A Place To Call My Own

I stumbled upon the most interesting thing on Pinterest the other day. I was scrolling through the "Popular" feed and saw something that was captioned "Woman Cave".

I think the axis of my universe just shifted.

A woman cave. I've never given it much thought, but yes, come to think of it, I would like a place I can retreat to. Chuck has the now requisite "Man Cave" in the basement full of his military paraphernalia. He's even got a sign on the lintel going down the stairs.

My son has the entire top floor of the stone part of the house. It's just a fluke of past renovations that all the separators were taken out so he's got a large airy space for a bedroom which is also quite separate from the rest of the living space and he's happy there.

And me? Well, um, I have a sacrosanct spot on the couch. My spot and only I sit there. Or at least I did until the dog decided he liked it too.  Chuck's first comment when I suggested I'd like a space of my own was that I had the rest of the house and how much more did I really need?

Joking aside, typically women retreat to the bedroom, bathroom or kitchen. My bedroom is for sleeping - end of story. I'm not one to lounge in the tub so while the bathroom is very nice, I don't consider it a retreat. The kitchen is out because it's a work space and more to the point, it's a public part of the house. I want a place where I can leave my knitting out, a book open to a page and decorate without consultation with the others who live here. If we lived in a more forgiving climate, I would have tried to take over the shed (a freestanding building with power) but since it is neither insulated nor heated it isn't really usable as living space from October to May. I don't have a perfect space, but we do have an unused area on the main floor of the house. The living room/lounge is an odd C shape. The only entrance to the room is from the top of the C and that area at the top is what we use. The bottom of the C is unused.

So for now, this will be my space. It's a work in progress but there is a closet to store books, lots of light, the stereo and space for the spinning wheels (you can only see one).

The only thing I'd really like to add is a divider - something like a Chinese screen that I can easily remove to really separate my space from the living room.

Time Flies

I'm not sure what happened here - seems it's been six weeks (give or take) since I've written anything (and honestly, I haven't read much either so I'll be going back and reading blogs that you've written too) but in my mind I've had piles of things to share with you. I know I think of posting something a few times a week and for one reason or another it just never gets done. A big part of that is because the battery in my camera always seems to be dead.

So here I am, forcing myself to sit down and show you what's going on.

There's been some travel - I went to Chicago on very short notice (like 24 hours notice) at the beginning of the month.  I really liked the city and would quite happily go back.

I stayed down on the river and was able to find time for the architectural river tour.  If you ever find yourself in Chicago with a few hours to spare, this is something worth doing.

I have part of the vegetable garden planted. Most things are growing well including the weeds. Curiously, squash isn't growing well at all. I made a decision earlier in the spring that I wasn't going to plant the entire space that I have available. It's too much and I can't keep it weeded and I end up losing produce and patience.  Last year, when I was dealing with depression I tried to get it all done and more than once I was in tears while planting something because I was just so frustrated with the space and how quickly the grass and weeds would take over if I so much as turned my back.  Couple that with the grasshoppers who moved in with the grass and I was ready to just plow the entire thing under. This year, I decided to be a little kinder to myself and reduced the size of the planting space. I have less, but the space is easier for me to maintain. So far, I'm enjoying it a lot more as well. The other thing I learned is that if you're going to plant purple fingerling potatoes, that you need to take them ALL out of the ground in the fall - even the little tiny blips of tubers the size of your finger tip, the half eaten ones the mice dined on and the ones you cut in half with the shovel while digging up the others. You know why?  Because these damn things can survive a winter - even a really hard, cold one like what we just had (remember this is a Canadian saying it was a long, cold winter) and they'll grow the next year. Currently I have "wild" potatoes growing among the onions and the lettuces....

I also spent some time working on the ornamental bed at the front of the house.  It's not all done, but I've gone from this:

to this.  It still needs some work and the edging needs to be cleaned up, but at least I can see what I'm working with now.

I've been knitting as well, although at a much slower pace due to the gardens.  I've finished a(nother) pair of socks.  These were knit using Lorna's Laces yarn.  The colour is Lucky Stripe.  I think I'm in love.

I've also started a new sweater.  I've decided I really like working sweaters in a rather fine gauge so I've cast on another one.  The sweater will have a folded hem and be very plain but is a shocking fuchsia - a colour I can wear quite well.

There are a few other things that have been happening too, but I need to save something for next time!

No focus

It's one of those days.

I'm working from home today - which is a little off my normal schedule but I've shifted WFH days to accommodate some meetings happening on Thursday and Friday. Sadly, I can't focus. This is really unusual, normally I can make myself get the work done regardless of the distractions but I've been struggling for six hours now and I'm not getting anywhere. In the time I've spent writing this much I've stopped twice to look at Facebook and my mail (just to see if anything new had arrived). There was nothing new. I even checked my work email. Nothing new there either.

My husband calls it a bad case of Wrong-Side-Of-Window. He made this observation after hearing that a meeting today was cancelled so he decided to blow off the rest of his afternoon and go hunting (the perks of being self-employed eh?!). Lanark county is currently being overrun by wild turkeys; hunting is a public service really. And in case you're wondering, his bunking off for the rest of the day didn't do anything to help me focus. He might be right though, it's a beautiful day outside and would be good to spend some time in the garden, or even just sitting on the deck in the sun.

Honestly, I don't know if I should try and push through it (1h 20min to go), or give in and go outside and plant onions, go downstairs and spin, sit on the deck and knit or go have a nap because I have a sore throat starting and don't have time to be sick. I've been hearing lots lately about taking time for self-care but how do you balance that against work expectations? Especially on days when the body is clearly demanding something, because how else can I interpret behaviour so far from what is my 'normal'. I can always log back in later and will probably get more done if I did that, but I also know that on days like this it's too easy to just not log in again.

Would it be the end of the world if I slipped away?  No, nobody will die and the economy won't collapse if I quietly leave an hour early but there is a trust which is extended to me by my employer that I can work without supervision and I don't want to break that trust.

Do you work from home?  How do you deal with days like this?

Half and Half

It's finished; maybe.  This is the shell I've been working on for a few weeks.  The design is called Fifty Fifty by Laura Cunitz and you can find it on Knitty.com.  I'm calling mine Half and Half.

If you've been following this, you'll know that I've made a few adjustments to the number of stitches to eliminate a four stitch gap in the pattern which appears where the round joins on one side.  I'm happy to report that the finished item does indeed fit, with no awkward gaps around the arms - something that is always a risk with a tank top - and that the pattern now lines up and repeats as it should.

There are some details on this that I really like, such as a really interesting stitch pattern along the arms and the neck

as well as a pretty panel at the back of the neck

I had hoped to photograph this while wearing it, but everyone else is out for the day, and I'm not good at taking self portraits.

As for the maybe at the beginning, I'm undecided if I'm going to leave this white, or if I should dye it.  I don't often wear white because I usually manage to stain it but I still have my two original swatches so I can play with colours.

So what do you think?  Dye it or leave it as it?

Signs of Spring

It's been a long winter here in Eastern Ontario - indeed most of Canada and the northern United States are well and truly sick of it. But Spring is finally here and I've been seeing a lot of posts recently about the arrival of Spring and what that means to different people. As for me, I've been waiting for one thing which truly is the sign of spring at my house. And it came today.

It wasn't the fat buds on the trees and shrubs

It wasn't the miniature daffodils on the south wall of the house

Nor was it the rhubarb or green onions

No, it was none of these things.  What I've been waiting for is that damn bird, aka the Northern Flicker, back from it's annual migration, banging holes in the side of my house.

Happy Spring.

Modifying a Sweater, Part II - Fiddling with Ease

Back to my adjustments on the Fifty Fifty tank. We left off with a discussion of swatches. Here are the two that I did. They were machine washed and laid flat to dry. 

At that time, I liked the second one more, the one worked on 3.75 mm needles but after drying I like the look, drape and feel of the 4 mm swatch more. So that is what I'm going to use.

Now for the math. I do this using Microsoft Excel but any spreadsheet will work. So will a basic calculator. I start by seeing what my gauge is on the swatch I chose. Measure a section that is 4" wide and count the number of stitches. Then divide that number by four to get the stitches / inch. In my case, I measured 21 stitches over 4 inches so my stitches per inch count is 5.25.

Next step is to figure out a few numbers. This is where I fiddle with the ease. What is ease? It's the difference between your body measurement and the garment measurement. Zero ease means they are the same, positive ease means the garment is larger than you, while negative ease means the garment is smaller than you. I don't particularly like negative ease - I find it to be too snug for my taste and comfort but I don't want this to be a big, loose top either. So I'd ideally like something with between .25 and 1" of positive ease. I create a small grid in Excel and calculate the numbers I would need to cast on for a variety of eases from zero to one inch positive ease. This is very simply the measurement times the stitches per inch so 41 inches times 5.25 = 215.25.  

	Measurement	0.25" ease	0.5" ease	0.75" ease	1" ease
Sample size	41	41.25	41.5	41.75	42
Stitches 4mm	215.25	216.5625	217.875	219.1875	220.5

Next look at the pattern. There is actually a chart which shows me that there is a 12 stitch repeat, plus 14 stitches at the end to make up a round. Some more math gave me 12 stitches x 17 repeats + 14 stitches at the end = 218. This is right in the middle of my target numbers so I'm going to work with this. Normally, I wouldn't like an odd number of pattern repeats but remember that in this case, those 14 stitches at the end make up the 18th repeat so I'll be able to divide this evenly for front and back. So I've learned that I'll need to cast on 218 stitches which will give me about half an inch of positive ease as I am not putting any waist shaping in this top.

Now back to the pattern again. There is an unusual cast on method provided which I decided to try which required half again as many stitches as my actual stitch count. So 218/2=109.  218+109 = 327. This is workable, but I don't like uneven numbers. If I bump up the numbers to 220/2 =110. 220+110=330. It's no problem to add stitches for something like this, but you need to do something about them when you start working the pattern. After all, extra stitches in the fabric is why I'm doing this recalculation.

After working this cast-on, I did the join and worked the ribbing. Then there were two rows of stockinette stitch. This is where I took care of those two additional stitches we added to make up the numbers for the cast on. One last look at the chart shows that there are two "extra" stitches that don't really contribute to the pattern but would be necessary if you were working this pattern flat. I'm knitting this in the round so I removed those two stitches as well. This means that I have to decrease four stitches on my first round of stockinette stitch. I did this at the side seams, two at each side. So now I'm down to 216 stitches, which gives about a quarter inch of positive ease and is still within my target zone.

So all this because I didn't like how the pattern didn't meet up on the sides for my size. This was the original photo.

But you know what? I made it work. Here is the work in progress - at both sides just in case someone thinks I'm cheating. 

This isn't heavy pattern modification and I'll (maybe) complete the arms eye shaping by following the pattern as written.  Then again, maybe not.  I'll decide when I get there.

An Unexpected Delay

So after starting to tell you how I modify sweater patterns, or patterns in general, I packed up my laptop and left Perth for a few days in New Jersey. I figured I'd post the next steps from the hotel in Parsippany but got there and realized that my camera was at home. As it turns out, I barely had time to sleep, let alone write the next steps before I was back on the airplane to fly home. I was home for about 40 hours which was just long enough for me to empty the suitcase, wash everything, pat the dogs and repack before driving to Toronto which is where I am right now.

This is the view out my hotel window. However my camera, with the photos is still at home. Rats. My apologies for the delay in posting the next steps for what I do to adjust sweater patterns to my liking. So here is what I can tell you:

• The flight to New Jersey was uneventful and my time there was productive. 
• Coming back via Pearson Airport in Toronto, there is a dedicated lane at customs for people like me who have connecting flights. 
• Even with this fast-tracking lane, I still had to hustle; Pearson is a big airport
• The customs agent was surprised that I was a software engineer. Not sure why.
• My dogs really don't like it when I come home only long enough to repack my bags and then leave again.
• I love satellite radio on long drives.
• I have always loved Toronto, and I still do.
• I don't like going to a restaurant by myself and I'm getting tired of eating out; I want to make my own dinner - and eat with my family.

So anyway, it's now Tuesday night and I'll be here in Toronto until Saturday morning when I'll pack everything up and make the trek back to Perth. I think there might be some yarn shopping on the way (I just realized that I'm within walking distance of Lettuce Knit....)