Revival

Soon after I began knitting, I discovered the concept of a "process knitter" versus a "product knitter." For most of my knitting years, I was firmly in the camp of product; I knit because I wanted the hat or sweater or shawl. This year marks 20 years of knitting, and I have more than outfit myself and my family in knitted accessories of all sorts. My sock drawer is at capacity, and even though I have slowed down my production somewhat, I have no plans to stop knitting.  Similarly, I have a closet full of handmade quilts that exceeds the number of potential beds and people to cover by quite a lot.

Now, I knit because I want to knit, and quilt if I want to quilt. I suppose that I'm slowly moving into the process camp; the act of making is more important than the product. I now choose projects based on what I want to achieve through the making. Sometimes, it's a plain sock to keep my hands busy, or because it's small and I'm traveling. Other times, I want more of a mental workout, and pick something with a chart or a technique I haven't tried before.

Yet, I'm still not there. I still follow patterns and don't take many risks. I still care if the finished project looks good enough to enter into the county fair or publish on Instagram. I need an output to prove that my time was not wasted. This is particularly true now, when I have so little "free" time.

Last summer I took an art journaling class. I hadn't taken an art class since college, and art journaling is something I've been interested in but never really started. The class itself was disappointing, since the instructor taught us how to reproduce her own work instead of encouraging us to develop our own style. But, it did spark something (and a minor hoarding of art supplies) and I have kept up with it. If anything, it has highlighted my tendency towards a usable (in this case, photogenic) finished product.

I have reached a point where I don't need anything, and I want to start experimenting. Part of this is embracing failure, and another is accepting that time spent playing is not wasted. I haven't fully realized what this means in practice, but it's something that I am keeping in mind as it gets warmer and I am motivated to get out from under my couch blanket.

This post will have a time stamp of March 17, 2020, and it would be odd not to mention that the world is in an unprecedented situation with the coronavirus. I am at home like most of the world, hoping that this all ends sooner rather than later, and eager to look back and reflect on how we all got through it. Making is an outlet for a lot of us during times of stress and I'm happy to have this coping mechanism!

Time Has Passed

Time has passed. You may have noticed the presence of an additional child in the picture above. I am far from the first to note this, but I miss blogs. Oh, I know blogs still exist, but the ones that peek into the lives of regular people, all over the world, are diminishing. I totally get it, hence the 3 year absence here. It's a lot of work, taking pictures, uploading them, writing, creating posts; and for many of us, that's on top of full-time jobs and bringing children endless amounts of snacks. I miss the creative community I can dip into while having spreadsheets open on my other screen. I certainly don't begrudge people who make a living from their blogs and websites, but there is a lack of authenticity and freedom there.

I recently finished Melanie Falick's Making a Life: Working by Hand and Discovering the Life You are Meant to Live. Misleading title aside - there is no mention of how to actually "discover the life you are mean to live" - I greatly enjoyed it. The book is profiles of many makers/artists, in mediums from pottery to leather to fabric. One of the featured artists is Tif Fussell of Dottie Angel. She explains how she created Dottie Angel as an alter ego, a part of her who could continue living her creative life while raising four small children. I love this idea, and hence, the revival of this blog.

Here is my alter ego, the part of me who wears handmade clothing out of adorably rumpled linen, who spends hours in the craft room without having to step out to clean up spills or find out why someone is screaming. The person who doesn't scroll on her phone at the end of the day, but picks up her artisan basket and dips outside to gather flowers from her organic garden.

And Through Winter

And then some other stuff happened. In August my whole family came for a visit, including my handsome nephew Hal. Here he is trying out a new mango skin treatment.

 

Mary and her cousin Elly (only 2 months younger) both became obsessed with ice cream sandwiches. (Photo courtesy Adam J. Ruhland photography)

Jason and I went to Quebec City. Oh, is this a story. Due to the world's worst airline (cough cough *Porter Airlines*) not actually being able to deliver us to the city we bought tickets to, we ended up missing a day of our vacation. We were instead treated to a scenic (not scenic, it was dark) 3-hour bus ride from Montreal and a several mile walk in the pouring rain at midnight through a very hilly city. So that was fun. It was nice city although I severely underestimated the French-speaking nature of Quebec. They are really into giant hotels there.

 

My favorite part of the trip was actually outside of the city. Montmorency Falls is taller than Niagara Falls, and I am aware of this because we walked all the way up the side of that hill/mountain there because I am not one to wimp out and take a cable car. 

We also went to Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier which is not a "national" park as in the nation of Canada, but a "national" park of Quebec which is not even a nation but whatever don't get me started. It was pretty much deserted but beautiful, and we walked several trails along scenic stuff like gurgling brooks and mossy trees. This is a boreal forest which I didn't even know about!

Then it was pumpkin time. Mary went trick-or-treating for the first time, and after a few shy starts she figured it out. "Wait a second... I hold out my bag and people put candy in it.... WHAAAAT". 

 

This is just a picture of Mary eating breakfast.

Then it was Christmas time. I vowed last year I would never put lights on a Christmas tree again because it is THE WORST so I got this pre-lighted tree and everything was much better. Mary continues to cluster ornaments on the bottom 1/4 of the tree, but she's short so I can't blame her. At least she doesn't eat them anymore.

 

Now it is now. Winter was not too wintery this year so I can't complain too much, but I'm still waiting for it to be over so I can start gardening. Mary cried when I told her we couldn't plant the pumpkin seeds because it wasn't warm enough yet. I know the feeling, kid.

 

Summer Living

Recently, I stood outside in the heat and blazing sun with coworkers at a work event, who were all complaining about summer. It's too hot, too humid, the sun is too bright. I don't know what's wrong with those people, because summer is the best. I used to be a fall evangelist, and don't get me wrong, I get excited about beautiful trees and ideal temperatures along with everyone else. But, fall doesn't last that long, and recently has been overrun by millennials drinking pumpkin spice lattes and insisting that leggings are pants.

Standing out on the metro platform in 12 degree weather, I feel like I might actually die. 110 degree heat indexes are no fun either, but still feel bearable if not merely uncomfortable. Being able to think "Hey, I'll go outside," and then 1.5 seconds later being outside, is priceless. Going to pick vegetables for dinner is priceless. Not caring that your toddler is covered in paint because you can just hose her off in the yard later is priceless.

This summer I've started trail running and I'm already dreading going back inside when the snow and ice hit. We've already been to visit sunflower fields, the water park, a friend's pool, and a local festival where Mary was very impressed by the fire station and "the man falling down in the water." (She continues to talk about the dunking tank. "Is he wearing shoes? Did his hair get wet? Is he wearing water pants?")

The garden was built over several weeks this spring, and I've already learned a lot: mainly, even though the plants looks scrawny and far apart to begin with, in a few months they will become a jungle and your friends will start to hate you for forcing so many cucumbers and zucchini on them. Winter is the biggest thing gardening has going for it. It's just long enough for you to forget how much work it is and how bugs will happily destroy all of that work in one night.

As a knitter I have to think half a year ahead, and today I ordered yarn for a super-warm Icelandic sweater. It's hard to imagine that 7 months ago it snowed four feet in one day; but at least I know as I shiver through another winter, 64 pounds of zucchini are looming on the horizon.

A New Home

Let me sum up: in October we moved from our townhouse to a house on half an acre, adjacent to 47 acres of farmland. The fact that we could move ten minutes away and yet be in another world continues to amaze me. I can see cows and goats just a few miles down the road! Moving consumed most of last fall, and my time has been spent painting and hanging curtains rather than sewing and knitting. I'm also almost finished building a 225 square foot raised bed garden.

Our new house also came with a cat, OC ("other cat"). He showed up one cold February day, pleading to be let inside. As a compromise we let him hang out in the garage in an old heated bed of Kiska's. Then we took him to be neutered at a feral cat clinic, and let him inside to recover. He never left. He had an old wound from another animal attack, which ultimately required cat surgery and weeks of recuperation. So, he's ours now! Kiska isn't thrilled but he's too sweet to release back into the wild.

I've also been working on another side project whenever I feel like it: Simple Living for Practical Humans.

That's the update! Between work, wrangling a small child, dealing with 2 cats, and house projects, it's hard to get photography in there. But I'm still here, still knitting, and will check in when I can.

Everything Since April

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yikes, it's been 4 months! Summer started and is happening. I finished up my blue Cruiser mittens pretty quickly, the thick yarn and easy-to-remember pattern certainly helping. I knit a little hole into the palm of one so that I can turn the pages of my kindle when it gets cold out. I also finished up the quilt I started for Mary before she was born. The bright colors aren't really my style, but in the end I'm OK with it. The pattern was quite easy due to mostly strip piecing and bulk cutting. I can't remember where I got the pattern from, but it's somewhere on the internet so it shouldn't be too hard to find, right? What took forever was the quilting. I did free-motion quilting across the entire top and I pretty much hated it. I really underestimated the physicality needed to push and pull a full-size quilt under a machine. No wonder people pay other people to do this for them! I will definitely go that route for my next large quilt.

We went to Sheep & Wool and I bought NOTHING. True to my new year's resolution, I have bought no yarn this year and have knitted completely from stash. This actually worked out well because I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up which made me want to get rid of everything. I sent a large bag of craft supplies off to live with someone else, and I'm working on clearing the decks of my quilting WIPs so I can pare down my fabric collection even more. The fabric I was attracted to and was available decades ago (yes, it has been multiple decades since I started quilting) isn't my style anymore. I have one quilt ready for quilting, and another one about 1/2 pieced.

After 6 years of being away, we went back to New Mexico for a wedding in June. We mostly stayed around Santa Fe, eating chile-based foods and looking at Southwestern scenery. I wanted to go back to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, which was smaller than I had remembered, but is worth a visit. The plaza was cheesy as usual, although perfect if you're interested in a dreamcatcher or t-shirt with a howling wolf on it. We drove up into the mountains for a short hike, which was brutal at 10,000 feet; the views were amazing, however. Oddly, one highlight of the trip was the Jambo Cafe, an African restaurant. Highly recommended.

Of course, there have been baby pools and bowls of cheerios on the floor and naps and reading the same books over and over and over. As Mary would say, "It's allllll gooooooood."

Blues

Blues have been living on my needles lately. A friend recently had a baby girl, and being a pink-sparkle avoider like myself, I thought I would make her a baby sweater in non-traditional colors. The pattern is Baby Tea Leaves, and the yarn is Malabrigo Arroyo in Azules. I made a similar one for Mary, and I'm really in love with this pattern. The pattern is written so clearly and the result is super sweet for a baby girl. I made the 12 month size and it eats up 100% of one skein of yarn, which is exactly how I like it. I actually knit the body first, then divided the rest of the yarn by weight for the sleeves.

Also now finished are a pair of Cruiser Mittens in Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb Worsted. I knit a small buttonhole into the palm of one so that I could turn the page of my Kindle when it's freezing out. The convenience of being a knitter! Oh, and I did modify this pattern a bit by adding a thumb gusset. I really don't understand when mitten patterns are written with no gusset, because last time I checked the width of your palm across your thumb is bigger than the width of your palm above your thumb.

How quickly you forget the cold. It's hard to imagine needing to use these now that it's spring. Sheep and Wool is coming up soon! I'm hoping to take Mary this year and introduce her to all the sheep. It's funny how tastes change over the years, and this applies to yarn as well. This winter I realized how much warmer plain old 100% wool is. So, I'm hoping to find some non-superwash wool and/or fiber for socks and sweaters. Even though I've forgotten the cold, it doesn't mean it won't exist again.

The Four-Year Blanket

In April of 2011 I had the brilliant idea to crochet a 100% wool colorful granny square blanket. Four years later, it's finished! Like with many of my projects I didn't really grasp what I was getting myself into. 28 skeins of wool = six pounds of yarn = almost 2 miles of yarn = thousands of stitches = 540 color changes = over 600 ends.

I used Knitpicks Wool of the Andes (the colors are listed on my Ravelry page here) and only had to order more yarn once, for the border. The pattern is Summer Garden Granny Square, although I only did 3 color changes per round instead of 4. If I had done 4 you'd certainly be reading this post two years in the future. A huge part of this project was joining the squares together; I crocheted them together instead of sewing them, which ended up looking great, but taking for-freaking-ever.

So would I do it again? I'll give you the same answer I gave after I ran a half marathon 12 years ago - "I'm never doing that again." I'm not opposed to crocheting a blanket again, but not granny squares. Joining a billion of those things together killed my soul. But now I feel so freeeee! This thing has been hanging over my [crafting] head for years now, and now I have so much more time to knit all of the things.

Now, let me tell you about the 3 unfinished quilts in my basement, one of which is over 7 years old...