In my grandmother's button collection, I found this fabric covered button--the perfect match for the jacket I'm delivering to O Wool at TNNA this weekend. I'd like to know what the previous life of this button was... I'm guessing the garment must have been pretty nice. I can imagine why it ended up in the button bag. Sitto was only 4' 10" tall, and had to alter many of the clothes she bought. I'm guessing, this was from a coat circa 1960 or so, and she lopped off the bottom removing one of the buttons.
Here are some pictures of the finished jacket.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
KIP... on the metro
Worldwide Knitting in Public Day is coming up people!
Barbara, Martha, Hillary, Junko (not pictured) and I took the metro to the Stitch and Pitch Game. It was the most people I'd seen knitting on the metro at one time.
Barbara, Martha, Hillary, Junko (not pictured) and I took the metro to the Stitch and Pitch Game. It was the most people I'd seen knitting on the metro at one time.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Geeky Fun...
I found out by accident, that in iChat, you can take a little snapshot of the video screen. This is my brother while we were chatting late this evening. He swears he did that to his hair on purpose.
Monday, May 21, 2007
More Sweets
Beth designed this cardi using the Sweet sweater template. She didn't stop there--she went on to make another in a solid color with long sleeves.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Strawberry hat
I have always loved those knit baby fruit and vegetable hats that are de rigeur at showers (or were when my wee ones were born)... But now they seem predictable compared to this beauty, and, I have to say, I like this more. Great Job Anniki!
Monday, May 14, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Chips and Hooks
James organized a friendly neighborhood poker game tonight at our house. Laura and I thought, since we folded just about every hand, that we might as well crochet while we played--Laura's making a Doris Chan top--that's me with hook in one hand and chips in the other--talk about multi-tasking! I did better at the poker than I expected--5th in a group of 10, and better with the crochet too--I finished the second sleeve of my current sweater without the usual dread that overtakes me making the second one of just about anything in short succession. Onward.
Swatch that Blog
Famed crochet designer Marty Miller has a new blog all about swatching! I'm one of those crazies who loves to swatch, so I'm very excited to hear what she has to say.
Primary Colors
Have you seen Slate's Green Challenge? It's a fun way to measure your carbon footprint and it helps you figure out how you can reduce it even more. This week's portion of the quiz is about what you wear--and there's a cute little graphic of a woman knitting directly from a sheep (no mention of knitting in the quiz itself, tho').
The introduction to the quiz talks about buying clothes with fibers that eco-friendly. Obviously, you can apply all of their clothing tips to your yarn buying.
Coincidentally, just before this week's quiz arrived in my inbox, we put our clothesline back up. When we took down the clothesline in the fall, James covered the hole with a little grass to the kids wouldn't get hurt... this spring, it was a bit of a challenge to find the hole, but after the metal detector failed to find it, (Or, as James said, found it, and every other small bit of metal buried in the yard), he took to poking around with a pitch fork. That did the trick. We celebrated by washing the couch cushion covers and pillow covers from the playroom.
Folks in my family, for some reason, particularly like line-drying clothes. My dad manages the clothesline most of the time at my parent's house. I can't help but think he likes the process of dragging the wet clothes out, hanging them one-by-one, then collecting them after they've magically dried. I like that you can fold as you take them off--it saves a step later. Of course, I remember, as a kid, running out to frantically grab clothes off the line when a summer storm would come up suddenly, and hearing my mom running around closing all of the old windows in our house that had a distinct wooden thud.
Grabbing a freshly line-dried towel is not the same as getting a fluffy warm one out of the dryer. You certainly have to develop a feel for the crunchy clothes and towels. But nothing sucks up water like a line-dried towel, and your jeans can stand up on their own.
I recently started washing almost all my laundry in cold water. I figured I'd switch back to hot if things didn't seem as clean, but I haven't noticed a difference. I knew that cold uses less energy than hot, but I didn't know how much. Slate says the average American uses about 850 pounds of CO2 in taking care of their clothes. My baseline score on the quiz, factoring in cold water washing and line drying, was 205 pounds. That's a big difference!
OK, enough talk of laundry. I have my middle school crochet and knitting class to teach this afternoon, and I can't wait to see what they've been up to since the last meeting.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Business Week says "Design Sucks."
This is an incredible article by Bruce Nussbaum about how design has to change in a new, green, Web 2.0 world.
Monday, May 07, 2007
The Other Kind of Fiber
Food rant below--have no fear, yarn-filled Maryland Sheep and Wool follow-up to come later today.
If you eat bread, even bread made at home, you're most likely consuming wheat gluten--the same ingredient causing problems in all the bad pet food (and now chicken feed) a few weeks back. The FDA has little control over what goes into your bread because, not surprisingly, many of the vital ingredients are imported from China. This morning on National Public Radio, there was a story saying that the newly appointed FDA "czar" has basically no power (not unlike most czars in history, US or otherwise), even though he was appointed in response to the pet food crisis.
A story this morning in the Kansas City Star says our wheat gluten was mostly produced domestically until 2000 when import quotas were lifted. Subsequently, most domestic producers went out of business. According to the star, [it is] "estimated that the U.S. consumes about 530 million pounds of wheat gluten annually. Government figures show that about 386 million pounds of that were imported."
Take Action
What does all this mean? To me, It means I want to know where my food comes from. The best way to do that is to buy your food as close to its source of manufacture as possible. Barring that, caveat emptor, be an informed consumer.
Ask Your Baker
Ask at your bakery where they get their gluten. More pointedly, ask if any of their ingredients are produced in China. If you buy bread at a grocery store, look at the packaging. Visit the web site listed and send them an e-mail. Call customer service numbers. If there aren't any on the packaging, Google the company, you'll most likely find something. It takes consumers telling companies they care where their ingredients come from for change to happen.
Let me know when you've found out, and I'll create a web-list of bread companies that use domestic gluten. I may also try and contact the two remaining domestic producers to see if they can provide a client list.
UPDATE: I got a return phone call this morning from the customer service people who support Vermont Bread Company and Rudy's Organic Bread Company. It was voicemail, so I didn't get a chance to ask any followups, but they said their gluten comes from Canada.
Talk to your Representatives
Stronger FDA oversight is needed to insure the safety of imported ingredients. This will take new legislation. Call or e-mail to let your representatives know you're concerned about where your food comes from.
Beyond Food Safety
The importation of ingredients like wheat and soy have effects beyond food safety. Domestic farmers and manufacturers are going out of business. Support your local growers and local bakeries, and small local manufacturers. Visit local farms and farmers' markets. Get to know your food producers. My friend and fellow knitting blogger, Hannah and her family do a great job finding local sources for almost anything, and she writes periodically about it on her blog. I'm looking forward to reading the new book by Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
, where she chronicles a year of eating food "from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."
If you eat bread, even bread made at home, you're most likely consuming wheat gluten--the same ingredient causing problems in all the bad pet food (and now chicken feed) a few weeks back. The FDA has little control over what goes into your bread because, not surprisingly, many of the vital ingredients are imported from China. This morning on National Public Radio, there was a story saying that the newly appointed FDA "czar" has basically no power (not unlike most czars in history, US or otherwise), even though he was appointed in response to the pet food crisis.
A story this morning in the Kansas City Star says our wheat gluten was mostly produced domestically until 2000 when import quotas were lifted. Subsequently, most domestic producers went out of business. According to the star, [it is] "estimated that the U.S. consumes about 530 million pounds of wheat gluten annually. Government figures show that about 386 million pounds of that were imported."
Take Action
What does all this mean? To me, It means I want to know where my food comes from. The best way to do that is to buy your food as close to its source of manufacture as possible. Barring that, caveat emptor, be an informed consumer.
Ask Your Baker
Ask at your bakery where they get their gluten. More pointedly, ask if any of their ingredients are produced in China. If you buy bread at a grocery store, look at the packaging. Visit the web site listed and send them an e-mail. Call customer service numbers. If there aren't any on the packaging, Google the company, you'll most likely find something. It takes consumers telling companies they care where their ingredients come from for change to happen.
Let me know when you've found out, and I'll create a web-list of bread companies that use domestic gluten. I may also try and contact the two remaining domestic producers to see if they can provide a client list.
UPDATE: I got a return phone call this morning from the customer service people who support Vermont Bread Company and Rudy's Organic Bread Company. It was voicemail, so I didn't get a chance to ask any followups, but they said their gluten comes from Canada.
Talk to your Representatives
Stronger FDA oversight is needed to insure the safety of imported ingredients. This will take new legislation. Call or e-mail to let your representatives know you're concerned about where your food comes from.
Beyond Food Safety
The importation of ingredients like wheat and soy have effects beyond food safety. Domestic farmers and manufacturers are going out of business. Support your local growers and local bakeries, and small local manufacturers. Visit local farms and farmers' markets. Get to know your food producers. My friend and fellow knitting blogger, Hannah and her family do a great job finding local sources for almost anything, and she writes periodically about it on her blog. I'm looking forward to reading the new book by Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
, where she chronicles a year of eating food "from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."Sunday, May 06, 2007
Kissing Slippers
More Knitting Class fun--one of my middle school students made socks on the knitting machine-and gave them faces--but instead of using them as puppets she's made them into a pair of slippers, using puff paint to make the bottoms non-skid.
Another student has started making barbie clothes to sell at an upcoming street fair in her neighborhood this summer. Her first ensemble is pictured below.
Another student has started making barbie clothes to sell at an upcoming street fair in her neighborhood this summer. Her first ensemble is pictured below.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Foodie Friday
I'm not part of Deneen's webring--but I do like to bring the food talk to this blog from time to time.
We actually had this dinner last night--but it's become a new family favorite, and since it's so easy, I thought it would make a good Friday night meal. When I was a kid, a favorite lunch for both my brother and me was grilled cheese with tomato soup. When I stopped eating heavily processed foods, it was a meal I missed. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Hillary told me about the Creamy Tomato Soup
from Imagine foods. It's not condensed and comes in a 32 oz. container, so one box feeds a family of four. We made grilled "cheese" with Vermont Organics Multigrain bread and Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheese (a mix of their cheddar and montery jack varieties). I served the meal with sliced apples, just like my mom used to. It was quick, yummy, and everyone (including my omnivore husband) devoured it.
Oh, a process note--my mom taught me to make grilled cheese by buttering the outside of the bread--I find with the soft breads I use, that's not necessarily enough fat on the pan itself, so I've been putting the grease (Earth Balance Margarine, in my case) on the skillet itself.
(x-posted to comfort kitchen)
We actually had this dinner last night--but it's become a new family favorite, and since it's so easy, I thought it would make a good Friday night meal. When I was a kid, a favorite lunch for both my brother and me was grilled cheese with tomato soup. When I stopped eating heavily processed foods, it was a meal I missed. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Hillary told me about the Creamy Tomato Soup
from Imagine foods. It's not condensed and comes in a 32 oz. container, so one box feeds a family of four. We made grilled "cheese" with Vermont Organics Multigrain bread and Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheese (a mix of their cheddar and montery jack varieties). I served the meal with sliced apples, just like my mom used to. It was quick, yummy, and everyone (including my omnivore husband) devoured it.Oh, a process note--my mom taught me to make grilled cheese by buttering the outside of the bread--I find with the soft breads I use, that's not necessarily enough fat on the pan itself, so I've been putting the grease (Earth Balance Margarine, in my case) on the skillet itself.
(x-posted to comfort kitchen)
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Fixed!
I got an e-mail from the folks at the DIY network saying they have fixed their omission in the pattern template for my Knitty Gritty episode. Thanks guys!
p.s. Random bits of toddler fun...
Today after his nap, I asked Jay what he wanted for snack, and he said "Not carrots!"
Yesterday, he was playing at the neighbors while I took Selma to her piano lesson. When I walked in the house to get him, he said, "I'm not here!"
I love two-year olds.
p.s. Random bits of toddler fun...
Today after his nap, I asked Jay what he wanted for snack, and he said "Not carrots!"
Yesterday, he was playing at the neighbors while I took Selma to her piano lesson. When I walked in the house to get him, he said, "I'm not here!"
I love two-year olds.
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