As in cooking.  Somewhere recently, it may have been Farm School, I read about engaging children in food prep by taking it outside, where they can make messes to their heart’s content.  Saturday was a gorgeous September day, warm, sunny, but not too warm.  Mr. Guy and I went to the farmer’s market and I bought veggies to add to what I had in the garden so I could make a big batch of ratatouille to freeze.  I also got a big basket of tomatoes for blanching and freezing.  I set up camp outside with the grill and the hotplate we use for cooking when we don’t want to heat up the house — a sort of summer kitchen of the north.

Being outside was great and I got to toss peels and things right in the compost, brush seeds on the ground, and just make messes to my heart’s content.  I thought I would try grilling all the vegetables before mixing them for the ratatouille.  It seemed to me that it would give that nice grilled/roasted veggie flavor, and be less oily.   Conceptually sound, but on a charcoal grill, it isn’t really very efficient.  I also think I should have sliced the egg plant thicker, and not let it cook as long.  It tastes fine, however, and the lack of efficiency allowed me to work on a second sock that has been haunting me for several years.  I made the first one as a shop model, and when I got it back I stuffed it in a baket with the rest of the MegaBoots Stretch.

If I manage to make them the same size –I couldn’t even remember what size needle I used — they may make a Christmas present.  I no longer make one sock at a time, even for shop models.  The only way for me to avoid second sock syndrome is to work sequentially.  First make one cuff, then the second cuff, right on down to the toe.  I don’t enjoy the two socks on two circs technique, it’s too difficult for the spatially challenged.  I never know where I am.  I prefer to use my good old bamboo DPNs and work on one at a time.  I now have several sock special orders from a certain yarn winding kid, so when I finish these, I’ll have some smaller ones to work on.

MLE

Well my sister is tired, but getting better and better and I took them to the airport yesterday. My human ball winder got worried after breakfast yesterday. Did he have time to wind a few more balls before they left for the airport? He did.

The dark green koigu was especially entertaining to wind with the ball winder because it was already in a non center pull ball, so it bounced all over the room. Man, is that funny. Why don’t I do all my yarn that way? The mind of the 8 year old at work is a true delight. The night before they left, my sister and b-in-l had crashed, and we built a fire in the fire pit and sat and discussed important matters. What if we built a boat that responded to the frequency of the northern lights and would automatically follow them around on lakes and rivers? Can you have a bonfire if you take horses camping? Then the big idea was to get the laptop and the Lord of the Rings DVD and watch his favorite parts ‘by the flickering firelight’ — how could I refuse?

When I recover from the past three weeks, I do have some actual knitting content.

MLE

Thanks to everyone who commented and emailed regarding my sister. The surgery went off without a hitch. It was a long day of waiting, though. Then I spent most of the day after sitting in the Cardiac Intensive Care with her. Thank the stars for knitting, it really is a lifesaver for me in these situations. I put the Claudia my nephew wound to good use and made the middle size of the Overlap Baby Sweater. It is just the kind of knitting for these situations, pretty simple, no real counting except for the short rows at the neck edge and the sleeve decreases.

One reason I wanted to do this sweater again was that Gale, who did a test knit for it, found what to her was a little glitch in how the short rows were set up, but it didn’t pop up for me. I did have it tech edited, but you know how it is with knitting instructions. It seems that we all read things in a certain way. She is an excellent knitter, so I value her comments. I’ll be interested to hear if others have the same point of view as Gale.

I haven’t put buttons on this one, but might if I find the right ones. Another idea I had was to put a little contrast stripe right on the edge with crochet slip stitch. Here it is, bad photo and unblocked but finished. What do you think?

While my nephew stayed with us, we went to the barn and did a little riding and a little frog hunting. Did you know that a frog will, in fact, ride in the saddle for a few strides?

I’m waiting for them to arrive back up here for a few days before heading to Texas, post-Ike. Hope all you Texans are doing ok.

MLE

I could pretend I’ve been on vacation, but I haven’t. I have a few lame garden photos to show: I finally got some eggplant.

Encouraged by Miss T., I made a blueberry pie, using the Vodka Crust recipe. It had a very short delicious life.

I have been doing some knitting and a have couple of new patterns, which I will be showing soon. Mostly, I’ve been planning for two big arrivals here in St. Paul. The first is my sister, who arrived with her family to spend the long weekend before heading to the Mayo Clinic, where she will be having many tests and major heart surgery on Friday. The other — the Republicans.

My 8 year-old nephew wound several skeins of yarn in the first day he was here. The tasteful child prefers merino, especially Koigu and Claudia, because they are ‘less sticky.’ He’ll be back with us during the first few days after surgery, so he is hoping I can dig out more stash for him to wind. Anyone who wants their skeins wound, come on down! And send your healing thoughts and energy my sister’s way, please.

The Republicans are another story. I work a block away from the Xcel center, and live across the river. I feel as though I live in a police state. There are helicopters buzzing around all the time, the Coast Guard are patrolling the Mississippi, and cops in riot gear are all over town. I don’t even want to go into all that. I’ll just leave you with a quote from that wild-eyed liberal Harry S. Truman:

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

None of us are free until all of us are free.

Don’t forget.

Only if it is a sad book, of course.

I have finally hit on a means of encouraging myself in the never ending weeding required in my yard.

Audio books. I have always been a compulsive reader, nose buried in a book. As a child, my mother would call me from some other part of the house to see if I were doing the chore assigned to me. I’d answer, and without even laying eyes on me, she would respond - “Put down the book, and get to work.” At last, I can get to work and not put down the book.

Although I have knitted to audio books, I never thought of using them in this way. I generally enjoy being alone with my thoughts while walking or weeding. These thoughts must not be all that interesting, though, since I have studiously avoiding their company as my weeds flourished, in spite of mulch. The other morning, I kept thinking, well, one more chapter.  I’ll just do the leeks.

Some of my weeding was for naught, however, since a wretched varmint has devoured my broccoli and some of the brussels sprouts.

I’m trying out Librivox, free downloads of books in the public domain, read by volunteers. Miss BlackSheep warned me that the volunteer readers could be spotty. My first download is The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. I have always meant to read it, so it seemed worth a shot. Some of the readers are quite good. Some bring out the 4th grade prig in me.  You know, the smarty little girl that enjoyed reading aloud, but lost patience with other students who struggled a bit, or didn’t notice the punctuation in time. One reader has a very heavy foreign accent, and mispronounces many words, which is really hard to follow. For these chapters, I ended up going to the Gutenberg Project to read them as an ebook. (After the weeding.)

I really did enjoy The Moonstone.  It was originally published in serial form back in the late 1860’s, so it worked fine to listen to it in fits and starts.

I received a lovely pile of yarn for my birthday from some friends who just came back from Oaxaca, Mexico.  The met the spinner and dyer of the yarn, too, which is all done with natural dyes.

My non-fiber friend was so taken with it all she wants to skip learning to knit and move right to spinning!

MLE

I have renewed respect for the photographers of those adorable Dale babies.

Excellent picture

Not so excellent picture.

I love looking at those Baby Ull cuties, even though I have no intention of making any of the sweaters. My baby sweaters are much simpler, aimed at the newer knitter, or knitters like me, who are not necessarily lazy, we just want a project that doesn’t require too much thinking.

I recently designed a baby sweater to use KoiguPPPM or Claudia handpaint fingering yarns. To me, the handpainted yarn needs a fairly simple design to show the beauty of the colors. I also set out to have a pullover that would accommodate giant baby heads without any picking up of stitches for buttonbands.

I enjoy setting some parameters then designing within them. There must be a name for a this concept, as it shows up in cooking, engineering, and lots of areas in life. It makes the process both less and more challenging. Since you don’t have unlimited possibilities it helps narrow the focus. Since you have fewer options, you have to stretch your imagination or skills. My solution for this sweater is a boat neck shaped by short rows. I don’t think that short rows are too difficult, even for the newer knitter. The sleeves are then picked up and knit down to the cuff. No finishing, no fuss, no muss. The optional buttons are purely decorative.

After getting the pattern back from my tech editor (Hi Wendy!) I set out to take a picture. All you need is a cute baby, right? Well Maya couldn’t be cuter but this kid cannot stay still - like a worm on a hot brick, as my husband says - wiggle wiggle wave squirm. Maybe I just need a better camera, or, more likely, better skills.

Here’s a sample of mostly unusable pictures of the photo shoot:

Getting the model prepped.

The keys only made it worse.

I can sit up, really.

Almost!

The pattern is available online in my web store, on Ravelry, and from The Yarnery for a mailed-out copy.

If anyone has good suggestions for learning how to capture a baby in flight, please let me know. I have a few more sweaters to photograph!

MLE

The wedding was wonderful. Great fun. Here’s a picture of the wedding party’s footwear:

as well as the footwear of yours truly, the official, now known as the Reverend Lou.

Yes, I wrote and officiated the wedding ceremony. It was such an honor, when my niece and her fiance asked me I got a little teary-eyed. My little niece, who once snuggled up to me in bed and asked me to promise that we would always sleep together, wherever we go. That didn’t extend to the wedding night, in case you are wondering.

Much much knitting, but requests for some, which is always nice, too. Returned home to piles of weeds and finally harvestable beets, broccoli and a few golden cherry tomatoes. Let the weeding begin!

I deliberately chose not to try and get much done over the long weekend. I wanted to get some R and R after several stressful weeks. I did get in some relaxing, but then the Sunday Afternoon Guilts got me. I didn’t get that pattern finished. I didn’t weed enough. I didn’t I didn’t…. I’m sure you all know the feeling. I did get in some garden gazing, including this fabulous flower whose identity is unknown. I planted it several years ago and it has done nothing. I kept wondering, then this year POW - a lily/freesia like flower with a fragrance you can catch from half the yard away. I picked one stem and the whole living room (small room, but still) is scented. Anyone out there know what this is:

I did get a few things done - we put up our Fleet Farm screen house:

I weeded this bed, with the poppies that came from a neighbors yard at some point:

Not so much weeding here:

Now I am off again, to my goddaughter’s wedding. Should be fun, and wild, and anything but relaxing. I just wish all my flowers could hold still still I get back.  I better make sure I have enough knitting.

MLE

On the road again, unexpectedly. My sister in Texas called last week. She needed an emergency medical procedure and her husband and son were off camping out of state and unreachable. She was sobbing into the phone as she told me. What are big sisters for, anyway? I whipped out my frequent flyer miles and off I went. That, in itself, was a miracle. It is harder and harder to use them these days, but there I was, on a direct flight only a few hours after the phone call. Without going into medical detail, she had heart surgery as a teen and this current issue may be related to that. It is really frustrating that no one knows at the moment. More tests, probably major surgery. It was frightening for her, and I was grateful to be able to be there. It was frightening for me, too, but I think that when you are supposed to be the supporter, you can’t break down. I had to wait to get home to do that.

My BiL and nephew were reached and came home as soon as they could, so I got to spend a couple of days with my favorite 8 year old. I did have a knitting project (or 4) along, but ended up making socks for him. Apparently, Camo Boy was asked recently if he even had camo socks. He told the woman, “No, my aunt hasn’t made me any yet.” how can that be refused? I used Pagewood Farms Yukon, because he also loves bamboo. I didn’t have my camera along, so no photos, but the socks were pronounced perfect. Then, he hatched a plot where I could get a part time job at the newish LYS, Yarnivore. Just in the winter, of course. So we went to Yarnivore, where he charmed the pants off the owner, selected more bamboo sock yarn in “spring camo,” but failed to snag a new job for me. “I’m kind of shy about things like that.” Oh well, I guess I’ll have to keep the day job.

I thought I would get more knitting done, but it is hard to knit and watch you tube videos with an 8-year old. It has to be full participation. Watch this part. This is really funny. I paused this ’cause you weren’t looking. I now have quite a few items book marked on my laptop. Lego Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Brick, Crazy Frog, Batthumb, and Thumb Wars. I gained major points when I told him I had seen Thumb Wars when it first came out at some goofy short films fest. Note: it is easier to search for Thumb Wars when you don’t spell it thom.

Back home and trying to prepare for my next family adventure. At least I get to look at this:

For the Americanskis in the audience, have a lovely Independence Day weekend.

MLE