting bag last night.
The great "they." You know them, the ones with all those sayings. You know what they say…fill in the blank.
Last week I was eating my lunch on the parking lot roof of the mall in which my office is located. I look at the sky. Take note, Sandy (she’s knitting blogland’s most famous sky observer). The sky, the one in British Columbia, the province in which I live, is totally blue. Not a cloud to be seen. Anywhere. This is most unusual, if not miraculous. I call my darling husband of almost 25 years. I instruct him to look up.
"What do you see?’
"Nothing," he replies."
"That’s right, it’s totally blue. How often do you see a totally blue sky in BC?"
"You called me for that?"
All together now, THEY SAY… something like "the things that annoy you in your mature relationship are the things that attracted the two of you to begin with." Trust me. I do have a Master’s in counselling and this theory holds true. He used to love my spontaneity. We laughed about this at dinner that night, lovingly listing as many mature relationship paradoxes as we could come up with, and then some,
Another example, not quite the same, but a memory from my early career, working in a methadone clinic. Two of the guys who were in a long term committed relationship, awaiting their Tang cocktails, one says to the other, "Girl, look at you bustin’ out of those jeans." The other replied, "You used to like my jeans tight." Different circumstances, same thing.
Oh, this is a knitting blog. That methadone clinic is where I knit my first sweater. I guess that doesn’t count. Although I have no business starting a new project, here is the beginning of my Seville Jacket, in Tahki New Tweed. I discovered this yarn while shopping with Sandy, and it is a pleasure to work with. The pattern requires you to knit a long cabled piece, eventually sewn onto the body of the jacket.
Get it? That’s romantic antics. I have been complicit in a romantic plot. My comrade in crime? Blogless Marsha’s husband. You see, Dave and Marsha celebrated 30 years of marriage and to make a long story short, he needed a bit of help in finding an appropriate gift. With supreme pleasure I offered my services as a jewelry shopper par excellence (OK, no comment from those of you who know my shameful story involving gypsies and cubic zirconia). Two months in the works, this was more fun for me than any person ought to have. Here are the goods and the deed:
Notice, in the absence of ribbon, the improvisational use of Tahki New Tweed. And how about Marsha’s Landscape Shawl in Koigu? Knitting and jewelry in the same post – double the pleasure.
Update on the vines from the previous post. It’s a weed, pretty but stinky. It’s even earned the status of being noxious and invasive, a dubious honour, indeed, It’s called Groundnut Vine, as identified by an expert at the University of New Hampshire. Thanks to all for your efforts in trying make a positive identification.
Back to the subject of going home, over the years I’ve had recurring dreams of the house in which I grew up. I understand in the world of dream interpreters, it’s not about the house at all. It’s really about your youthful body. In one of the dreams my house underwent a total renovation. Yes!
Here’s a question. Outside the home in which my niece and nephew are being raised, the home they will dream about in middle age as various body parts head south, grows this vine. Their mom, my sister, would appreciate an ID. A local master gardener is stymied. The vine is located in New Hampshire:
Contrary to infrequent reporting on this blog, I am participating in knitterly activities. Ravelry has eaten up a fair amount of discretionary time this past week. And this: my mother had good intentions of knitting herself a vest. Finding herself less able to knit, she gifted me with her yarn. I convinced her to give me her pattern as well and I’m almost done with the vest. All the knitting she has done for my family over the years, it’s the least I can do. Here is her vest, the pattern is the Jam Trim Fleece Vest from Knit One Crochet Too, using only one yarn – Artful Yarns’ Broadway.
