Lemons!

Life threw me lemons in the form of bad weather.

We decided it was too dangerous to drive up to Portland for the Rose City Yarn Crawl, so I had to do the virtual version. Then Alexa decided to do virtual instead of in-person, too. The boys were off from school because of the snow, and driving around Portland wouldn't be any picnic, so we met via FaceTime and scooted around to the different shops. One advantage of virtual shopping is, you can visit all the shops looking for yarn for a particular project, and then go back to the shop where you liked the choices best. We started at Starlight Knitting Society.

I found this book, "Knitted Kalevala," by a #Finnish writer and knitwear designer, Jenna Kostet, and ordered it.

I checked out the patterns from the book on Ravelry before I made my purchase. I was interested in the book, because I knew that Kalevala is a Finnish epic made up from songs, poems, stories, etc., from the oral tradition. You may remember that my half-Finnish hubs gave me earrings for my birthday representing Kuutar, the Moon Goddess from Kalevala.

My mother-in-law told me all about Kalevala before we were married. It's an important part of Finnish heritage, and interesting literature. Of course, as a knitter, I had to have the book. Each project in the book was inspired by something from the epic. I can't wait to see what the author says about each one. I checked out the listing on Ravelry to see which projects called for fingering weight yarn, my preferred weight for sweaters for myself.

All three of these three pullovers from the book call for about the same amount of yarn:

Pohjolan emäntä (Mistress of Pohjolan)

Kultainen käki (Golden cuckoo)

Suolaulu (Salt song)

I checked out the options at each store to find yarn in the right quantities, but ended up going back to the store where I bought the book, so in addition to the book, enough of this yarn to make a pullover is on its way to me: Camper from Kelbourne Woolens. 

Moss Heather is what I picked for the main color:

I needed a contrast color, so I picked Autumn Heather.

The virtual version of the Rose City Yarn Crawl isn't as much fun as in-person, but with a friend doing FaceTime with you it can still be fun. 

I'm still working on the Talvinen sweater (but as a cardigan), so I will have time to decide. With the yarn crawl and some downtime while we wait for the weather (most preparations for travel being done, except for loading the trailer), I got some knitting done. Here's where I am in the Talvinen project. (The steek, where I will cut it open, is at the top in the photo.)

Earlier in the week Dusty went to the groomer. He got his usual haircut, which doesn't leave much to brush out every day or so.

He inherited Rocky's coat to wear outdoors when it's cold, as it has been here. He doesn't seem to mind the cold, and the ice and snow doesn't seem to bother his feet, maybe because they don't put salt on the roads here. (As you no doubt know, an old fashioned ice-cream freezer uses salt to melt the ice in the bucket that surrounds the container with the ice cream. The melting ice causes the ice cream to freeze. You crank it to stir the ice cream as it freezes to keep ice crystals from forming. Salt added to ice on the sidewalk does the same thing to your shoes and puppy feet that the process does to ice cream.) We've gone on several walks this week.

Dusty is such a good boy that I decided he needed some special treats to take when we finally hit the road. I adapted a recipe I found and made these doggie "brownies" by starting the process in the bread machine. They are a big hit with Dusty.

Here's my recipe:

I'm going to try substituting oatmeal for part of the flour next time I make it.

The puppies turned 6 weeks old on Wednesday, and we have new photos.

(Important to note: All of these puppies are now spoken for, but Marie at Ash's Mystical Poodles has other puppies. I think posting all the photos on Facebook led to inquiries. We went back to her because she knows how to prevent her puppies from inheriting health defects.) We don't know yet which one is Rusty, but we're looking forward to meeting him. The puppies will be evaluated by dog trainers, and we will get the calmest, which is good, because brown or cafe au lait poodles tend to be feisty. All three will definitely be cafe au lait, not dark brown, so Rusty will look sort of like Dusty but brownish, rather than gray. Our session with the pet psychic will be put off until March 12, which is OK, since we didn't make the trip to Portland, but she did mention to me that the birthday of these puppies, 1/11, is the "angel number. That's supposed to be a good thing. We will tell this to Rusty when we meet him. I went out Saturday to get some fake fur for blankies for the puppy. They really like fake fur and fleece blankies in their crates. You just have to be sure they have something else to chew on. I got a yard of brown fuzzy fake fur, like sheepskin. His mother is brown, and this is a similar color. I washed it and cut it in two, so one to use and one for the laundry. It was shedding a lot, but just from the edges, It didn't leave much fluff in the washer or dryer.

The place we hope to stay in Pahrump when we stop there to pick up the puppy requires trailers older than a certain age to still look good, so we had to send them photos of our fifth wheel. It meant running around in the snow when it was sunny but very, very cold! I hope it passes muster. We bought our trailer in 2000, but it was several months old, built in 1999. We keep it repaired, but there's always something.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Talvinen cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Dust, but I still plan to make some placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: The change in plans inspired this week's story in #TheDollsStorybook. Mandy was going to go with us. Find out more in Giving Up Disappointment.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I didn't get very far in The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz, because it has been a very busy week. I decided to start it over and use it for the trip. Charlie will enjoy it. Now I'm listening to The Governess of Penwythe Hall by Sarah E. Ladd. It's a complete change of pace from the last book I finished. I think this is the fourth of her novels I've read, and I've had it in my library for a while.

What's in my wine glass: Sayanca Malbec 2022 from Argentina. Yum!

What's my tip of the week: Those plastic boxes that lettuce and greens sometimes come in can't be recycled where we live, so I've been using them to hold yarn and other things, but have run out of stuff to put in them. While getting things organized for our trip with the trailer, I realized that I can use them in the freezer to hold small packages of things like bagels (which I freeze two-to-a-pack, since we eat them two at a time). When I open the freezer door now, I don't have to worry that a lot of small stuff will fall out. DH has a lot of small packages of coffee stored on the bottom shelf, so I'll keep collecting them.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Preparations in the Works

The Talvinen is coming along, now that the Rose City Mystery KAL project is finished. It's a little easier to see what I'm doing, although the chart is hard to see in dim light. 

The increases are M1L (make one, left), which requires pulling up the yarn between two stitches on the row below and knitting it so it twists (left, in this case). I noticed it made a difference in how it looked if I took the background color under the float for the design color versus over it. I wanted to minimize having the light blue color show through. I know the yarn will fluff up a bit when it's washed and blocked, and the puckering will disappear, so I think it's going to be nice. Those vertical stripes at the top of the photo are for the steek. The pattern is for a pullover, but I'm making a cardigan. The steek is where the opening is going to be. Doing this is fairly easy, except that the beginning of round was in the center back, and I moved it to the front, which is where it normally would be if you make a cardigan. The orange stitch marker shows where the center of the back is. I needed to know this for the short rows across the back, but I think it also will be useful when I divide for the sleeves.

My scarf/stole for the Yarn Crawl turned out very nice. 

We're planning to leave Wednesday to go up to Portland, but the weather forecast looks nasty. I'm hoping we don't have to miss it, although the Yarn Crawl has a virtual option. We did that in 2021. The problem is we pretty much have to go over mountains to get to Portland. Snow storms aren't very safe to drive through, and sometimes there's an accident, so we could get stuck. Find out next week if we went or not. It will leave you in suspense.

I made the bread a little differently this week, just to see if I could get the loaf a little shorter in height. I bought a slicing guide awhile back, and the loaves I make using two batches of sourdough starter are a bit too tall. They also make very large slices––more than I really need for a sandwich. I only used one batch of starter this time. When I take 113 g of starter out of one jar to feed, the discard goes into the bread machine. I have been using the discard from the second jar, too, with 1/2 C water, 1T each olive oil and honey, 1 t salt and 3 C flour (whole wheat mixed with 1/4 C each oat bran, wheat brand and wheat gluten). I was hoping that only using the discard from one jar would make a smaller loaf, and it did. With no added yeast, it took longer to rise, which was OK. I increased the water to 3/4 C and kept all the other ingredients the same. The loaf fit nicely in my bread slicing guide.

The larger loaf stuck out at the top, making it difficult to line up the guides. Here's the  photo from last week's blog post. It isn't in the guide, but maybe you can get an idea of the difference. They were baked in the same pan, so the width of the slices is the same.

I used the second jar of starter for a second loaf, which went into the freezer for the trip. I was worried about having to take the starter along on the trip, because our trailer fridge is fairly small, but I found out that the starter can go up to a month without feeding, so it should be no problem. What I read said that you just need to leave it out to warm up a little longer.

I did some cooking for our trip to Arizona with the trailer. 

The Mexican TV dinners (tamales, beans and rice) went into the freezer, along with a black-eyed pea stew, a pan of lasagne and a pan of potato Alfredo. I used the same 8" square pan for both the lasagne and the Alfredo. I lined the pan with foil, put the food into the pan and covered it with foil. when it was frozen, I slipped it into a plastic bag and reused the pan for the other recipe. I just need to remember to take the pan to hold the food when it's heating up. With a frozen pizza crust, we should have enough meals for 10 days in the freezer. I'll take stuff to "decorate" the pizza with.

Then I'll put some things in the trailer's pantry to make up easy meals, like rice, stir-fry sauce and an Indian pouch or two. We can take the rice cooker along, because it doesn't weigh much, and I've found a good place to store it.

Charlie has been shopping for the new puppy. We're calling him Rusty for now. The leopard-patterned pad is a self-heating pad for dogs and cats. We can put that into his crate. The breeder recommended a folding playpen, which is in the navy bag with handles, and some "potty pads." We also have a supply of food for the little guy, and Dusty will probably end up with some of it, just because he enjoys something new every once in a while. It's like having a baby!

My computer problems are mostly solved, but there are still some problems with syncing to iBooks. I have some PDFs on my computer but no longer on my iPad and some PDFs on my iPad but not on my computer. I still have 23 photos that wouldn't sync to the cloud.

Dusty and I have been walking when the weather isn't too cold or rainy. We're using the Walk for a Dog app, as usual. For this route we start out walking down to the entry to the Larkspur Trail. We head South on it, then get back on the sidewalk at the end of Bronzewood and walk around the block, including one of the cul-de-sacs. It's nearly a mile, and it gives Dusty a chance to brave walking by the sewer grates, which he's afraid of. I'm trying to desensitize him to it before we start walking with the puppy.

The app gives walkers points for every walk of 1/4 mile or more. It's supported by advertising, and a donation goes to your selected animal-related charity (chosen from their list) based on your points. It's free to use.

Now there's snow in the forecast for when we expect to be traveling north for the Yarn Crawl. We may not go. 😢

Finally, Daphne played her flute in a duet with a classmate this week.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Finished the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL. Now back to the Talvinen cardigan. The EmPower People Kerchief is still hibernating.

What's on my loom: Dust, but I still plan to make some placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In this week's story, the dolls find themselves again worried about The Writer, who seems perpetually behind in things that need doing. We hope you enjoy this story from The Dolls Storybook, "Taxed." 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Das Vermächtnis der Drachenreiter by Christopher Paolini. I really enjoyed it a lot, although there was a lot of fighting. I'm hoping to listen to the next book in the series. Right now I'm listening to The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz. I always enjoy his books, and this is a new one. I also have a few podcasts on my phone and iPad. I signed up for Spoutible a couple of weeks ago, and I'm enjoying it. Bots are pretty much screened out, and trolls can be blocked, although I haven't encountered any yet. Some discussion is bound to happen, but it's interesting, pleasant discussion. It doesn't function well on the iPad yet, so I'm looking forward to the app, which will be coming out in a few weeks.

What's in my wine glass: Cédez Cabernet Sauvignon 2019. Very nice.
.

What's my tip of the week: I think this blog post is full of tips. Do I really need to add another one? I don't think so, so I'm going to leave it here.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Finished and Yet Not Finished

The kimchi is finished and ready to eat! Yum! (See link to recipe, below.)

You may remember, I made it last week, but it has to sit on the counter for a few days to be the way I like it. Like yoghurt, kimchi has probiotics. It’s also tasty. I use Mother In Law's Gochugaru chili flakes. You don’t have to have a press, but I think it makes it easier. A plate that will fit into a bowl will work. Here’s mine.

I usually have to make a loaf of bread about once a week. I’m still using the same sourdough starter I made when we couldn’t get reasonably priced yeast at the start of the pandemic. I feed the starter at the same time. I have two jars going, but I probably could use just one. It makes a very large loaf.

I finally finished the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL (knit-along). Here it was just off the needles.

Now it’s blocking. It turned out a bit bigger than it was supposed to be. I didn’t swatch, because it doesn’t have to fit anyone. I didn’t run out of yarn, which could have been a problem with knitting too loosely.

The yarn is & Make DK. It’s nice to work with and has sort of a heathered look to it. It was reasonably priced, and coming in 50g balls instead of 100g, I didn’t need to get as much yarn. Each "clue" changed to the other color, and there was more than enough of one ball of yarn for each clue.

We received new photos of the puppies, who are now a month old. They had their first real grooming. Here are the three boys. (I don’t know which one is ours.)

So you can see their cuddly little bodies, here’s a photo of the whole litter, the three boys woth their sister, who is probably the one on the far left.

Daphne went with some of her dance colleagues to Disney World to perform. I’m looking forward to seeing the video, which is bound to be good based on the still shots, like this one.

I thought my computer problems were over, when my laptop arrived on Monday. However, it stopped downloading from the Cloud on Tuesday night. It took several calls to Apple to get it started again, but now I have double entries for everything in my calendar, and look at this:

Professionally published books are there, but all of my patterns are missing. I'm going to call again today. I wanted to give it plenty of time to finish the download.

Dusty and I have walked every day, because the weather has been nice. Charlie has gone with us about every other day, and on Saturday, we walked to the dog park, stayed there for a while, and then walked home. I also signed up for Spoutible, which I’m liking better than Twitter. Everyone is so nice. I hope it stays that way!

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL, the Talvinen cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Dust, but I still plan to make some placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In the latest story, "Photography," Billy is taking Pauly's photo for the next book from #TheDollsStorybook, and Pauly starts to wonder how a camera works.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Das Verächtnis Der Drachenreiter by Christopher Paolini. I thought I would be done by now, but the computer issues left me little time to sit and knit with the audiobook.

What's in my wine glass: Maison du Bertrand Bordeaux 2019. One of the best of this variety I've tasted.

What's my tip of the week: Here is the recipe I use for kimchi. It’s vegan.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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