ester

yikes! please ignore the messy kitchen.  :)

pattern: Ester
yarn: Cascade 220 in plum
mods: alternated the cable pattern from the centre out to make it symmetrical
verdict: awesome!

After searching around on Ravelry, I noted that a lot of people had trouble with the sizing of this cardi, so even though my measurements would really have me knit a size small or even extra small, I knit a medium.  I wanted it to fit like the sample in Knitty than like a small shrug, and the designer ,who also modelled the sample in the pattern, looks to be about my size and she had knit a medium for herself.  I'm very glad I did: the fit is just what I wanted.

I haven't steam blocked the collar yet, so it looks a little funky in the pictures at times.  I considered adding some short rows to add a little height to the shawl collar, and if I were to knit this a second time in a different colour I think I'd try that, just to see the difference.

I can't find my big kilt pin, so I'm wearing it closed with a ceramic brooch I used to wear on my shawl for my highland dancing dress.  I'm spying out penannular brooches on Etsy, though: I think one will be perfect for closing Ester.

And I'm adoring the colour.  Turns out plum is a fabulous colour with my new green eyes.  (Yes, they're newly green.  They changed colour from blue to green while I was pregnant.  Weird, no?)

cardigans remembered

For years, I was a cardigan afficionado.  I had many, many cardis in my wardrobe.  I just couldn't get enough of them.  Everytime I'd see one, I'd think "I need that cardi.  I don't have one like it!" 

I had one that was a Christmas gift from my grandmother while I was in high school.  It was a tweedy grey, tunic-length (past the hip) cabled cardi with large, round buttons and pockets.  When I first opened it, at about 17 years old, I didn't love it.  But I remember getting dressed for my first full day of classes in university at 19 years old, to go to my "elite" liberal arts programme with all the other nerds (I write with much love and admiration).  I put on an a-line skirt, my Doc mary-janes, a turtleneck and that cardigan, slung my brown distressed-leather book case over my shoulder, wearing my new funky glasses and my crazed, curly hair, and I looked quite the part of an academic.  I felt like myself, reveling in my geekery, knowing that I was finally peers with people who were actually my peers, people with whom I had much in common in thought and state of mind, not just proximity.

I loved that cardigan during those years.  Somewhere along the way I lost it or got rid of it.  It was knit of some sort of acrylic, so it wasn't particularly dear, but when I see long, cabled cardis sort of like this one of cosmicpluto's, I remember with fondness that big grey sweater and those sweet, wonderful years as an undergraduate.  They say you can't go back again, but if I could, I think I might, not to escape my current life, but to relive with greater enthusiasm and appreciation how delightful those times were.

It's...

...hard to believe, isn't it?

red is best

Borscht in a Christmas bowl.

Another Peanut Christmas

I finally made Peanut's stocking this year, too.

It was a lovely Christmas, full of family, and friends and a lot of time at the church.  A family party out in the country, with hours of music playing and singing.  A beautiful Christmas morning with just the four of us (I count Wembley, of course).  Peanut playing with the ornaments on the tree, asking to hear Christmas albums, exclaiming over a light wreath hanging in the living room.  And she adores her new rocking chair (thank you, Ikea).

Such a great Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

Another dress for Peanut!

I'm actually updating! Wow!  Still no knitting, I'm afraid.  For awhile there Peanut was going to sleep in the evening, and I'd knit for a few hours before she woke up for her first dream feed.  The last bunch of weeks, though, she's been finding 8-11pm a particularly fun time of day.  Lots of playing, lots of smiling and laughing and climbing of stairs, but not a lot of sleeping, so certainly no knitting for me.

There's been sewing, though!  I am so extremely pleased with this dress, I can't even tell you.  It's a little massive on her, and given her increasingly slow growth (what can I say, she takes after me) it will likely fit her for the next year...at least.

It's brown twill with rudimentary applique of flower petals and leaves.  The cotton prints for the petals and leaves were included when I ordered some totally awesome print corduroy for another dress for her (I'll have pics of it...someday!) and I was thrilled to come up with a way to use these little quilting squares.  It's the same simple A-line drafted pattern I used for her first twill dress, but with one buttoned shoulder instead of snaps on both.  The contrasting stitching is a variegated thread I found in a $1 bin at the fabric store, and it's just fantastic around the trim and for the topstitching on the applique.  I adore this dress, and plan to make many, many more like it.  And yes, I plan to open an Etsy shop to list them.  :)

Just because I think she's cute, here's one more:

Adventures in baked goods

So I've been wanting cookies for the past few days. But we ran out of flour, and while our neighbourhood is supplied with Italian and Vietnamese and Chinese food finds, it is sadly lacking in the way of an affordable grocery store for simples like plain wheat flour or eggs.

No flour. No eggs. No cookies? Hardly. Introducing Egg-less Chickpea Peanut Butter Cookies!

Here's my attempt at a recipe (since I don't measure and don't write things down, it is understandably approximate):

1/4 cup butter, softened
3 really, really heaping tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
dash vanilla
2 cups scant cooked chickpeas, well drained
2 heaping tbsp ground flax

Have your chickpeas cooked and drained. If you're using canned chickpeas, rinse them to remove excess saltiness. In a food processor, whiz up the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar. Add the chickpeas and whiz on high until it's fairly smooth looking. Add the vanilla and flax and give it another spin. If it looks like a very soft dough/batter at this point, leave it as it is. If it seems too runny, add a few more chickpeas to even things out.

Drop by tablespoons-full onto a cookie sheet (I used a silicon baking sheet to keep them from sticking) and bake at 375*. Now, I'm not really sure how long I baked them. After 10 minutes or so, I smooshed them with a fork, then baked them for another 5-10 minutes. The first batch baked for a shorter time than the second batch, and I think they taste better baked more than less. Remove to a cooling rack when they are golden brown and look fairly dry and 'done'.

Sadly, oh so sadly

*sigh*  There are no words.


Who would think just a few yarn-overs could be so easy to forget, and could cause such a problem.

Let me introduce Nancy

Back in June, on the 20th to be specific, Nancy came into my life.  She was a birthday gift from my mother.  Two days later, I watched The Man cart her, along with my wedding gown (including the crinoline!) with his guitar on his back, down the street immediately after the fire.  When I asked him why he bothered to carry her out of the house, he said "It was a birthday gift."  He wanted to be sure that I had one of my birthday gifts, particularly since I had such a wretched birthday.

So here she is.




And here's what we've been working on together.




I have so many other plans, too.  I loooove her!!

Cheap and Zesty

No, not me: dinner!

When a family is living on one income, money can get a little tight.  When a family experiences a house-fire, bills can add up.  Combine the two, and you get: inventive cheap dinner blog posts!

Start two cups of rice to cook.


Chop one onion (I used half of a big Spanish sweet onion - they were cheap) and press or mince two or three cloves of garlic.  Heat some olive oil in a large pan, and add the garlic, then onion.  Saute until it starts to sweat.

Add half a green pepper, chopped.  If you have celery or anything else, add that.  Keep it on medium heat.

Add a tablespoon or two (do I ever measure anything?  No, I do not.) of chili powder, some cumin (saaaay, 1.5 teaspoons) a teaspoon or two of cayenne (more if you have a tongue of steel) and salt and pepper.

Now add your protein.  I used veggie mince (essentially texturized vegetable protein: believe me, it tastes better than it sounds) but you could use ground and browned meat of any sort, or any sort of legume.  I think lentils would be particularly fantastic in this.  Stir it all together.  If it doesn't look very red, add more chili.

When the rice is nearly done, add two chopped tomatoes.

Serve over the rice, preferably with some shredded cheese or some yogurt or sour cream.  I think some shredded lettuce over the top would be delicious, as well.

Tasty!

A little fire follow-up

If you've been reading this blog for longer than two months, you likely noticed this post. Since the lace looks about the same (a big blob of grey) I thought I'd give a little update on our post-fire situation.

As I wrote back in July, we have a new condo. It's nice. We like it. The main floor is pretty awesome: very lofty-warehouse-chic, with it's high ceiling and open-concept and wall of floor to ceiling windows. What the kitchen lacks in cupboard space it makes up for in fantastic appliances. The upstairs is alright, but it is much, much smaller than the last place. This is posing some serious issues with regard to unpacking. In order to unpack, we need to have a place to put everything, but in order to have that place we need to get the boxes out of the way and unpacked but in order to unpack them...you see? What we are calling "Peanut's Room" is, in fact, wall to wall boxes, about four feet high. It's a damned good thing she still sleeps in bed with us: there is no room for a crib anywhere. We'd have to put her in the living room, I think, if she was in a crib.

The neighbourhood isn't bad. On one hand, we really like it. There are a lot of kids down the street from us, and they often congregate at the concrete barricade (the block is divided to prevent through-traffic) in the evenings, so once Peanut is walking (could be any day now!) I think she'll really enjoy playing with her fellow toddlers. There's a fabulous little Italian grocer at the top of the block. The Man has discovered that their fresh cut bacon is both better quality and cheaper than the cheap bacon from the supermarket, so he's quite happy making weekend bacon runs. And I need to start generating some income if only so that I can support my cheese habit. They have the BEST CHEESE.

We're walking distance - granted, a long walk - from a farmer's market, where I have found the best garlic of all time. If you are on the knittyboard, you may have seen my thread in GHS about garlic storage. I still have to figure out how I'll get and keep a stock of this garlic all winter. It's just too good to go without. Buying local produce direct from the grower is nice for so many reasons, amongst them the fact that it's usually less expensive (at least, for the vegetables and fruit I've been buying, it is). We like that.

It's not all cheap bacon and garlic bulbs, though. While the street is largely residential, one end of it - our end of it - is primarily commercial.  There's a large storage facility for Public Works, a paint store/warehouse, and a smallish factory with several businesses including a presentation company (supply equipment for staging and events) and a couple of printing houses all right across the street from us.  There is a giant semi backing down my street (because, with such a narrow street and that concrete barricade, they have no choice but to back all the way past my house) just about every single day, and almost invariably while Peanut is finally having a nap.

It's infuriating.  Add on top of that that places to which we used to walk in ten minutes now take about forty-five minutes and it has really started to make me wonder if we made a mistake.  I'm sitting in our living room, the street outside quiet and dark, our main floor so bright and funky, and I want to love everything about this place, but I know that there could easily be a big Penske truck backing down the street at 2am tomorrow morning, should that presentation company strike a gig late at night.  And I know that I've barely seen my very, very good friend K all summer.  She lives around the corner from our old place, the one that burned, and took us in the morning of the fire - plied us with tea and strawberries and homebaked bread - and now it's a chore just to spend a few hours with her.  It makes me sad.

We may have prioritized a little incorrectly.  It seemed so important to get a place as soon as possible, and someplace really nice so that we could essentially pretend that we wanted to move.  Unfortunately, we may have missed the mark with this one.  In fairness to ourselves, though, we only saw this place in the evening and on a holiday, so there was no way to know how much commercial traffic comes through here.

Homelessness is unpleasant.  No, we were never living under threat of having to live under a bridge or in a box or in a shelter, but we were definitely without a home of our own for two weeks there.  It was so unsettling it may have driven us to choose a home too quickly.  Not having a place of our own was just too uncomfortable, too scary.  And the real kicker is that it now appears that the building that burned isn't being demolished.  It now appears they will rebuild from the inside out all the units which were burned.  The latest report is "all except the last three units".  So our former home will sit, empty and unloved and untouched and unharmed, for about another year.  While we live here.  It bites.*

We'll likely stick out our year and then move back into the core.  We really did adore living downtown, despite all the drawbacks, like lack of parking, noisy neighbours, sirens, and drunks wandering around the street.  I think it's where we're meant to be.

For now, I'll just have to be patient, and get used to long, long walks to see my friends.

*I know, I know, living immediately adjacent to a construction zone would bite, too, even worse, perhaps, than living where we currently do.  Plus, there's the whole "danger" issue.  I think, as a victim of peril, that I have the freedom to be mildly irrational.

Toddlers are terrible models

   

Can you believe that these are the best photos I could get, out of the 30 or so that I took?  Toddlers are so uncooperative!

A bit of Peanut, too

Just to reassure you that Peanut is still as cute as ever, I thought you may need to see how she's doing these days.

One of my very favourite aspects of our new place is the front load washer.  I really adore our front loader.  It is made of awesome.  Peanut thinks so, too.

She'll watch her diapers go around and around and around.  It's fantastically adorable.

Just like our last condo was, this place is a stacked townhouse.  And just like the last one, we are in the upper half of the stack, which means that there is no way for us to clean the outside of our own windows.  Fortunately, the condo corp takes care of that, which made for about a half hour of entertainment for Peanut.  And that, in turn, allowed me to eat my breakfast and get some blogging done in peace.

She watched the nice man in the cherry picker as he washed all our windows, and he got a great kick out of seeing her, too.

And sewing, too!

Yesterday afternoon, Peanut had a long nap.  A really, really long nap.  And despite what I just wrote in that last post, she did, in fact, sleep deeply and soundly, and didn't need any help to stay asleep at all.  It was, quite frankly, awesome.  

The Man was outside on the balcony getting a sunburn reading, and I decided to be randomly productive.  In about an hour and a half, I had this.

I have to admit, that one of my favourite parts of having a little girl is making clothes for her. Little tunics and dresses are just so ridiculously easy and fast to make, and they're cute, too! All this one needs is buttons for the shoulders, and she'll have a summer dress, and a cold weather tunic.

It's unbelievable, I know.

Today's post is about - *gasp!* - knitting.  I'll give you a moment to recover from the shock.

::

::

Better? Ok.  So, after we lost the house in the fire, we were the recipients of some incredibly generous, considerate and helpful acts of kindness. One package we received, however, wasn't so much something necessary as it was...really awesome.  Kashmir Knitter bestowed upon me a cone of Colourmart Cashmere Cotton lace weight.

Wow.  For a few weeks, the cone sat on a shelf in the living room.  I'd look at it.  Occasionally I'd pet it.  I just didn't know what to do with such wonderful yarn!  It's this heathered charcoal grey, delightfully soft and beautifully fine.  I wanted to be sure I'd make the best possible use out of the yardage, as well.

Many, many (and did I mention many?) Ravelry searches later, I determined that the yardage of that single cone was more than enough to make a small cardigan with lots to spare.  So I've decided to knit up the spare first, as it were.  Hence, Laminaria.

It won't be much to look at until it's blocked, but it's such a lovely knit.  The pattern is never boring, but also quickly memorized.  I am really, really enjoying it.  Every night, I take Peanut to bed, nurse her to sleep, and on those nights when she's co-operative and sleeps soundly right away, I sit back up, turn on a dvd, and knit my shawl.  She's never been a particularly deep or sound sleeper (she's like her mother that way) and tends to need a little maintenance to keep her sleeping, which is why I stay in the room most evenings (so long as she never wakes all the way back up, I never have to try to get her all the way back to sleep).  Also, The Man has been busy most evenings on work in the living room.

I'm about two-thirds of the way finished the shawl.  Give me another two weeks or so, and I should have my very first finished and blocked piece of lace to show you!

Something interesting is happening in birth: Part I

Yesterday evening, I attending a performance of the play “Birth” by Karen Brody. The play was staged by Three Sisters, a company of professional actresses in Ottawa, and was staged in order to raise funds and awareness for the Coalition for Breech Birth. The Coalition was founded by consumers, women who had had their births stolen from them by a system which refuses to admit the reality of breech birth, a system which fails to instruct its physicians in catching breech babies, and allows those physicians to coerce mothers into unwanted, unconsented and unnecessary caesarian sections.

The play is beautiful. It tells the story of 10 women's births with their first (and in one case, second, third and fourth) children. There are stories of joy: a woman chanting a mantra as she births squating, supported by her husband and her doula, believing and trusting her body; a woman kneeling in a pool in her home, her three children beside her, cheering her through her labour. But there are many, many stories of sorrow. Women coerced into deviating from their birth plan, into denying the needs of their own body. Women treated with disregard and disrespect while pregnant and while labouring. Women assaulted while birthing: cut, without need or consent, while bringing her child into the world.

It's extremely difficult to watch, even when staged in a minimalist, Vagina Monologues-style format. An actress, mimicking birth, telling the true story of a true woman's birth, screaming, not only in pain but in terror, in sorrow, in rage, at the realization that, just as she reached between her legs to feel her daughter's head being born, her doctor, her practitioner, was slicing through her perineum. Watching it, it was not just unethical, and not just assault: it was rape.

This is happening. This happens far more often than we'd like – and than any physician would ever dare – to admit. This is one of the realities of birth in North America. Women experiencing the trauma of rape during their births.

What do we do? Me: I'm getting mad. I'm getting really, really mad. I'm getting vocal. I'm pissing people off. I'm happily making an obnoxious ass out of myself. But here's one of the problems: too often, when we start talking about birth choices, and making options truly available to women, those who've chosen non-traditional births (I'm using the word traditional in the, well, traditional sense, to mean the sort of births that women have been having since the dawn of Creation) and gone a more medical route, become defensive. Arguments start being made about the importance of medical intervention, the value of pain-managing medications, the reassuring availability of caesarian sections.

I struggle to express to people that my issue is not with their personal choices – after all, those choices should be theirs and theirs alone – but with the fact that for many, many women, their choices are not their own: they belong to a nurse, a doctor, a midwife. But not to the labouring parents.

I'm not fighting other mothers to make decisions the way I would make them: I am fighting a system that is telling mothers, all mothers, what decisions to make about their bodies, their babies, their births. I am not in the practice of fighting mothers. I am fighting the medical establishment. I am fighting social norms. But I am not fighting the mother in front of me.

For far, far too many people, birth continues to be viewed as a black and white issue. You're either all-natural, crunchy-granola, kum-ba-ya and western medicine is the work of Satan, or you're not. And so many of the people – men and women – seem to assume that we who are natural-birthers, who are birth activists or working with birthing women, see things that way, too.

I don't. Western medicine has saved countless women and children from certain death. This is a fact. Surgery has literally saved the lives of mothers and babies I've known. And thank God for it. Thank God that J, our prenatal instructor, and her son were saved when she suffered a placental abruption with her first birth. But thank God, as well, that she was able to go on to have two midwife-attended homebirths after that.

It isn't so simple as saying “old is bad: new is good”. It's equally not so simple as saying the reverse. There is a place for life-saving medicine in birth. But let it be life-saving. Let's not let it be time-saving or pride-saving. Let's not let it be about the doctors. Let's let the reasons for intervening in a birth be good ones, important ones, lives-hanging-in-the-balance ones. Let's not let it be about dates or estimated weights or breech presentation. Let's let it be about need.

So I will continue to tell people about birth. I will continue to cull statistics and research results and store them away in my mind for those conversations with sceptics and the uninformed where there is the possibility of educating one. More. Person.

And maybe, someday we won't have to. Maybe, just maybe, someday...everyone will already know.

Heartbreaking.

Some things certainly put events into perspective.

A fire, a lost home, a new neighbourhood we aren't loving, tension because of all of it, financial worries...
Nothing; immaterial when compared to utter tragedy.

Hug your babies. Hold them close, and thank God for them.

And still quicker!

I'm piggy-backing (The Man pointedly says "stealing") someone else's wifi, but I'm not a scoundrel, so this will be very quick indeed.

We're in the new house. It's great. It's chaotic. The entire contents were moved in in less than three hours, but considering it wasn't packed properly, with care and organization, it's a mess. We have found all the parts to the stereo, though, and the kitchen is more or less organized, so things continue to improve.

Cable guy should be here on Saturday, so until then, I'll be scarce. Tomorrow promises a long walk to a friend's house to grab some mail, some grocery shopping (all our perishables and edibles were left behind, so we have literally nothing) and then, surprise! more unpacking.

I hope to post again soon with pictures and fun.

Keep on keepin' on.

Even quicker update :)

Looks like we have the condo we saw on Wednesday. We still have to meet with the property manager, but his assistant who showed us the place is confident we have it. Hopefully, we'll sign the lease and get the keys tomorrow morning, and have our things moved in by the evening.

Our contents are all retrieved, and need absolutely no special cleaning. I viewed the contents, and opened a bag of bedding (the bedroom is the room most likely to have gotten smokey) and all I smelled was home. No smoke at all. So no delay and no additional costs.

It's been a very good day. :)

Quick update

Very quick update on what's happening here. The contents of the house were removed yesterday, and in about an hour we'll be going to see it all and find out about what will be entailed to clean it. We may be able to just launder everything ourselves, since there is no real smoke damage or soot.

We've put an application in on another townhouse condo for rent. It's near Little Italy and on a quiet residential side-street, with a home recording studio where The Man and I recorded our friend's album just this past winter. The guy who owns the studio has two small children, so Peanut may be able to make some friends.

We're feeling hopeful, which is a massive step up from how we had been feeling only Tuesday. We know that things will work out.