Fiber Train 2012

This post is mostly about a knitting class and fiber celebration event that I went to yesterday; it is also a little carpe diem. You see, I knew for a couple months that a LYS (that's local yarn shop for the non-knitting out there) was pulling together a celebration of fiber in a neighboring town. As usual this event had landed on my scheduled weekend to work. So I filed the whole happening under the "snow balls chance in hell of attending" folder that I keep in my mind. This file is full of similar gatherings that I,for many reasons, am unable to do at this stage of my life.

Then on Friday I got an email from the LYS (the sweetly named Puffy Mondaes) with updates and reminders for Fibertrain. Since I was enjoying my coffee/internet search time, I decided to see just what would be going on while I worked my 12 hour shifts. This led to a glorious realization, the festival was going on through Monday!! I do not work Mondays, and....wait for it....my husband also would be home, and......wait for it.....Lucy Neatby was going to be teaching a class and there was still some spots available in this class!!!! The heavens rejoiced! Ok, it was mostly just me rejoicing but whose to say that somewhere up there a group of dearly departed knitters did not set down their heavenly knitting (I have heard that up there it is all cashmere-all the time) to do some happy clapping for me.

Lucy Neatby and Me

So yesterday, I found myself in downtown Nampa meandering through some booths of local fiber vendors, proudly wearing my Ravelry name tag and hanging/shopping with like minded people. The second best part was that two ladies from a knitting and spinning group that I sometimes get to hang with were in the class as well (am so bummed with myself for not getting a picture of them but I am sure that there will be another opportunity).

My new knitting basket, it is so happy that if you listen closely you can hear it clapping.

The class was so fun. Lucy Neatby was everything that I dreamed she would be. Her hair was blue, green and fuschia, her doc martens were blue and pink (one of each) and when her little tootsies needed a vacation from those she donned a two different colored keen sandals, so adorable!  She regaled us with pictures of her home in Nova Scotia, stories of her travels, all the while helping us to digest the whole concept of steeking (I am so going to do that).

Umm....Jane Austen stitch markers.  I love these so much they may become earrings

The whole experience was amazing, and even though I did not have much time to linger, I found myself content when I left and excited for the next time the moon and stars align for a similar happening. The knitting community is so special and full of amazing people. My knitting journey began as a slightly solitary path. Many hours were spent staring at the computer screen while a sweet stranger taught me various techniques via you tube. But I find that whenever I get to submerse myself in knitting people whose hearts and minds channel the same creative frequency as my own,  the experience is like nirvana (not the grunge band, the other one).  So, back to that carpe diem thing.  Go I say, and seek out your own knitting people, your own knitting experiences.  You will be received with open arms (even if they wait until the end of their row to do so).

More adorable stitch markers, I totally subscribe to the whole "put a bird on it" life philosophy

The Pamchenko Twist

I have been having a love affair with caramel for most of my life. In the last few years the passion has has been turned on high as I learned how to take matters into my own hands and make my own caramel (the perfect marriage of supply and demand). This little dance was near perfect.  I would make the caramel, either sauce or candy and then enjoy it as soon as temperature would allow. It was beautiful. Sadly, two weeks ago the saucy little Manx turned on me and I thought it was all over.

 It was largely my fault, do not blame caramel. Ok blame her a little bit. For some reason I had decided that the time had come to learn to make caramel corn. This was an odd decision (as a dear friend of mine pointed out) as I do not really care for popcorn. It turns out though,  that once it is smothered in my gooey little lover, I am a huge fan of the stuff. I am talking a "get it out of the house so that I do not turn into Gilbert Grape's Mama" kind of a fan. Anywho, back to the caramel corn apocalypse that went down in my kitchen.

Thankfully I decided to tackle this on an evening when my husband was home. His presence was probably my saving grace, as I failed epically at making caramel corn not once, or twice but four times in a row. I was a women possessed and was slightly infuriated that this spineless, craptastic recipe dared to not work for me! For me??? The humanity! The wasted sugar (12 cups total) and butter(6 cups)! I refused to fail at this seemingly simple task and was heard yelling, " Again!" each time I had to scrap sugary, burnt remains into the garbage. I was not slowed by the sounds of the smoke detectors and I ignored my family's pleas to stop. I had become Moira Kelly in the Cutting Edge and Alan was my DB Sweeney (but instead of throwing me into the air he mostly kept the children out of the kitchen). The caramel corn was to be my Pamchenko Twist (I am still running with the movie comparison here, and yes I do own it and did watch it with subtitles on in order to spell Pamchenko correctly, and yes I am aware that makes me a wee bit of a loon but I am trying to paint a picture here).

Despite my persistence it all ended in failure with not even one tiny bit of edible popcorn. Sadness. Defeat. Ugh. I woke up the next morning with renewed resolve and began to study every caramel corn recipe that I could find. I talked about caramel corn with E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. It turns out their are two camps concerning this sweet snack. There are those that prefer a crunchier corn and others that like it soft. I imagined this to be some sort of personality indicator, a caramel corn mood ring if you will. I did not know where I belonged on the caramel corn spectrum, I just knew that I wanted to have a ready opinion on the matter.

Finally I did what I always do. I randomly picked a recipe and jumped in. This time my sister was my DB Sweeney/child wrangler and this time we ended up with a huge bowlful of yumminess. I learned a lot about on this little journey. First, that buying butter in bulk is necessary, and secondly that I do have the ability to conjur some pretty dogged determination when I set my mind to it, that changing the batteries in the smoke detectors twice a year may not be enough when you spend a couple of evenings trying to burn down your kitchen.  And lastly I found that in the crunchie verses soft debate I like to have my cake and eat it too and find myself somewhere in the middle.

This is the recipe I finally found and now love.  If you spread it onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and set it in the oven at 300 for a couple of minutes (5 is my magic number) and then let it cool for about 15 minutes (although I find that no one is able to keep their paws off of this stuff once it is out of the oven) you will get a slightly crispy and gooey in all the right places treat.

Knit a Long

This is my friend Chrissy. Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful? (You have totally caught me quoting, and in fact singing as I type, a Stevie Wonder song) I have known this amazing human being since I was in the seventh grade. She was the older and so cool that I could hardly speak in her presence sister to my junior high bff. Flash forward 20 or so years and I find myself doing the happy clap dance whenever I get an email from her, or plotting for months so that we can see a movie together. Plotting is required because unfortunately I live 9 hours away from my darling friend.

Chrissy is the kind of girlfriend that you hope that you end up living with in Miami when you are eighty (a la Golden Girls.). If that scenario ever plays out I hope that I am a mix between Betty White and Bea Arthur (you know sarcastic but fun and funny at the same time but not as ditzy as Rose). Anyway I digress.  She is an amazing mama, and her cooking is to die for.  Seriously, she needs to prepare my last meal for me.  She is also a devoted gardener and one of those women that always has perfect hair. 

A few months back Chrissy and I decided to do a knit a long of the Nanook pattern by Heidi Kirrmaier out of the lovely Quince and Co. yarn, Lark.  The amount of glee that was enjoyed planning this knit a long and actually doing this knit a long is hard to describe.  First there was deciding on colors (I LOVE her choice!!), then the receiving of yarn and then casting on.  So much happy clapping and giggling happened (at least on my end) that I am surprised that I was still able to complete (most of) my responsibilities here at home.  It was not all rainbows and sunshine though, we both had to rip out substantial portions of our sweaters in order to achieve the project we had in mind.  Had to may be a misstep there, what I should say is that we are both perfectionists and chose to rip back sweaters to repair minute errors that would have called to us from our closets in the night had we ignored them.  But even ripping out isn't so bad when you have a friend to commiserate with.

I spend a lot of time missing Chrissy, or lamenting that making cinnamon rolls with her would be so much more fun, and wishing that I could call her up and say, "Let's go shoe shopping, be there in 5."  But during our knit along I kinda felt like we were hanging out, both working on the same thing at the same time.  Conquering lace patterns, and wishing that a seemingly easy edging detail would die is so much more fun when you are doing them with your friend.

4 Month Sweater

I am a fast knitter, like creepy fast. Generally I am able to make an adult sized sweater in 2-3 weeks, a child's in just days. I need to forget about my previous sweater finishing abilities. Now with baby in tow and two big kids to drive to and from school I am finding that my knitting has slowed to a crawl. This sweater was started about 3 weeks before Willa's birth and was finished just last week. Ugh, a 4 month sweater. Staring at the same yarn, the same pattern for 4 months was completely foreign to me and it bothered me.

But then on a run I decided the following: Any knitting, and any finished product is a triumph when you have 3 babies, a husband, a home to care for and a job. I also decided to put the lace knitting on the back burner and stick to easier projects for the time being. Seems like a sound plan, lets hope that I can put it into practice.

Welcome Willa!

This sweet little bundle of love came to us on October 22, at 3:33pm (funny since she is our third baby). She has added her gentle cooing to the loud, happy noises of her brother and sister and expanded her parents' hearts to the point of explosion. She is just the little someone that we needed and now that she is in our care we are forever grateful for her health and enjoying each tiny smile.

Sing a song

Growing up I knew a very large family, seven children! I had already (before meeting them) had fallen in love with the idea of having a gaggle of kids. The idea of giving each child his or her own song however was directly stolen from them. Even though I will not be having seven, or even four children (my husband did not board my crazy train) I did decide to run with the song idea. Now 3 times I have poured over music until finding a tune for each of my children. Charlotte and Max love their songs. We play them now only a couple times a month, usually on a long car ride. About the time that they are getting really sleepy and about to drift to sleep, cozy in their car seats, one of them will ask for their song to be played. So this Mama rolls to it on her IPOD and while they listen, I get to remember picking it out for them and singing to them while they were inside the belly.

Charlotte's Song


Max's Song


Willa's Song is Happiness by The Weepies. Was unable to find a decent youtube video of it. If you have the time and inclination, give it a google and a listen.

Thar she grows

I love the way that time will appear to be slowly creeping by. It lulls you into a comfortable trance where you actually begin to think that it has frozen. Then SMACK, you are thrown back into reality and grasping to hold on for one more second of your former peace. This summer was the lull and for me this week is the smack.

My little girl started kindergarten this week. After an amazing weekend of proving to me just how grown up she is. This was done by declaring that she too wanted to be a knitter and then sitting beside me for hours while her tiny hands learned the feel of the needles and yarn. I cannot convey how sweet it was to have her tucked in beside me, intently focused on her goal and without one time trying to give up. What an amazing little person I helped create.

Today while I was supposed to be listening to the kindergarten teacher I found myself staring at my little person. How did we get to this day already? How was it that my heart was not completely empty before she came to fill it? And how on earth has it not exploded with the love that it holds for her brother and sister? Surely somewhere a physics professor toils on this very same question.