This January has Januaried really hard. It’s been routinely -35, and between kids staying home from school for Reasons and the heat being broken in the car for a week, I haven’t been outside much. I’ve tried to keep expectations low and compassion high, and that has mostly worked. In our own tired way, we’re thriving.
Sewing
I set up my sewing machine on the dining room table earlier this month, and I’m not putting it away until I’ve finished the girls’ quilts. (Or until we have guests for supper.) I added diagonal lines through all the large squares on Stringbean’s quilt, and after much hemming and hawing, I think that’s enough. I went around the applique patch in the middle, but I might add some more hand quilting on top of it.
MiniMighty’s quilt has taken a lot longer, but has been more entertaining to do. I crafted a design made of carefully placed wavy lines that intersect to make concentric circles around each lifesaver, and it looks great. It needs securing inside the lifesavers though, and going around those little circles with my walking foot was too hateful. I don’t have a free motion foot for my Husqvarna, so I’m going to hand quilt around the small circles. A friend loaned me a hand quilting hoop, so I’m going to steadily work away at those for a bit.
Unfortunately, Dooner has decided that she is no longer into Paw Patrol, so her quilt top needs some redo-ing. I’m hoping I can talk her into replacing the centre square of each log cabin with some other fabric more to her current interests, as she still likes pink and purple and blue. I mean, I also have to figure out how to replace the centre square of an assembled log cabin, but that can’t be that hard right?
Mending
A member of my Spinning Staplers group, Amy, put me onto a mending tool that has changed my life. I had heard of these little Speedweve looms, and thought they looked smashing, but I had no idea you could use them to mend socks. When she recommended it, I ordered one right away, and I’ve been finally getting all my handspun socks back in circulation. I now give you a gallery of socks with woven patches.
It’s just so ruddy entertaining. And satisfying. Right now I’m just trying to put off doing sock laundry as long as possible, so it motivates me to do one every day or two. The issue with my last batch of handspun socks was that the pattern did not make for a good fit on my foot, so I don’t expect them to last that long even so. But it does feel good to have them in circulation again, along with bunches of other older socks that were filling my mending basket to bursting!
Knitting
This year will be more about knitting accessories than sweaters, but I did have one more sweater to get off the needles. This “Fitton’s Dynamo” took me a minute to finish, because it is huge. I am wearing it right now, and even blocked it fits me like a potato sack. I don’t hate that about it – it’s cozy, to be sure – but I don’t love the look. I should have made the smallest size, which is much more cropped. I am thinking seriously about felting it, though I’m not sure I would still be able to get the neck over my head.
The parade of accessories begins with some items I promised my daughters. I gave them each a skein of yarn for Christmas, and since I wasn’t intending to use this as a method to gift them an item for my stash, I got to knitting as soon as possible. These gloves for MiniMighty have black-light activated nepps:
And, from her Barbie-colored yarn, Stringbean requested a headband “With a Kiki bow.” I made a basic brioche headband, then basically made a second headband, and transformed it into a bow. She’s enjoying being a Kawaii version of herself.
Dooner’s is next. She was clamoring for gloves like MiniMighty’s, but to my great relief, she saw Stringbean’s headband and decided she wanted that instead. I do not enjoy knitting all those fiddle-faddley fingers.
Spinning
I have been spinning a lot. I spin for approximately one Bake-Off a day. The latest episode of The Wool Circle featured this delightful Bubble Crepe yarn:
And the next will feature some Opposing Ply sock yarn, which I will sneakily preview here:
I could smell the finish line with all of these Panda-base* sock spins, so I charged ahead and spun Gimp sock yarn, even though it won’t be featured ’till March. Here’s even more sneakiness.
I now have six ounces of leftover fiber from each of these Panda sock spins. [*Panda is a nickname for a base of 60% superwash Merino wool, 30% bamboo, and 10% nylon.] I’ve started the long process of spinning them into very fine singles, which I will make into two different 6-ply combo-plied sock yarns. Whether the resulting yarn is enough for one pair or two remains to be seen. What do you think all these colourways will look like plied together?
Even spinning an hour a day, this spin will take me nearly a month. I finished the second colourway yesterday. So, as I say, I spin for approximately one Bake-Off.
Cooking and Baking
Speaking of Bake-Off, I’ve been severely caught by the Great British Baking Show bug. Now the girls are into it too, so I can’t watch it while they are at school – at least not the later episodes; they don’t mind if they miss a few toward the beginning of the season. The last few episodes are the most fun, when you’ve really gotten to know all the contestants, and the most competent bakers are left. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s bitten me with the baking bug again.
Being me, I’ve quietly made a spreadsheet of all the recipes from the show’s official website. And I’ve been quietly baking through them. I’ve finished all the recipes from the first cake episode, and I’ve started puttering around with macarons. Which, although fussy to perfect, are not really difficult to make pretty ok. And they are delicious.
On the cooking side of the kitchen, the Christmas present that MiniMighty and I were most excited about was a copy of the Stardew Valley Cookbook. I bought it for us, but I didn’t look at it at all, as it was a gift for myself too! It’s for all of us, but MiniMighty is unsurprisingly my companion when it comes to doing things with checklists. Here are some of the recipes we’ve made this month:
Asparagus, goat cheese, and mushroom pizza
“Fiddlehead” Risotto – with asparagus in place of fiddleheads.
Roots Platter
And, that most iconic of recipes, the Strange Bun. It’s an enriched bun stuffed with lobster, but as I wasn’t going to find lobster (and wouldn’t buy it for this if I could), I got creative and used some imitation crab meat that my housesitter had left in my freezer. The bun was delicious; the fish not so much!
Most of the recipes so far have been really different and delicious, to my adult palate. Even if the idea of the recipe is simple, they have you cook it in a unique way or add some interesting sauces that really punch it up. The kids haven’t loved all of them, but they’ve been willing to try most of them, which is good enough for me. I’ve discovered that if you roast them enough, I really like parsnips. And the girls have discovered that they love fresh Parmesan. Now, after a week of potatoes and creative leftovers, we’re all eager for a new month and a fresh grocery budget to make more of these spendy recipes!
Oh, with the Canada Post strike still over, all our Christmas packages trickled in over this month. We’ve enjoyed having belated Christmases with boxes from both sets of parents, and our Christmas jammies finally arrived!
That’s been my January. We get up to a lot in the confines of our house. I’ve also played a lot of video games; I got all the achievements in Big Pharma and Regency Solitaire II. We’ve had a lot of fun, in between some stress and recovery from work things, and most of my energy goes into taking care of myself and others, and filling my tank enough to be there for my few people. The news is distressing, so I try to keep up with it in moderation, for that same reason – I can’t do anything about the news from here, so I have to save my energy for the areas where I can do good. I try to focus on what I can be thankful for, and wait to see what work is mine to do. I hope your work is good too.
Osborn Fiber Studio 