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Dear Ellen,

  Dale and I spent the first night in our new house last night.  We were very, very happy to do so, even if it meant sleeping on a low quality inflatable mattress.   While the sleep comfort was only a bit better than camping out on the property, there was a distinct advantage in having flush toilets, showers and refrigerators.  No furniture yet, but we start addressing that next weekend when we’ll drive a Penske up with our bed, the wine and our books.  (One must have priorities — yes, stash and needles are already there!)   It turns out we weren’t the first to take up residence though — seems we have doves nesting over one window, a wasp nest in the back and approximately 2 dozen toads living in the window well.  Lots of visitors too — the peacock showed himself (I saw the peahen too, but didn’t get a picture) as did this little bug (plus many other birds and some chipmunks of whom I did not get photos).

I knit for several hours out under the trees — finished this purple hat (now drying after a soak in Soak) and got about half way through the lettuce green scarf.  The hat will be for Warm Hats Not Hot Heads…it’s very nice.  I’m not sure if it’s for a guy or gal though — the purple may be more than most guys would want.

I also spent a lot more time watering our landscaping.  We’re trying our best to make sure the new plants can make it through the hot summer.  We’re soaking them each weekend and a young lady is coming during the week to give additional drinks.  Hopefully we can drop down to weekend soaks later this summer (as long as we don’t do the drought thing).  They’ve rewarded us with some beautiful color.

Just before we left I collected all the window well toads in order to release them into the woods.  I’m torn — do I do this every weekend?  Or do I let them establish Toadville in the window well?  They are safe from larger predators down there, and they have bugs to eat.  If I planted a few plants, maybe they would think of it as toad paradise.  I’m not sure…I kind of think that if we went through a dry spell, they’d dry up into toad jerkey.  Maybe I just need to rig a toad guard or put mesh over the window well so they can’t fall down there anymore.  What do you think?

A long week lies ahead of me…I’ll keep the farm in mind to help me make it through.  Here’s hoping that good toad kharma is on my side!

Love, Jan

Dear Ellen,

I can’t believe that spring is here.  I know you can’t either.  Of course, the fact that you still have massive piles of snow probably affects your view of things, but down here we have robins, daffodils and lots of mud.  The tree buds are swelling and some of the cherry trees are actually blooming.  The think I hate about spring being here is the loss of an hour this weekend.  I was tired enough without trying to manage the day without that hour.  And I had to drag myself out of bed before I was ready in hopes of going to be on EST vice DST.  If I don’t 4:45 AM will feel like 3:45 AM House tomorrow and that would not be a good way to start the work week.

I’m pleased to report that we will now be able to tell the direction of the wind at Fair Winds.  Our weathervane went on the turret this week.  Only problem is you have to subtract about 65 degrees or so from the heading as they failed to correctly align the directionals.  Oh well!  This one is easily fixed…and can actually be used as a learning point for when our inlaid wood medallion goes into our floor — something that cannot be easily fixed!  With this error, I think they’ll be extra careful to have the compass out when they put the medallion in!  We now also have interior trim through much of the house and garage doors…it all adds to a more complete looking house.  I am so eager to see it when the rest of the window trim goes on and the landscaping gets started!

I have finished a bit on knitting this week…not really that much volume, but hats do go quickly.  Yes, I’m working on another hat for Warm Hats Not Hot Heads, but the ones I finished this week were for an charity effort for Haiti where it is surprisingly cold at night.  These three will head off to join others to make the journey to help those still trying to recover form the earthquake last year…makes my concern for those in New Zealand and Japan even more acute when I realize how far from recovery Haiti still is.  I’ll be watching for an opportunity to help the kiwis and Japanese too.

The more complex project I’ve been working on is my Primula Shawl.  (Sorry, still no project page…in fact, I’m about 10 project pages behind at this point!)  I’ve added some extra rows of patterning to the project to use up the yarn and I’m pretty darned pleased with it for a first complex shawlette pattern.  I do have some real tweaking to do.  I want the ends to wrap more to the front like a faroese shawl, so just a bit of adjustment.  I love the color — the color for ovarian cancer awareness.  You may remember that Ann’s Hat was designed and knit for a friend with ovarian cancer.  (That pattern is up to 54 projects and is in 67 queues!)  This shawl is for her as she continues the fight.  All that’s left is the bind off and blocking.

Here’s a picture of the Blue Spiral Cowl that I knit from stash yarn using the pattern Spiraluscious.  Glad I had listened to The Knit Wits podcast where Princess Carin the Knit had problems with that one extra stitch.  I have to admit that if I hadn’t been watching for the problem spot, I probably would have done the same thing.  The way the pattern is written, it’s easy to misinterpret it so that you think you are to increase a stitch each time you do row 16.  Reading it very deliberately you realize you are only supposed to do that the LAST TIME you knit row 16.  Technically, it’s written correctly, but I do think it warrants a bit more clarity for those of us who have exhausted a few too many brain cells.

I still think of my cabled socks and the Sweater from Down Under as WIPs, but they are rapidly heading towards UFO status if I don’t get back to them soon.  I have the sweater ready to join me downstairs so I can match cabling down the sleeves while I work on them.  The socks come and go to PA with us in their nice little project bag.  At least they know I’m thinking of them.

I want to close with a book review.  When I saw a dog that looked so much like Ruby on the cover, I couldn’t resist buying a copy of  Knit Your Own Dog:  Easy to Follow Patterns for 25 Pedigree Pooches by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne.  It is such a great little book!  I want to start taking pictures of all the dogs I know so I can recreate them in yarn.  The book doesn’t walk you through the process of “matching” your actual dog’s coloration to their patterns, but really, it’s just a matter of modifying the color patterns, the actual body patterns don’t have to change.  The author’s have their own knitwear business in London and they export completed garments as well as writing some great patterns.  They have two earlier books centered on pet accessories.  These gals obviously both love their pets and they know them very, very well.  I love that the patterns are extremely realistic and as the authors point out, the patterns include “details specific to each breed.”  They look to be clearly written, achievable for an intermediate knitter (there is fair isle, intarsia and shaping at a very fine gauge) who also knows how to manipulate fabric with a sewing needle.  I love them!  There are patterns for terriers, working dogs, sporting dogs, hounds and non-sporting.  I can’t decide which is my favorite, but I’m partial to the terriers of course,  and the corgi and the westie crack me up.  I’m dying to cast on — but it will require some planning as I’ll need to break my yarn diet to do it.  (Though there is that clause about buying yarn for gift knitting!)  The introduction ends with the encouragement to “Stitch your bitch.”  When I first skimmed it, I thought it said, “Stitch, you bitch.”  And I wondered, how did they know?

Love, Jan

Dear Ellen,

One thing the Warm Hats, Not Hot Heads campaign has done for me is to allow me to make a pretty good dent in my yarn surplus.  As any economist will tell you, that is important to help stave off recessionary factors.  As I will tell you, it’s important to allow me to head off to Sock Summit this summer with plenty of room in my stash for additional purchases.  All eight of my hats came out of stash.  I’m pretty pleased with that.  And I’m pleased with my latest two contributions.  I cast on the first one Saturday morning while up in Pennsylvania.  It’s out of Classic Elite Moss and was a very fast knit.  I bound off while watching Despicable Me with Dale that evening.  I cast on the last one Sunday morning and finished it tonight.  It’s Classic Elite Kumara in a pretty aquamarine.  I made up the lace pattern as I went.  It would’ve been a faster knit, but some of that lace was trial and error.  I’ll put all eight hats in the mail the very first thing in the morning.

Our trip to PA included, of course, a stop at the building site.  It may not seem to have changed much to the casual observer, but check out that soffit, those corbels, the window trim!  And inside the mud-work has transformed raw dry-wall into beautifully shaped arches and corners to define our living spaces.  (AND a laundry chute!!)  We had hoped to see copper roofing on the porch, but the machine to install it didn’t get delivered.  It is now scheduled for this Wednesday.  Our wells are held up too.  The drill truck was having trouble moving around and bracing itself in the slippery red clay mud.  Ironic that too much water is preventing us from finding water.

Enroute to PA I worked on finishing my Spiraluscious.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful thanks to a shortfall of about 10 yards of yarn.  I should have been a bit more circumspect in needle selection.  The pattern calls for size 3s, but I chose to go with 4s as my yarn choice was a bit bulkier than the fingering weight called for.  (Okay, a lot bulkier — I’d call it a light worsted.)  I also should have taken the pattern at its word regards yardage.  My choice had 3 yards shy of the yardage called for.  (Okay, so one shouldn’t convince oneself that they always add a buffer to yarn requirements.)  I ran out of yarn 3 edge repeats from the end of the project.  I thought about ripping back and eliminating some of the last repeat of the body pattern, but instead got on Ravelry and went looking for people with the same yarn in their stash.  Hurrah for Ravelry!  I found someone with a remnant left over from a project they had knit and PM’d her.  She said she would be more than happy to send her remaining 21 yards in my direction.  Knitters are wonderful!  Of course, with the success of the WHNHH campaign, you already knew that!

Love, Jan

Dear Jan,

If you thought I was referring to hat knitting,  I couldn’t blame you.  I’m not; what I am talking about is the snowiest winter here in the Twin Cities in a long time, and that another foot of snow is expected by the time the current storm passes.

Sounds like a good excuse to knit.  Now I am talking about hats!  This one is Lacunae by Anne Hanson of Knitspot.  I modified her pattern, using chunky yarn so fewer cast on stitches.  I think it worked rather well, though next time I’ll read ahead and make sure I use a number of stitches that will divide nicely into the decreases for symmetric pattern placement.  Still, it worked out fine.  The yarn is Misti Alpaca Chunky in forest green, with size 10 needles and a 72 stitch cast on.

I also couldn’t resist when Jocelyn mentioned that she has cast on a shawl that has been in my queue and in my pattern library since last spring - Stephen West’s Daybreak.  I’m knitting it in Marisol Nuna (merino/silk/bamboo) in a shimmering brown and a complimentary blue.  This yarn is supple like bamboo yet has some life in it from the wool - I’m liking the way it is knitting up!   (The color in the photo isn’t right - more gold in the brown and a deeper blue would be closer.)

And, because we can’t live by knitting alone, some spinning.  I’m working on the rest of Nora, all of her black wool, hoping to get enough for a sweater again.  In order to minimize variation as I spin, I’ve invested in plastic weaving shuttle bobbins and a bobbin winder (learned this trick from Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls).  I’ll spin up all the singles, then will ply them all at once.

I love my gray Nora sweater which matches Selkie perfectly; this one will match The Poison Pawn.  I’m sure they will both keep an eye on me while it progresses.

And I’ll keep an eye on the snowfall.  Sigh.

Love,

Ellen

P.S.  By the way, the WHNHH effort is now at over 32% of Congress covered.  I am pleased!

Dear Jan,

I had a small but profound moment this morning.  No, it wasn’t when the endodontist rasped his way nearly into my sinuses in an effort to clean out my “unusually small root canals” on the tooth that is getting crowned next week.  It was about 45 minutes earlier.

I was sitting in the dental chair, waiting for the doctor to come and start the procedure, and listening to the radio station that was playing.  Rather, I was trying not to listen, as the morning talk show in which the DJ’s were inciting Vikings fans to eviscerate Packers fans (and vice versa) was not exactly a relaxing prelim to my root canal.  And that’s when I realized - it isn’t just civility in my politicians that I’m seeking with the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads campaign.  It’s civility with each other.

And I felt like I owed it to every person out there who is knitting a hat to simply ask to have the radio channel changed.  Not to make a fuss, or point fingers, just to point out that this nasty discourse dressed up as entertainment was not helping me relax, so it wasn’t helping the endodontist do his job, either.

I did, asking quite civilly and framing it up as the current channel wasn’t helpful to the procedure, and with no question and more than a little apology, the channel was changed.  And maybe, just maybe, some more awareness was raised.  It’s tiny grass roots efforts like this, repeated many times by many people of good heart, that will raise the standard of behavior for all.

It didn’t change the amount of ibuprofen I’ve needed to take over the course of today, but it did make me feel a lot better about myself and also about that entire office.

Love,

Ellen