The Bee and the Red Bud

Baby Maple Leaves

More Spring

Blossoms from some flowering fruit trees in my neighbor's yard.

Feedasythia

Oscar's dad Pete used to call forsythia 'Feeda'sythia. You see Oscar was taught to count from one to ten in Norwegian by second generation Norwegian-Americans in Minnesota. They came from Gudbrandsdallen in Norway.  The sequence he was taught goes "en to tre feeda fem sex seiv outta ne ti". The number four is 'Feeda' (more commonly in Norway it is 'fire' pronounced 'Feera').
Pete being the punster he was (an attribute Oscar has inherited in spades!) always called 'Four'sythia 'Feedasythia'.  It's blooming all over the place in our neighborhood this week :-}

Tiny Baby Ear Snuggling Hat Pattern - Free!

I finished my first new pattern of 2012.
It is a free hat pattern specifically written to make tiny hats for charities supported by Wool-Aid
It is also suitable for Preemies, if you knit for those charities as well.

The free PDF download is available HERE

Hidden Blessings

Although the first few sentences may sound a little depressing, please keep reading, I promise the post will end on a high note.
As many of you know, Oscar lost his job almost a year ago (it will be a year on April 13th, I think). My cat, the one I was given before she was weaned is almost 18 years old and has an inoperable nasal tumor. Because of Oscar's company letting him go, we have until the end of August to vacate this house.
On the surface, all these things seem like big blots of negativity, but having lived within the parameters for a while, I look on these things as a source of blessing. And no, I am far from a Pollyanna type (just ask my three brothers!). I have been thinking that it would be good to share my thought process, though, in case it can help someone else get through a difficult time.
I'll try and take things in order:
Oscar losing his job. He hated that job. He was not treated with respect, he had been falsely promised he could grow and learn into a higher position and the new supervisor was out for blood, doing her level best to get rid of anyone who had been with the company more then a handful of years. Because he lost his job and because his family helped, he has been able to gain certifications that will allow him to work in a field he has always enjoyed, that makes the most of his unique and particular strengths.
Because he lost his job, we (like so many) were forced to file bankruptcy. A year before he lost his job we had taken strong steps to get rid of our credit card debt and pay down what we owed as quickly as possible. January of 2011, the credit card companies raised the stakes again and we found ourselves having made very little headway despite a full year of sacrifice and living on very little extra money. To add to that, the value of our home plummeted until the amount we still owed on the mortgage was many times the estimated value.
In addition, over the almost 10 years we have lived here my ability to walk has gotten less and less, and this tiny house is not wheelchair accessible. Without the bankruptcy, Oscar and I would have been trapped by our mortgage for at least another decade.
Because of the bankruptcy, Oscar and I have been able to use our parsimonious skills to live well within the unemployment insurance. Our families have helped with larger expenses like getting tires for the car and making sure we have enough to purchase our prescriptions (naturally, we have no insurance).
We are going to be able to walk away from this home and find a fully accessible place when the time comes. We need to learn where Oscar's new job will be before apartment hunting, but as soon as that is settled, we can begin. We have already been sorting and discarding any thing we don't wish to move.
Buddha's illness. My heart is broken, and I will miss her terribly. She has been my constant daily companion for almost 20 years. But if she had died suddenly, I would not be able to cherish the time we have now. The tumor is slowly growing, but she is still energetic and has a good appetite. She is showing no signs of pain. I am keeping careful watch and we will take care of her until the time comes that she is no longer enjoying life.
I have learned from the past year that the worst of a negative change is tied up with the initial shock, followed by the worry and stress. Yes, we have stress, and plenty to keep us worried. But we also have a fall-back plan and support from our relatives. It is just us and our cats, no children who would be moved from a school district and their home. We have it pretty good, comparatively. We have enough money to pay all our bills and will have enough until at least the beginning of June thanks to an extension from the government.
Oscar works diligently every day to find his new job, and I have plenty to keep me busy.
My advice to anyone who has received bad news is to let yourself grieve. Change often means loss. This is harder when it is a loved one going through health issues, and I am not at all saying all will be roses and sunshine, but I am saying allow yourself to live with the sadness, let it run it's natural course. After ward, your life will be different, but there will still be things that are of value, that you can enjoy. Goals to work toward. I say these days that happiness is a choice. I add that happiness can live in the same heart as a loss, it is just more difficult to capture, and takes time to bloom again.

Oscar's Dairy Free German Pancake

Today I have a guest blogger; my husband Oscar:

First off, this is more related to popovers than pancakes, but is so easy I love it.  It actually eats more like french toast, but so much simpler than dipping bread in egg mixture.

German Pancake:

Single Batch:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Put 1 Tbsp butter substitute in a 10 inch pie plate (9 inch will work but take longer to cook).
Mix:
3 eggs
1/2 c milk, milk substitute, or water (We use Almond milk with excellent results)
1/4 tsp salt   ( can reduce to 1/8, do not skip entirely )
Add:
1/2 cup flour   ( I measure then sift this in, but it works OK without )

Mix well.  
Put pie plate in oven on middle or high rack until butter melts.  Watch it or check frequently, as this is usually less than 1 minute.
Pull out oven rack, pick up pan to slosh butter around to coat bottom of dish and at least halfway up the side, then pour batter directly into hot pie dish.
Push oven rack back in and close oven.
Bake for 15-25 minutes.  
The edges should be a golden to medium brown with flecks of dark brown or black.
The middle should be "set" but may look a bit undercooked if the butter ended up inside the rim.
The edges and sometimes parts of the middle will pop up, sometimes as high as 4-5 inches.

Feeds 2-4 if it isn't the only part of breakfast.  You can treat it as a sweet breakfast with butter and syrup or fruit, or you can treat it as a savory meal adding meat and/or veggies. 

Double Batch:

Use 6 eggs, 1 c "milk", 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 c flour.  Use 2 Tbsp of butter substitute in a 13 x 9 pan.
I find the Double Batch cooks slightly faster, so be sure to start checking after 12 minutes.

(Anal-Retentive chef note:  I mix the flour in with the rubber spatula I will use to move the batter to the cooking dish, then mix the lumps of flour in with an egg beater.  The dish cooks just fine without this, but I do it anyway)

Hats for Wool-Aid

So far this month, I have knit 9 baby hats for Wool-Aid. Talk about quick gratification! I can get 1.5 hats done per day ( sometimes 2 hats a day). My goal is to complete 20 of them. (#10 is on the needles) The cabled hat is called Boreal, the one with earflaps and three colors is called Keys and Coins and the others are all a pattern called Minnesnowta.Well, my variations of Minnesnowta.

Yay Lynnie!!!!!

My Sis-in-Love and dear friend LynnH of Colorjoy (also known as Oscar's beloved sister) has a pattern in the newest issue of Knitty! This is huge, especially for an indie designer. I am very proud of her! Beyond the beauty of the pattern is her newly invented heel, with the benefits of an afterthought heel, and the comfortable fit of more standard heel solutions. You can even buy a kit to knit the socks in the color of your choice from the Yarn Hollow Etsy Shop :-} I plan to knit a pair asap!

Her Crystal Socklet pattern is HERE
(bolded text below from Knitty site)

A common complaint about afterthought heels is that they don't fit well. Often they are too shallow. This happens when the heel is made exactly as we might make a toe.

The crystal heel is deeper, with facets of decreases accelerating as one knits. This makes a more human-shaped sock heel. The extra rounds at the beginning of a Crystal Heel compensate for the lack of a gusset, and create a sort of shaped arch as well.

Since this is not a standard afterthought heel it may look long and awkward when off the foot. The proof is in the wearing!

This toe-up sock uses a flat-knit Bosnian stockinette square toe. Both the toe and heel are shaped in a swirl rather than a wedge shaping. Swirls are common in historical knitting and have a soft, pleasant look. They fit a heel particularly well.

Isn't it beautiful???

I'm a Winner! (and a link to a fun website)

You may have noticed that I have a collection of links to blogs I favor. I change it up every now and then but I try and visit a few times a week. One of my favorite places to go for a cheer-up is Mochimochi Land. It is a special place created by Anna Hrachovec, designer of cuteness extraordinaire. Last week she had a caption contest and I was one of five winners! (details are in today's post at the Mochimochi link above). She also has a website (link on her name above) featuring artistic photos created from her installations of tiny fun critters, as well as some animations that ALWAYS brighten my day.
For my caption, I won a pdf pattern of Plinky and Plunky! (all images from Mochimochi Land, link to Ravelry pattern page)

One of my favorite patterns by Anna is the itty bitty gnome from Tiny Collections 3 (and there appears to be a Jumbo Gnome on the horizon, too) but then there are the Flap Jack Frogs pattern and the darling (and FREE!) Hearts pattern, but another of my favorites has to be Tubby.

Thanks Anna!!!

A Knit-Worthy Husband is a True Treasure

Knitters (especially in their early years) want to knit gifts for family and friends. The trouble is some of those people have no clue about the value of the gift. They equate it to stopping off at Target and picking up a hat or a scarf machine-knit in some eastern land with cheap labor, rather than the true gift of caring and hours spent in the making. Such people are still loved, but no longer considered 'knit-worthy'. Any gift you make for them may languish in a drawer, be left on a bus or just thrown away when the person moves (or at best, donated to charity).
I am very lucky in that I am married to an extremely knit-worthy man. He is quite artistic in his own right, having among other fibery endeavors made a pair of jeans for himself, and embroidered nautical themes on some linens (before we met). He no longer does any fiber crafting, instead choosing to learn how to cook gourmet meals. (As I often say, I am a lucky woman!).
So I started knitting a pair of socks for Oscar sometime last year. Here are my paraphrased Ravelry notes on the project (I also discussed this sock in this Otterwise Post back in January)

These have been an adventure. Oscar takes the largest size. When I started the foot of the first one, he asked me not to continue the texture onto the foot portion. I had already begun the foot, but switched over to stockinette. The second sock’s foot is all stockinette, so it doesn’t precisely match sock 1. Ah well, no one will see it anyway except in the photos here. 
-Then he asked if I could make these (top down) socks longer in the leg. So when I finished sock #2 I went back and cut off the ribbing with my steeking scissors, unpicked a row and placed the loops on the dpns. Now I am working upward in pattern, determined to double the length of the sock. 
-The socks as written are fine for most legs but Oscar has brawny Scots-Norwegian calves as big around as a wee baby’s head. The extra width seemed to eat up the length and because he gets cramps in cold weather, he really wants knee socks. 
-So I bought more of the Looking Glass and am currently knitting up on sock #1… 
Good thing I enjoy the stitch pattern! 
Finished Socks 1 and 2 with Jeni’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. 
I highly recommend this stitch pattern for chunky legs, it did a marvelous job of fitting with no additional shaping! Sock pattern is Anne Hanson’s Cinder Block Sock. Yarn is Knit Picks Imagination in  Looking Glass 
Socks are finished, and he loves them. He made a point to tell me he knows how much I love him because of how long I made them. My husband is VERY knit-worthy!

Indeed he is. And I am probably going to start on another pair of socks for him this week.

Knitting Sessions

Oscar took some photos of charity sweaters I made last summer. I forgot when I handed him the bag I hadn't finished weaving in ends yet.  After that task is done, I will find out which among the charities listed by Wool-Aid is in most need at the moment and send them there. (link is to Ravelry group. Website is HERE )
After the sweaters (images below) I will try and get back to the new pattern-based knitting. Or work more on Oscar's knee high socks.

Before weaving in the ends on the sweaters, I am keeping my knitting pretty simple. As an offering to Sekhmet (Egyptian lion goddess of healing among other things) for watching over Buddha while she is suffering an inoperable nasal tumor, I decided to knit some bedding to be felted and donated to our local humane society. Such things as towels and pieces of blankets currently in the animal's cage are sent off with the adopted animals to their new home as a scent memory helping the critters to adjust in their new environment, so bedding items of whatever variety are  always needed. The ones I am making are felted and need not conform to a specific shape and size so they are fine to be washed and rewashed. The knitting will only felt down so much, until it becomes a stable size. Even if the edges curl a bit with multiple washes I find it makes a great place for a sleeping cat. Oscar will take photos of them before we donate them. I am working on #5, with possibly enough yarn for a sixth.I am shooting for a size at least 18 inches on each side, which equates to double stranded worsted weight knit on size 13 needles, cast on  63 stitches and knit every row (garter stitch) until they are about 1/3rd longer than they are wide. I will write a general pattern later, perhaps.