Jananas

I’ve blogged before that one of my cats (Romeo) has heart failure. I was up at the cottage this past week, babysitting my parents mini zoo while they were out of province at a wedding. It somehow ended up that no one was at home in the house in Toronto, which meant that no one would be around to monitor Romeo to make sure she was doing okay. So, up she came to the cottage to enjoy a weekend of lounging in the sun, as evidenced by the picture below…

My grandmother was an avid knitter. I remember receiving handmade sweaters for birthdays and Christmas when I was little. More than anything else though, I remember her knitting socks. The same socks every time. So many that there are family stories about entire garbage bags full of homemade socks.

My grandmother passed away when I was 17. I only learned how to knit a year and a half ago, and am a little bummed that I never learned from her while I had the chance. Sadly, when she passed away we didn’t keep any of her knitting supplies (although it was really just a few pairs of needles). She had been knitting her socks for so long that she no longer needed a pattern, so when she died the sock pattern died with her. In fact, we’re not even sure if there was ever a pattern to begin with!

This past year as a Christmas gift for my mom I found someone locally who was able to reverse engineer some of my surviving pairs of grandma’s socks into a written pattern. I wanted to post it online so that other people can enjoy these socks as well. And if other people knit them, a little part of my grandmother stays in the world.

To Download the Basic Ear Flap Hat Pattern you can do one of three things:

1. Click on this button above,
2. Click on this link,
3. Or you can find it on Ravelry here

It will open the pdf in a new window. From there, you can browse through it and save it if you choose to.

Also, you can find more of my knitting patterns here.

I’ve been getting up much earlier in the morning in the last week. Its amazing how much you can accomplish before noon! Today I made some vegan whole wheat bread by veganizing (using rice milk & earth balance because that’s what we had in the fridge) a white bread recipe in one of my cookbooks. I used whole wheat bread flour, again because that’s what I had available. I was a little nervous because it didn’t rise as much as bread normally does, although that may just be because its only 20C inside the house (in fact, the furnace was on this morning!!).

I’ll be giving the second loaf to a friend today, because we don’t normally eat enough bread to go through two loaves in a few days. Worst case, I have to make a second batch…

Speaking of second batches, I made a second batch of garlic & dill pickles yesterday. This time I cut them into spears and they fit into the jars much easier. Now I have enough to give a few away as gifts!

Yesterday I was walking home from the park and noticed that one of the little local grocers had mini ‘cukes available for sale. I’ve talked before about my desire to make homemade dill pickles and Jason’s sister was talking this past week about their previous adventures in canning dill pickles. I figured that today was as good a day as any to try! Over the course of the day yesterday I grabbed 12 1L mason jars ($12.80), 17lbs of ‘cukes ($17), some more white vinegar ($2), and some dill/dill seed ($5).

This afternoon, after getting home from having an always good lunch with my friend Brenda, I decided that it was now or never! I had found this recipe online for dill pickles and it seemed as good as any. I immediately set out to sterilize the mason jars (I ran mine through my dishwasher on the sani-wash setting along with a little bleach) and cool my cucumbers. Here they are just sitting in the sink being cool as can be. This took about two and a half hours.

Once the jars were clean I put in the various spices. I had picked up fresh dill (which smells amazing!). The recipe calls for dill head, although comments on the recipe say that dill seed can work as a replacement so I used that instead. I also added a little bit of Keen’s dry mustard and some whole peppercorns for a bit of zest. Jason & I both love (love!) garlic, so I used 4 whole heads in these babies. After the spices where in, I added some cukes. These were fat suckers, so I slices a bunch of them to fit some more into the jars.

As I was getting the jars ready, I had set the big pot of brine to boil on the stove. It took a while longer to heat up, but Jason kept me company. We filled the jars as a team, with Jason pouring brine and myself wiping edges and putting lids on. It seemed to work well, once I realized that if he had two jars handy he could fill the second while I was dealing with the first. After they were all done Jason tightened the lids as I wasn’t sure that I’d done a good enough job.

Then we placed the jars in a sink full of hot water. Awesome is that we’ve heard a bunch of loud ‘popping’ sounds coming from the kitchen, which is the seals forming. Its been about half so far which has me excited. Hopefully the rest will go soon!!

Sadly, we ran out of the boiling brine mixture partway through the last jar. We topped it up with water, vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Its sitting in the fridge right now. We know it isn’t sealed and so won’t keep forever, but as long as we eat it in the next two weeks (I’m sure that won’t be a hardship…) it’s all good.

Overall, this was a pretty easy experience. I’m thinking that since I still have cucumbers, dill, and garlic that I’ll pick up some more jars later this week and make a second batch! Maybe with some hot peppers…

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In my last semester of school, I had a conversation with a professor about Twitter and how it provides value. Here’s a real life example.

Back in March, I finished my first ever pair of thrummed mittens and promptly blogged about it. My blog updates my twitter account, as its an easy automation and helps get the word out there (or more exactly, helps my friends follow all the fun stuff I get up to).  My now friend, Mary (of Marajane Creations), must have been following/searching yarn/knitting related references on twitter and somehow came across my blog post. We started talking and she asked if I’d make her a pair. I still had some Malabrigo leftover in the Tortuga colourway (the lovely dark/slate grey) so I figured why not!

She hand dyed some rovings in the exact colours that she wants in her mittens and mailed them up to me. They arrived while I was away on vacation, so it took me an extra week or two to realize. Here’s a picture of their lovely easter egg-y goodness.

I’m pretty stoked on getting to start these this week, because the colours are just so lovely and fun. I’m also pretty stoked because the rest of the deal is that I get a skein of handspun in exchange for my knitting labour.

Overall, I think its a pretty cool story about the neat connections and fun opportunities that can present themselves through Twitter.

p.s. spot the feet tattoos?