norseland

We're doing a small relaxed holiday this year, spouse is on call, so staying in town. I'm looking forward to making a couple of pies tomorrow.

Went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival this past weekend at the U o MN. It's a great mix of high tension high athletic skiing, rock climbing, base jumping films along side thought provoking environmental and cultural films (i.e.: Mongolian horse racing, restoring monastic art in Tibet).

I posted this on facebook, but if you missed it, this is very worth four minutes of time. Amazing Nordic skiing matched to a funny geeky song. I don't know HOW they do these stunts on skate skis.



P.S. Knitting is going well, finished the Berroco sweater! Will post photos when and if we get some sunlight again, and working on a cowl out of the new Interweave. Hopefully will get a couple done by Christmas.

Been a while since I updated this blog. I've been a little distracted by Facebook lately when I give in to internet browsing time.

Things are mostly going alright. I finished two big parts of my giant house rehabilitation project. Now that they are done, I can put the house mostly back together. In the middle of a big "holeeee cow it snowed already, time to clean up the house before it gets colder". It's funny how changes in season inspire cleaning efforts. Spring and Fall are the big ones in our house at least. We've been greatly aided in the effort and inspired by a gift of a Hoover Floormate. Amazing machine. Our floors are cleaner than I've ever thought possible.

Knitting-wise. I thought I was stuck on the Berroco Nonpareil jacket I'm 1/2 way done with. But all it took was talking to an expert knitter who asked if I had "knit even for 6 inches" after the shaping part. OOooops. There's always some part of directions or recipes that my brain skips over. At least with this project it was an easy few inches to rip back and redo. On the Daybreak shawl I was almost done with I have to ditch 2/3's of it. The whole time I had a feeling I had skipped reading something probably very important, but it was too easy to keep going and ignoring that it wasn't increasing fast enough. Grrr. Story of my life: missing part of the directions. Honestly, I don't know how I got through school and life so far sometimes.

Good thing is that once I get a course correction I'm fine. Back section of the jacket is fixed, left front done, and onwards to the right front, sleeves (easy) and then putting it altogether and adding the collar and button band. The weather is perfect for knitting as it snowed again today!

It's been a while since I wrote a hello to you all who peruse this blog. I really love this form of communication in which one can wave a hello to people that one has met and enjoy spending time with in various parts of the country and social circles. And that you all can check in on at your leisure, and don't feel obliged to write back as e-mail works. Too many of my e-mails and letters start, "Sorry to have not replied in so long..."

Anyhow, the summer has been good. The goal was to get a plan for the direction our yard is going to go-- my mother visted in May and brought with a stack of garden books. Visiting the MN Arboretum and going on long walks in the neighborhood helped form an idea of what might work for our patch of weeds.

The veggie garden (most of it bought at the Friend's annual Plant Sale at the MN fair grounds) did well despite the heat and dryness at the beginning of the growing season. I did a grand experiment with several different kinds of heirloom tomatoes. I can highly recommend the Siberian and Omar's Lebonese. The first is a nice pasta/ salsa tomato, plum shaped and good flavor, not overwhelming. The Omar's Lebonese is a big hearty tomato with wonderful flavor brought out with balsamic vineger.

The Principe Borghese (roma style) are ok but small and bland for a canning/drying tomato. The Moskovitch is ok, but tended towards blossom end rot and cracking. Mr. Stripey is pretty good too. Then there's the brown cherry tomato from the Longfellow area Community Garden sale that has a really interesting sweet but not too sugary.

The Dinosaur kale did wonderfully. We have had more than our fill of greens in various dishes this summer. The basil and cilantro did very well too. Next year I hope we can build another raised bed and do cucumbers and peas.

---

Knitting! I think I'm in the swing of things knitting wise, pattern reading is easier, and I can figure out better how to make small changes to garments to make them fit me. I've got a stack of things I want to knit badly that will take me through next year I'm sure to make headway on.

Priority at this point is:

• Whisper Cardigan from Spring Interweave in Cascade Heritage sock yarn (moss green) (after ripping out half of it for resizing to the small) I'm half way to the 2nd sleeve and then the picking up for the ribbing to finish).


• Nonpareil from the Berroco booklet #288 in the scrumptious Donegal Tweed from Tahki Yarns. Slubby yummy tweedy wool.


• Stephen West's Daybreak shawl in two tones of Schoppel Wolle Zauberball. This may be my new obsession.


• several pairs of Maine Morning Mittens in Merisoft worsted merino from Clara Parks' wonderful Knitter's Book of Yarns


• Another eyelet hat from this fall's Vogue Knitting. Top down construction. The 2nd one will be slouchier as it is supposed to be.


• Finishing the Snow Devil Hat from Dominitrix now that I found the errata for how to pick up the sides of the hat. Knitting this with Dream in Color Classy held doubled in Vino Veritas. I'd like to do a 2nd one in a super bulky yarn as it's designed to be knit.


• Finish the sleeves and collar on the 2nd Knitting Pure and Simple Little Girl's Shrug before a certain someone's birthday

And then! oh goodness, learn to do Intarsia with a vergy geeky Warcraft Horde design for a felted bag. Then sit down and learn Fair Isle knitting with the flower mitten design from Piecework magazine.

Somewhere in there I'm scheduling myself to work full time on the house (cleaning the basement to prep for sealing the cement floor -- cleaning the upstairs to sand and prime and paint one of the bedrooms that is a dark blue currently and very dark in winter, and before it gets really cold -- prep and remove the lead paint frmo the window sills and trim boards on the poorch and bedrooms. I've been researching this for a few months now).

cheers!

I find I get a lot more solid knitting time in if I have something to listen to or watch. Kala (over at http://vegancraftastic.blogspot.com/) has a great rundown of knitting podcasts (scroll down for the links).

I habitually listen to NPR when I'm in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. There's so many programs that I miss or programs that used to play on the NPR station LA. Luckily, so many of these are now up on their website.

One that a friend turned me onto is the All Songs Considered podcast. http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=37&agg=1 . There's even entire live concerts that you can listen to. Amazingly good sound quality too for a free concert. = )

Been a while since I posted here. Things are going pretty well. I flew my mom out to visit for about a week and a half for a mother's day present. First proper holiday she's taken in years and years (besides retiring recently to work on her house full time while she thinks about what kind of part time job or something to do).

We had a mini family reunion with my mom's aunt and cousins, giving me a chance to meet my closest in age cousin again and make plans to meet again with her. Went to the MN Arboretum and the Como Park Conservatory and zoo. Had a great time at the Friend's Plant Sale. Since it's been so cold this spring I'm waiting until this weekend to plant the vegies and small wild flower 4-packs. I restrained myself and only got 11 tomatoe plants. Lots of russian heirloom kinds to try!

I thought I'd have more knitting time sitting on the porch with my mom, but she kept me going. The house is now cleaner than it's ever been since we moved in for one thing. I'm catching up on knitting time now, and 3/4 of the way through another KPS little girl's shrug in green Haze (the cotton/corn viscose blend), and starting that super popular Amy Singer scarf from Interweave, Montego Bay in Auracania fingering weight cotton yarn-- Lonco Multi-color -- turquoise blues and dark blue/purple. It looks like a tropical ocean, so pretty!

Hope you are all enjoying spring,
t.

(more photos next post, once we have the garden in!)

It's been an .. interesting week.. lets say. Things at home are going well. However, in the outside world sometimes human behavior drives me batty.

Anyhow, pictures! I finished a Bramble owl, from the Knitwit's pattern in a couple days. Was really fun actually. A fair amount of sewing up, but a good way to use up some stash yarn. It was made for a baby shower present for a really great woman in our knitting group.

Also, finally got a photo of the spouse's sweater-- Cobblestone by Jared Flood aka Brooklyn Tweed. Sarted it in December, finished in February, with a lot of other projects in between. Not too bad timewise. Was a really good first adult sized sweater to knit.



...we went to hear the Whiskey Wench at Merlin's Rest last night. Very entertaining and interesting. Won a raffle drawing for a memoir, "Scotland isn't for the Squeamish".

http://whiskywench.com/

Urgh.

I finished the second iteration of The Greenery cabled hat last night (yay), and still had motivation and time to keep knitting. So I fished out the vest I started only to find I was one stitch off. How? I undid the row, redid it, and still one stitch off. Figured it was something obvious, so picked up the slinky ribs sweater from Custom Knits. Grrr. Remembered I was stuck on flip flopping on if my guage was right or not, and which size to make, small or medium.

So, decided something small and super easy was in store to finish off the night. TA tea cozy from Jo Sharp's book. 2 rows of garter stitch and then the body in moss stitch (with a few other details). Cast on 52 sts. Ok.

Row 1: k1,p1 across. Ok. Even number of stiches. Ok. Repeat this row for 3 inches. What? That would be k1,p1 ribbing, which is CLEARLY not what is in the photo.

Feeling dumb and stupid, I put the knitting down and called it a night.

---

In other news, I cleaned up the fireplace. Last week we took out the insert with glass doors and vents that had been inside the fireplace. What was left was a big pile of ashes, dust and chunks of the clay flu lining that is falling apart. Wearing goggles and a face mask I got it swept out and vaccumed out. WHEW. The bricks look so much nicer now. The fireplace is one of those typical rustic brick bungalo ones with tiles on the floor in front of it.

Seems like spring cleaning weather is inspiring taking stock of one's life or things. The SB knitters I used to hang out with at Java Station are doing a HUGE big finishing or frogging assessment of their knitting/crocheting works in progress. The spouse and I got very motivated to restart the giant "get the house in shape" game which is mostly prioritizing what project to brainstorm or get part way through each weekend day. And Celestial over at http://nebuladesigns.blogspot.com posted a meme of 99 things. Like she said, memes can be chain-lettery annoying or rather interesting. This time I'll bite.

*~*~*

Things you've already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven't done and don't want to - leave in plain font

( 99 things )

Oooooh, that's how she does it. Someone posted this over at the Ravelry forums in response to someone marveling at how fast she gets through projects.



This reminds me of how http://vegancraftastic.blogspot.com knits, though when I boggled at her knitting style the other day, she seemed to attribute it to having been a crocheter first. It looks a lot like Ms. Pearl McPhee holds her double point needles.

I think I could get through projects faster if I cut down on some other ways I vege out. Are there any social groups of knitters that meet on the weekend? I dearly love you Tuesday night gals at Borealis but I'm often just tired and itchy to go home after working my shift there. When it stays lighter later into the evening, and we can keep the door open it'll be easier to stay longer. *grin*

Speaking of projects, I've been pretty good about sticking with the sweater and an starting on sleeves. yay. I've got several pairs of socks lined up for after that, and then to really start the Slinky Ribs sweater for me.

Somehow this super silly youtube video came up as a topic of conversation today. There's a spoof video if you search under "numa numa dance" of a pasty fat white kid dancing to this song. The original is even funnier.

A bit of fluff during some drastic and tragic news times. Happy (silly) New Years. Dance on!

odd, wrong youtube link I guess.

Hope everyone has survived the holidays and family time. It was wonderfully busy at Borealis. After surviving two Christmas seasons at a bookstore, I thought I'd be prepared for holiday time in retail. It wasn't at all as crazy as people trying to pick out children's books or trying to find the perfect war history book for the grumpy relative. The best part was seeing spouses of people I know trying to pick out the perfect knitting related gift with small children in tow. It was also interesting to meet out of town relatives of regular customers brought in to see the yarn. Inevitably one hears, "This place is big! There's so much yarn!"

I'm half way done with the mittens I've set myself to finish by this weekend: brushed alpaca fingerless mittens over Mission Falls DK wool mittens. They should be very warm as the person I'm making them for lives in Duluth, and spends a lot of time outdoors walking with her dog. I was inspired to try this project by L. of Geeky Knitting. The brushed alpaca is luscious, and much better than it looks to knit with.

I just wanted to share a photo of our tree, a Balsam Fir we found at the little lot down the street. A merry (and safe) New Years to you all!

The house projects are going along. Spouse is developing a definite skill with plaster and pulling wire to upgrade outlets and light fixtures. I was almost in tears of happiness when I came home from work one weekend and saw the new light in the dining room. This is the light we found for 70% off at a local lighting store, as it was the floor model.



The weather has been swinging wildly between lovely cool windy rainy days in the 40's and hot humid 75 degrees. Not what I remember as normal for mid October. On nice days, my favorite area in the house is still the front porch with the patio furnature my last landlord gave us.



I'd like to be helping more with the house projects, but have had more headaches than usual lately, and a lot of it is beyond my skill set. :( Anyhow, I'm nearing completion of the kid's tunic sweater:


The sleeves are almost done now, and just the hood left to do! After that I have some fun fast felted mittens to do, and then maybe back to a wrap for me. I need a break from plain knitting before starting another sweater.

Now if only this was the same weekend as the Open Source convention, the spouse and I would have a lot of reasons to head out to Portland, OR next summer.

http://www.socksummit.com/

---

Anyhow, there was talk today about the Oat Coture Curlicue baby blanket, and I mentioned that someone I used to have the pleasure of knitting with did a version that was crazy!

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/tellen/curlicue-coverlet

also, the Sarah Palin Name Generator:
http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html

So I have this great new sweater planned out, did the guage swatch, got an extra ball of the yarn just in case, got my provisional cast on, have my season 4 of House to cuddle up with and, grr, something wrong with the dvd drive. Anyhow, until the IT tech in the house is back to fix it, I'm catching up on old Daily Show videos.

This one reminded me of a joke that Amy from Tuesday night knit group was telling a while back about a night out bar hopping in Stillwater and all the *cough* Frat boy Douche bags that were trolling for company.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=156319&title=the-douche-vote

Anyhow, work continues on with the house-- plaster dust and open wires still around, but I think we just saved the clothes drier (redid the ducting properly and whoa it vents alright after all).

Next post I should have some more photos. = )

Happy Labor day to those of us lucky enough to get the day off. I've been lucky to work for either universities, government or independent businesses that are legally required to, or believe in the meaning of a day of rest for laborers.

Of course this means more time to work on the house! The spouse is in the middle of a giant renovation of our electrical wiring. The professional electrician started Wednesday and has been working almost 12 hour days! He lives just a couple doors down, so at least he can just walk home for lunch, and to get tools as he discoveres more fun! things to redo. Parts of it have been rewired, but some is still the original 1920's knob and tube stuff. Which isn't necessarily unsafe as long as it was done correclty. So we're replacing what needs to be done to outlets on seperate circuits etc...

I've been trying to clean out the patches of Stinging Nettles OUCH! After a couple accidental exposure of bare skin to nettles, I've been keeping my distance with a shovel and long handled weeder/ clippers. Serious weeds. It is amazing that one can make a really tastey tea out of the very young shoots.

I've also been having fun with this web site: http://lovelylisting.blogspot.com/ It's one of a couple of web sites making fun of shockingly bad listings of real estate.

Knitting? Yep, I'm finally figuring out what I was doing wrong with yarn overs, DUH! and am restarting my leaf-lace stole. In the mean time, I brought out the shadow shawl I started over a year ago and put away for a time I was in a better frame of mind to work on it. Once I remembered where I was and how the pattern went, it's flying along. Amazing what a difference a year makes in experience with a skill.

* bonus points for identifying the musical this line is from

It's a small step forward in the whole gardening project for the house, but I'm rediculously happy with the first bit done.



The cats are well settled into the new place, having staked out their favorite napping spots.

---

Project baby shower went well too. I think we were all in a sugar tizzy, everyone was happy giggley. There are photos here: http://vegancraftastic.blogspot.com/2008/08/wee-knits.html

---

OH also, was talking with the mama-to-be about this crazy school I heard about on NPR:
http://www.tinkeringschool.com/blog/

It is a sumemr camp in which kids are encouraged to use power tools and build things themselves. #1 rule is only one injury a day. Sample acitivies: take apart a dishwasher, build a bridge between two trees, build a motorcycle that works out of wood and metal parts!

How cool is this! Chiquitadequeso (very nice woman I met in my old knit night group) had the gumption to take her Red Dwarf socks to Comic Con and ask various geek celebrities to pose with the knitting.

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/chiquitadequeso/red-dwarf-socks---the-knee-high-version

or http://www.flickr.com/photos/85569453@N00/tags/comiccon2008/ for those non Ravelers

---

I'm very pleased to report I'm out of the old apt. and getting my full security deposit back, yay! The extra bathroom scrubbing was worth it. Now to put the house in some kind of order!

We were completely lucky over the weekend, after a 100 degree 80% humidity day on Friday capped by a thunderous storm, Saturday developed as promised by the weather people as a cool 75-80 degrees, with lovely cool breezes. We were also very lucky to have the help of some steller friends to move the furniture. Three U-Haul loads later we are mostly done. I just have to go back and throw the small stuff into boxes and trash bags and then clean the old apt.

The new place is a still a complete cardboard box jungle, but unpacking is the fun part!

As requested, here are a couple photos of some things I like about the house. Keep in mind I'm not showing off the peeling cracked (probably lead) paint on the outside trim boards on the house that need desperate attention!



The buffet in the dining room.





The built-in bookcase next to the fireplace, very typical for homes this age in this city.



And one of my favorite things: the original (I'm assuming) mail slot/door knocker.

I was digging through some old journals entries and found the recipe for the caffine chocolate cookies of Dooooom.

To preface, the LA Times published a recipe in each week's foodie section-- people write in asking for the secret to their favorite thing at a local restaurant. One week it was a cookie recipe. I think the bakery's name is Crumble, but I can't remember and lost the clipping. Warning! These things are really lethal if you're sensitive to caffine. I made them only twice, and we called them the heart attack cookies the 2nd time.

---

really sinful brownie/cookie recipe from a bakery in Los Angeles

The cookies are really easy to make if you've got enough chocolate. They turn out like big round soft cookies with chunks of melted chocolate and zzzzzzing!

--> Melt 13 ounzes of bittersweet chocolate in a saucepan with 1/4 lb (one stick) of unsalted butter, take off the heat as soon as it's melted, though no need to cool it.

In an electric mixer, or in a big bowl with a hand mixer:
add 1 cup sugar (or if you're using unsweetened chocolate, add ~ 1/2 cup more) granulated sugar, 4 eggs, and 3 tablespoons of instant espresso

Mix at low speed until things are stirred together, and then at high speed for 2-3 minutes until the batter gets thicker and lighter in color (basically you're fluffing up the eggs).

In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup white flour with 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt (if you used salted butter no need for extra salt) with a fork or whatever.

Add the melted chocolate and butter mixture, and then slowly add 1/2 cup of flour mix. (this is the zinger) Add 8 oz of chopped up chocolate chunks. (these melt in the cookie for extra sinful chocolateness).

Mix JUST until combined, don't over mix (or they fall apart).

pre heat the over to 350 (degrees Farenheit)

Using a parchment lined (or else those nifty "silpan" French made cookie tray liners) cookie tray spoon out 1/4 cup of batter for each cookie.

Bake 15 minutes. They will be very moist when done. Cool on a wire rack and store in air-tight container.

Whew, it was really nice to take a break for spouse's 10th year reunion at C:

• Saw a lot of people and their little ones (!),
• talked with a couple people who are now pastors with congregations (!),
• progressed all over campus, but didn't drink the Franzia (a good thing),
• walked through the woods and prairies and got bit by a lot of mosquitoes
• sat around in the shade of trees and watched the frisbees fly.

We missed a lot of stuff happening Friday because wow, we had a whole bunch of things happen all in one day for the house buying process to move along. But I think we're almost set, and closing next week! Everyone has been really helpful about making things happen quickly.

I brought along socks to knit on for something to do during reunion, but didn't get as much done as I thought I might. But I found out that I inspired a friend to learn to knit! = )