wee taters and other signs of real Spring...

[i am overdue for a post-a-day week... starting off shortly before midnight... on a Wednesday. that is the only acceptable way to do such things.]

it is the tenth day of Spring, and if you look closely, you will see the lightest sprinkling of snow floating through the Montreal air. i am convinced that these people are only happy in the presence of ice and cold.

on the sunnier side of life, i finally got around to sowing a few seeds for this year's balcony garden.

yes... i should have started them a month (or so) ago, but that type of on-top-of-things-ness is not part of my programming. plus, there was the subject of all that wacky weather. most of the snow melted following the big storm i mentioned in the previous post, and i was convinced that we were in for a super-early Spring, then Canada happened again. i give up!

i spent a couple weeks deliberating over starting from seeds or just purchasing seedlings come Spring... like real Spring, not just a date they circle on the calendar to give me false hope. there will likely be a bit of both, but it is always fun to get your hands dirty for a good cause. the seeds were leftover from last year, so hopefully something will grow... hopefully. i hurried through all of the planting and i was about to put away the soil, when i remembered the wee taters.

regular readers of this forum (all two-and-a-half of you) might recall last year's adventure, where i planted some spuds that had gone full-on 'Little Shop of Horrors' in the back of a kitchen cupboard. fast-forward to the harvest, and there were a few wee taters hiding among the crop.

it would have been sacrilegious to throw away such adorable things, so i put them on an open shelf in the kitchen, behind the jar of honey, and proceeded to forget that they existed. then one day i was making room for a new honey jar, and... quelle surprise!!!

just how wee are they, you ask? wee...

weeeee!

i punched some drainage holes in the bottom of a couple re-purposed yogurt containers...

added a centimeter (or so) of soil...

and divided the wee ones between the two "pots".

that red one looks like an alien duck floating on a pond of industrial runoff.

the last step was to top them off with a bit more soil. as with planting normal-sized taters, i covered them up until the tips of the the shoots were just visible... so like another centimeter and a half (or so... i did not measure it) of soil.

everyone got a label made from strips of plastic cut from a cat litter container (rescued from the recycling bin), then i arranged all of the newly-planted things in thoroughly-cleaned meat trays (also from the recycling bin), and placed them on a table in a sunny spot. FYI: i planted zucchini seeds in the other two yogurt containers.

all that was left was to give the newly-planted things a good bottom-watering. there is a joke in there if you look hard enough. however, in botanical terms, it simply means pouring the water into the bottom of the tray and allowing it to soak up through the soil.

i also grabbed a small plant pot and tossed in a few pinches of cat grass for my two best girls, because they too are anxious for the arrival of real Spring.

now... we wait!

how much do you love me...

...is universally understood to be followed by some outrageous request.

me: how much do you love me?
him: depends... how do you want me to quantify it?

number of steps...? which means getting something from another room.

number of blocks...? which means getting something from outside.

number of balls...? which usually ends with the purchase of more yarn. yes, my stash already exceeds life-expectancy... but i may decide to live even longer than that.

this time around, i had a brand new request.

me: you know that sweater i made for you? the one i said you can't wear till i take some photos for my project page?
him: yes....?
me: well, i want to take those photos now... outside!

at which point, we both turn to look at the hip-high snow on the other side of the glass doors.

him: i thought you wanted me to shave and cut my hair so i look extra-sexy for that.
me: yeh... we don't have time for all of that.
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the pattern is the Fireside Pullover by Jane Richmond.

i pretty much fell in love with it at first sight. problem was, i just could not see it being flattering on my body [and, yes... the pattern is designed for us girls]. it is knitted in a bulky yarn, and features a deep shawl collar and a whole lot of ribbing across the shoulders and upper torso. in my mind, that is a recipe for looking like a cross between a linebacker and one of the Dwarves from the Lord of the Rings movies. then the light-bulb went off.

take away the waist shaping, and this is the perfect guy sweater.

put this on, and you instantly look like you are about to chop down a tree... with an axe carved from the skull of a dragon... that you slayed with your bare hands! seriously, who needs a coat in a snowstorm?!?

i am having eighties shoulder-pad-abuse flashbacks.

i suggested adding a button or two to the collar, but he prefers it open like this.

someone may have watched The Wrath of Khan a few too many times.

i get rid of a bit of stash, and he gets one more sweater, which—some may argue—is a pretty awesome measure of love.

so much squishy. so much goodness...

there is a full moon, a lunar eclipse, and a comet fly-by, all scheduled for the overnight hours, and i am missing the whole shebang on account of overcast skies. even with the current scientific understanding of such cosmic events, and the general acceptance of a little thing commonly referred to as coincidence, this much "cosmic" in one night leaves me wondering if the end is indeed nigh, because it kinda feels like that most days.
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i finally mustered enough enthusiasm to take some photos of my latest finished object.

i started working on this sweater just before going to bed (at like nine p.m.) on New Year's Eve with the totally-arbitrary goal of having it done by the end of January. i was well on my way to making that happen, but i tossed the project aside for a week or so while i mourned the death of basic human decency. so, while it was finished a couple days later than intended, i am still over the (non-visible) moon with my new sweater.

the pattern is the Branches & Bud Pullover by Carrie Bostick Hoge. i have been salivating over this design ever since i first mentioned it way back in June, so it seemed appropriate to kick off a year of making things by finally making one of my very own.

the plan was to use an off-white yarn for the contrast, similar to the original design. i almost never make anything in the same colors as the sample garment, but this particular yarn only came in a few colors (black, dark-grey, grey, beige, and off-white). [this is the same yarn i used for the infamous squirrel cardi]. i had enough grey for the body of the garment, so the white seemed like the best contrast color. then things got complicated.

the sweater is knit from the top down (collar to hem), and i could not decide if i wanted to also use the contrast color for the collar edging or just stick with the grey. i casted on with a bit of gold scrap yarn, with the intent of removing that later and finishing the edge with either the white or grey yarn. by the time i got through knitting the collar band, i was in love with the gold/grey combo. problem was, the gold scrap was some (super-scratchy) yarn left over from a pretty lace cardi i made eons ago for mom. i was not going to ruin my squishy goodness with scratchy yarn!

[random aside: i received a gift of a wool sweater from some well-meaning person for just about every single Christmas of my teen years. coming from a family where it is regarded as being downright rude to suggest to someone that you do not like the gift they just gave you—or, even, that you were allergic to said item—i always offered a polite "thank you very much"... then traded it for something more tolerable from mom's wardrobe. my mother is not quite the delicate cupcake that i seem to be, and she did not think to pass along the particular genes that would make it possible for me to also wear such scratchy things.]

where was i? oh, yes... the quest for super-soft gold yarn! the recipe is actually a simple one: take the super-soft white yarn and add the desired shade of gold dye. simple!

now, it should be noted that my favorite animator, a bona fide professional visual artist, is the single worst person on the planet to ever ask about the color of anything... ever!

me: would you say that this was more ecru or camel?
him: [after a quick glance] it's brown.
me: worst. artist. ever.

that happens a lot around here. he did, however, prove most helpful in fine-tuning a gold that approximated the color i was after.

i love pulling out the dye pot, because it always feels like i am about to perform magic. with a wave of my rubber-gloved hand, we went from this...

to this... the perfect gold yarn. ta da!!! thank you... thank you very much!

i kept the scratchy scrap yarn in place and moved on to the stranded colorwork that forms the "branches" part of the design.

when done correctly, stranded colorwork can be as attractive on the inside as it is on the outside.

and, yes... this does involve working with both colors of fiber at the same time (note: the yarn was too thin for this project, so i doubled it up, hence two strands of each color).

i decided to also use the contrast yarn to finish off the lower edges of the sweater. i shortened the sleeves to bracelet length and finished the cuffs with a splash of gold. ditto for the hem, where i made two additional minor adjustments to the pattern.

i opted for a slightly longer hem in the back, and added a split along both sides for a better fit around my more-than-generous hips.

i really like how neat that looks from the side.

the last step was to remove the scratchy gold scrap yarn from the neckline, and replace it with the custom-dyed squishy goodness. so much squishy. so much goodness!

so, now i have a soft, squishy sweater that i (hopefully) will be able to wear for more than thirty seconds at a time (allergies are no joke, people), and i am already contemplating how to fill the newly-created space in my fiber stash. i may have to take a trip to the yarn shop. that is, if we make it through the night.

lesson learned...

there are two things to avoid when living in colder climes... frostbite and being driven crazy by all the grey. i have already failed at the former, but i am waging war with the latter (which i will talk about next time around). my story begins during the first real snowfall of the season, some weeks ago. what started out as a quick trip to the market ended up as a hard-learned lesson in remembering to always grab a pair of gloves before leaving home (or to swallow my pride and accept the pair of gloves being offered to me in the middle of a snowstorm).

grant it, this was mild as frostbite goes, and there was no talk of amputating any vital parts, but it was a highly unpleasant experience and a lousy way to end the year.

there was no real discomfort immediately following the initial exposure, aside from the customary spell of pins-and-needles once i got indoors. the worst part came about a week or so later when the dry, itchy feeling that had been mounting suddenly erupted into a sensation like having my hands doused in napalm and set ablaze. i literally woke from a dead-sleep one night, already in tears. luckily, that truly painful part lasted only a couple days, and the worst of it was abated by liberal application of Glysomed (note the green container in the background).

i carried one of their disc-shaped containers around with me for days, reapplying the super-rich cream to my hands every ten or fifteen minutes, which proved far more effective than all of the painkillers combined. there may have also been a couple weeks of hypersensitivity to hot (or even warmish) things, so i was relegated to bathing in cold water... in the Winter... in Quebec. sigh!

then my hands started peeling big time, but the pain was (thankfully) gone by that point, so it was a welcome relief to watch my body shrug off all that damaged skin. my favorite animator suggested that this is as close as i will ever come to understanding sunburn.

my re-surfaced fingertips looked like i had just emerged from a long bath, but they eventually filled out. i was not sure if my fingerprints would be identifiable in that condition, so i decided against finally crossing "brief stint as a cat burglar" off my bucket-list... which, i admit,  is an odd fantasy for someone who gets dizzy standing on a kitchen step ladder. see that? brand new skin!!!

the palms were the last to peel, but they are almost fully-recovered...

almost.

so, what did i learn from this experience?

him: you have a drawer full of knitted gloves. why don't you just keep a pair in your coat pocket and in each of your bags, so you always have them handy.
me: i know.
him: i even offered to give you my gloves that day. why didn't you take them?
me: i know, i know, i know.
him: why am i even bothering? you never listen to anything i say.
me: i know!

yep. pretty much.

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[what follows is a lengthy aside/rant about what i am currently watching. you have been warned.]

i love love LOVE cozy mysteries and detective stories in general, and i look forward to the post-holiday season when all of the (mostly British) shows i enjoy are back on the air. i am also (slowly) getting around to a few titles i missed over the years. to that end, i am (re)watching all of Inspector Morse in preparation for starting in on Inspector Lewis (sequel about Morse's right-hand man). i did manage to push my OCD to the side just long enough to get through the first two seasons of Endeavour (prequel about Morse's younger days), but i was eventually overcome by the intense need to watch the original series (in order, without skipping a single episode), so that too will resume once i am done with Morse.

i watched some of the original series over the years, but i was never a fan. Morse is, in my humble opinion, a lousy detective and a deeply uninteresting character. the series is set in the world of the over-educated who seem to pass the day spouting quotes from classic literature (preferably in the original Latin) at the slightest provocation, lest anyone forget for a moment that they belong to that privileged set. it is the mental masturbation equivalent of throwing up gangs signs, and equally pathetic to boot.

beyond that, Morse seems to lack any real system or investigative method that underpins his work, and he ends up stumbling upon the truth more often than actually carrying out his role as a top-detective. then there is his lecherous obsession with any woman who crosses his path during the course of an investigation, most of whom seem to get arrested for one thing or another by the end of the episode. worst. detective. ever.

i am forcing myself through the remaining episodes (currently in the middle of season five), but i am looking forward to putting it behind me and moving on to Lewis' adventures, because he has always been a far better cop/detective and a more plausible character. i also plan to eventually re-watch all of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (wholly unrelated to Morse, but a far-superior attempt at employing class differences as the subtext of storytelling without turning the main character into a grade-A jerk), which i binge-watched and thoroughly enjoyed several years ago.

then there is the stack of Ngaio Marsh books i need to get back to reading, and i also want to finish the Ruth Rendell novels before watching that  television series. it should be noted that i was in the middle of one of her mysteries—An Unkindness of Ravens—way back when i was contemplating a title for this blog, and i kept coming back to a list of colorful collective nouns... so it is really all her fault.

a very meh New Year...