Dickensian Demons

The Christmas decorations are out at the local mall. This is the first holiday season that I've been here, so I hadn't seen how the mall celebrates Christmas.

There's an array of characters decked out in Victorian garb, include a tree seller with a fistful of American cash, some children laughing at their friend who has fallen on the ice, roasting chestnuts, etc.... It's terrifying. I just had to go out and take pictures and videos of it.

There's a full nativity scene, complete with a stunned looked Joseph, a plush Eeyore-esque donkey, and my favourite: a totally smug camel.


Moving along, there are some Victorian carol-singers making unfortunate faces.


And the best part? All of these figures are robots that move. In slow motion.



I imagine "Christmas on Acid" by the Vestibules playing in the background when I walk past these displays.

When I was taking pictures, a woman came up to me and said something to the effect of, "It's such a nice display. An old-fashioned Christmas!" I laughed nervously. She sounded so proud and satisfied that I felt a little guilty knowing I was taking these pictures in order to ridicule them on the internet. But anyway.

Two words today because I'm tired of talking

pulverulent
dusty-looking; readily crumbling; powdery
~The Phrontistery

excoriate
1. to denounce or berate severely; flay verbally
2. to strip off or remove the skin from
~dictionary.com

It's Thursday! The moment of truth has passed - only time will tell if I also passed. In any case, it's over and there's nothing I can do about it now, so I'll stop excoriating myself. It was more internal than verbal or physical flaying, so I'm sure there's a more appropriate word for it, but that's all I've got for now.

And I've picked up my knitting for the first time since Saturday. Life is good. Tomorrow I'll go to the gym in an attempt to tackle these bad stress habits I've acquired.

Introducing a real post for real : Thoughts on Twist Collective's Winter Issue

Twist Collective's winter issue came out a few days ago and I immediately pored over it. I tend to head straight for the patterns and go back later, sometimes months later, to read the articles, but I do love it.

This time around I find myself most enthused by accessories projects. The sweaters are nice, but nothing is really shouting at me at the moment.

I like Tanit's Jacket by Gudrun Johnston, but I'm not sure I could pull it off without lots of mods - cropped, squarish... What's up with all the cropped jackets out there?

Four Winds by Alasdair Post-Quinn is gorgeous and could spell my first foray into double knitting. Maybe? With his neat tutorial and instruction videos also included in the issue maybe I'll actually get the kick in the pants I need.

The Polar Chullo by Mary Ann Stephens is pretty cute, but I don't know if I'd have the opportunity to make it. Polar bears are great, though!

Moxie by Kristi Schueler looks neat, but I'm a bit bewildered by the colour choice in the sample. The green and teal/turquoise are kind of the same level of intensity. I'd pick something with more contrast, I think, though maybe some people want less of a shock for a bold design.

Frost Tapestry by Robin Melanson is just beautiful. I love the curlicues. I don't know if I'd make the neckwarmer, but I definitely want the hat and mitts.

Basically, it appears as if I'm obsessed with colourwork. Yet, the endpaper mitts are my only real colourwork project so far in my knitting life. Clearly something has to change. I have several colourwork projects in my queue for priority this winter, and hopefully I'll get to them.

Blog post fail!!!

Frustration is vacillating between two choices for months, only to find that once the decision is made, someone else has already done it!! Boo. I am not impressed. Obviously I should have checked Youtube first before throwing myself into it.


Wow, I'm bored of talking about myself. Can it be possible?

labour disputes follow me around?

There's a bus strike in London. When a strike was on last year in Ottawa, I managed to miss most of it by moving to London... But I can't escape this time. On the bright side, I live reasonably close to everywhere I need to go, so I'll be fine. I need to get more exercise anyway.

I'm preparing a seminar presentation for Thursday, and I just read Private Peaceful, by Michael Morpurgo, as part of it. It hit me harder than I thought it would. Simply written, not very long, and even though I'd read dozens of summaries and reviews, the ending shocked me. A look on the author's website shows that he and his wife started Farms for City Children, a charity that lets children from cities stay on the farm and experience farm work for a week at a time. Very inspiring.

Thursday creeps closer...

I find it interesting how I'm more inclined to engage in any other menial tasks rather than work on the big project of doom that seriously needs doing. I'll even gladly work on other projects - luckily these also need doing... It's at the point where I'm eagerly awaiting Thursday when it will all be over, but simultaneously hoping this week goes as slowly as possible so I'll have time to get everything done.

This experiment in blogging daily has kind of illuminated why I don't blog daily every other month. I don't really have much to blog about, other than saying "ACK SO STRESSED OUT. SMASH SMASH." Even more navel-gazing that usual, folks.

I did make some delicious muffins today, only they'd be more delicious if I hadn't forgotten to put cinnamon in. Oh well.

Boring boring boring.

Knit-a-thon!

Today 5 knitters sat in the grad lounge knitting, chatting, eating treats and watching movies, all for a good cause - raising money to build a library in Costa Rica. I didn't take any pictures, though. Anyway, it was good fun and I hope we do it again some time, though maybe without the fundraising since I'll soon run out of relatives willing to give me money to do what I might do already, i.e. knit for six hours.

I finished a sleeve for Vivian. Moving right along!

favourites

I first heard this in second year university, when my profs started each class with a musical selection. I stumbled into class a few minutes late (not my habit, I assure you), and the music was already playing, pouring out and filling the small lecture hall. Totally stunned me. Oscar Peterson was a genius, which I knew already, but it really hit me hard that time.

Whenever I'm stressed, sad, joyful, or emotional in some way I end up shuffling back to this piece, among others. Speechless.

Word Thursday and secret knitting

Here's a peek at some gift knitting, or rather a 2.00 mm needle.

And today's word is...

Hypergelast

someone who laughs excessively.
~Wiktionary

101 in 1001 update: October

Just realized I forgot to do this. I didn't get a whole lot crossed off the list in October, but there were a few things.

Completed:
44. Write and send 3 letters
64. Invest in some comfortable flat black leather boots (not suede)
94. Be vegan (not raw) for a week (Sept/Oct)

Started:
5. Knit a cabled sweater (Vivian)

Continuing:
3. Learn 150 new words - 19 so far. Ouch.

Confession / identity crisis?

I actually kind of like this song. Does that mean I've gone mainstream? Haha. I stopped listening to commercial radio when I was maybe 13 and never looked back. Not that I ever had any street credit to begin with, but Taylor Swift? Really? She's an it-girl. I don't get it myself.

Anyway, here's something a little less well-known that I've been into lately: Resurrection Fern by Iron and Wine



I love the video - it's not the official video for this song, but it's so beautiful.

Excuse me, I haven't knit since Sunday. Too busy freaking out. Thank goodness I have a freezer full of cookies from a few weeks ago.

sliver of colour

My last night in Ottawa, there was a beautiful sunset. I took some photos. Upped the contrast a bit on this, and it's not a great photo, but the colours kind of come through.

Anyway. I'm hoping this blog doesn't turn into "here's some mediocre photos" every day, so tomorrow I'll aim for something real. Excuses, excuses: I had class from 9-12 and 6:30-9:30, I'm working on a billion projects all due next week, etc etc. Right.

Home again?

Ugh back in London already. No unforeseen events or hitches, just a long journey full of sitting and waiting. On the train from Toronto to London, a woman's alarm clock went off in her bag for about ten minutes as the whole train car tried to figure out where the noise was coming from. Then, a few minutes later it went off again - I guess she pressed snooze. That's about it, really. I'm so tired, so off to bed for me, and hopefully a less boring post tomorrow :)

not hibernating?

I had a fun day of adventures (more later, maybe), and on the way home I nearly tripped over this dude.



Freakin' huge spider on the sidewalk. Where was it going? Isn't it a little cold for spiders to be toddling across the sidewalk. Really cool looking, though. Does anyone know what it could be?

Working too hard

It finally hit me exactly how much work I have to do in the next two weeks. Not a happy feeling, but I have lots of distracting new yarn to use for distracting new projects, which should help/hinder the process all the more.

So, there was no sunlight again today, but I took yarn photos anyway. It worked better than I thought it would.



My first Noro purchase. 2 skeins of Kureyon, colour #163 and #219. The picture above is actually nearly colour accurate. These are destined to become Vortex. This is my compromise: I love the look of the basic noro striped scarves, but I fear I'd never finish one. So, a hat with short rows and stripes and fun instead. I'm excited. Going to make the unpointy version.


These colours are totally wrong, but I like the photo anyway.



Time will tell if the two colourways are contrast-y enough, but I've been assured not to worry and that Noro always finds a way.

Thursday words and photoless cop-outs

Tope
to drink alcoholic liquor habitually and to excess.
~dictionary.com

Saccadic
jerky; twitching
~the Phrontistery

There was no light today, so I didn't take any yarn photos. Cop-out! But hey. It's not like I didn't get up in the morning. I did, but I couldn't cut through the overcast. Boo. Maybe tomorrow. It snowed some fluffy flakes that so far aren't sticking, so overcast wasn't a total loss.

Exciting times in the internet-yarn-stalking world!

Today I went to Knit Knackers, a local yarn shop that just moved and re-opened; I'd never been to the old location, but the new one is huge and spacious and full of pretty things, some of which I purchased - more on this tomorrow.

But especially excitingly, I saw Frosted Windowpanes, a gorgeous hat in the wild, worn by the designer herself! Nerdout. Upon exclaiming, "I recognize your hat from the internet!" we had a conversation and I tried not to be too fangirly, haha. Anyway, it's a really cute hat in person, too. I'd like to make it at some point. I've been poring over the Sweet Paprika site a lot lately, since the colours are so gorgeous (could I say that more often in this post? Probably), and I recently ordered some yarn, which I can't wait to start knitting.

On that note, here are some lacklustre yarn photos. Whee.


Messa di Voce from Sweet Paprika.

The colour, Emerald City, is a bit brighter than the photo shows. A little brighter than I expected, but I like it a lot. So soft... I intended it for gift-knitting but I don't really want to part with it now. Gush gush gush. Ah well, I'll definitely be ordering from Sweet Paprika again.

Train knitting

Rather than lug the body portion of Vivian on the train, I cast on for a sleeve as we pulled out of London.



Picture shows progress just outside of Oshawa. I didn't knit the whole time; Kenneth Oppel's Airborn was my companion for some of the trip. I'm really enjoying it, and look forward to reading more of his books. I think the last I read might have been Silverwing ages and ages ago. Airborn reminds me a bit of the Golden Compass. But whoa, here I am doing this on the wrong blog. Scuse me.

I made a split-second decision to start the sleeves at row 7 of the sleeve chart, rather that row one, meaning there's one less little cable twist there... While I love the look of the knuckle-length sleeves on the model, something tells me they won't really suit my lifestyle. (No dainty here, folks). So I hope trimming a bit of length will help. We'll see how it goes.

leaf ghosts

Although there was no sign of any trick-or-treaters on the streets in my neighbourhood Saturday night, the Halloween aftermath Sunday morning was apparent.



Good times.

There's some newly paved sidewalk in the area, and I've noticed that fallen leaves leave some colouring on it quite sharply. I'm going to call them leaf ghosts.



Upped the contrast a bit artificially on this one, but I like it. They remind me of fossils.


I feel like I should have some knitting content, but being a semi-monogamous knitter means my choices are limited. I've knit another few inches on my Vivian but it looks mostly the same. Oh, I've had an argument about the proper past tense form of "to knit," but that's doesn't provide interesting photos either. I'll work on it.

It's November

And I've signed up for NaBloPoMo, since I figure I can bang out a blog post per day without killing myself, but there's no way I'll be able to tackle writing another novel while in grad school. Anyway, we'll see how this goes.

First:

Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (originally typoed "chocolate hip cookies," rather appropriately).

I saw them on Cosmicpluto and immediately needed to make them. (Bandwagon! Hurray!) So, on Halloween without much else to do except hope no trick-or-treaters showed up (we have no candy), I made them.



What I love is that the original recipe calls for canola oil instead of butter or anything else. That's my kind of recipe. I almost never use butter and substitute canola oil as much as possible, even when it doesn't seem ideal.

Mods: used brown sugar, half whole wheat flour, slightly more pumpkin, and only one egg.

You can probably see orange bits in the cookie: this is the day I learned that canned pumpkin doesn't freeze well. See, in the past I've been lucky enough to bake with home-pureed pumpkin, which lives quite well in the freezer, so when I used part of this can last month and froze the rest, I figured it would be fine. Not so. Upon thawing, the pumpkin puree itself was kind of stiff and chunky, and didn't mix into the dough as smoothly as I had hoped. It still worked pretty well, and the cookies turned out well, but yeah. Now I know. No freezing of the canned pumpkin.

Grad school mantras

I took today to sleep in, knit, read, (go to class) and generally not worry about the next paper, since I scrambled and stressed (for it feels like weeks, but probably not) to hand in a big one yesterday evening. Lately I find myself justifying indulgences with the phrase "I deserve X because I'm stressed out and working really hard." Usually X is something food/junk/laziness related because apparently that's how I roll. Why my internal monologue doesn't steer me in the direction of the gym is anyone's guess. Anyway, it's become a mantra of sorts; a mantra of indulgence? Clearly a misuse of the term, but anyway.

Indulgence usually leads to guilt because, again, that's how I roll, but I'm totally guiltfree about today's "slacking" - Look at my progess on Vivian and THEN tell me I'm a slacker ;)



Past the waist-shaping now, and I still love every minute of it. I think constant practice is making my cables a little more even, or at least I hope so.

Yellow, orange and blue

I've been having a stressful week or two, and while I've been holed up at my computer, or walking looking at the ground, all the leaves changed and I didn't even notice. But I took a break from my intensely fascinating paper on Library of Congress subject headings to get out in the fresh air today.





I think this time last year I rambled on about how I love yellow and orange. It hits me especially in the fall when there's so much of it around. Seeing things like the Snapdragon Tam and mitts by Ysolda brings out the yellow love even more! I especially love yellow with a hint of orange - deep yellows like in the Snapdragon tams. But yellow and my face don't really get along, so socks and mittens, it is!



I have a few pairs of colourwork mittens coming up in my knitting queue, as soon as I acquire some yarn, and maybe I'll finally indulge in my desire for yellow mittens. The first I have yarn for in blue and purple: Norwegian Snail Mittens by Adrian Bizilia.

Next, Entomology mittens, another Adrian Bizilia pattern. For these I'm totally coveting SweetGeorgia Yarns, but I haven't ordered any yet because I'm undecided on exactly which colours and I don't know whether I also want to make the matching hat. If I make that hat, I'm going to want to avoid yellow, as mentioned above... but oh man, the saffron colourway is calling to me. I don't even know if this is good colourwork yarn, but I'm just so enamoured with the colours.

Word Thursday and rookie mistakes

adhocracy

A flexible and informal style of organization and management,
characterized by a lack of bureaucracy. Also (depreciative): bureaucracy
characterized by inconsistency and lack of planning.

~OED

I like this one and kind of wonder why I don't hear it more often, especially in the depreciative sense, since bureaucracies lend themselves to inconsistency. Really, any organizational system lends itself to criticism, often in snide tones.

In other news... a revelation: Vivian has a i-cord edging. I never made the connection despite considering the Sl 3 at the beginning of each row and wondering why I had to do it. I wondered, but I didn't question and I just went with it, leaving it kind of loose and weird looking expecting it would all work out in the end. Then I found a thread on the Vivian knit-a-long forum about it. I-cord! DUH!

I'm familiar with i-cord only in theory, having never knit a project that called for it. Still, I feel a bit dumb, and would have appreciated a note in the pattern telling me this is what I was supposed to be doing! I'll tighten it up from now on so it won't be so loose and ladder-y, and I'll fix up the beginning few inches in some way. They don't look too bad, really.

Always learning...

Vivian glimpses

Snatched some daylight to take a picture of my progress on Vivian. I am enjoying it so far, although I restarted three times due to various mishaps and miscalculations. I've discovered that my left-twist cables are much neater than my right-twist cables. I'm cabling without a cable needle as per Grumperina's tutorial, and I do find that the right-twist cables take more fumbling for some reason, so maybe that's why they are messier.



In a few week's I'll be participating in a knit-a-thon. 6 hours straight knitting? Count me in, though my grades may suffer!

Word: Clochard

Oy, Thursday again already?

Clochard
a beggar; vagrant; tramp.
~dictionary.com

Last weekend was Thanksgiving (Canadian edition), but I didn't have any turkey. Instead, I went to a pub and ate fish and chips. I only eat it about once a year - that's enough. Maybe a new Thanksgiving tradition? I'm a fan of turkey, though. Hm.

But today I made my first quiche. This counts as trying a new recipe, although I barely followed a recipe.



And I don't have a pie tin at the moment, so it's a square quiche. (I'm thinking of making a pie in it just to say pie are square...) Anyway, the deliciousness of this quiche does not come through in the flashy wonky photo.

Here's what I put in the filling:
onion
garlic
mushrooms
green pepper
spinach
eggs
rosemary

Next time I may add some cheese, but it's pretty good without. I'm still not used to eating cheese. As for the crust, I kind of winged that, and it's a bit obvious. It is not the most brilliant crust, but I don't mind. Next time I'll follow the recipe. It calls for yeast, and since I didn't have any (and was too hungry to deal with the rising) I just whipped up something vaguely dough-like and went from there.

Warm feet and words

FO: Jaywalkers, by Grumperina
Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett (mouthful!)
Mods: none intentional.

These socks accompanied me on the train from London to Ottawa, around northern Italy and on picnics in Modena, back and forth from home to work over the summer, and back from Ottawa to London. Whee. I'm so happy to have a pair of wearable socks for me! These took me a very long time because they weren't a priority to finish during the summer months while some other things were. I know I have a problem with timing, but in this case, it worked out really well: wool socks just as it is getting cold.



Okay, not such a flattering picture, but it's too dark to take any more so I'll live with it.

Now to the Words of Thursday.

groupuscule
A small political group, esp. a radical or extremist splinter group.
Freq. contemptuous.
~OED

septemfluous
Flowing in seven streams.
~OED

Septemfluous is the sort of word that I should know immediately because of my Latin skillz. Alas, I've lost most of my Latin lately. Note to self: get back on that.

It's October! 101 in 1001 Update.

I'm falling behind. I just realized I completely forgot to do last week's word. I'll do two tomorrow.

Plus, I haven't been updating my 101 in 1001 list, although things have been progressing.

Since I last did an update I have completed:

44. Write and send 3 letters
58. Explore Toronto (Not that Toronto can be explored in one shot, but...)
68. Learn how to cook salmon
94. Be vegan for a week

I am currently working on:
5. Knit a cabled sweater (Vivian)
Learning more words (#3)
Trying new recipes (#92)

By my count that's 27 out of 101 completed so far. I started my list last September, so I've been working on it a little over a year. Hmmm should pick up the pace!

FO:Decimal

Excuse the lighting. It's fall already, which means gray days and rain.

Decimal by Snowden Becker

Yarn: Mandarin Petit, 100% cotton
Mods: No bell sleeves. I cast on for the sleeves with the number of stitches for the underarms. Also, my yarn was slightly thinner than it should have been.

I'm calling this done even without buttons. I've decided not to hurry on the buttons for this since they wouldn't do up anyway. My first 100% cotton project had me a little worried, but turns out I really like working with this yarn - it's soft and it didn't hurt my hands or anything. It also didn't grow with blocking as much as expected, but that's okay. I like it how it is, and if it stretches a bit more in the future I'll put on buttons then.

Soon to be Vivian

No more yarn fail, I have the biggest ball of yarn in the world!



Okay so not really. That one's in Darwin, Minnesota apparently.

Boo universe! Boo!

I can't get the hang of the last few days. I've been trying and trying to start a quick project for the last few days now that I've finished Decimal, but each time I try something gets in the way. Went to the yarn store yesterday to buy needles and they were closed. Went again today, and they had run out of 2.00 mm dpns. Impatiently yanked my 2.25 mm dpns out of my long-suffering Jaywalkers (2nd heel is turned at least!), only to find out that the yarn I though I had with me is still in Ottawa. Start anyway with other yarn which turns out to be very difficult to work with. Put it down again. Getting down to the wire...

On top of the knitting frustration, I have a broken toe. Technically I broke my toe three weeks ago, so I've been dealing with limpy foot for the last 3 weeks, but I got official confirmation of this yesterday.

Everyone has their own hospital waiting room story, and now I have mine.

Still limping after having tripped over the leg of the futon two weeks before, I went to the Student Health Centre to get it looked at. The doctor said it could be broken or sprained, but either way there wasn't much to be done about it. Stay off your foot as much as possible and have an x-ray to make sure. So I went in for the x-ray on Wednesday.

On Friday I got a call from the health centre while I was in class. I was in class until after the office closed for the weekend, so I left a message. On Monday, the nurse called again while I was in class. I called back right after class and left another message. Since they had told me they wouldn't bother calling me if my toe was only sprained, I figured at this point it must be broken.

When I finally spoke to the nurse she told me I had a fractured metatarsal and needed to go to the hospital to get a "boot." Indeed. Now, I don't watch enough medical dramas to know off the top where the metatarsals are, so I said thank you and hung up. Looked it up on the internet and wondered what the deal was with that since if anything I thought my toe was broken. Whatever, I trust health professionals (or I DID... hah).

I told my evening class prof I might be late and went to the hospital. As I headed there from the university, I knew I was making several mistakes. One, no knitting with me - I don't usually bring it to campus. Two, no reading material - the "book" I'm reading right now is an audiobook on cd that resides in my bedroom, and all my course readings are on reserve in the library or online journal articles. Well, damn. But it couldn't be helped, since going home before going to the hospital would have been out of my way and taken up more time...

So yeah. A little over 3 hours in the waiting room later, after being told they'd probably have to do more x-rays but then not actually sending me for more x-rays, I saw a doctor. The nurse there looked confused and asked why they hadn't sent me from more x-rays here. Presumably they called someone about this because when the doctor came in he looked at me apologetically and said he was so sorry that the idiots at the student health centre had sent me here, since there's nothing they can do about a broken toe. But what about my supposedly broken metatarsal? I enquired. Someone misread the x-ray, he thinks. Blah!

Ultimately, I'm relieved that I don't have a fracture in a metatarsal and don't have to wear a "boot." Anyway, 3 hours in Urgent Care isn't so long - the people that showed up after me were looking at 4+ hour waits. I made it to my class on time in the evening, and now I have the certainty that my toe is broken so it's inadvisable to join the swing-dancing club. But damn, 3 hours in that waiting room without knitting or a book.

I'm okay with this being my stupid hospital story, and I hope I don't have a worse one to tell in the future. Now, as long as I didn't catch swine flu from anyone in that waiting room...

Okay that's that. Update.

Can it be I'm already tired of this semester? Boo! My summer of working spoiled me - all I want to do in the evenings is read, knit, not work on assignments...

On the knitting front, I blocked Decimal and it grew a little, but not as much as I hoped. It's still a wee bit small. Ah well, I still like it a lot. Pictures coming once I get buttons for it, though I won't be able to do them up.

On the recipe front, I made Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie. I am going to claim this as a new recipe tried, even though I basically didn't do any measurements. I did the veganized option with soy milk in the potatoes and left out the tomatoes - did I mention this is my vegan week? Well it is! So far kind of uninspiring since I've lost the will to cook exciting things. I bought wheat berries and things a few weeks ago in anticipation of making some lovely vegan grain/pulse dishes... but so far it's been lentil soup and chickpea curry. Ah well, I'll get to it!

On the blog front, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about posting to my class blog but I haven't actually gotten my ass in gear to post to it much. Blogging as required assignment - not sure how I feel about that in practice, but it's a fun idea.

No pictures. How boring.

Thursday Word, Decimal, and New Hampshire

Dear me, it has been a busy week with no blogging. Excuses, excuses.

Senocular
Having six eyes.
~OED

No idea when I'll get the chance to use this one in regular conversation, but I like it so there! This is one that I ought to have been able to figure out from the Latin roots, of course. But I'm a little rusty.

This past weekend I scooted down to New Hampshire for a cousin's wedding party. It certainly was not a carbon neutral trip, what with all the flying and driving, but it was great to go down there again. Beautiful!

There were mountains,


animals,




Fireworks,


and festivities all around. It was a fun time, but rather chilly when night fell - hello knitwear weather!

On that note, I mostly finished Decimal on the way home, and all I need are buttons and blocking.


Bad webcam shot shows it is indeed quite small, but I'm counting on growth from cotton. My swatch turned out okay. Really. if it doesn't grow, it might still be wearable, just a little shorter and more open than I'd prefer. Here goes...

Word Thursday: Prolix

Prolix

1. unduly prolonged or drawn out : too long
2. marked by or using an excess of words

~ Merriam-Webster

A good word to describe some of the readings I'm doing now that term has started...

Toronto adventures, belatedly. picspam

The last 12 days have been full of adventures (and non-adventures) with one of my favourite people ever. But yesterday he went on his merry way and I'm being shocked out of vacation mode by classes and assignments.

I spent a day or so in Toronto exploring (#58!) while waiting for his plane to land, and afterwards. While I did poke my head into Lettuce Knit while wandering around Kensington Market, the only knitting content I can claim for my time in Toronto is this:



In Toronto, we wandered around being tourists


Appreciating detail


Witnessing a practice airshow


And relaxing


I received a beautiful gift from Venice


Lastly, saw some amusing graffiti on a tank in London (ON): contains swears!


Wheeee! I'm excited for December already :)

Word Thursday Words

Two words this week because I missed last week due to moving and other fun adventures (more on this later).

absterge
To wipe away; to wipe clean; to cleanse; also fig. to
purge. ~ OED

gurge
A whirlpool (lit. and fig.); ~OED

I discovered on my last day of work that my workplace subscribes to the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Why didn't I figure that out before? I always have fun with obsolete and obscure words, but for this particular project I want to learn more words that other people might understand if I use them, so I have been trying to pick words that aren't entirely obsolete. Still, my OED fun probably yielded a few unfashionable words that I'm happy to learn.

So. Today's offerings are the literarily-pleasing Gurge, which will likely be more useful in its figurative sense when I'm overwhelmed in the coming term. Absterge is a word I like right now because I've just moved - moving house can be a cleansing / purging experience.

As promised

Two sleeves...



and yarn for Vivian!



There are two more giant hanks in a bag that chose not to lounge on the patio for a photo shoot. I'm so excited about this hoodie! I've never used Cascade Eco+ before, but it seems to be a favourite and there are lots of lovely Vivians made from it on Ravelry, so I have high hopes. I plan to finish my jaywalkers first, though. Maybe. At the very least I'll finish Decimal. Or will I... On Sunday I move and will have plenty of car hours to knit, so we'll see how far I get. (Don't worry, I don't drive.)

Moving. Packing. Right.

Word Thursday : Perendinate

Perendinate
1. To put something off for 2 days
2. To procrastinate or put something off for a long period of time.
~Wiktionary

I'm moving on August 30th - have I started packing yet? Clearly I'm perendinating.

I bought yarn today (gasp) and Decimal now has two sleeves. Photos to follow?

Fluffy

Is fall coming? Everything has turned to fluff!

Urban Agriculture

There is some corn growing in our backyard, perhaps the result of an entrepreneurial squirrel or maybe it's a volunteer from our compost - we've had volunteer cantaloupe before.



Unfortunately, we only have one, so it won't reproduce.



But still. Corn in my backyard! I've had fun watching it grow and taking pictures of its progress over the last little while.

Word Thursday: Wifty

Wifty
Eccentric, silly, scatterbrained.
~Wordsmith.org

Wifty as I am, I nearly forgot to do a Thursday word today! So much to do before I move, but I'm chipping away at it bit by bit. I feel like I've spent the last week solidly booking travel for myself and others... nearly done. One more plane ticket and I'll be set to the end of September, anyway. Wheee!

Fall Twist and what it did to my queue

I'm getting ready to move back to London, ON - at least getting my head prepared by making lots of lists. Of course my ravelry queue is my most engaging list at the moment, since it consists of many dreams and few ties to reality. Deciding what yarn to bring and which projects lay in the near future is obviously the most important part of moving... :P (and fodder for a few more blog posts.)

Every new Twist Collective brings excitement, even though I haven't yet knit anything from the magazine. This fall, I plan to make Vivian because I freaking love it; despite cool things in this new issue, Vivian is likely to be my first Twist purchase.

Here are some thoughts on the Twist anniversary issue.

Socks. I like them all! Especially Sottopassagio.
Vine Yoke Cardigan: Um. It's by Ysolda Teague. Need I say more? Heh. Queued in a priority position.
Vaganova: I really like this. In the right yarn it would be an excellent replacement for one of my store-bought turtle-neck sweaters I wear all the time in winter. Queue priority, maybe even for this winter.
Argyle Jacket: This is a really fun idea. I don't like the colour combination in the original so much, but this goes in my queue as a possibility.
Mimico vest: Queued. Honestly, I probably won't make this any time soon, but I have a vest obsession and am nurturing a colourwork obsession.
Piper and M'gonigle: Cute. I have so many hats queued up already, but I might actually have yarn in hand for Piper. Hmmm...
Sea grass scarf: I don't see myself knitting a scarf this fall / winter, but if I do maybe it will be this one.

The damage isn't so dire this time around. I got a little tired of the Bus Stop story, looking at all the models in profile while they craned to see the bus... Cute idea, but could have been executed with more variety. There are a few designs in the magazine that I like but don't think I'd ever have the occasion to make (eg Urbanit - no man in my life would wear this, but it's still cool to look at). And Luminen is really pretty, but I'd probably leave off the snowflakes on the butt. Novak is cute, but I don't think I'd ever get the chance to make it. Lorelei has neat-looking lace also, but wouldn't be a priority for me.

Chugging away at Decimal. Onto the second sleeve and hoping to finish by the end of August. Can I make it?

Word Thursday: two words! (three?)

Two words today.

Cadge
1. to get or seek by begging or scrounging
2. beg or scrounge
~ The Canadian Oxford

A thoroughly Victorian sounding word, to my untrained ear, but I'm sure I've run across it many times in literature. I'm getting ready to move back to London (ON) for the new semester, and I've been contemplating cadging necessary items from here and there in preparation. Somehow calling it "cadging" makes it seem uncouth and disreputable, but I prefer to think of it as recycling and reusing what might otherwise collect dust. ;)

Fug
Stuffiness or fustiness* of the air in a room.
~ The Canadian Oxford

Stale, humid, and stuffy atmosphere, as in a crowded, poorly ventilated room.~ Wordsmith.org

Of course, being the Canadian Oxford, the dictionary prefaces the definition with "esp. Brit." I picked this for the second word this week because when this one showed up on Wordsmith the other day I thought it discribed current conditions aptly: I was sitting in a cubicle at the time. While the building I work in is rather air-conditioned as office buildings are these days, sometimes the atmosphere in the cubicle gets stuffy and airless. Especially in the last few days, when summer finally arrived with 30 degree heat and sunshine and humidity! I'm loving it, to be honest, since summer so far has been rather lacking in sunshine, though humidity is not my favourite thing. Still, I'm trying not to be a hypocrite that complains about all kinds of weather, hot or cold, and I'm reveling in the sun although it likes to burn me.

All that said, I doubt I'll ever use this word since its other meaning is much more prevalent in pop-culture today, and I would probably be misunderstood.

*A third word learned this week, totally by accident!

Fusty
1. Stale-smelling, musty, mouldy; 2. stuffy, close; 3. antiquated, old-fashioned. ~Canadian Oxford

Knit night and following the bees

Last night I went to my first knit night! (Cross off #78). I went to a knitting in public gathering last summer, but since then hadn't been out to hobnob with the knitting community here. Big mistake that I have rectified and I'll definitely get out again soon. Fortuitously, I even got to catch up with an old friend that I hadn't seen in many years --"old" as in we met a long time ago, not as in eldery. Plus I met some people and learned some interesting facts about Canada customs' relationship with imported yarn, among other things. Knitting at Bridgehead is pretty great not just for the smugness factor.



This is what I was working on, and unfortunately I misjudged my ability to knit lace and chat at the same time. I thought Decimal would be simple enough, but turns out I'm easily distracted and forget which row I'm on even while knitting a simple two-row pattern. So I wasn't as chatty as I might have been. (Who am I kidding? I'm totally anti-social at the best of times).

Anyway! Decimal's sleeve is lounging on the chair that has simultaneously become my outdoor reading/knitting chair and the backdrop to knitting/baking photos. It's a versatile chair. I'm knitting it in the round because I see no reason not to and Ravelry seems to agree.



In the beautiful shining sun today, a rarity in the summer of deluges, I also wandered around the garden and followed some bees around. Yay!

Word Thursday: Gallimaufry

This week's word:

Gallimaufry
a heterogeneous mixture; a jumble or medley.
~The Canadian Oxford

With my lifestyle, (I have a lifestyle? ha) I can always use more words to describe messes. Especially when it comes to food, I think this new addition to my vocabulary will find use. When I'm living on my own I'm a big fan of one-pot meals, often made of the odds and ends left over in the fridge before grocery day - all thrown in a pot to form a delicious belle mélange that I may now take to calling a gallimaufry. Mmmm.

On that note, I'm pondering a week of eating like a vegan maybe in September, and I want to use that week as an opportunity to try cooking with more fun grains other than rice. (Rice is awesome, but I eat it all the time). Anyone have any favourite vegan recipes, especially those involving interesting grains?

Recipes blatantly ignored

I got inspired to make Austrian Raspberry Shortbread on Smitten Kitchen. I love Smitten Kitchen for the photos as much as for the recipes, and she's always so inspiring. However, following recipes isn't exactly my forte, so in the end I came up with this.


Rhubarb-blueberry cake bar things. Yummy, if almost entirely different from the original recipe.

Here's how it went down.

Change #1: We had some rhubarb-blueberry jam in the fridge that needed using, so I grabbed that.

Change #2: My eyes bugged out at the amount of butter called for (1 pound): I halved the recipe to begin with and then halved the butter again, adding oil to compensate. At that point it was obvious these were destined not to be shortbread, but I was okay with that. For the record this is the first time in recent memory that I've used solid fat in my baking; I have a habit of substituting like a mad thing, consequences be damned.

Change #3: Egg yolks. I am far to lazy to separate egg whites from yolks, so I just used whole eggs, pretending that 1 egg is equivalent to 2 yolks. Not sure if that's legitimate math, but that's what I did.

Change #4: Instead of freezing the dough thoroughly, I was too impatient after putting it in for about 15 minutes, so I couldn't grate the dough into the pan. I spread it instead, neglecting to realize that spreading a second layer of dough on top of a layer of jam was ill-advised. It worked out after some careful spatula work, so no harm done.

Result: surprisingly delicious! They're a bit greasier than I would have liked, so next time I'll probably use less oil or maybe even take the plunge and use all butter. They aren't shortbread, but they have a pleasant dense crumbly texture, and they don't look like a total mess! (Compared to much of my baking experiments. I'm a fan of delicious messes anyway). I probably added a bit more lemon zest than called for as well - didn't measure, just grated half a lemon's worth - and it really helped the dough. Mmm lemon. More Smitten Kitchen in my future, and maybe I'll follow the recipe next time.

101 in 1001 July update and WIP

It's August, meaning July is over and I've squandered another month of existence. What do I have to show for it? A couple of paycheques, some WIP progress, somewhere to live in London Ontario for 8 months, a few more items off the 101 in 1001 list... I guess I've been busy, mostly in productive ways.

July completions:
24. Send something to PostSecret
45. Read The Brothers Karamazov

Only two? I'm ashamed to say that I read most of The Brothers Karamazov in June, and waited for most of July to get the book back from the library after it was cruelly requested out from under me. But I did finish it in July.

I sent one letter of 44. Write and send 3 letters, so I have two more to write.

I've also started chipping away at 30. Read at least 10 works of non-fiction. Add Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, by Edward Kritzler to that list. As expected it didn't really live up to the hype; interesting subject matter, but it wasn't very well written, and much of it verged past history into conspiracy theory. I get a little shifty-eyed when I read things that threaten to perpetuate the belief that Jews control the world / the world's finances / it's all a big Jewish conspiracy, since those beliefs tend to lend fodder to anti-semitics. (Obviously unintentional here, since the author is a Jew, but anyway.) Possibly I'm paranoid.

Next up for August, I'll be adding to my list for #30 some more. I've started reading Dr. Johnson's London, by Liza Picard, a history of 18th century London. (England rather than Ontario this time. Confusing, I know.)


Just so this post isn't devoid of pictures, here's the second sock of my pair of Jaywalkers I started in April. Because they are wool socks, I'm not in a hurry to get them finished before it gets chilly, so I have been concentrating on my warm-weather Decimal. Historically, I seem to knit things in the wrong seasons, so I'm trying to prioritize to remedy that. The picture is deceptive: I haven't even reached the heel yet, but it doesn't fit properly on my foot with those dnps.