Knitting Iris

Lion or lamb? What's it going to be?

Spring again. (morning)

Blue skies ahead. (afternoon)

Winter once more. (evening)

All on March 30th.  Looks more like we're headed for an April full of fooling.

The boys came down with the mix of fevers, a sniffle, and a nasty cough that's going around, so we came back home and spent Sunday mostly inside watching movies, playing computer games, plus a little sewing and knitting on my part.  We thought we'd be back on the mountain Sunday and, truthfully, it hurts a little, at least for C and I, that we couldn't. 

Lion or lamb?  The verdict is still out and your guess is as good as mine.

Just when you're thinking it's about time you should be skiing in your shirtsleeves and sunscreen.

Hey!  What happened?  The snow of the previous post melted off entirely later on that day only to be followed, early the following morning, by six inches more, the biggest single dump of snow we've had at our house all winter.   We woke with expressions of disbelief on our faces, quickly followed by grins and powder-crazed eyes.  So down the road we went... 

...finding ourselves, a couple of hours later, in knee deep powder, more in some spots, and even more coming down hard most of the day.  There was little else other than whooping and hollering coming from all directions on the mountain, and smiles all around.   Like skiing inside a down pillow, and just as soft when you fell, which was a lot.

 

It was the kind of day when, surely you can't help but long to be unencumbered by littler ones, and yet, you can only marvel at it all, especially at them up to their waists in snow.  I'm not entirely sure if I've ever really skiied anything like this before, certainly not when I was as little as they are, maybe only one other time at around age 18 I'd guess, and certainly never on tele skis.

And yet, Spring prevails.  You have only to see the pussy willows budding out in the parking lot at the base of the mountain to remind you.

Winter still.

Looks like we took the bikes and bus out a little too early.  Bare ground one moment, white an hour later, and back and forth.

Still keep finding myself underdressed for the weather.

Did you see Camilla's Converse are back in stock in some sizes, including mine. Uh oh.  And, her photo here (scroll to bottom), and here on Flickr, shows, so fancifully, the fickleness of spring weather.

Trying new things.

In 20 years of knitting, a very first attempt at intarsia.  Not bad.  Not great.  Not sure I enjoyed it.  Probably would have helped if I'd read some instructions first before doing it.  I think I did some sort of hybrid intarsia/stranded knitting combination.  Could have duplicate stitched it on afterwards.  Instead I learned something new.

First attempt at molding chocolate.  Never knew I wanted to until seeing Amy's post here.  Was too late and too close to Easter to order candy molds from here, so almost gave up on the whole idea.  Until I walked into...you guessed it...my trusty local thrift store and right there was a box full of candy molds, one of them the one for these bunnies, for only 50 cents.  A few days later a chunk of good, bulk chocolate was dropped into the mailbox by trusty, chocolate loving friends/neighbors.  Again, they turned out not bad.  Not great.  Not sure I want to really get into doing this. If I do, apparently I need to learn a thing or two about tempering and need a chocolate thermometer.  The boys at least thought the easter bunny did a good job of making them, giving them higher praise than the Lindt ones. Not sure I agree with that. 
What's going on with the changes over at Typepad???  There seems to be some sort of new blogging (not sure if I have the correct word here) interface. Guess it'll just be yet another new thing to learn about. 

Easter 2008. Over and out.

Dyed with onion skins, red cabbage.  This year, each egg tied up in a length of nylon stocking to hold the cilantro leaves as resist.  Of course, you could do this with packaged egg dyes too.  Too late, I noticed that Nova Naturals carried a natural egg dyeing kit this year for what I thought is a very reasonable price that we might have to try out next Easter. 

The easter bunny leaves a wooden egg in the boys baskets each year, as well as one for each of us adults.  Painting them makes for a fun easter day craft together.  Names of who painted them and the year are written on the bottom of each egg.  Most of them were painted with acrylic craft paint but, since we didn't get around to dyeing eggs until Sunday, the leftover dye was used as watercolor paint this year.

A colony of rabbits.  Even E (5), who often opts out of doing crafty stuff with us, liked making and playing with these.  Again, from a previous issue of Family Fun.  He made one of these nests made with yarn and liquid starch with my help, too.

And, another colony of rabbits.  R (8) liked making these ones which require a more steady hand, more cutting experience, and patience while the glue dried.

A paddling of ducks.  These ones I did.

All the wooden parts were ordered from Casey's.  Much of the painting of the beads I did ahead of time with acrylic craft paints and with a water-based clear coat on top.  You can buy prepainted ones, too.  Usually, I've been able to find wooden pieces for crafting locally, that is, until the Ben Franklin closed down about a year and a half ago and "frankly" I've felt a little lost without it.    The good news, though, is that it's reopening early next month and I'm curious to see if it will be as well stocked as the old one was with the kinds of things we often use.

As for Family Fun magazine, I've said it before and I'll say it again.  There are some great ideas and inspirations in there if  you can wade through and see beyond all the Disney promotions, advertisings, and things like the Bunny Racer school classroom treats that look like roadsters, assembled from Hostess Ho-Ho "cars", with SweetTart "wheels", a Lifesaver "steering wheel", Skittles headlights, and with a Peep rabbit "driving" to top it off, all glued together with icing.  I don't envy the teacher who gets stuck with a classroom full of students strung out on those.  

"In this technological world, it's these personal touches that reach out to us." -Ms. Green Wellies

I've been remiss in posting about this.  Awhile back  Ms. Green Wellies posted a picture on Flickr of these amazing egg cozies she'd thrifted, offering them up to anyone who claimed them.  Well, I immediately thought to myself, "Hmmm.  Those look awfully familiar from somewhere" and then, "Aha! In my Flickr favorites already, right here!" I'm afraid I may never have given proper thanks for these, for they arrived in the midst of a particularly hectic week and then, well, you know, a month or two goes by just like that. 

So, here is my official "Thank you", Barb!  Can I quote you again?  "In this technological world, it's these personal touches that reach out to us."    Your posting that picture and then sending these along my way is just the right mix of the technological and personal touch.  They're so detailed for how wee they are, and they've made me smile many times as they've caught my eye, propped here and there these past weeks.  I've been looking forward to using them for their intended purpose as well only there was one slight problem: we had no egg cups, and these cozies deserved more than just your average plain white china egg cup.

So, these were added to an order I was already placing from here a couple of weeks ago.  They were painted with acrylic craft paints I had on hand followed by a few coats of a Behr water-based semi-gloss clear coat. 

Growing up, my breakfast frequently was a soft boiled egg, eaten with a tiny spoon, out of a footed egg cup only it was porcelain and in Porsgrund's Farmer's Rose pattern.  

Even the goofy wheatgrass eggheads we planted on St. Patrick's Day look so much nicer atop these than they did in a cardboard egg carton.

And, these-egg shaped sock darners have been floating around in the car, in my bag, and in the house ever since the not-so-smart wool incident a few weeks back.  (The one with the singing lady painted on it is one of the few things I have from my Nana's house, although it's unlikely she used it herself.  Sewing and the likes wasn't her thing.  More likely it belonged to her mother with whom she lived after my grandfather died.  The plain blue one I picked up second hand somewhere along the way.)  Naturally, they made their way into the easter festivities.  It was only a matter of time before the sock darners found their way together with the egg cups and the little sweater cozy from Weekend Knitting I knit up several years back around Easter time.

Other  egg  cups that caught my eye the other day.  Fortunately, I'm no longer in the market for any.  And, really, who really eats boiled eggs from an egg cup with a dainty spoon anymore?  Realistically, we won't do it often either, and we're going to have to snag the boys' play spoons when we do.

 

Grade AA Easter Sunday

Cookies made by C and E who stayed home Saturday while R and I spent the day skiing. 

Cole slaw made by me Easter morning.  In case you want to know, in no particular quantities:  Chopped cabbage, red, green or a mix of both. Grated carrot. Raw unsalted sunflower seeds, toasted first.  Craisins that have have first been covered with boiling water in a separate little bowl and soaked until softer, adding them and the soaking water to the slaw.  A couple tablespoons of raspberry vinegar.  Just barely enough mayo to coat.  Salt and pepper to taste. Yum.  I go through phases where I could live on this.

The easter egg hunt that lasted all of a few minutes this year, and thankfully so with how cold it was.  Weren't we outside tie-dyeing on Easter Sunday last year?  I know, I know, it was two weeks later last year but I'm finding it hard to believe it'll be so comfortably warm by then this year.

Egg dyeing didn't happen until Easter morning and leftover dyes were used as watercolor paints on paper and on wooden eggs.

You've just got to love good design.

An all-around nice, grade AA, mellow day with family, both here at home and together at C's sister's with her family.

Finding Spring

The thrift store stop of yesterday's post was really just one of the bonus asides of our trip across the border last week.

The real reason we went was to retrieve the ski coat that my dad had left behind at a restaurant up there the week prior.

The secret agenda of the trip involved running into the grocery store to sneakily get, below the boys' radar, some of these just in time for Easter.  I've never seen them this side of the border but they're everywhere in Canada, at least this time of year.

I also like to pick up a big, bulk-sized box or two of these whenever I'm up that way because they're way cheaper and then I can "import" them myself.  We didn't, however, go for the poutine at the DQ although, gosh, it was a little tempting just to find out what all the fuss is about.

We had planned on stopping here on the way home, to have lunch, and to throw rocks in the river.  Not sure what I was thinking.

We were a little underdressed.  So, instead, we stood around and ate our croissants and apples.  Fortunately, the snow was crusted over enough that you could walk on top without breaking through...much.

Snowballs and sticks were substituted for rocks.  That, and watching icebergs float down the river.

We did, however, find Spring on the way home, right on the side of the road.

Clear cold spring water, that is.  (You see folks, even semi truck drivers, stopping here all the time to fill their water bottles.)

Spring-like thrifting

Thrifted goodies, from north across the border again.

The sunny one on the right is even 100% cotton.  The pink on the left, I'm not so sure about the content.  Can't decide whether to cut into these sheets someday or use them as intended.

Just a small bit of this gorgeous barkcloth, which is much nicer in person.   The texture and colors of barkcloth really don't come across very well in pictures, do they?

I'm loving finding, and actually using, bits of vintage wrapping paper like these for presents, although I don't see them often.  When I do, they pretty well almost give them away.  Also, found two invisible zippers in the very length I was looking for, although neither are brown.  Does the color really matter if it's going to be "invisible"?  Scans of a couple of the papers, because they are so Spring-like:

A couple of knitting pattern booklets, too, including the pattern for THE SQUIRREL SWEATER Michelle thrifted for her son last fall!:

After poking around online for awhile, I'm feel pretty sure that this is long out of print and no longer available from the publishers, appearing to be for sale now only on ebay and through used book dealers, even though Patons and what I think could be the same Beehive  Wool still exist in some form today.  So, I think it's OK to share the squirrel chart here.  Feel free to let me know otherwise.

Sure, the pattern is written for size 2 to 12 but I'm thinking that if I don't want to have to wait until I have grandchildren, I'd better get knitting on this for E while he's 5 and still young enough to think that a squirrel sweater, handmade by his mom, is cool.  Either that or I'm going to have to knit one for myself, and somehow I don't think that'd be quite so cute.

Sign of Spring

Seen last week on the front of the meat case at the local market.  Along with the fine service, you get a cheery greeting like this AND porkies (huh?) for only $1.49 a piece. 

Even with "signs" such as the return of the robins and geese and swans and more, I wouldn't really expect that Spring will really spring for awhile still.  It was a chilly, windy, snowy first day here.

This long winter of cycling illnesses isn't over yet, either.  C was home with a cold today.  E was up much of last night in agony with an ear infection that Tylenol or ibuprofin couldn't even touch.  Ouch.  Warm olive oil and counterpressure were the only things that worked, and only for a few minutes at a time.  It's been a bit of a rough week with him, too.  Here we were thinking he was going through a stubborn phase and not answering us.  Of course, now, we can see why.  He wasn't feeling well and couldn't hear properly.  One of those "everything's clear in hindsight" sort of thing that we felt and suspected but couldn't quite put a finger on.  We started thinking he might need his hearing checked but never put it together with the possibility of an ear infection.  Duh. 

Anyways, after a trip to the doctor with E this morning, R and I were left with just enough time to catch the latter part of the Spring Equinox party at the Waldorf school: 

Yes, schools come in all shapes and sizes.  This one is in a yurt on a CSA farm, with no running water and a composting toilet, and with very few students.  Such a beautiful, bright, calm place to be.  Such lucky children and teachers who spend their time together there.

Happy Solstice to all, and to all a good night.