Keeping Busy

The Main Memories Cardigan is finished. (Please excuse the coat hangers.)

The pattern is Midcoast by Jennifer Steingass. The pattern is for a pullover, but I don't do those anymore, so I steeked it to make a cardigan. I'm happy with the result. DH took these photos later:

Here's a shot of the back. This will be good for spring, as it's lighter-weight than most of my sweaters.

Now I've CO the Roadside Beanie, a kit I bought at For Yarn's Sake during the Rose City Yarn Crawl. I'm calling mine the "Bend in the Road Beanie," partly in honor of my (still new) hometown and partly because life has certainly gone around the bend.

I've managed to finish a few masks. I'm having to use a needle for jeans/denim, after breaking one. The lining is sheet fabric, and there are two layers with their seam allowance plus the pleats to sew through, so it's like sewing leather. I have more of these cut out. After I finish those, I plan to switch to this mask, which I think might be easier to sew and perhaps a more useful design.

Cooking from pantry has its excitement. I cooked up the last of the zucchini for Thai stir-fry with Trader Joe's Thai Red Curry Sauce. Usually I use faux chicken (Quorn Meatless Pieces), but we're all out. I had to get creative, and we had plenty of tuna, so I thought I would give it a try. We had it with brown rice. It was delicious! All I did was stir-fry the vegetables, and when I liked the doneness, I added the tuna and the sauce.

I still have 1 3/4 heads of green cabbage, 1 1/2 bunches of carrots, a large package of Tuscan Kale, potatoes and onions. Green or red cabbage will keep for a long time in the fridge if you don't cut it, but just peel off the leaves from the outside. It's a little more trouble, but when you're feeding just two, you don't need as much. It's the cut edges that spoil.

We have been walking less than usual, partly because of the weather (it has been cold) and partly because we're limited to one outing per day, on the honor system.  We're careful not to get too close to other people. We wave at each other as we pass. Dusty loves these outings, especially when he can get off-leash and chase the ball. He really tries to live up to his name.

Daphne and Zachary helped me with Friday's story with a brainstorming session on Saturday. We used FaceTime. I took some photos to use. A hint about the story: Daphne's Elizabeth and Zachary's Zachary Jr. will have parts to play.

Yesterday (Sunday) we used Zoom to visit with our three kids and their families. 

The Oregon grands are struggling with life with no school. A bright spot for Soren, though, was virtual speech therapy.

Life is certainly different now, but if enough people stay in, we may be able to slow down the spread of the COVID19 virus enough to where medical equipment, supplies and hospital space can catch up, and maybe treatments and vaccines will be available. I'm trying to decide what to wear to the online Easter service.

What's on my needles: "Bend in the Road Beanie," the Roadside Beanie.

What's on my sewing machine: More masks. I'll be giving a try to this mask.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: While the Cat's Away.... in which the dolls think about what to do with their free time while The Writer is away.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith. About halfway through.

What's in my wine glass: H3 Horse Heaven Hills Red Blend "Les Chevaux" by Columbia Crest, 2014.

What's my tip of the week: DH found this great demonstration of how to bring groceries into your home without risking infection.

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.

Physically at Home, Socially Not Always

The Maine Memories Cardigan is getting close to completion.

As you can see, the front bands are finished. However, the gauge is rather loose for steeking colorwork, and the outer vertical rows of the steek were white, so the stitches of the outer vertical rows show through. I could rip out the bands and reknit them starting with one row of white, but I thought the green would still show through. My solution, then, is to knit an applied I-cord right at the join between the band and the colorwork. It will continue all the way to the bottom of each band. I think it will be a nice detail.

It still needs blocking.

I've been cooking more than usual this week. We had some salmon in the freezer I decided it would make an easy meal, roasted together in the oven where I was also roasting vegetables (which took longer, of course). We had fresh tomatoes that needed to be used, and Trader Joe's Sweet Potato Gnocchi.

There's lots more salmon, so I'll cut it up into meal-size pieces and freeze all but enough for one more meal.

I also made some Italian Pronto. This is one of my favorite quick meals. It can be varied a lot and still be easy.

I have plans to help with the dire need for face masks. This pattern looks to be fairly easy to make.

You can get a clear copy here. A YouTube video showing how to make the masks is available here. There are other kinds of masks, including some that have a pocket for a filter, such as might be cut from a furnace filter, a vacuum cleaner filter or even toilet paper (if you can find any). Because of the shortage, hospitals want to reserve the respirator-type face masks for people who need to be in very close contact with patients. A number of Facebook groups have sprung up to help match up the need with volunteers, and provide patterns and help to volunteers. Stitched Together and Sewing for Lives are just two.

Our four younger grandkids are all having to stay home from their school, which have closed (Wisconsin and Oregon). The Wisconsin grands are lucky enough to have teachers with PhDs and work as college professors, but their lessons come from the school district. They have this schedule:

The parents awoke on Saturday morning to find their students conducting a story hour for all the dolls.

We're trying to do FaceTime with them once a week.

The Oregon grands also have their lessons at home.

This clearly exhausts their dad and his dog.

The parents are working from home on top of conducting classes.

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day quietly at home. Mandy must have developed a taste for Irish beer while on location in Ireland. (She picked the green bottle opener.) 

What's on my needles: Still Maine Memories Cardigan.

What's on my sewing machine: Ready to make some face masks.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress, but I plan to pull it out as soon as my cardigan is finished.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: A Letter from Ireland. Mandy and The Writer visit Ireland. Mandy writes home.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith. I'm not very far into it yet, but it's interesting and different.

What's in my wine glass: Les Chiens Catalans vin de France Rouge 2018. There's a cute Boston Terrier on the label.

What's my tip of the week: It may not be easy to run to the store for more dental floss these days. Here's how to get the most out of what you have: If you tie the ends of your dental floss together, you can get by with less floss, and you can vary where on the floss you use it, so it doesn't break. If it still breaks, you can tie it in another place. It works best if you line up the two ends of the floss with the ends facing the same direction. (See photo.) Then hold them together as you tie a knot.

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.

In My Cocoon

My Maine Memories Cardigan is coming along.

It has been a strange week, otherwise. We are in isolation. I've been confined to the house since Tuesday, when I started having mild chills. I can't say for sure I've been in contact with anyone who has the COVID-19 virus, but I could have been. I'm not having serious symptoms, so the only reason they would test me is because of my age. Since there's an extreme shortage of test kits in Oregon, I'm just behaving as if I tested positive, just in case. DH had to go to the dermatologist to have a serious thing removed from his back on Wednesday, but now he is quarantined with me, and I'm being careful not to infect him.

Washington Country, Oregon, which is where we were staying, had some new cases. The schools are closed as of today all over the state, and our son and DIL are working from home. This is what that looks like.

Some of the quilts I made for them have been put to use to make a fort in the front room.

Choir has been cancelled for a couple of weeks. That gave rise to some dark humor (not so dark as gallows humor, I hope).

Our choir director contributed this one:

This is probably my favorite.

We're getting low on fresh food, but I made this stew yesterday with most of the fresh vegetables: cabbage, yellow carrots, sweet peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, celery along with a package of dried Peruvian beans, a can of diced tomatoes and some seasonings (salt, pepper, basil, oregano, caraway seeds and bouillon cubes. I cooked the beans in the pressure cooker and added them to the sautéed vegetables, water and seasonings in the slow cooker. We have enough for about 3-4 more meals.

We're planning on watching/listening to the opera tonight. The Met has closed for the time being, so they are streaming encore productions every evening, beginning tonight. Find out more here.

The only crafting I've done this week is working on my Maine Memories Cardigan. I finished the sleeves.

Saturday night I cut the steek for the front. Now I've picked up the stitches for the right front band. I started with the turquoise yarn, but I didn't like how it looked directly on the purple without the white between them, so I pulled that out and started again with purple. I'm planning to enclose the raw edges. I still need to trim them, but I'll do that when I get the band finished. I'll need to order some pewter clasps.

What's on my needles: Just finishing up the Maine Memories Cardigan. 

What's on my sewing machine: Sitting idle.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Staying Well. Charlotte and Emil are concerned about a friend whose human boy has the flu. The friend (a doll) is concerned that he might catch it and give it to his friends. Veronika explains how viruses spread, and what humans and dolls can do to prevent it.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished Amy Snow by Tracy Rees. It was an excellent story, and the mystery unfolded gradually, as it should. It was a Daily Deal from Audible awhile ago. Now I'm listening to The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith, also from Audible. Just starting. During our trip, we finished The Tower by Gregg Hurwitz. (I had already finished it, but DH hadn't, so I backed it up.) When we finished it, we listened to The Bone Farm by Dean Koontz. I had that ready, because I knew we would finish the Hurwitz novel long before we reached home. We actually sat in our driveway for about five minutes to listen to it.

What's in my wine glass: Sishaye Cinsault 2019, a red wine. "Sishaye" means "splash" in Zulu, unusual and very nice.

What's my tip of the week: A lot of misinformation has been spreading in the wake of the arrival of the COVID-19 virus. Useful information can be found at the CDC's website here. Facilities for testing vary according to geographical location. Call your local county health department or check its website for information.
It's possible to be symptom-free and still spread the virus. This is especially true for people who are between 20 and 39 years of age, who may never show symptoms and still can spread the disease. Don't go out unless you have to once the virus shows up in your area.

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.

Dangerous Liaisons

Look! A quilt!

Thursday we took off to go to the Portland area to visit family and for the Rose City Yarn Crawl. DDIL2 and I spent the evening at a fund raiser for Fact Oregon (Families And Communities Together.) The organization provides support and guidance for families that experience disabilities. The quilt was part of the silent auction.
Executive Director Roberta Dunn spoke to the crowd before the live auction about what was going on with the organization.

We had some delicious food, and the live auction was entertaining. I bought a bottle of wine in a paper bag (unseen). It cost $20, but I figured that even a cheap bottle of wine and my nice dinner would be worth it. I haven't tasted the wine yet, but I'm sure it's going to be good.

Friday morning I packed up my knitting and Mandy, and we headed out to visit the yarn shops. (It was raining. Mandy didn't want to get silver eye, so she wore a plastic bag.) 

The first shop was Blizzard in Vancouver, just over the border, in Washington. It was early, and the shop wasn't too crowded, so Mandy came out to have her photo taken in the shop. She was wearing her Stavanger Cardigan, because her St. Patrick's Day Cardigan wasn't finished yet. (I worked on it while we drove from one shop to the next.)

I bought some stitch markers and some repositionable highlighter tape (already in use).

At Starlight Knitting Society I picked up the official Yarn Crawl tote bag. The bag I had my cardigan in was a little too small for it, so this was a good addition. (That's a bird's nest. The theme for the Crawl this year was "Birds of the Pacific Northwest.")

Later we stopped at Fiber Rhythm.

After that we stopped at Twisted Yarn Shop, where I bought a kit for Which Came First (a wrap), although there's a version of the pattern that makes a cowl. Here are the colors I selected:

I also picked up a skein of lace-weight yarn on the sale rack for 25% off. I picked this color because I thought it would go with my "So Not My Palette Cardigan," which probably should be named "My Palette After All."

We stopped in at Close Knit Portland.

Close Knit is aptly named. It was a tight fit for all the customers.

For Yarn's Sake had a lot of mini skeins. Too bad Mandy was in the car. She would have appreciated them.

I found a kit for a hat I absolutely had to have. It's called the Roadside Beanie. It has sheep on it, so I thought it was cute.

Also included on Thursday were Knitting Bee,  Northwest Wools and Pearl Fiber Arts. At each place, we opened the door with a sleeve, handed our passports in to be stamped, entered our names and email addresses, usually on a laptop or a tablet, after which we used hand sanitizer. Then, if we bought something, we sometimes had to hand over a credit card, then take it back, then sign on a tablet or using a pen. It was a relief when a place accepted ApplePay, because then I didn't have to touch anything other than my own phone. After making a purchase, I always used hand sanitizer. The rain continued off and on for the whole day, and the car was wet. I started to notice after several shops that the car door handle felt slimy. I figured out that the residue from the hand sanitizer was rehydrating when I got it wet. It was good to wash it off when we finished our tour for the day. Here we are at the last stop.

Saturday morning, we only had one shop left: the Knotty Lamb in Forest Grove. I brought Mandy in so I could shoot some more photos. She attracted a lot of attention. Several people commented on how beautiful she was and wondered about the cardigan. One lady wanted to look it up on Ravelry, and when she saw my name, she recognized it. She said that she had made my Everyday Play Dress, but as a top. She asked me to wait while she went to her car to get her doll, who was wearing the top, as well as some leggings based on EZ's Nethergarments, but with short rows across the bottom. The dolls seemed to enjoy getting acquainted.

I think her name is Tiffany. She is an American Girl doll.

Later on Saturday, we had lunch at DDIL's parents' home, which was very nice, followed by a trip to Laurel Ridge Winery. I brought Mandy along to the winery, because she had never been to one before. The woman who brought the wine for tasting looked just like a grownup version of Mandy. Mandy didn't even pretend to have wine, because she knows she's too young.

We had more rain, but not as much as Friday, and we got to see this rainbow from the winery.

We had a nice tasting and a nice visit.

Sunday we took the boys to the gym for Johan's gymnastics lesson and Soren's "Sensory Sunday" activity. 

I missed the lesson because my alarm went off after we were already on the way. That meant it was time for Rocky's medication which I had forgotten (an hour later by the clock than usual because of the #@$*! time change), and I had to go back to the house.

However, because I finished the Cables and Herringbones Cardigan for Mandy, I'm back at work on my Maine Memories Cardigan for me, adding the third color to the bottom of the sleeve.

I hope I get done with the cardigan before I get the new coronavirus.

What's on my needles: Maine Memories. Almost done with first sleeve.

What's on my sewing machine: Put away for now.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. Another week with no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: "Water, Water...." The dolls figure out where water comes from.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still Amy Snow by Tracy Rees. Still enjoyable.

What's in my wine glass: Terra d'Oro Red Wine Blend 2014. Not bad.

What's my tip of the week: If you are roasting vegetables with a small amount of oil, you can save time and mess by lining your baking sheet with parchment paper, spreading the cut vegetables on it, add the seasonings and oil, then mix it by pulling up the edges of the paper so the vegetables pile up, then spread them around again with a spoon or spatula. Halfway through, they can be remixed by the same process. When you're done, the parchment paper can be thrown out, leaving the pans with a small greasy spot at most.

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.