Jananas

I recently discovered and fell in love with the absolutely stunning dye work of Juliespins (etsy or artfire) through a destash on Ravelry. She has an eye for some fantastic and bright colours and her generous braids seal the deal. Most dyers offer braids in the 4oz range. Julies vary from 5 to 6oz, which means that even if your yardage isn’t fantastic that you’ll still have enough for a full project.

A couple of weeks ago, I grabbed one of her braids of fiber in Pastel Chalk and decided to spin it up. I ended up with about 280yards of a fingering weight two ply. As it sat on the bobbin, the colours just screamed BABY. Thankfully a coworker’s wife is expecting a little girl at the end of February. Even though fellow knitters (who know his wife through their mutual workplace) said that she loves orange, my coworker loved the yarn in the skein.

Off I went to find a baby cardigan that met my yardage and yarn weight requirements. I came across this lovely garter yoke baby cardigan that had enough freedom in the pattern that I could eke every last yard out of my yarn. I knit the body first, divided my leftover yarn in half and then knit the arms last so that there wouldn’t be any guesswork about them being the same length/possibly running out of yarn. Lastly, I did a simple crochet edge using Fleece Artist’s Peter Rabbit so that there would be something soft and snuggly.

Seriously, cutest baby sweater ever! The colours are pretty and varied and overall its just adorable. Below is a close up so that you can see the little tiny stitches.

This project was super fast – I think it was two weeks from combed top to a finished baby sweater. The longest part was getting motivated to sew the ends in and block it (on day three of drying out!). I still have to chose a couple of buttons and sew them on, but that’s such a tiny amount of work that I’m not worried.

I’ve found myself saying “Its not my job” a lot lately. I hate it. I don’t want to be someone who says those words. I don’t want to be someone who believes those words.

I’ll go out of my way to help people who help themselves. Or when it really is a bind. But I resent getting squeezed because the system/culture/people don’t allow enough time or can’t make up their minds. Being the low man on the totem pole (from both a title and organization point of view), I’m the one who is supposed to drop everything to rush to get things done. There’s little consideration to prior plans or fluctuating stress levels or wasted time and effort.

“Its not my job” is another way of protecting myself – from deadlines that are unrealistic or bosses who ask you to do work that is demoralizing. Its a safe way to say ‘no’ and pushing back. The problem

Maybe its time to start having some courageous conversations instead. Its scary to take a stance and put yourself out there as the one who’s vocally not going along with the way things run. But I’d rather be the person who speaks out in an attempt to make things better than be the person who mutters and holds everything back.

Do you have a picture of who you are? What could you change today to help you be more like that picture?

Wise Daughters Craft Market presents

IT’S MY YARN PARTY (AND I’LL BUY IF I WANT TO)

Fri, Oct 15, 8 pm, $15

Yarns told by some of Toronto’s best storytellers, co-presented with FOOL (Festival of Oral Literatures)

Sat, Oct 16, 10 – 6

Yarn fair extraordinaire showcasing work by local spinners and knit/textile designers Spinning demonstrations at 2 and 4 pm (including one by yours truly!)

Sun, Oct 17, 10 – 6

Specialty knitting classes

10:30 – 12:30 Gloria Williams – Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless gloves make great gifts!  If you can knit and purl, you’ll love this project.

Materials: 1 skein of handspun yarn, set of 4 or 5 double pointed needles, 5mm.

1:00 – 3:00 Jana Reid – Ear Flap Hat (hey, that’s ME!)

Keep your ears warm and the cold Canadian winter out with this original cosy hat pattern.

Must know how to knit, purl, increase and decrease.

Materials: min 140 m handspun yarn, a set of double pointed needles, 16″ circular in 4 – 5 mm.

3:30 – 5:30 Rosa Tarle – The Kink in your Yarn

Keep the kink in your yarn and knit it…Learn how to wind handspun energized singles and maintain the active twist while you knit!  Scarf pattern included, other creations for this unique bias knitting technique will also be shared.  Must know how to knit and purl.

Materials: a skein of handspun energized yarn, 4 – 5 mm needles.

Each class $10, all three $25 Yarn must be purchased at Wise Daughters in advance www.wisedaughters.com 3079B Dundas St. W.

I’ve read a lot of books this year, with a good balance between fiction and general life improvement/business books. One of the biggest lessons is that sometimes you just need to make a decision and run with it. You could spend hours or weeks or months or years evaluating options and agonizing over whether you’ve made the perfect/right choice. Or you can cut out all that worry (and wasted energy). Make a decision and GO.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks talking about wedding stuffs and planning things. People seem shocked that we’ve already done things like reserve our venue and our caterer. [really folks, I'm a planner here!].

1 – If we make a decision now, we don’t need to worry about needing to make a decision. I’m hoping that it will mean less stress over the next year and more time for us to enjoy life.

2 - I’m trying to get decisions made now so that we can go back to being our normal, non-wedding selves. I really, really don’t want the next year of my life to be all about the wedding. Its important, but I don’t want to lose myself or our relationship if that makes sense.

3 – We’re 5 hours away from where our reception is going to be held and we don’t have free time to make multiple trips to view places/taste food. So we put a little faith into the universe and just went with some things sight unseen. The way I figure, even if we find a place that we 100% love and had visited and was perfect, etc. things can still go wrong the day of.

Instead I’m going to spend all of that energy loving Jason and having adventures with him. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

The cat is out of the bag. Jason & I are engaged. It wasn’t really a surprise. We’ve been together for three years and have spent lots of time over the last while talking about weddings and equally fun things like immigration. Jason had even vocalized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. (cue inner girl going Squeee!)

It was this weird in between space where we knew it was going to happen eventually, but I wasn’t able to be excited/start planning. Traditional gender roles would have us believe that as the woman I was supposed to just sit back and wait. And wait. And wait until someone else made a decision for me and for us. It was a position that made me feel powerless and weak and frustrated.

The only reason I felt that way though was because I’d allowed myself to discount a totally viable option. I bought into the limitations of traditional gender roles. I didn’t have to wait because I had the power to ask too.

So yes, I asked Jason to marry me. We were tucked into bed talking one evening and I just had to. The question was sitting in my mouth, taking up space and weighing me down. I knew that if I didn’t ask, I’d focus on it and drive myself crazy. So I asked and he said yes.

And because I’m me, I then asked if I could wear a ring that I adore. My father gave my mother this ring years and years ago. Its an opal surrounded by little diamonds. Its the only ring that I’ve ever liked wearing (this doesn’t mean that I’ll always wear it though because I’m really not a jewelry sort of girl) and in my head its always been a left hand ring finger sort of ring.

Now, for ring pron.