to be thankful

The problem with Canadian Thanksgiving being so early in the year is that the trees have not had a chance to fully turn colour. Although — as Pd pointed out, as we were driving along the Niagara Escarpment — that might be an illusion because a lot of the trees we were looking at turned out, upon closer inspection, to be conifers. Nonetheless, here is a picture of my in-laws' deck, replete with squash; that is the closest to a Thanksgiving image I could come up with today.

And actually, yesterday the temperature was somewhere in the mid-twenties, and today it's in the high teens, so it doesn't feel much like late fall anyway.


This year has been a bit of a medical annus horribulus for our family. Just over a year ago, my mother-in-law went into the hospital with severe abdominal pains and came out with a diagnosis of cancer (thankfully she is in remission now); my father was hit by a drunk driver (not yet fully recovered, but healing) my father in law was in an ATV accident and lost the tip of two fingers (thereby gifting the rest of us a verbal punchline that will never get old). And, of course, there is the Kidlet: by the time she left the hospital in mid-September, she had spent a cumulative seven of her nine months in a hospital. March and April, essentially.

Every family has weeks, months like this. We are not unique. We are, however, incredibly lucky — that we have all survived, more or less; that everyone is still alive, relatively intact (give or take a finger or two ... you see?), reasonably healthy and hale. So I think that this year, as we gave thanks, it was pretty obvious what we were thankful for.



Health, kids, hope. And turkey duck. What more could anyone want?

the things that change your life are always the things that you never see coming.

The roses have been in bloom for most of the summer now. They all survived the brutish winter, more or less, but it's 'The Fairy' ones that enchanted The Spanish Inquisition. She asked for one, and then two: one for herself, and one for her father. They're tiny, these fairies, tiny and perfect. 

I don't often talk of my private life or my family on this blog, and that's deliberate; I'm a fairly private person in general. But something this big and all-consuming is hard to hide, so here it is.

My life is incredibly complicated and incredibly simple right now. With the exception of four days, the Kidlet has been at SickKids for more than two months. No, she's not well. Yes, she's getting better ... except that she's not. Not in the way you mean; not in the way we usually mean. It's complicated. She has a rare metabolic disease. It is progressive, and it is severe. There is a treatment, but there is no cure.

What do you do when you're blindsided like this? You take a breath, and then another. You try to discover the new world that surrounds you: your new spiritual home. And then you move forward, hoping with each step that you are still on solid ground. Sometimes, you are. Too often, you're not.

I have been going to SickKids every day. It's my new job: I go there after the Spanish Inquisition leaves for preschool; I try to get home before she does. In between I meet with doctors, and I spend time with my darling girl. She likes music, and Madeline. Sometimes, when the day is good and the wind is fair, she smiles. And it lights up the world.

a pause.

I'd fully meant to keep on blogging, but the Kidlet is going in for surgery again tomorrow, and the Spanish Inquisition's preschool is closing, and ... no. Not that the two are equivalent. You see, I can't even apologise properly. In any case, it's hard to find the headspace, so for now — peace.

best laid plans

I like lists, cataologuing. I am secretly a librarian at heart. I make lists for everything: packing lists for weekend vacations, grocery lists, lists of clothes for the kids. To-do lists so that I can understand the full extent of my procrastination, or stupidity. For future reference, of course. Here, for your edification, was my to-do knitting list this winter:


This is all the yarn I had in my mental queue for the winter — which is to say, this is the yarn that I have bought (mostly this winter) with the intention of knitting this winter. Looking at this pile, I can only come to two conclusions:

1) I have obviously vastly overestimated how fast I can knit and the amount of time I would have, and

2) I really like the colour blue.

Clockwise from the top left: Artyarns cashmere sock. Love. I wanted really warm socks this winter, and I would have made excellent use of them ... if I had had them. Next, two skeins of Shalimar Breathless (in Ore), with a ball of A Verb for Keeping Warm Floating. Also dreamy. These were going to be some sort of colour-block sweater, although I might have to revisit that: those two skeins of Ore are not the same colour at all. (Yes, I know about dye lots, and no ... I did not apply that knowledge. The second skein was sort of an emergency buy.) Tanis Fiber Arts laceweight, from one of her one-off sales on Etsy; this was going to be something "relaxing." Ha. I am thinking perhaps a large Orchid Thief ... I am also thinking, perhaps not right now.

And finally, the big pile of robin's egg blue is Quince & Co. sparrow, which is pure linen. The colour is actually "Birch," but I know robin's egg blue when I see it. It's a bit of a cheat; it's the only thing on here that's not really winter knitting and so, consequently, also the only thing that I particularly want to knit. I am most of the way through the body of Kirsten Johnstone's Hane and I am really looking forward to wearing it. It's been a long, cold winter. I need spring.

false start

It really was my intention to start blogging again. I even took pictures (with a real camera, not my iPhone!) of things I wanted to blog about. For instance:

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Two weeks ago, it was astoundingly nice — 21 degrees Celsius and sunny, as though the world felt a little guilty about the horrid winter and late spring, and had decided to give us a little early summer. (And then, as it does, decided that perhaps that would spoil us — spoil everything — and rescinded the offer, which rather explains why the tulips are surrounded by snow.)

And then the weekend ended, a week passed, then another weekend, and oops. All I can say is that this whole blogging while parenting thing is a work in progress.

The gardening while parenting thing, though, is working a little better.


This reminds me of a story that a family friend told me recently: apparently, when they were younger, their family had the most beautiful English wildflower garden. They lived in the country. The kids (there were three) would get home from school and their mother would just set them to work weeding. And it was more than beautiful; it was practically Platonic: the physical manifestation of a page from a gardening magazine, with wildflowers waving in the breeze and masses of butterflies.

Then the kids graduated from high school and now that garden is essentially a meadow. I visited it the other day and the grasses were literally taller than me.

This makes me feel better.

I am hoping that this year I might actually get to garden. It's early days yet, which means that I still have hope. The Spanish Inquisition is starting to show signs of interest. She's a bit young for weeding but apparently I now have free toddler rake labour. We'll see how that bears out.

100 days

It's been 100 days, more or less, since I abandoned this blog. I know this, because it's been 100 days, more or less, since I officially became a mother of two. The Kidlet wasn't due until late January, which the more perceptive among you will know was significantly less than 100 days ago. So, yes: much like her sister, the Kidlet was early and unexpected. That seems to be a thing that happens, particularly to me.

I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that, in the last 100 days, the following happened: I became a mommy to a premature infant (again), Christmas came and went, ditto my birthday, the Spanish Inquisition started preschool and the aforementioned premature infant was referred to SickKids. It wasn't serious — somewhere between a clogged tear duct and, say, cancer — but it did require surgical intervention, which is just a fancy way of saying brain surgery, which ... there is no easy way to say "my newborn is having brain surgery" without causing a lot of fuss. Try it and see. So everyone was duly panicked and worried, but we're getting better, now. It did mean, too, that the Kidlet has spent more time in the hospital than out of it, in her short life, and that's unfortunate. We're working on fixing that.

So that's the last 100 days. We're not out of the woods yet, Kidlet's health-wise, but the trees are clearing and we can see sunlight. And it means that I can start blogging again, and I plan to, although I'm going to have to cast about for subjects, because — remember that cardigan that I was working on last time we met?

Still working on it.

heartbreak (and some small consolation)

The problem with being a knitter is that it makes you very, very picky about buying commercial knits. I appreciate machine knits as much as anyone — I love very fine knits, which are impossible to do by hand — but then I see an aran-weight cashmere blend for $400, and decide that, screw it, I could make that for under $200. (That's coming, by the way. Although probably not until next winter. But it's a layering piece, fisherman's rib, raglan: simplicity itself.) Similarly, when I can't find exactly what I want, I tend to try to figure out if I can design it, and make it myself.

Pregnancy is particularly bad for this. Most clothes don't fit me (even the maternity ones) so if I want something particular, I almost have to make it myself.

For the past three weeks or so, I have been working on a cardigan. Something with a hood, at least fingertip length, and a lot of drape so I can cover up my bump when it gets cold. (This is what is lacking in most of my other cardigans.) Something light and lustrous. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Fino (yes, again), in a cream with tawny-grey-pink highlights (the colourway is "Ivory Letter Opener"), 2.75mm needles. I decided to knit it from the bottom up, so I made a schematic, I made calculations, I wrote everything out before I started.

Last night, I got to the shoulder seaming and the start of the hood — which, incidentally, was the first time I could try it on with any accuracy.

It was drapey.

It was fingertip length.

It was too small.

The shoulders, back and armscye are good. I just underestimated the amount of "front" I would need for the shawl-like drape. So if it had been a sweater, I would have been fine. There was, in fact, no gauge accident. But the way I'd made the front lapels meant that picking up the stitches and knitting an extra inch or four was out of the question — well, no, but it would look ridiculous. And there's no point in doing all this if it's not going to be perfect.

So, into the frog pond and back to the beginning.

There is some small consolation, though — and it's a good one. I'd originally given myself until the end of November to knit this cardigan, before I would have to move on to Christmas knitting. I'm still going to do that, but the Christmas knitting I've got lined up is this:


I know it doesn't look like much, but wait: this is 100% cashmere (from Handmaiden). I'm going to have to give it away, true. But half the luxury of having something beautifully soft like this is being able to handle it and play with it, and that's the best part of being a maker — I get that part to myself.

weekend(s): dinosaurs! goats! and a baby giraffe

It was the Santa Claus parade in Toronto on Sunday — but alas, not for us. The Spanish Inquisition seemed to like it last year, so we'd planned to go this year — but the forecast kept calling for rain, and she had a not-insignificant cold already, and ... to be honest, Pd and I were just Too Damn Tired. (There is the parade, which is entertainment in and of itself, but you have to get there early to get a good view, and the Spanish Inquisition is not the patient kind of toddler. If such a thing even exists.) So we ran errands and had an easy day of it, and I am trying not to feel guilty.

After all, on Saturday we did do this:


Her first trip to the museum, specifically to see dinosaurs, and she got to play archaeologist. To be entirely honest, I don't think she knows what that means, but she did seem to enjoy it. She knows that word "museum" from Olivia, but she thought that she would also get to see baby horses, which ... not so much.

She probably thought this because this is what we did the weekend before last:


The Royal Winter Fair, where she got to feed goats and, yes, pat horses. (I think they may have been ponies, actually. Or, at least, very small horses.)

And the weekend before that:


We saw the new baby giraffe at the zoo. (I say "new." It's taller than Pd, who is six feet tall. I suppose that's small for a giraffe.)

So it's not as though we're depriving her of experiences, or of things that she enjoys. It's not difficult, actually, to find fun things with her; the problem is that one have to keep finding or doing them, and at some point I need a nap.

straights vs circulars

We had a cold snap yesterday! It's still cold today, but yesterday it was positively winter — the temperature actually went into the negative and everyone scurried around in winter gear: coats with fur-lined hoods up, chunky scarfs, mittens and boots and bright red cheeks from the wind.

Of course, by March this selfsame temperature will feel positively balmy, but we're still in the onset of winter, here, so everyone is bundling up for the long haul.

I had been delaying knitting a new neckwarmer/cowl for the Spanish Inquisition. (Her daycare requires it, in that they prohibit scarves — a strangulation hazard. I'd like to tell them that my daughter is hardly Isabella Duncan, and there's a subtle difference between a short chunky knit and flowing silk beneath spoked tires, but I doubt anyone will listen.) I'd meant to knit it out of Dream in Color Starry, or some other kind of sparkly yarn, but I hadn't had time to buy it yet — so I kept putting it off.

Until it got cold, and I felt guilty that her neck would be unprotected. So I grabbed some leftover baby alpaca sport (which, don't let the name fool you, is actually a bulky yarn) and knit one up right quick. Because time was of the essence — I had about two hours to knit the whole thing — I decided to knit it on my 6mm straights instead of DPNs.

(I wish I'd taken a picture for you. But I finished it and went straight to bed, and now it lives exclusively at daycare, so I lost my chance. Just imagine a purple tube in 2x2 rib about the size of a toddler's neck.)

And ... it turns out that straights are so cumbersome! I never used to think this before. I learned to knit on straights — these particular ones, in fact. And I'd loved them. I only stopped using them because I've been knitting things that are bigger than I'd feel comfortable putting on a straight needle, and Pd had given me a set of Addi interchangeable circulars a year or two ago. But now, I kept noticing how the straights would bang into my elbow. Or the table. Or how I would have to really arc my knitting wide when I changed sides. And heavy! And I would think, really? I actually preferred this?

I will probably still use my straights when I can, or when it's convenient to do so. I want to rediscover my old habit. I have some lovely bamboo and rosewood pairs, the latter of which are so lovely that I will actually pause my knitting just to look at them. They're warm, and supple, and feel so much more personal than aluminum. And I firmly believe that tools get better when you use them.

All that being said, this is my current knitting obsession:


Manos del Uruguay Fino (yes, again), in "Ivory Letter Opener," on, yes, Addi Interchangeables. I had something very specific in mind, so I'm designing it myself. Miles of stockinette — again — but broken up just enough by the texture of the seed stitch. Creamy and lovely for cold days and nights.

(The picture at the very top is technically Christmas knitting, which I have abandoned in favour of the Manos right now. Luckily there is still some time. I loved the gradients so much when I spread the skein out that I had to take a picture. It is SweetGeorgia's tough love sock in "Shipwreck," and it knits up in a reasonable stripey fashion.)

FO: Roo

Here, finally, is the Spanish Inquisition's new purple sweater-coat:

The penguin buttons/bribe totally worked; she loves them, and they don't disrupt the pattern too much (and the button band makes the jacket close fully, which is good).  I originally envisioned it as an early fall jacket, but it's too cold for that now, so she gets to wear it as a cardigan. Which is fine. She's worn it a couple of times since Thanksgiving, and it fits perfectly — which makes me feel a bit better for insisting on re-knitting it in the 24" size, as this means that the original (22") really was far too small. I would have preferred a longer length, but it's hard to adjust on the fly.

This coat has a garter border at the bottom of the coat and somehow, I managed to knit a different number of rows for the back and the two fronts — and not notice until seaming. This means that I even blocked it without noticing the discrepancy. Luckily the fabric is very dark (this photograph was taken in nearly-full sun), and the Spanish Inquisition moves around a lot, so I don't think anyone will notice. But I'm a little appalled that I managed to do that. It's not like the pattern doesn't give me the exact number of rows I should be aiming for.

The only other problem was that the penguin buttons are very, very skinny, so they kept slipping out of the buttonholes as knit. (I used a simple double yarnover-k2tog). I sewed the holes tighter when we got home after Thanksgiving, and now they're fine.

The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, which is 50% wool and 50% alpaca, in the imaginatively named "Deep Purple," between 2.5 and 3 skeins. 4.5mm needles. The pattern is Roo from Twist Collective, by Kate Gilbert.

fly-by update

What a week. Work has been busy, not least because I've had to take some time off because home has been busy — various members of the family (including me) had various appointments that couldn't be shifted, and so we've started earlier, stayed up later, and paradoxically worked less, time-wise, than usual this week. I wrote a very simple, fairly irrelevant post earlier this week; Blogger ate it, and I've had neither the time nor the inclination to write it again. (It really was negligible. It was about the Spanish Inquisition's hats.)

We took the Spanish Inquisition to the new aquarium last Saturday! And the picture above is the only photograph I'm ready to show you. I know: there are sharks in there, and sawfish, and giant Pacific kelp, and I'm showing you ... jellyfish? But they were beautiful. And they photograph well; always a plus.

Meanwhile, this is what I have been doing this week:

This is roughly how much of a fingerless mitten one can get through when forced to sit still (more or less) for three hours or so at the doctor's office. The pattern is Sherbet Lemon by Ysolda, and the yarn is Alisha Goes Around, Richness of Martens in the "Genevieve" colourway. 2.75mm needles. It was a sock club yarn that I've been saving for something special; I love the colour but I thought that it would be wasted on socks. These are much more fun.

I aded an extra half-repeat so that it goes (roughly) up to my elbows; that's why the beginning of the cable looks slightly different from the original pattern. If I had to do it again I would sit down and plan the tessellations a little bit better, but this isn't bad, and I was anxious to get started. I actually finished them today; in fact I'm wearing them now. And oh, they are so lovely; there's 15% cashmere and 10% silk in the yarn. It's been getting down to the low single digits here in the mornings, and so these will be perfect.

I have also the never-ending sweater (doesn't it seem like I have one of those every fall?) and the Spanish Inquisition's Olivia Petit, which is almost done. I really only have about an inch and then the sleeves to go, but sleeves are never terribly fun, so I'm finding it a bit of a slog. (Also: the alpaca, while lovely, sheds as I knit it, and I am big enough now that my knitting is generally resting on my bump ... which means that, every time I knit it, it looks like I went and rubbed up against some particularly-hyperallegenic cat. So I have decided that they are not really good as subway- or work-knitting.)

And then there is also this (although technically this is cheating; I did these last week):


Yup. (Canadian) Thanksgiving is over, which means it's time. This year I am attempting to be rational about it all and to do a little bit frequently, instead of trying to create 60 cards in the span of a week. So far I am only averaging perhaps a few cards every two weeks, but even then, that puts me ahead of where I usually am. These are being left for now; I've got my eye on a stamp I want to emboss on the top, but I have to wait until the One of a Kind Show in late November to actually get it. Perhaps this year will be the year I actually learn to use the embossing gun effectively.

thankful

I know that I am a little late posting this. I needed to wait for Pd to stop hogging the computer* so I could offload (and then upload) some photographs** so that this isn't completely boring, and it took a little while.

* By "hogging," please read "using the computer for his kick-ass programming skillz that actually helps pay the bills around here." My first-generation Air (which is what I am using right now) is no longer capable of supporting my photo -taking and -editing habit, so we got a shared desktop a few months ago. We have an agreement, actually, that I can use the desktop pretty much whenever I like, but it's a lot easier for him (and better for his back) to program with the big screen and proper chair ... and I feel kind of bad kicking him off to support my emphatically nonprofitable blog, while he works to keep me in knitting and crafting supplies (not to mention food). So I am happy to wait.

** Yes, this means that I actually used the proper camera this weekend! The iPad is convenient but the lens is rather soft, have you noticed? Of course, what happened then was that the Spanish Inquisition stuck her fingers on the camera lens while I was packing, and I forgot to wipe it clean, so for the first hour or so I was completely flummoxed as to why I couldn't focus properly, even on manual. Soft focus or toddler smear? — ultimately, it's all the same, really.

Anyway, it was Thanksgiving, and I am most thankful for my favourite two people in the world:


Sometimes we are sleep-deprived, and sometimes we are cranky, but for the most part we are all happy and silly and content, and when one of these people grins a silly grin at me, my heart explodes with joy.


(And yes, that is the purple sweater, take 2. The penguin buttons/bribery totally worked. Details later.)

cold hands call for desperate measures

I am usually a very ... obsessive kind of person. (A small strain of OCD runs through my family. It was such a relief when I heard that.) I am the kind of person who can have the same thing for lunch every week. I change up my clothes, sure, but practically everything in my closet is either black, grey, a shade of white, or a shade of blue. I have very recently begun branching out into — wait for it — purple. (By "branching out" understand that I mean I have one cardigan, one shirt and one dress.) I listen to the same album on my iPod over and over until I am finally sick of it. That usually takes a few weeks.

The only exceptions are books and knitting. I am usually reading two books at a time. I don't know why; maybe it's a remnant from grad school. And I usually have a bunch of knitting projects on the go. I have two blankets — a Moderne Log Cabin, and a mitered square (made out of remnant sock yarn) — I've been working on both for three or five years, respectively, and they're too big to be portable anywhere, so they stay at home and get worked on during long winter evenings.

Actually, I thought the sock blanket would be done by now. I'd say I'm about a third of the way through. Part of the slowdown was that I'd stopped knitting socks for a while, so I didn't have any new yarn to add, and I have a thing where the same yarn can't be too close to each other (OCD, remember?) and the problem-solving was driving be mad. I am really hoping that it's not going to take another 10 years to finish.

I don't really count those as "projects." They're just ongoing things in the back of my mind. Actual projects right now are my Fino sweater, which is coming along (but also not, because it's a full-size adult tunic in fingering yarn; I'm small but not that small) and another sweater for the Spanish Inquisition.

I may have panicked a little when the cold weather came. She had a big growth spurt in July, and I think she's having another one now, the upshot of which is that none of her old, pre-summer clothes fit. Which is fine, but I wanted to make sure she had sweaters. This is Olivia Petit, by Connie Chang Chinchio; she got one last year, too.

(Her father destroyed that one in the wash. Fun fact: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend felts like a dream. The thing went from fitting a one-year-old to practically doll-size. The buttonholes were so small that there was no physical way the buttons could get through. Pd felt bad about it, but it really was awesome, in the traditional sense of the word. And anyway, she'd practically grown out of it by then. But she'd loved it, and it was well used; that's why she's getting another.)

This one is Cascade Eco Duo, an undyed 70-30 merino-alpaca blend that's also not machine washable, but Pd says that he's learned his lesson now. I discovered it last winter and it's become one of my go-to yarns for toddlers — super soft and warm.

All this is to say that I'm not big on knitting monogamy, although right now even I am having a little trouble juggling all of my projects. I keep my number of projects in check by keying it to the number of available stitch counters. This is feasible because I very rarely buy knitting notions; I tend to feel guilty about the amount I'm spending on yarn, and the easiest way to lower my total at the cash is to drop the knitting notions.  Right now, I have three. Two are being used in the projects above, and the third is with a shawl project that's been ... "resting." (It begins with an 8-stitch lace border that's repeated 70-odd times. I crapped out around repeat number 40.) I can't remove that marker because there really is no way to recover if I lose the number of repeats I'm on.

So I shouldn't start anything, is what I'm saying. No stitch markers, no new projects. I only have two hands, Christmas is coming; I want these sweaters done before the snow hits. How much knitting time do I even think I have?

But it's starting to get cold now, especially in the mornings, and I have this beautiful skein of Alisha Goes Around Richness of Martens that I've been saving up, and I finally found the perfect fingerless mitten pattern for it, and ...



Oh, screw it.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone!

naptime is for cooking

(nb — I started this post two days ago. That's kind of what my life has been like recently.)


In honour of Marcella Hazan — although, truth be told, I have no idea which book or class this comes from. This is her bolognese sauce, more or less (perhaps even her "famous" one, according to the New York Times obituary), though I doubt she would acknowledge it as such. My knife skills, patience and available time being what they are, I utterly fail at making a proper soffritto — and anyway, I rather like the rustic look that identifiable chunks of carrot and celery give. So: diced onions, yes, as small as I can stand to make them, and fine for the home, but it would probably make a true gastronome weep.

Anyway, this has by our go-to bolognese sauce for years, since my brother-in-law made it for us many winters ago and I cribbed the recipe from him. (I have no idea what the state of his soffritto is — although, knowing him, it is probably meticulous and excellent.) We make it all the time, almost always only in winter, and the first one of the season always feels like the start of something — an acknowledgement of the incoming cold season, maybe. Just the smell of it makes me think of snows outside, the smell of frost, the comfort of the warmth indoors and the quality of winter light.

It's the sort of food that is deeply, almost sacrilegiously out of place in the warm months, and its reappearance made me happy — even though it also meant, inevitably, the reappearance of woollies and cold and being able to see my breath in the morning.

(Pd says that we've been having a mild fall. I say we haven't been experiencing the same season at all.)


I've finally finished version 2 of the Spanish Inquisition's Roo coat. (The above picture was taken yesterday, when I was about 20 rows from the end of the second sleeve.) It's going into a Eucalan bath and getting a wet block tonight. Then I'll knit a button band and put those penguin buttons on it. The toggle closures were actually one of my favourite parts of this coat, but ... I've knit this coat twice now and I want her to wear it. I am not above petty bribery, and the kid loves her penguins.

things undone

Last week was a bit of a doozy. It started out fair, if tiring — why I no longer remember — and ended with a small medical emergency in my family and a lot of dashing back and forth. Rest assured, everything (and everyone) is reasonably fine — but it didn't leave a lot of time for getting on with things. In fact, everything that could be dropped, was (and so were some things that probably shouldn't have been, probably).

For instance, I have not really knit. I have my traditional fall sweater:

I'm a few inches farther along now; I've divided the sleeves from the body (it's a raglan), but fundamentally it looks about the same. I am loving the yarn, though: Manos del Uruguay Fino, 70% merino and 30% silk, in "Silhouette." It looks like a lovely green darkening to turquoise in artificial light, and exactly the colour of wellworn denim in the sun.

It is also an adult sweater-tunic knit in light fingering with 3mm needles, though, so I wouldn't expect this to be finished any time soon.


Another example of things undone: garlic. I'd meant to plant garlic this year. I didn't get around to it last year; the year before I had merely plugged some conventional garlic into the ground (it may have been locally grown, but I honestly don't remember), but this year I was Going To Do It. Growing garlic is ridiculously easy: you plug the cloves into a plot of ground in the fall, then summer comes and you harvest. The demands on the soil are light; there aren't really any required amendments, no trimming or deadheading. And the more harvests you make, the better garlic you get.

The devil, of course, is in the details. I'd meant to buy order proper garlic online (likely 'Music,' which seems to grow well in Ontario), but the growers didn't take orders until late summer. Ah, but I was sick throughout August. I checked last week and they had stopped taking orders for 2013.

Okay, I thought. I can probably get some at the Garlic Festival. Which is a great idea and would absolutely have worked if only the Garlic Festival hadn't happened two Sundays ago.

I want to plant tulips this year (that got missed last year, too), but we were too busy this weekend to buy the bulbs, so we'll see. I do remember one year that I actually put them in the ground on my Remembrance Day holiday, so there's time. But there's also the distinct possibility that the universe is trying to tell me that salvaging the fall is pointless; I might as well skip directly to winter — for these came in the mail last week:



... which is a little discombobulating, even for me. (And I am sharing it with you so that you may be as freaked out as I.) I read them, of course — I always do — but it still feels a bit wrong. Like starting to cram for finals in February.

our little dictator of cute

A few days ago, I was using my iPad to check the weather forecast before we went out, when the Spanish Inquisition noticed what I was doing. This is what happened next:

SI: Mummy take a picture!
Me: No, sweetie, mummy's just checking the weather.
SI: Mummy take a picture NOW!
Me: Oh, you want me to take a picture of you eating a snack?
SI: Yeah!
(I go to the other end of the dining table and prepare to take her picture)
Me: Okay, say ... Hi, mummy!
SI: HI MUMMY! (pause) Want to see!
(So I show her the picture, and then move to take the iPad away)
SI: No, want to see AGAIN!

So here, courtesy of her Royal Cuteness, is the Spanish Inquisition having a snack (and mugging for the camera):


It's a little blurry because while she likes posing for the camera, she hasn't quite grasped the concept of holding the pose. So now, instead of a lot of blurry pictures of her running, I have a lot of blurry pictures of her grinning.

Like everything else, it's a work in progress.

In this picture, she is wearing the green dress that I knit last week — Spud & Chloë Sweater. about 2.5 skeins, pattern out of the Vogue Stitchionary and my own brain. Strawberry buttons at the top. It's a sweater dress and goes down to about her knees — but I haven't managed to get her to stand still long enough to have any pictures of the bottom half yet. Rest assured that there is a bottom half ... and that she's wearing pants. Usually.

royal purple princess rabbit

The Spanish Inquisition's favourite colour is purple. Consequently, there's a lot of that going around our house right now.


The matching wasn't actually on purpose, although I don't think Pd believes me. The dress on the right is from Roots, which so far she has refused to wear, but I am harbouring hopes. (The upside of having a toddler with definite opinions is that she changes her mind like a toddler — which is to say, like the wind.) The knit on the left is  Roo, from Twist Collective.

I have had this pattern queued since before the Spanish Inquisition was born — since before I was even pregnant. I even waited patiently until she was old enough to really do it justice (it's not really a pattern for babies, is it?). She had a growth spurt earlier this summer, and it's become obvious that not a thing from her spring wardrobe is going to fit her this fall, so it was the perfect time. The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca in "deep purple," which was surprisingly ideal; I was worried that the alpaca would be too drapey, but the merino and tight twist firm it up and it has the proper coat stiffness.

And ... it's too small (and she hasn't even worn it yet!). I'd measured her chest; it's about 20" (which, yes, is like the 18-month size, but she's a skinny bean). I knit the 22" size, to be safe, and for once I cannot even blame gauge because — and I never do this, really — I made a gauge swatch and I blocked to measurements. To measurements! And yet, it's too small. I tried to see if we could repurpose it as an open-front cardigan, but the armscye is too tight to be comfortable and she wanted it off right away.

So, no go. It breaks my heart to have to take it apart — it's a beautiful coat, it really is — so we're going to keep it for the kidlet, or give it to someone if the kidlet turns out to be the kind who doesn't like purple. It won't go to waste. And, meanwhile, I had a lot of the same yarn left over, so I am going to knit another one. A bigger one.

(I told my mother all this, and she laughed at me. It's all her fault, really: when I was growing up, she would buy or knit things for me to "grow into." Except I never grew as fast as she anticipated, so things were always baggy or too big — and now I hate baggy clothes and knit almost all my sweaters with negative ease. She's still at it, though. She likes to buy the Spanish Inquisition clothes, but this fall she's decided to up the ante to 3T so that she can "grow into it," and I've had to tell her that, yes, she will ... next year. I've now started a drawer full of 3T clothes that we can pull out when she's big enough. It's actually very useful, given the Spanish Inquisition's sudden growth spurts. But there really isn't a way to make snowpants that are three inches too long "work," and yes, we tried.)

Anyway, I haven't started yet, because while the knit itself was enjoyable (the first time), the second time 'round it's just ... demoralizing. And I've got all this to give my attention to:



Maybe I should consider doing the 3T thing after all.

easing back into it

It's that time of year again!


Okay, no, it really isn't. That would actually be a little insane; even I know that. Although — all of my "October" nesting magazines have arrived, and they all have ads on the back for their November/Christmas/entertaining issues. So it's not outside of the realm of possibility.

It's just that it's been literally years. Remember how I was going to sell some of my designs? And then I was completely bowled over by a bout of flu right at the beginning of December ... and then I got pregnant ... and then I had a whirling dirvish of an 18-month-old ... and now it's three years later, and I still haven't finished the cards I'd pre-printed in 2010. (You can see them, in the top left of the photo, the gold and red.)

So maybe it's about time. I've been feeling the itch for a few days now. Also, I'm trying to plan ahead. I think, by the time Christmas-card season rolls around, I'm going to have a bit more trouble leaning forward. And this way I can do a few at a time, instead of trying to mass-produce everything inside of a week; that part was always a bit insane (but very characteristic, admittedly).

I spent a couple of hours last night just doodling calligraphy, practicing swashes and getting my hand back. I'd forgotten how lovely and relaxing calligraphy can be.

(I just realised I'd promised you knitting, oops. There will definitely be knitting later — I just finished a sweater dress for the Spanish Inquisition; you can see it (the green thing) at the top of the photograph. I just need to get my act together and actually take pictures of things.)

catching up

The weather has turned cold, I'm wearing my beloved jackets and wooly socks (sometimes) again, so — it must be fall, and time for me to get back to blogging.

(I say this, and we are in the middle of a one-day heat wave — 40-degree Humidex and everyone is running for air-conditioned cover. O well. At least the light is right.)

I didn't mean to go dark. To be fair, that means almost nothing; I never mean to go dark. This summer passed in a haze of fatigue and nausea, which would have made me entirely cranky if I hadn't been too sick to have moods. (Pd will probably tell you that this is not true. I had moods. I had, in fact, two that I spent a great deal of time veering between: tired, and difficult. Oh, and hungry. Is hunger a mood?) Anyway, it's very hard to blog when one is trying to either a) sit very, very still whilst avoiding looking at the computer,  or, better option, b) lying prone on the sofa, so: no blogging. And, sadly, not much gardening, either, so the garden is a right mess that I have washed my hands of until next spring.

 Because, yes, absolutely, I think it is going to be so much easier to garden when we've got a toddler and another wee kidlet. I'm starting to imagine the garden as something akin to retirement planning — and by "akin," I really mean "part of; not executed until." This could be applied to other things, too, like "time," or "positive bank account balance."

Meanwhile, the Spanish Inquisition turned two. She continues to be a reasonably happy kid, and we are very lucky that, so far, the two's have not hit the terrible stage. On the other hand, there is definitely a palpable change from, say, 18 months. To whit: the kid runs (see picture). She started walking later than usual, and so is making up for lost time by being speedy. Consequently, I have lots of summer vacation photographs, not so many not-blurry ones. And even then, they are usually of her moving.

Enough, now. I'm still organizing photos back into Flickr so it will probably be a couple of days before the next post, but I will be back. I have so much knitting to show you! The kidlet is due in winter, so my mind has been living there — that's what pregnancy does; it collapses the seasons in between. So I have been planning and planning, and knitting like a fiend.

weekly bloom: rose in bloom

Last week was a wash, literally: so wet and wild that there was no gardening, nor gardening pictures, to be had.  All that rain destroyed the Oriental poppies, which had just started to bloom:


Poppies are not terribly robust flowers (though the foliage is fine), so the plants were flattened and pushed by the rain. This was the best picture I could get, and you see, it's lying on the ground. All of the other blooms have been smashed to pieces by the heavy rain. It looks like there may be a second wave of bloom, a very small one, in the next few days — but they'll be done for the season after that, I'm afraid. Which is a pity. Otherwise I'm very pleased, though; they're exactly what I wanted: white with deep purple streaks.

There was another peony, too, on the second shrub — the one I planted last year — and it was of generally the same shade and size as the first. I'm surprised at how well they match, and very pleased that it bloomed the first year, even if it's just one. The garden is fast establishing itself, finally.

Speaking of which: roses! The backbone of the front garden are the roses, which hem it on two sides. (The anchor is the serviceberry tree, which I can't do anything about. And I don't know what to call the lavender — carpeting, maybe? Filler?) I planted them in the spring of 2012, three species: 'The Fairy,' which are miniature pink roses, maybe a foot or two tall; 'Amber Sun,' which are slightly bigger and vermillion, and 'Graham Thomas,' which is the most traditional of the three, with big, robust flowers on a six-foot shrub. The first two roses took to their new digs like ducks to water, but 'Graham Thomas' merely sent out one lonely (but beautiful) bloom before dormancy in October.

It's still a bit too early for 'The Fairy' — although I can see the buds forming now — but both the 'Graham Thomas' and 'Amber Sun' shrubs burst into bloom this week. I was so excited that I ran outside and took some quick pictures yesterday, despite the dreary weather:





The 'Graham Thomas' roses are the most perfect buttery yellow, and there are oh, so many of them, and the 'Amber Sun' roses are as adorable (and prolific) as ever. And the best part is that they are both repeat bloomers, which means now that they've started, they're liable to keep going until fall. Which, again,  is just about perfect.