a long end / a fresh start

2010 ended abruptly after quite a bit of hard work:

fall semester was a struggle, having been led into by a summer that would be an understatement to be described as having not gone according to plan.

there were times i thought i might not make it--
times i thought i might just run away screaming--
times i thought that if i just took one long, deep breath,
it might all of a sudden be over.

finals happened. i graduated.
christmas happened. i moved out of keene.

the year two thousand ten ended with an overcooked (but tasty!) pot of homemade eggnog.



2011 will be different.

you know why?
because i'm never going to let 2010 happen again.

this is a year that has started with no expectations,
but with the understanding that what happens, happens.



and you know what?

i've already spent a few days relaxing, reading, and knitting.

a great job just fell into my lap.

and today i had a lovely afternoon with a good friend, a great yoga class, and some yummy sushi... all of which i intend to experience more of in the coming months.



here's to a Happy, Healthy, Unstressful New Year,
and may peace find you when you most need it and least expect it.

delightfully met Jared Flood and his pup Luna this weekend as he taught a few workshops at Harrisville Designs.


my body feels like it is slowing down and going into hibernation mode without me ... went to a network chiropractic consultation this morning to see if some energy-redirection and adrenal supplements might help.


my lack of focus on school is spreading to my knitting and i can't focus on one project... i have about five projects that i've cast on but i can't get farther than about an inch on them before moving on to another project... this is frustrating.



but this is lovely.
(i found out today that the paisley-like motif that i like so much from indian designs is called a "boteh")


i'm so ready for thanksgiving.

baking is the new studying.

i've decided. it's an invaluable substitution!


basically i had a major paper due today,
(the second draft of my senior seminar paper)
as well as two exams, tomorrow and the next day

BUT

tomorrow also happens to be my friend kate's
BIRTHDAY!

(not to mention that my other friend kate
just brought me a 30-lb bag of carrots
from a lovely vermont farm where she works)

what to do? (was this really a question?)

i made carrot cupcakes.


(image and recipe courtesy the cupcake project)

and,
more importantly.

candied carrot spirals (!)

who cares about my exam tomorrow?!

carrot cake is brain food!
...i'm totally not worried.

i just want to be me
and be able to believe that that's enough.



i'm just feeling so sick of myself right now.

so the other day i remembered that all of my beloved jade plants were still out on my porch,

after many a night of freezing temperatures.



and now, as you can see, they are mostly dead.

here's to hoping that they come back now that i've trimmed them.

lists

playing catch-up for all the time i've wasted not blogging; here are a few list-prose-poems i've written.... some of them follow a sort of haiku-esque "full circle," while others just trail on in no particular direction.

(a recent one)
talk talk talk, listen, snow falling on leaves, bird whistle, thistle, briar patch, match, flame, name, you me and everyone we know, to love someone without ever letting go, treason, reason, season, barometer.

(some older ones from last fall &/or spring)
tentacles, dry leaves, hot toddies, leather shoes, horsetail skies, blue jeans, green eyes, southern migration.

isinglass, isinglass, topiary, cornucopia, reflective instrumentation, mistletoe, isotope, jumping rope, love note, cadaver.

andiron, darning needles, poetry notebook, warm slippers, unexpected gifts, handknit sweaters, spinning wheels, horse-drawn cart, rutabaga, kale, brussel sprouts, a farm in montana shared with friends and the sunrise.

breath, warm breeze, crashing waves, feet sunk into sand, holding hands, soft kisses, sense of place, longing, belonging, knowing truth, knowing love, knowing you.


(the following was in collaboration with matt&matt)
laundry, eggs, alabaster roof, good guy robots, rotary phone, chromosomes, megaphone, thunder drome, cyclops, miette, john cleese, rheumatoid arthritis, insulin, pump, rump, generic compliment, how are you? i'm fine thank you, goodbye.

(the following was in collaboration with one of many kates)
lemon curd, tiny bird, silver spoon, paper moon, darning egg, prosthetic leg, nancy drew, yarn & glue, paperback writer, engrossed in [apple]cider, glass onion, paul bunyon, "the day the knitted umbilical cord was attached."


(and a secret note from a matt, which spans the page of some lists that were typed together on my Remington:

my dearest Eva,

butts

u

With Love,

Your Mothee

your ink ri bon is running an e ously ow Ms. BinghamLOL@@@@@@)

finis ab origine pendet

"the end depends on the beginning" - manlius


i can't believe it's already been a week since i started my first batch(es) of home-brew kombucha... the aroma of fermentation is in the air & the new scoby's are lookin' good!

my kitten went back to my mother's to keep my dog (in failing health) company ... but i miss her pretty face so much. :(



19 days until i see the Pee-Wee Herman show on Broadway.

40 days until the end of my undergraduate career.

i need to make more time in my life for things like yoga.

good news and good weather.

no.
i'm not very good at this whole "blogging" thing, am i?
considering i have such extended absences
i can't expect anyone to be reading this crap but me,
a few months from now, when i rediscover it again.

just as i have this time!
and with glad tidings, too.

(for some reason my pictures aren't uploading,
otherwise i would have had interspersed images of my newest projects,
but, assuming you are even here reading this blog,
you will just have to visit my shop: emilouanna.etsy.com)

no, the glad tidings are not that it is 80 degrees and sunny
the first weekend of april (a record-setting event in many circumstances,
though, i have to admit, a bit concerning for those of us
who are of the environmental studies persuasion)...

the good news is that i have figured out how to graduate next december,
AND i won't even have a full semester
(busting out at the seems like this one)
as i had previously thought.

and the class i was banking on isn't even being offered in the fall.
in fact. it's not being offered during the school year at all.

it is being offered over the summer.

and although i will be missing the first week of a four-week course
due to the geology club's two week field trip to Nova Scotia,
it will be worth the catch-up stress just to make space in my fall semester.

in addition to that breathing room,
my required ecosystems ecology class will also count as an upper-level Bio class,
so i don't have to take micro biology. not that i don't want to take micro...
it's just that with Seminar and all, i want to be able to focus all of my attention in one place.

also, this means that i only have two required classes for fall semester,
but i need three in order to be registered as a full-time student...

PERFECT!

now i can fill in the gaps with some de-stress creative processing classes.
ie : photography or printmaking.

wowee!! i am starting to actually look forward to next semester!

as for now, i will stick to my countdown to diana's wedding
(four weeks)
and to the geology club's 2-week Nova Scotia trip...
(five weeks)

Snowy Solo Summit

it was thursday of last week and i had this overwhelming need to prove something to myself... or maybe at that point it was just that i was bored from sitting through eight hours of lectures that day and it was like spring outside. either way, by the end of friday i was determined not to let myself down; i felt this unremarkable urgency to do something impulsive and i knew the only way i could succeed would be by hiking mount monadnock.


by myself.
up a trail i had
never hiked.
in the snow.


so it was saturday. gorgeous. highs in the high 30s. i packed a bag full of layers [that i never ended up using] and ran to my friend kate's house to borrow her cramp-ons.

the hike was as expected. it started out well enough, with a half mile walk in ankle-deep snow from where i had to ditch my car to the base of the trailhead. the first part of the trail was equally well paced. half an hour in i reached the trail register and had i not stopped to read the notebook inside the ziplock baggy, i would never have known that the trail i was about to hike was "closed." but what was a girl to do? it was the perfect day and i wasn't about to waste it by turning around and going back to my car. and besides, it wasn't for another half hour until i hit ice and actually needed to use the cramp-ons.

after that first small patch of ice the remainder of the trail was much different. the snow was getting deeper and there were parts of the trail that invovled me pushing uphill through thigh-deep snow, cramp-ons clutching to the ice-covered rocks below me. that is, if i could even find the trail... i was hiking the marlboro which is marked only by cairns, which, at this time of year, are still completly covered in snow. later, on the way down, i would not waste my time counting the number of times i came to a spot where my tracks turned round in circles looking for the trail.

there were definately times i thought that i was lost. or that the trail i was following was only taking me farther away from the summit. but really, i figured, the worst that could happen is that if after three hours i am no further up the mountain, and exhausted, i will just follow my footprints back down.

this never ended up being the case, because after only two and a quarter hours i reached the top of the false treeline. half an hour later i was at the top, whistling with the wind.
i tried eating my peanut butter and fluff sandwich but it was too cold, and i was surprisingly not very hungry. i threw the sandwhich back into my bag and started my descent.

on my way up i had felt small and vulnerable. on my way down i felt as big as the mountain. there had been times when i had considered turning around "no one will know" i thought to myself. but that wasn't the point. the point was to prove it to myself that i could do it. and i did.

an hour later i reached my car.

on the radio driving home, speaking of faith was on npr. the guest they had was an astro- physisicst and they were talking about the universe and spirituality. that is probably one of my favorite subjects and after having just conquered the mountain it was a very nice cap to my afternoon of feeling infinite.

the Broken Oven bakery.

also known as, My Kitchen.

we have hit a bit of a monetary crisis in my household, the old scientist and i. he does not pay me rent until halfway through the month, so if he eats too much food too fast, we go without unless one or both of our significant others breaks down and buys us food. i also have a meal plan at school, so i often hoard foods (or at least fruit) from the dining commons as frequently as possible. i've been known to take bags full of apples at a time, and even to leave in the middle of a paleontology exam in order to bring the remaining six of us numerous chicken patties.

anyway, the long and short of it is, i have run out of substantial meal-making foods for the time being. so, having an abundance of flour sugar and eggs, i did nothing more than go into crazy baking mode.

it all began back in early october when william and i started going on weekly weekend visits to the local apple orchard when he was up from northampton. with these apples i made many a pint of fresh apple juice, small, manageable amounts apple sauce, and finally my new (someday)famous apple crisp.

then, there was the weekend that i went with my family up to our lakehouse in maine and on our way home, before we left town for the winter, we hit up the local orchard, which has grown substantially since the last time i was there - two or three years ago. anyway, my parents decided it was a good idea to get this HUGE bag of apples for us to split between the three of us, which ended up being the downfall of us all. i still have a basketfull of these apples in my kitchen, a month later, waiting patiently to be sliced and left for a night in the dehidrator, or cut up and stewed into sauce.

after the apple spree, i was a bit apple-ed out.
next thing i new, i had a few very brown mushy bananas hanging around in my fruit basket, so i decided to try my hand at banana bread. this was a success, so i repeated it for a second week in a row and this time brought it to william [who, up until now, did not believe that i could bake, due to a number of exceptional failures that he was witness to].

today, wanting to wait on my remaining bananas until they are mooshy enough to be delicious, i decided to dredge out some old organic carrots from the bottom drawer of my refridgerater. these carrots have been in my fridge probably for the last month and a half, if not a solid two months. nevertheless, i was in luck to find that they were not at all limp or brown (with the exception of the greens) like i had expected them to be! i went to town pureeing them in my mini cuisine art and found a nice carrot cake recipe to alter and make my own. i added wheat germ and yogurt and raisins and pecans and [my jack-of-all-trades] allspice and put my oven to work.*
the verdict is that it is pretty delicious. except that i think since i like making things moist and dense this was less like cake and more like a wide, flat loaf. i have decided that it is best sliced warm, elongated and thin and spread generously with butter [it has just enough nuts and raisins to be interesting but not overwhelming].
i am going to make it for thanksgiving to be eaten with dinner [in place of a bread roll or croissant] instead of as a dessert.


*
the thing with my oven is,
it has this tendancy where,
even if i bake at a lower degree,
it overcooks the outside
and just barely cooks through the center.
nonetheless, it still tastes good!

spinning my way to the moon

the summer in review!

i haven't been able to focus at all on schoolwork, so i figured it was time for a pictoral review of missing links as pictures from summer are LONG overdue!

first off, here are some of the first yarns that i spun! the blue i did on my drop spindle, which took forever, but was fun! the green i did on kate's luett spinning wheel and used it for my hat, foliage [ravelry link].


after these small adventures in spinning, i couldn't resist more! the fiber fever hit hard, so
kate and i got some roving and decided to DYE!

it was so messy but so worth it. we used RIT dyes, which might have been a mistake for first-time dying of this sort, but we managed through it anyway. besides, we were doing it at her boyfriends house, so it wasn't like it was our counters we were ruining, right? just kidding. but
i did do my share of bleaching countertops afterwards, anyway!

so, now that i had this beautiful purple and blue wool, what was i going to do with it? i was leaving to work at camp all summer and would not be around to use kate's spinning wheel. oh my god! i was freaking out! i can't go all summer without being able to spin this gorgeous roving! it was nagging at me, pulling at all of my nerves. there was nothing i could do. i waited as long as i could for my first paycheck from the summer but chloe was behind on paperwork so finally i just broke down and borrowed the money from my parents and bought

MY VERY OWN SPINNING WHEEL!

it was so amazing i didn't know what do do with myself. i sanded it and stained it and assembled it in the back of Grube library, the only unoccupied dry space in camp, as it was a horribly rainy week and i couldn't do it outside.
so,
then i spent my summer spinning this absolutely gorgeous and soft corridale yarn that we now affectionately refer to as Purple Rain. i started it as soon as my wheel was assembled during the first session of boys camp, and finished it the week that girls first session ended, just before i left camp and came back home to spend time with kate and william before they left for school.

...now the problem is, i don't know what to knit with it!!

very vegan sausage links

very vegan sausage links, or
sharla's sausages.

these were originally made as a joke for sharla, christmas 2006, because she does not eat meat.
i thought they were funny so i made more. i wanted to make a scarf, but didn't think it would be very practical!

yarn: pattons? tweed. some type of acrylic. color: raw meat red!!!!
contrasting yarn: i used pink, black, or another red would work as well.
needle size: US size 5
tapestry needle
polyfiberfill

thoughts: i found a tweedy red yarn that made me think of all the little bits of weirdness that you find in sausages. i also made another set of links using a red and white yarn that reminded me of ground beef with a lot of fat content in it. however, solid reds and red/browns would look fine too.
i used a pink sock yarn for the faces.








PATTERN:

co 3 st.
knit one inch in i-chord
row 1: kfb all stitches (6 st.- transfer onto three needles if using dp)
row 2: k all st.
row 3, 4: repeat rows 1&2 (12 st.)
row 5: *k1fb, k1* to end (18 st.)
knit 20 rows stockinette.

this would be a good time to add a funny face to your sausage if you would like, using a contrasting yarn and a tapestry needle.

stuff sausage with polyfiberfill or stuffing of your choice.

row 26: *k1, k2tog* to end of row (12 st.)
row 27: knit all st.
row 28&29: *k2tog* to end (6 st. at end of row 28, 3 st. at end of row 29)
i-chord 3 rows and begin new sausage.

repeat as many times as you like.

fairest of the seasons

[edit]

so i stayed up all night finishing lorne's dinosaur costume. i heard it was a hit at the party.
went to bed at two in the morning and i have to get up at seven in order to get to class at eight.
after laboratory i have to pack, pick up a boxspring for my bed and drive five hours to scranton, pennsylvania for my grandfather's funeral.
he finally passed away on monday morning after some ten-odd years of being told he could die any day because his altzehimers/parkinson's/dimentia was getting so bad.


fastforward past the part where i whine about missing halloween.


the funeral was O.K.
i'm not much into funerals - they're really not as interesting as harold & maude would have you think. it's all a bunch of "it doesn't look like him" or "he was never that skinny" or "wait, you're my cousin nancy!? i would have never recognized you!"
i'm also a little weirded out by my grandmother's fear of being burried underground. she bought them a space in the clarks summett mausoleum. it was interesting.

a lot of cold gray marble...
i don't know what my grandmother is going to do, now.

le gland du chêne

le gland du chêne

more commonly known as, an ACORN!

sizes:
long acorn (on left) 2.5x3.5 inches
stout acorn (on right) 2.5x3 inches

yarn: brown sheep lamb's pride worsted
bronze patina (light brown)
chocolate souffle (dark brown)

needle: US size 8
i used a circular needle, but dp would work as well.
anything written between *asterisks* should be repeated throughout the row.

other necessities: tapestry needle, poly fiber fill

simple abbreviations:
k1fb - knit one stitch front/back.
k2tog - decrease by knitting two stitches together.
p2tog- decrease by purling two stitches together.


also, don't worry about knits and purls matching up on the acorn cap- they end up being kind of random but are mostly just there for varied texture!

row:
0: with lighter brown, cast on 3 st.
1,2: work two rows of i-cord
3: *k1fb* to end (6st)

redistribute stitches on needle(s)

4: *k1fb, k1* to end (9st)
5: knit all stitches
6: *k1fb, k2* to end (12st)
7: *k1fb, k3* to end (15st)
8: knit all stitches
9: *k1fb, k4* to end (18st)
10 - 15 : knit all stitches (for a longer acorn, knit 2 or 3 extra rows of stockinette)

break yarn, switch colors to darker brown.

16: k1fb all stitches (36st)
17: *k1fb, p1* to end (54 st)
18: *p1, k1* to end
19: *k1, p1* to end
20: *p2tog, k2tog* to end (27 st)
21: *k2tog, p1* to end (18st)
22: *p1, k1* to end
23: *k2tog, p2tog* to end (9st)

at this point, fill acorn with polyfiberfill.

24: p2tog, k2tog, p1, k2tog, p2tog (5st)

move all stitches onto one needle

25-27: work 3 rows i-cord with 5st.
pull yarn through remaining st.
weave in ends.

voila!

and then there were...

been very busy with camp and camp related stuff.
getting kind of bored with this gig already. only ...25 more days.
which actually, when you put it that way,
it sounds much longer than i wished it to be.

assembled my spinning wheel a few weeks ago
but the amount that i've been able to spin every day
has been tapering.

started & finished a lot of projects since i've been here -
finished coachela.
made dug's DNA strand.
made liz's womb.
worked on some other small projects here and there.

i had a sudden bout of excitement in my life at the
end of last weekend when one of my rats,
dahl, died suddenly of an unusual
illness. bloating? i don't know.
they didn't know.
it was sad. he had a good life, though.

pictures of the wheel will follow.
also i hope to get up a pattern for my sausage links.
which really shouldn't be so hard.
i also can't wait to see how other people's watermelon slices come out -
currently four of them in the works.

did you know that there was an animated The Little Prince series?
i didn't. but now i own it.
it's actually quite terrible from what i've seen
as of yet... but how can you not love it?!

spin me a river of purple and gold

so i finally did it...
i finally bought myself a spinning wheel !!!

of course now that i am back at camp i will have zero time to oil it and assemble it and whathaveyou ...the kiddies came today and we've all been on our feet for hours so i'm thinking that the only time i will have to put my wheel together will be at night.. as in.. right now. my only problem is that it's been raining all day and the air is all dampy and i have nowhere to leave the parts of the wheel for it to dry!

huh. i guess i should have thought of this earlier.

where oh where has lima bean?

lima bean.

(another archaic pattern on which i wanted to work on slip placement so that the bean would be more bent over to one side...)

co 3 stitches
k1fb three times (6)
k around
k1fb six times (12)
k around
*k1fb, k2, k1fb* three times (18)
k around
k1 k1fb k2 k1fb k 8 k1fb k2 k1fb k1 (22)
k around
k1 k1fb k3 k1fb k10 k1fb k3 k1fb k1 (26)
k around
k1 k1fb k4 k1fb k12 k1fb k4 k1fb k1 (30)
k1 s1pw k26 s1pw k1
k1 sipw k1 s1pw k22 s1pw k1 s1pw k1
k3 s1pw k22 s1pw k3


k around (30st.) iiiiii i iii*
*(i think that means knit ten rows)

k1 s1kw k1 s1kw k22 s1kw k1 s1kw k1
k1 s1pw k1 s1pw k22 s1pw k1 s1kp k1
k3 s1kw k22 s1kw k3
k1 ssk k4 ssk k12 k2tog k4 k2tog k1 (26)
k around
k1 ssk k3 ssk k10 k2tog k3 k2tog k1 (22)
k around
k1 ssk k2 ssk k8 k2tog k2 k2tog k1 (18)
k around
ssk k2 ssk , ssk k2 k2tog, k2tog k2 k2tog (12)
k around
k2tog around. (6)
draw string through remaining stitches
hide ends

Yummy Watermelon Slice

IMG_0038
Originally uploaded by emmilouanna

Deliciously simple and much less sticky than its edible counterpart!



here it is, although i can't promise i remember all of the statistics:

i think i used size five needles and i definitely used a sock-weight yarn
although my friend asher across seas knit it using her own gauge and made an equally fun slice.

approximate colors you will need:
*brite pink
*dark hunter green
*green
*pale green
*black

here it is in all its amateur glory just as i typed it up the day i cut the...
watermelon slice:

bottom:
cast on 40st. (dark green)
stockinette st. 10 rows. bind off.

front and back:
cast on 40st. (dark green)
knit one row d.green / change color
purl one row medium green / change color
knit one row light green / change color
purl one row pink
in pink, repeat next two lines until you have 2st. (end on purl):
>k1, ssk, k to 3 from end, k2tog, k1
>purl
pull through remaining two st.
(make two)

sides:
cast on 10st. dark green
knit one row dark green/ change color
purl one row medium green/ change color
knit one row light green/ change color
work 37 rows stock. st. in pink. bind off.
(make two)

sew using mattress st.
leave top slit open to stuff.
or leave top and one small side open to make seeds (unless you thought of this before sewing it up!)


ANY QUESTIONS?
just ask! - i haven't really gone over it again since i made it but since asher made it and didn't have any problems or cross cultural knitting abbreviation confusions i assumed it was OK!
enjoy!

rats in the garden shed, spindle in the pond; skip to my loo my darlin!

ahh the weather is so nice these days! and what luck that i have been living where there is no internet so that i can take full advantage of this gorgeous weather! living with william & without internet has me spending loads more time with my lovely little furry monsters - my RATS! william's grandmother's house where we're staying has a cute little wrap-around day lily garden that the rats love to play in and william likes to bring the rats to the far side of the yard and watch them frolic back to the cover of the towering flowers (videos will be posted to youtube).
As well, last weekend william and i spend five long consecutive nights contra dancing as part of the monadnock folklore society's IRON DANCER, including a 12-hour dawn dance in brattleboro that went all night until 7am! i totally danced through the sunrise. (although i feel as though this could not compare to the norse dancers who danced the sun up on the solstice on top of pac monadnock!)

however, all of this hullabaloo that has kept me active has also put me back a spell on keeping my ravelry updated as well as my blog! As promised, i have been working hard at a Growler Koozy and have finished prototype 1 and am working on prototype 2. I am debating, though, whether i should hold out and try to get this pattern into a Knitty issue in which case i could not post the pattern OR any pictures until the issue comes out... ?!? i'm so conflicted because i know that this is a pattern that people are waiting for.

in any case, all of my projects are coming along much slower now that my new hobby of hand spinning is taking flight! i absolutely LOVE my new drop spindle (kate and i picked some up from the NH Sheep & Wool festival that we brought our mothers along with us to... on mothers day weekend, of course!) and after having a bit of trouble with some shorter fibers i have finally figured out the trick and will never again make the mistake of dropping my spindle off of the diving board and into the lake the next time i decide to go spinning on the dock on a windy day!Also as promised, my next post will be the sought-after Watermelon Slice! it's about time, too, what with this total pick-nick weather gracing us with its presence!

moving out and moving on!

what havoc!
finals week. moving out of my apartment.
knitting knitting knitting...
i've been so busy that i haven't even had time to post any patterns! i've been working on perfecting a shmesh shmopping bag... or mesh shopping bag. i want to call it shmesh armstrong. a stretchy meshy shopping bag. anyway.. i've been perfecting it. i have to re-write up the pattern and kate and i will knit up doups to make sure the pattern is a keeper and then i'll post it.

and in the meantime i've been splitting my time between
>sewing pillow-case skirts
>working on ignoring a time-consuming mosaic ball jar cozy and
>improvising a domino-knit Growler Koozy. (oooh! i'm so excited about this one!)

[all pictures to come as soon as i get my act together, move out of my apartment & find somewhere else to live for the last three weeks of the month, and get my computer working compatibly with my camera.]