I'm not ignoring my friends

I'm sitting here in the living room at backyard feast while our good friends from Stellar Coffee are here visiting. We are curled up on comfy furniture, knitting and beverages to hand, having had sushi and pound cake for dinner. It's been an awesome New Year's Eve party.


So when I say I'm not ignoring my friends, I mean my friends in the room. I'll rejoin them shortly. But you know me, I'm a bit of an Internet junkie so I just had to come see what you are all doing. Go see Amanda - she has completed her goal of knitting/sewing/crocheting a scarf/cowl/neck thing for every single day of 2011. Stop by and congratulate her for getting there! And while you're out visiting my friends, go tell Ellie you're glad she's finally joined Twitter.

Right, not to partying like it's 1999 (but I admit I'm having way more fun tonight).

Matroyshka themed Christmas

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a sudden and intense interest in researching my Russian heritage. I don't actually know if I have Russian heritage or if my relatives were true Volga Deutsch - was my great grandmother a Russian who married a German? Or were they both German?

I have big-ish rather unfeminine hands, and I have always referred to them as my "Russian working woman's hands". This is not a slight to myself, because they are also strong and competent hands (if I do say so myself).

At any rate, each year when I'm thinking about what to do for the family for Christmas, I have quite a few creative stages. In the first few years I did one really big thing for one family member (as in knit a super-involved thing). Then it got to two, I think, unintentionally. This year, as mentioned in a previous post, I didn't think I would have time/money to knit something for everyone. What could I do to channel my creativity that wouldn't cost very much, that I could put together quickly, that the whole family would appreciate?

Once I figured out what everyone was getting, I hit upon an idea: I would wrap the presents matroyshka style and I would draw each family member to indicate who would get the next present. 

 Sketches of the family - early version

These, I might add, are very accurate depictions of my family members. 

Younger niece

Dan's older sister

Dan's step-sister

Dan's youngest sister

Dan's older sister's husband

Dan's stepbrother (a story about the monkey that says OVERDUE on the tail: one morning while I was staying at the Stately, Thor came downstairs after having had a dream where he had borrowed a monkey from the library and it was overdue, woke up in distress because he didn't know where the monkey was). 

Dan's stepfather. Now remember that everyone in the family has a 'thing', and John's thing is toast. 

Oldest niece turned 16 a few days before Christmas and got her 'L'. For those of you not in British Columbia, this is the first step in a graduated-licensing program for people who want to drive. You get your L for a while, and you have to put this big magnet on the back of the vehicle you are driving to tell the world that you are LEARNING to drive. After a determined amount of time (a year? I don't actually know) then you can take the road test and get your N, which is a different magnet, to tell the world that you are NEW at driving. There are certain restrictions around this, like you can't drive after dark, there have to be people in the car who also have valid driver's licenses, etc. It's dumb, and I'm glad I grew up in a time where I didn't have to go through this rigamarole. But there it is. 

My mother in law.  Her thing is chickens. This drawing of a chicken here is from the kitchen table which she painted, and the model she uses is of a chicken sculpture somewhere in the Stately.

Wrapping begins. I didn't (remember to) take photos of every step, but you get the idea.

Getting bigger and bigger

By the very last wrap I had run out of paper. I had this done four full days before Christmas, which is unheard of for me.

On Christmas morning, I walked into the house with just the one big present. Everyone wanted to know what the one big thing was and who it was for. Dan's mum saw the drawing on the big one (for her) and knew that all the others were nested inside. It was great and appreciated. And tons of fun for me! I've had a few bursts of creativity lately so I already have the next two Christmases planned out for the family. It's a good thing because each year someone tells me "you've outdone yourself". (Just what my ego needs, more praise. I mean thank you!)

The reason I go to so much effort is because it's fun. Christmas with my family of origin was never really fun, not even as a kid. We held the German tradition of opening gifts on Christmas eve. I think Santa brought presents for Christmas morning, but we were pretty young when we figured Santa out and after that I don't think we even had stockings. Christmas was just about seeing family, eating, and just being together. With Dan's family it is so much more. We each of us exchange gifts, and with nine other people that can seem a daunting task. But this family specializes and revels in things handmade. It's wonderful. I found a recipe for some Spice Almonds on the Internet, gave that to Thor in a food storage container, and they were gone within two days. That's what Christmas is about - fun, thoughtful gifts and having fun with each other. I love it. I fit right in and I have a great time every year.

stay tuned

Hi there readers.


Lots has happened and I have big things planned for my blog in the coming months. This week with all the Christmasing has been very busy and we've had a bit of news immigration-wise (nothing really big yet). However, I haven't had a good night's sleep in days and I always get nailed pretty hard with cramps on the first day of my period (sorry, TMI, but I'm being honest with you), so haven't really been in the mood to write.

So please stay tuned.

post Christmas post

I have so much to tell you.

I won't be able to do it all justice in one post, so I'll see if I can just throw a few photos in here and maybe that will tell part of a story.

 My tender cargo. The present was the only one I brought with me, but little did everyone know, the presents for everyone were nested in here, matroyshka style.

 Does anyone know the answer to this?

What I didn't get a photo of is the three raptors (or are they T-rexes?) above this. It was hard to get a good shot of this with my iPhone - no flash and the room wasn't very well lit. But if you look closely, you should see a bicycle rim with a bunch of wood cutouts in the shape of insects, painted green, among the Christmas decorations. 

Dan's mom was the first to open the big present. With the drawings I did (accurate depictions, I may say) of each family member, she figured out right away that the whole gift was a nested present. 

 Again, my poor 3GS iPhone, not great at capturing action shots.

Slipper socks!

 Turns out, we had a bit of a theme going on here. I had been talking about matroyshkas and I guess the family heard me. These beautiful earrings are from Zola.

 Matroyshka measuring spoons! How awesome is that! Later, Zola's boyfriend came by with a gift for the family, turns out this same company also makes matroyshka measuring cups. Too awesome.

This here isn't any old Scrabble, it's Super Scrabble. Extra board, twice the number of tiles. Dan gave this to me as a New Year's present our first year together. It makes for a long game but it is something we all look forward to every Christmas! (No, I didn't win).

 The salad rolls make their final appearance for the season. I plan to do an entire post about this (I have photos of each ingredient) so please hang tight and all this delicioiusness can be yours.

 This here is what Thor called "Iranian Sunrise". As we near the end of this year's inaugural Alcohol Advent Calendar, the beverage was rum, grenadine and grapefruit juice. And it was good.

When I got home after having been out for 14 hours, Sam didn't care if I was tired, she was ready to play String. This is ribbon that would ordinarily go around gifts, but it gets much better use as crunchy string. You know, the best cat toy ever.

I went to bed, extremely full of food and love, for it was a great day. Hadn't much of a chance to communicate with Dan very much, as we were both pretty busy but we did pass each other a few text messages. I had moments of sad throughout the day, wishing he was there. At some point the fellow that hosted the party Dan was at Tweeted me and said "we have decided that next Christmas you and @flounderguts are hosting". I'd like to know how that came about. We'll see where we'll be a year from now, for the family would rather we were in Victoria for Christmas, I'm sure!

Lots more to tell you but I'm really just too knackered from all the activity and food.

DISCLAIMER: I know that "deliciousness" isn't a word. As the author, I am taking poetic license, as is my right.

Knitting considerations

This post may seem a little incongruous, given that it's just before Christmas and I have all my Christmas knitting done and wrapped. I have been thinking about a post like this for more than a week now, have even made notes! So here we go:

I listen to a lot of knitting podcasts and communicate with hundreds of knitters on the Internet. Lots of people have large yarn stashes to knit from and still seem to acquire more yarn. When the hot new pattern comes out, many people will simply go to their stash and find the right yarn for the sweater.

Knitting isn't really a cheap hobby. It can be if you choose to use acrylic yarn or yarn found at garage sales or thrift store yarns. Just over a year ago I came into a huge amount of yarn, which was mostly natural fibers but much of it was so old or had an acrylic content that I was not happy knitting with any of it, so I gave it all away. While working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino, I came to really appreciate knitting with good yarn and good fiber. So, here is my list of things to consider when knitting something:

1. How much money to spend on yarn?

While working at the yarn shop, I was given a generous discount on my purchases, which is mighty dangerous. I wasn't making a lot of money overall so I had to be mindful of how much I could actually spend. Depending on the pattern and the yarn, a sweater's worth of yarn can run anywhere from $50 for cheap yarn and averaging about $120 for anything I would want to knit. So that wasn't going to happen. They say it takes the same amount of time to knit a pair of socks as it does a sweater, and since one skein of sock yarn is much cheaper (ranging $18-30, most landing in the $22 range), that seemed a more economical way to go. Lace weight yarn makes your yarn dollar go even further, as lace is slower to knit and you get way more yardage per dollar.

Many new knitters opt for big yarns and big needles, but what they don't realize is that is the fastest way to burn through your yarn budget. If you give me a skein of bulky weight yarn, I can knit that into a hat in about three hours. (I know this for certain because it happened last Christmas). If you give me a skein of sock yarn, it will take me 40-60 hours to knit that up, which leads me to my next consideration:

2. How long will this take to knit?

I was at the Moss Street Market Christmas Fair recently and saw a number of hand knit garments. I don't think there is ever a way to make money selling hand knits, unless you think you are worth 10 cents an hour. As I looked at the garments and the prices, I thought - those handknit socks that have a $45 tag on them would take me 40 hours to knit, but a faster knitter could get them done in 30. Subtract the probable cost of the yarn and that knitter probably earns $1.25 an hour. While $45 seems expensive for a pair of socks, it's cheap compared to the labour that went into it. At another stall I saw a knitter selling hats made with bulky Lopi yarn. The yarn cost $6.00/skein (I know because Lopi is a favourite of mine), the hats probably took 5-8 hours, she was selling them for $20 per hat.

I was commissioned to knit a hat for a woman's baby while working at the yarn shop in Tofino, but when she heard the price of the hat, she decided not to pay for it after all. (I still have the hat). That made me realize that I will never make money from knitting so there is no point in even trying. The only way I would accept a commission is if it were for an art piece and I would be paid for my artistry.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have had rather a lot of time to knit in the past few years. I love knitting, so this is no real hardship for me. When I was planning my knitting before the Cookie A retreat last April, I figured I could bang out one sock per week, even working almost full time (I knit during every coffee and lunch break). That turned out to be optimistic, and instead of the planned eight socks, I got through four and a half. So now I am getting a sense of how long things take to knit and planning accordingly. How much time do I need to knit X amount of things before Christmas, for example?

Also, as mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't planned on knitting gifts. And then I ended up knitting ten gifts. Some of them were small, completed in just a few hours, some of them took a few days. I'm getting the hang of estimating how long it will take and I planned well; I finished everything yesterday. (What will I do with myself on Christmas eve if I'm not finishing last-minute projects?)

3. Knitting from Stash

As a part of my Great Migration and in an attempt to pare down my possessions to only what will fit in my truck, I have been knitting from my stash. In a #knitchat earlier this year, we had a conversation about knitting from stash as a way of coping with these rough economic times - that having a sizable stash insulates us from the brunt of less money to spend on our hobby. If I look at my stash as it is right now, I have enough yarn to get me through about six months, assuming I'll be working full time from February onward. That's pretty good. My informal goal was to not have more yarn than I could knit up in a year - partly for ease of transport but also because it felt insensible to me just have yarn laying around, yarn that I would have to keep track of, move, keep from getting dusty, organize, and think about. (Other people are way better at keeping track of their yarn, so I am not suggesting *you* are insensible, I just know my own habits). I am trying to be methodical about my knitting plans and goals, so I would rather buy yarn with a project in mind rather than just buy yarn because it's pretty. There will always be more yarn. I repeat: there will always be more yarn. I don't need to buy this bag of yarn because it's a screaming good deal - I've done that and then that bag sits and collects dust. No thanks.

4. Knitting for others: will the person actually wear and care for the thing?

This can be tricky, especially if you have never given a person your hand knits before. I lucked out with the family I married - everyone loves and appreciates my knits, which always encourages me to knit more for them. (I'm planning to do a post about some of the more creative knit projects I have done as gifts over the years, as a sort of recap). My own family needed a bit of training about my knitting - washing instructions, the mending of things, and how long it will take things to knit. My niece (my sister's daughter) asked me for yellow mittens, so I knit some and sent them off. She *loves* them, then asked for a scarf, some slippers and a pair of socks. All in good time, kiddo, but it is a tall order. I have fifteen other people to knit for too.

5. Searching for patterns versus being captivated by patterns

Okay now here I get a bit stuck. We all have our own pattern-searching methods. Ravelry makes it so easy to find just the pattern for the yarn, skill level, technique, and yardage that you want to knit from. It is the best database I have ever encountered.  For example, when Zola asked me to knit her a turban, I went to Ravelry and typed in "turban". A bunch of stuff came up. Some of the patterns were patterns that you pay for, so I rule them out. I clicked on the "free" search criteria and the list of turban patterns was significantly diminished. So if you are in a position to pay for a pattern, especially a popular one, then go for it. But I'm limited to free just now, so sometimes I just have to make something up. (I really do need to start writing down my one-off designs. I will have some time after Christmas, I think). When you find the pattern you want on Ravelry, you can either "cast on" right away or put it in your queue. Then you can organize your queue into categories (hats, neck, mitts, sweaters, etc.). If there are enough things in your queue, and you feel like you need to knit a hat, you can go to your hat folder in your queue and maybe find the yarn in your stash to knit it with. This all sounds very organized, right? These kinds of plans get derailed when the new knitting magazine comes out. It happened to me last week. I had to knit Escargot, it was haunting me. So is the Bandana Cowl, but I don't think I have the right yarn in my stash (and I can't buy yarn until I have a job) so it will have to wait.

Sigh. At the moment, given my dwindling stash, I'll be knitting mostly socks for the next few months, but that's good. I like knitting socks. In fact, through the knitting of the Christmas gifts, my hands were missing sock knitting. So, sock patterns? The only knitting book I have with me in Cowichan Bay is Sock Innovation. I do also have the Internet at my disposal, so we'll see how many socks I can knit between now and when I leave.

an enriching experience

I just had a really good experience tonight and wanted to share it with you.

I have mentioned here before how much I love Twitter and the Thursday night #knitchat that has been running every week for more than a year now. #knitchat began with Natalie from the Cloudy with a Chance of Fiber podcast, and her co-host Rachel (who recently gave birth to a son) is often an active participant.

During this year of being a part of the #knitchat community, I have made some pretty great Twitter friends, I feel like if/when I actually meet these people in person that it will be just like old times, like no time had past, as if we've been friends forever.

Natalie is a self-proclaimed tech geek (you did say that once, right?). She works in tech, so is always in the know about cutting edge technologies, especially when it comes to social media. A few days ago when I suggested that we have a "weaving in ends" party (note for non-knitters: when you are finished knitting a project, there are always tails of yarn that need to be woven into the fabric) for all our Christmas gifts. Natalie made it happen. She opened up a discussion thread in Ravelry, gave us the link with information on how to set it up, and announced to Twitter when it would be.

It was my first time with using Google Hangout, and I think you have to be logged into Google+ for it to work. I haven't been using Google+ very much (though I signed up for it a few months ago on Natalie's advice) but Google Hangout is a very powerful tool. It's like Skyping with nine of your best friends. Or up to nine - I guess there is a limit of 10 people, but tonight there were only three of us.

Natalie beckoned me on Twitter to come a bit earlier, to make sure it worked. After some fussing with my computer, I was able to hear Natalie and she could hear me! We talked about our knitting (and I confessed I had no ends to weave in because I was compelled to wrap all my Christmas gifts today, hence the ends were done already). I am very familiar with Natalie's voice because I listen to her podcast - but none of my Internet friends had heard the voice of yarnsalad until tonight. :-) 

It was great. I blog, Tweet, and post on Ravelry and Facebook, but of course what you read here is the cleaned up version. I have to be politic about what I write so as not to offend anyone or air any dirty laundry. With Google Hangout I was able to have a fairly intimate conversation with someone I have long considered my friend, but with whom I had never had a discussion with until tonight.

Maia joined us after about half an hour, and there was some interesting conversation about yarn shops (in Portland, Northern California, and Victoria), some TV shows I will have to see when Dan and I get Netflix (he doesn't know we're doing this yet, but we are). We talked about the #knitchat KAL (knit-a-long). By the way - if you want to participate and haven't voted, you should TOTALLY go vote for Nathan's Scale Mitts. They would be a quick easy knit to do, in a worsted or aran yarn. Another pattern is leading the polls right now, but it has a dumb name and even though it's pretty, I feel a special allegiance to Nathan, who has long been a participant on #knitchat and is also a dear friend I've never met.

Sam got to participate in this hangout too. She was sleeping, but I got her up, held her in front of my webcam, then put her back on the bed. She wasn't really interested.

courtesy: a dying breed

Okay okay, I'll admit the title of this post is cynical. I don't know if lack of courtesy is just something I have become accustomed to because it is no longer around or if it is unique to the particular geographic location I currently inhabit. I could go off on a long rant about the sense of entitlement that a few demographics (in my opinion) seem to feel, like they should be the first in line or that things should just come for free.

Something happened to me while in a shop yesterday that I feel compelled to write about. I was in a grocery store, and was only buying one thing. As it is the week before Christmas, of course every checkout at the store had a long lineup, and especially the express lineup. If I have time, I don't mind waiting, so I went to a regular checkout, behind an older woman who had a cart full of groceries. As she was unloading, I saw her look at me, look at my one thing, saw that I was paying in cash, and then she said it:


You have only one thing, why don't you go ahead of me?

Thank you, I said. I wanted to say "that kind of courtesy is so rare these days!" but I didn't want to spread my cynicism. I was perfectly willing to wait until her transaction would have been completed, it would have taken ten or fifteen minutes out of my life. I expect to stand in lines at any store at this time of the year. It was nice to know that it is still possible to people to be considerate of others.