A Little Fruity, A Little Loopy

Fall has always been like New Years for me.  It's back to school time, and while I haven't been heading back for 2 years now, it still seems like the time of year for fresh starts.  Especially for knitting! 

Summer's had a few last kicks at the can, and the last few days have been warm and sunny, but there have also been a few where the temperature has dipped, and the chill in the air makes me want to reach for wooly warm-ness.

About this time last year I was stash diving and pulled out some brightly coloured clearance sock yarn that I'd picked up I don't remember where (Micheal's I think) or when (Boxing Day sale a few years ago maybe?).  The colour way was Crayon, and it sure lived up to its name.  I wanted a small project that I could carry around that would be easy to just pick up whenever I found a few spare minutes - so onto the needles it went to become just plain old socks. 

Cute eh? And yes, the are fraternal sock-mates.  I don't have the patience to try and get self striping sock yarn to make identical twins. 

Knitting away in the lunch room at work, one of the other ladies was just enthralled with the colours.  Obsessed even.  Like the yarn, she's beautiful with a bright sunny outlook on everything.  I didn't really have a plan for the socks once they were done, other than to toss them in the last-minute-gift box.  And they suited her so perfectly.  And coincidentally they were even in her size. 

So as soon as they were finished they landed quietly on her desk carefully wrapped with a care instructions sticker (horray for machine washable yarns!).  Imagine the hug that I got when she came back in from her break!  And she even offered to pay for them.  Silly sunshine :)

Fast forward to August and she stops by my desk one morning.  She loves her socks and was super grateful for them that particular morning with the threats of early fall frost.  Turns out, that her daughter loves her socks too, and keeps stealing them... And would I mind knitting another pair if she dropped off some yarn?  Said daughter's birthday was in a month, and she'd just love her own pair.  Only if it wouldn't been any trouble, and only if I had time. 

Now, free yarn to knit socks with and a whole month to do it? Yeah man!  Never mind that I could never say no to sunshine. 

A few days later a ball of bright pink yarn appeared on my desk.  While I had originally been thinking that these socks were going to be plain socks from self striping yarn like the previous, this yarn was more painted looking.  Mostly pink with shots of purple and green.  The second I saw it, I knew.  This yarn wasn't going to be plain old boring socks.  It was the absolute PERFECT colour way for Fruit Loop from knitty. 

And look how awesome they turned out!

While shopping for goodie bag stuff for a baby shower a while back, I discovered that the local dollar store had the most perfect sock gift bags.  Brightly coloured and three for a buck.  And available in pink.  So off these little treasures were packed, and dropped off with sunshine almost a week before my deadline. 

I love seeing finished projects, and I admit to oogling these fellas for about 5 minutes.  Then the empty needles beckoned me back. 

Here's how I spent my weekend evenings.  That's sock number one of SlipStream, also from Knitty knit with Lorna's Laces in a colour way I'll have to find the tag to identify.  Size medium. 

I love fall!

Wheels, but not the spinning kind

I'm up a little early this Sunday morning.  Something exciting is about to happen. 

Today, I am driving myself to work.

No, it's not the actual driving itself that's got me awake without excessive caffination, it's the what I'll be driving.

Friday morning, after weeks of searching, I picked up this:

My very own car.

Think I look a wee bit excited?  Naw... flipping ecstatic might be a better way to put it.

For a long time, we didn't have a car at all.  Then 5 years ago we got a truck.  It was a short lease, and the price was right.  But the freedom! 

Then we bought the next truck.  And then André opened his business.  So much for me getting to drive much.  And once I started working retail again, it was either walk, take the bus (more expensive, and since I'd have to transfer or walk half the distance anyway, I just walked), or hope that André could give me a ride.  And errands like groceries took forever or got delayed because he'd be late at work. 

Let me tell you, André is not a morning person.  Days like today wouldn't be too bad, but 5.30 AM is not a time that he's terribly pleased to be awake, let alone be in the process of heading home having already dropped me off.

Today however, I'm going to go and get my work stuff on, grab my lunch and my keys and drive myself in.  And still leave André the truck for his work this afternoon.

Who knows, I might even go yarn shopping this afternoon.  Just because I can.

Top 30 - Take 2

They say 30 is the new 20, a time when one must figure out what is going on in life - who they are, where they're going, and how on earth they are going to get there.  Forget the mid-life crisis, the younger generations are partaking in the growing trend of the quarter-life crisis.  We are young, energetic, educated, and full of the promises of our childhood - work hard and you can be anything you want to be.

Well, I'm still not an astronaut, but that's probably more to do with my lack of interest in being spun in a centrifuge at 6G, or being locked up in a space station not much larger than a few school buses for months on end, or moving to Huston to join NASA/CSA (ugh summer all year long), than a lack of ability to try.

But that was my 10 year old self watching Star Trek with my parents and reading books on the solar system day dreaming about how cool it would be to visit other planets like Pluto.  Childhood dream crusher #2, Pluto's not even a planet any more!

Fast forward another 10 years, and me at 20 had everything all figured out.  By 30 I would have the following things: husband, house, car, PhD, career in teaching, and our very own addition to the family on the way (if not already arrived).

Well, I've got some of those things off the list - husband and house, check.  The house could use some work, and we could really really use more space (at least a garage), but they are there.  Car?  Sort of... we've got a truck, but it's André's really, he needs it for work.  The train wreck that was my career?  Yeah, still not ready to talk about that one, but suffice to say, it's unlikely that I'll ever wind up teaching.  And the family?  Again, now that I'm at the age where I had originally thought that I would like to have kids, in truth I'm enjoying my life on my own too much to want to settle down and raise a family.  I've still got a couple of years to figure that out right?

In the mean time, I've been thinking.  I've done some pretty cool things in 30 years of life, but there are a pile more things that I would still like to do.  So, in honour of my quarter-life crisis, and still trying to figure everything out, I give you Top 30 - Take 2 - 30 things that I will do in the next 30 years (or so).

1. Go north again - this time in the winter, and see the Northern Lights above the Arctic Circle.  Nunavut again would be nice, but there are 2 other territories I haven't been to yet!  Speaking of which, I'm going to cross the rest of those provinces and territories off my traveling list.  And revisit some of the others, this time with André in tow.
2. Go back to Newfoundland.  Yes, it sounds like a repeat of #1, but this time we go for like a month and tour the place properly.  And take our time doing it.  Maybe with an RV.  
3. I'm going to venture out into the world at large.  There's not many places outside of Canada that I'd like to visit but there are a few.  Alaska, New Orleans, Australia and New Zealand (more sheep than people!).  First though, I'm going to need a passport...
4. We are going to design and build a new home.  Maybe not the next one, but there will be one.  From brain to paper to blueprint to land to house.  All of it by ourselves.  Although by "by ourselves" I don't mean that I am going to dig the foundation myself.  More that after designing the foundation I am going to point at the ground and a guy with some seriously heavy equipment will make the hole happen the way I said it should. 
5. In the mean time, I am going to flip a house.  Buy it, reno it, and sell it for profit.  Sounds easy eh?  Wish me luck. 
6. Thinking about buying a rental/investment property too.  The more likely scenario would be buying us a bigger place and just renting out the place we're in now.  I'm cool with that. 
7. One day I'm going to quit working retail and work with André full time.  There is a plan. 
8. And with all the spare time that's going to give me I'm going to learn how to use a lathe properly.  
9. And then I'm going to turn my own knitting needles.  
10. With the rest of the spare time, I'm going to buy some alpacas and board them with my sister's herd (which she doesn't have yet, but again, there is a plan!). 
11. I am going to learn how to sheer a sheep.  Then maybe I'll tackle an alpaca. 
12. Which of course means that I need to learn to spin.  I've got a working wheel and everything... I just can't piece together the time (see #7).
13. I am going to design a knitting pattern for my own hand-spun yarn.  And then publish it. 
14. I am going to combine points 8-13 and go back-to-back.  Off the fuzzy back of my alpaca (or sheep) in the spring, and on to my own for the fall.
15. On the topic of one to another, I'd like to go from tree to furniture.  Chain saws and I get along well, and it would be really cool to have furniture that I build from a tree that I felled. 
16. While I'm making things, I'm going to make a quilt.  I haven't sewn in years, but it's something I've wanted to do since I was a kid and watched my mom made quilts. 
17. I am going to quit smoking. 
18. Which is hopefully going to help me be the best curler I can be.  I am going to get better, and I really want to be some sort of good.  I would love to play on an A team, even for one season, and not feel like a liability to them. 
19. I am going to the Brier Men's Championship.  Seen the Scotties, but I'm more of a men's curling fan.  (Although this list did once include taking an "I [heart] Hart" sign.  But since Richard Hart formerly of Team Howard has retired from competitive curling, I'll just have to come up with something else suitably witty).
20. On the same lines as quitting smoking and curling, I'd like to take up the bagpipes.  Might have to have a house with no direct neighbours before I actually start that one though.  
21. I'm going to get a dog.  Big dog like a retriever or lab or Sheppard. 
22. I am going to write the Mensa test.  But I'm not going to tell anybody that I'm doing it until it's done.  Too much pressure.  Hell, I might have even done it already ;)
23. Speaking of writing things, I am going to write a book.  Getting it published would be amazing, but I think I'll be happy that I did the writing. 
24. I'm going to put even more effort into this blog.  One day I am going to get comments (hint hint).  Then another even more distant day I'm going to get a comment from someone famous in the knitting world.  Actually, I'll start with even just one comment from someone that I don't already know.  Writing a blog is a lot more work that I thought it would be, any my admiration for those that have hugely amazingly successful blogs grows every day. 
25. More blogging means that I'm going to need to knit more to keep the blog fed.  See also points 8 - 14.
26. I am going to get my yarn stash under control.  I would like to have a stash where I know where everything is so there are no more cases of me turning entire rooms upside down looking for that ball of sock yarn that I swear was there just last week.  And I need to loose some of the dead weight yarn - the stuff that was bought at garage sales for $2 for the whole box.  I was young and desperate.  Stop laughing André or I will post pictures of your shop.  
27. I'm going to get a motorcycle.  A nice touring bike.  Maybe a Harley.  Maybe not.  We'll see.  
28. One day I am going to retire.  Not to say that I'm going to stop working, because André and I are both the type of people that will work until the day we die.  Rather, in the next 30 years I am going to get to a point where I don't have to work if I don't want to or where it doesn't matter what the job pays, rather how much I enjoy doing it. 
29. Before I can retire I have to keep working hard.  Our business is growing, and I have to work harder every week.  But it will be worth it.  One day our business will be large enough that I can have minions employees to do things like payroll and accounting, so that I can get on with the stuff that I really like to do - project managing and problem solving. 
30. Every now and then I'm going to do something completely and solely for me.  Last year I bought a Christmas tree.  We hadn't had one in forever, and André's rather indifferent to them, but dammit I wanted a Christmas tree.  Little things like that.  

I am going to spend the next 30 years crossing things off this list, and I'm going to do it all with André and the rest of my friends and family at my side. Who wants to come along for the ride?

Top 30

Today I have the glorious distinction of leaving my 20's behind.  No longer do I get to consider myself a carefree young adult.  I'm loosing the title of young, leaving me just an adult, with all the rights, responsibilities, and duties that entails.  There's just no more societal safety net of, "she's young! She'll learn". 

While today is my actual birthday, it can be hard to get family and friends together on a Tuesday afternoon following a long weekend.  So instead we partied Sunday night.  And what a party it was!  Friends and family from town, and even some from further out!  Amy came up for a 24 hour Ottawa stop over!!  And a huge crew of my in-laws came down, bringing with them one of the newest additions to our little crew - baby Jaxson.  One of the only babies I know that doesn't freak right out when I'm around.  In fact he laughed when I picked him up.  Of course now my in-laws are reminding me that I'm about to be not young any more and they would kind of like a little grandbaby of their own.  We shall see.


Birthdays, especially milestone birthdays like a new decade, seem to cause an interesting reaction in people.  If they are past that age they'll usually tell you it's not going to be as bad as you think it will, rather that it was really fun, and then regale you with some anecdote of their time at that age.  Or some accomplishment at or around that milestone.  Sometimes it can be intimidating to hear what others had managed by this age. 

It got me thinking.  Could I come up with a list of my most important 30 events and memories from the last 30 years?  True, I haven't sky-dived yet (and probably never will) but I have dog-sledded on Frobisher bay, and that, my friends, was pretty damn cool. 


So, I give you, the Top 30 of Jen's 30.

1.  I have been on or in all three oceans that border our country.  Swimming in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and dog sledded on the Arctic.  It's still frozen in May, so swimming, kind of not possible.
    
2. I have visited 6 provinces (Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, British Colombia, PEI, and Newfoundland) and 1 territory (Nunavut). 
   
   
3. I have seen the Midnight Sun (and been burned by it).
   
   
4. I have hiked the West Coast Trail and looked out and known that there was nothing further west until Asia.  I have stood at Signal Hill and looked out and known that there was nothing further east until Europe. 
   
   
5. I finished high school, got an undergraduate and then a Master's degree.
   
   
6. I have published in peer reviewed scientific journals. 
   
   
7. I have loved and lost, and learned to love again.
   
   
8. I have watched 2 beautiful younger sisters and a sister-in-law go from girls to young women, to adults and make remarkable accomplishments of their own.  And I couldn't be prouder.
   
   
9. I bought a house.  And a truck.  I don't actually own either free and clear yet, but it will happen.  Eventually. 
   
   
10. I have been told that I have inspired someone.
    
    
11. I co-founded a business which is growing almost faster than we can keep up.
    
    
12. I ran an organization with hundreds of volunteers, that reached thousands of kids a year, all to make science fun.
    
    
13. I have been walked on by butterflies.  And one very, very large moth. 
    
    
14. I have laughed so hard that I cried.  And just kept laughing. 
    
    
15. I have been shocked speechless.  And every time it's been because of an act of love. 
    
    
16. I have survived 30 years without breaking a bone in my body.  A dislocated jaw, but no breaks.  Sorry mom, apparently that wasn't enough to wire my 16 year old mouth shut for a month.  I know you were hoping they would.
    
    
17. I learned to curl, and met some of the best friends of my life doing it.
    
    
18. In 30 years, I have never been arrested. 
    
    
19. Although I still get asked for ID when I go out. 
    
    
20. I have learned that I can't sing, dance, or swim.  Not that I don't still do the first two, I just do it where nobody else has to suffer for it.
    
    
21. I learned how to play the flute, oboe, piccolo, and piano. 
    
    
22. I survived Ice Storm 1998.  And Y2K.  And remember them. 
    
    
23. I have skated the entire length of the Ottawa Canal.  And back again.
    
    
24. I fell in love.  I got married.  And every day I wake up next to my best friend and partner in business, life, and love.  And every day I love him more. 
    
    
25. I gained more family that I can shake a stick at when I got married.  And while I thought there were a lot of them 12 years ago, every so often they go and add another one.  And I have seen that family celebrate and love every member. 
    
    
26. I taught myself to knit.
    
    
27. I have been told by an 80 year old man that holding my yarn while I wind a ball makes him feel like a kid again.  How he remembered being 5 years old and doing exactly the same for his mother all those years ago. 
    
    
28. I've heard regret from the family that I didn't have the chance to meet Andre's Nanny.  Apparently we are remarkably alike.  Something to do with knitting all the time.   
    
    
29. I have survived times when I was so tired and broke and hopeless that it was all I could do to just put one foot in front of another.  Times when "one more day" just seemed almost too long.  But I did take one more step, and one more day went by, and then another and another. 
    
    
30. And I now live in a time where I am happy.  Things are not perfect.  Things are still hard.  I still worry.  But it doesn't matter.  I can always take one more step, and I will always get through one more day.

So to all those people out there that I have met over the last 30 years, thanks.  There are a lot of these things on this list that couldn't have happened with out you.  

Be Still My Lamprocapnos spectabilis

Sure enough, it's spring, and I've been overrun with work.  For both jobs, this time of year is like Christmas for retail stores... Home improvement peak season is April - July, and André and I are running around like mad. 

On the plus side, he's so busy that he's looking at hiring another employee.  This would be great because it would free him up for more time to do consultations and design work.  On the down side, it increases the pressure to find more and larger jobs to keep his growing crew busy.  It would also mean more paperwork for me. 

Oh, and we're incorporating.  So imagine the paperwork that I am chronically trying to dig my way out of. 

Times like this friends and family look at us and shake their heads.  We need a holiday, they say.  We need to stop and breathe and smell the roses.  Right...

Sitting on the front step for a momentary break the other morning, we took a look at the weedy excuse for a garden.  Then André pointed down and said, "isn't that a little bleeding heart bush-lette right there?"

And would you look at that he's right.  It made my day, my week, my month, and my summer, all in one glance. 

When André and I first moved out together, we had a dumpy little town house in a not so nice nieghbourhood.  But the back yard was a decent size, and I figured I'd try my hand at gardening.  Turns out that I'm not terribly good at gardening, but lucky for me, two of my favourite plants are good and hardy - lilacs and bleeding heart bushes.  Every house I've ever lived in has had these plants somewhere on the property, and I really wanted to keep the tradition. 

Fast forward a year and a half, and we've bought a house and are getting set to move.  We're in the middle of a town house row (in a much nicer neighbourhood), and there are lilacs on either end.  But there weren't any bleeding heart bushes.  No problem, I said, I'll just dig up the one that I planted at the old house, put it in a bucket, and bring it with me. 

Well, cue university life and all of the other work that comes with home ownership, and before I knew it, it was winter, the ground was frozen solid, and so was the bucket with the still-not-planted bleeding heart.  Oh, well, I said, I'll just get a new one in the spring.  Imagine my amazement when in the spring the bleeding heart just sprang right back to life in its bucket, flowering away happily.  In fact it looked so happy that I left it in the bucket for another winter.  (Ok, that's a lie, university life got in the way so bad that I again forgot about it.)

Finally, a break in the following spring and I actually planted the miracle bush in a prominent spot in the front garden.  And there it stayed happily for another few years.  The last two years it started looking a little peaky in the spring, so in my gusto to make this plant as happy as it could be, I transplanted it to a better spot in the garden away from the drier vent, and in a sunnier spot. 

And then we had a drought...

And this year my big beautiful bleeding heart bush didn't come back. 

I have no idea if there is a natural life span of these plants (they're a semi-tuberous root system, so likely they'll just keep going as long as there is water and sun and nothing eats them), but apparently 10 years (with 2 in a bucket) and a drought proved too much for this one.  I felt like I wanted to cry... despite everything else I'd done to this poor plant, I was going to miss it. 

Then André pointed out a little tuft of green amongst the weeds, just beside the spot where I had planted the old bush.  Just a wee 4" tuft of a different leafy green than the weeds.  A bleeding heart bush-lette.  There might not be flowers on it this year, but you'd better believe that it's going to be the most carefully cared for little plant on the block. 

It's perfect for the mantra that's kept me going through the last few weeks of insanity:

Next year it will be better. 

Next year I will stop and smell the roses bleeding heart flowers.

Thrown to the Lions

Just a quick post for now, lots going on, and not a lot of free time at the moment.  So some random thoughts from the last few days.

Starting with this:

Yes, people, it's April.  But this is Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  Seriously, what were you expecting?  There have been 3 snow-less Aprils in the last 50 years.  Just because it was nice for a week in March doesn't mean that our lion winter won't have cubs that will come back and bite us later. 

Although the snow on top of ice pellets on top of freezing rain followed by rain and then more snow all in 24 hours might have been a bit much for the average person to cope with. 

It's supposed to start warming up soon.  So they claim.  With lots of rain. 

So it turns out that the Classica Coat and knit socks I've been working on will still be useful if finished in the not too distant future.  Although I'll need more sock yarn... apparently not enough yarn in the left overs for another whole pair. 

The coat however is progressing nicely.  Back done, and one front panel started.  Pictures to follow should I manage to find the camera during the house clean up today. 

I had thought about tidying up the deck and getting the patio furniture out... Maybe next weekend.  When it's not snowing.

In Like a Lion, Out Like a.... Lion?

There is an expression about March:  In like a Lion, out like a Lamb.  If the beginning of March is rough (storms, cold, snow, etc), by the end of March it will be mild and peaceful.  Of course the opposite is supposed to be true too.

In truth however, this is Canada, and March is generally just lion shaped all month long.  Weather wise this year March saw yet another big snow fall, a couple of colder than normal days, and as we reach the final stretch, some rather dramatically warm days as well.  While this might sound lamb-like, ask anybody in a lower lying area how critically important it is to make sure that your sump pumps are working 100% during this time of year.  All of that melting snow has to go somewhere and basements are a common escape route.

March came roaring in in other ways too.  I was kill-me-now-please sick for a week at the beginning.  Thankfully I recovered enough to be groupie of the year for André and the curling team, but no sooner did life look like it was getting back to normal than my sinuses decided that it was their turn to be my downfall.

Now the Easter weekend is upon us, and we are trying to fit as much as we can into a couple of days off.

Advancements in the knitting world have also been on the lion and lamb side of things lately as well.  The delivery of the John Deere socks in time was quite the relief.  And all the time out watch the boys curling let me get something else off the needles too.  I give you Cable and Cross.

 

This was the hat project that I started on the train on the way to Toronto back in February.  Once Amy's mitts were done I was smart enough to remember to return the needles to the bag with this lovely wip.

Details: Knit as written on 4.5 mm circulars, magic loop.  Almost entirely 2 balls of Andean Treasure in Mystery from Knit Picks (it was kicking around in my stash).   Overall a fantastic project - yummy yarn, at just the right gauge to be dense and warm but not crunchy and tight, and a pattern complex enough to be interesting, but simple enough to memorize so that I could watch curling rather than my notes.  Although, having a chart rather than just written instructions would have been nice.

André found Exeter, so this one's mine.  And it served me well in the last few weeks.

I've also cast on a couple of new projects (hey, I finished 2 things, now I'm starting 2 more.  It evens out in the end right?).


First are a pair of Java socks.  These are a bit of a rush for a close friend who's about to go in for major knee surgery.  Right before his birthday.  I may have just jumped right in and gotten all the way down to the ball of the foot of one sock before thinking that it was looking a wee bit small (said friend is 6'1" with mercifully only men's size 9 feet).  A quick test on André (men's size 8) and they were far too small.

So I ripped it alllllll back and started over with the larger size.  I really should have looked at the pattern a wee bit closer at the beginning, but that's what I get for just jumping right in.  I'm working with some chocolate brown stash sock yarn on 2.25 mm needles.  I have 2 weeks. 

Also on the needles is a project that I've been meaning to start for a couple of years.  The Clasica Coat from Interweave Knits Fall 2009.  I found the perfect yarn while out with my sister-in-law just before New Years (the same time I picked up the yarn for Exeter).  Léttlopi in the descriptively named colour #1401.  The catch? Neither location of Yarn Forward had anywhere near enough for the entire project.  So the lovely ladies ordered some, and I picked up 18 balls (probably a slight over estimation, but better safe than sorry) in early March, along with getting my sewing machine serviced.

I want this coat to work out, so in a moment of brief sanity, I swatched.  I actually made 2 different ones on different needles, since I thought the first one with the needle size recommended for the pattern looked a little loose.  Then I washed and blocked the swatches.  And waited for them to dry before measuring them.

I thought that the one with suggested needles was still a bit loose, but the other done on needles 2 sizes smaller was definately too small.  So I figured I'd compromise and go down 1 needle size for the body of the jacket.  Well... one ball in, and the back is almost 3 inches too narrow.  Despite being a needle size up from the smaller swatch, my gauge is apparently TIGHTER by not a small amount.

Now we're back to the suggested needle size, and I've knit another entire ball, and it's looking way better.  I just have to remember to keep going on it.  The back is 19" of stst.  Not exciting.  But soon there will be shoulder shaping and the interesting pattern on the sleeves and front.  I just need to get there.

It seems fitting doesn't it?  That both of my newest projects cast on in the spring are the colours of spring?

What?  Spring's not brown?  I don't know where you live, but this is spring in Ottawa.  This early in the spring what isn't brown is road salt grey.  The green stuff and pretty flowers aren't going to be around for a while yet...