poorly

The winter yuck has been making its merry way through our house this week. It started with Evie getting a dramatic fever (that girl never ever has a slight fever, it's 104 or bust) and then made it's way to Briton and now has taken me down. Such fun. The good news is it's not rush to the doctor type of sick, it's just feeling lousy, falling asleep while you are supervising homework kind of sick. Poorly seems to describe it perfectly.
The hardest part of being sick in numbers (aside from hating to see my babies feeling bad, of course) is that I have a hard time keeping track of who had what dose of medicine when. This particular flu has brought the kind of fevers that are hard to keep down, necessitating the old alternating Advil and Tylenol trick. I usually scrawl things down on a piece of paper that inevitably gets lost and then I panic and wait a few extra hours before giving them their next dose just in case. So I kind of wanted to kick myself when I thought of this idea, it seems so obvious. Why haven't I been doing this for years? Dry erase marker on the medicine cabinet mirror! I've been writing down the who, the what, the how much and the when each time I get medicine out of the cupboard, which was particularly handy yesterday when my own brain went all fuzzy with fever and I had to add myself to the list.

Now, off to make some tea and snooze on the couch. All this typing is wearing me out.

spinning

I've been spinning a lot lately. After picking it up in the summer, I put my little bag o' fiber and spindle away in November when I was too busy knitting away for the holidays to do any spinning and I sort of, forgot about it. Most of what I know about knitting and all of what I've learned about spinning has come from Youtube. I'm a visual learner so reading phrases like "draft out the fibers" doesn't do much for me. I need to see it to understand it, which makes Youtube my friend. What did we knitters and crafters do before Youtube and Pinterest? We probably got more done since we weren't spending all our free time online trying to figure out the difference between Andean Plying and Navajo Plying (I don't know the answer to that, by the way, plying techniques are next on my to-figure-out list).
The evening before Vogue Knitting Live, my darling friend Stephanie and I went to a cocktail party at a local knitting store where we drank all clear beverages, ate non-oily and non-staining snacks and met Debbie Bliss. While we sat and talked and fondled yarn, I got into a conversation with two ladies who were chatting away while they spinning on drop spindles. I was fascinated. Youtube is great but seeing it in person was much better. I stared. A lot. And asked stupid, novice questions. And realized how far I had to go.
At the end of the night I was wavering between "I must go home and try to spin like a real spinner" and "Hopeless, give up now, you'll never spin like that." My spindle stayed put in my under the couch yarn storage.
But the other night I got all inspired and took it out again and suddenly - spinning, real spinning. I think my brain had just been marinating what I saw and suddenly, the whole concept of drafting and fiber length and plying and spinning made sense. In one fell swoop I went from wobbly thick yarn to wobbly fine yarn. (Yes, you would think the thick is what you are after but if you look at commercial yarn, it's made up of multiple strands -which, I've learned recently are called singles - that are twisted together - that's plying - so thin is what you want.) And now I can't put it down. It's meditative and calming and the only problem now is that I can't decide if I want to knit or spin when I sit down in the evening. I now resemble a knitting shop, or maybe a sheep, what with the piles of yarn and fiber that accumulate around me whenever I stop moving. If you don't hear from me, just assume that I've been swallowed whole by the wool.

little felt collar: a tutorial

We got a letter home a few days ago from Evie's school reminding us of the uniform policy. I suspect there has been a bit of a mid-winter rebellion when it comes to the uniforms, some of the girls in her class have started wearing pink and purple tights, especially toward the end of the week when clean uniform pieces are thin on the ground. I know I've been tempted. But Miss Evelyn loves her uniform, for whatever reason. I'm not sure if it's the ease of not choosing in the morning or the "this is my school costume" thing or the fact that when she isn't in her uniform, we let her wear whatever she wants, which she really loves (striped tights, plaid skirt, flower shirt, color block sweater! Whew! We are into patterns!)But whatever it is, she has no objections to putting on her uniform each morning.
But when I looked over the note I realized that we had, without knowing it, been breaking the "rules". Light blue collared shirts. Collared was underlined. Woops. When the cold weather hit I picked up some long sleeved t-shirts for her, which, since they are t-shirts, have no collars. I'm not super stressed about it, we could always layer up the T under her collared shirts, but when I saw this on Pinterest I couldn't resist.

The original pattern was far too big for my little bitty girl, so I thought I'd share how I drafted a pattern for one her size, just in case your little girl needs a pretty felt collar. I used a heavy, 100% wool felt for this because it's what I had in the house. But if I had it to do again I'd probably go down to Purl Soho and get a sheet of the nice soft wool felt they have. Its thinner so I think it would drape a little better.
You'll need to start with some kind of collared shirt or dress that fits well in the neck - not too loose or too tight. For Evie's, I used one of her party dresses with a Peter Pan style collar. Pin one side of the collar, as flat as you can, to a piece of paper. Use plenty of pins so that it stays smooth. Trace around the outside of the collar and then use the pin to prick through the fabric into the paper along the inner edge. When you unpin, connect the pin pricks to make the half collar shape.

It's less crucial that the outer edge of the collar is the shape you want, that's easy to alter, what you really want is the inner curve and some idea of how wide you want to collar to be. In a pinch, you could even use a t-shirt to get that inner curve and then just play around with the shape of the collar itself.
Once you have the basic shape of the collar down, you can add that cute scalloped edge by tracing the curve of a teaspoon along the edge. Start at the back and work toward the front, this way you can add a little to the front edge as necessary to make the curves end evenly. I left a little tail where the fronts would connect, but you could bring the curve right to the edge if you like.
Try the paper pattern on a few times to make sure its the right shape and then pin to your fabric and cut the two pieces out.
Evie and I went button stash diving and came up with a few possibilities for the front and the back button, somehow I knew we'd pick the flower as soon as I spotted it in the bag.
Stitch the front edges together firmly and then sew the button on.
Instead of a ribbon to connect the back which would, frankly, be a disaster with a five year old, I used a shank button and a loop of elastic.


She likes.
Now, whether it will stay on all day is anyones guess, but at least I sent her to school all uniformed up.

all roads lead to new york

I've recently had a revelation. New York, as well as being the setting for some of my favorite movies and a place where you can sit on a bus next to a man painted silver and have a perfectly rational conversation with him - true story - is also, I'm now sure, the origins of the phrase "Going Postal".

Up until now, I've long assumed that Going Postal referred to postal workers, which, frankly, always had me stumped. Most postal workers I've come across have been nothing by nice. I like going to the post office. My grandfather was a mail carrier and he wasn't any crazier than the rest of us. In my experience, the term should be Going DMVal, although I admit, that isn't as catchy. And Will and I used to refer to the bus drivers in Dublin as Going Transit, because they were all nuts, and drove like it too.

But here the bus drivers are (mostly) nice. There was that one who wouldn't let me on the bus with my groceries, but by and large, they are a good lot. And as I don't drive here I haven't had any contact with the New York DMV. Maybe that's the ticket. There's less need for meanie DMV people so they send the extras to the post office. One post office, to be exact.

Which brings me to my revelation. Going Postal, I'm now completely convinced, is a term that refers to how you feel when you have to visit the 104th street Post Office on the Upper West Side. That little brown slip of paper in your mailbox strikes fear into the heart of everyone in a thirty block radius.

"Oh no!" we say. "We have to go to THE POST OFFICE!!!!"

I assure you, I'm not the only one who feels this way. After spending a baffled 40 minutes waiting in one line to mail a package a few months ago, I told them I also needed to pick up a box.

There were sighs, and eye rollings, and curled upper lips and then:

"You have to go to that line to pick up a parcel." Motioning to the loooong line at the far end of the room.
"But I just stood in this line." I said (perfectly reasonably, I might add)
"This line isn't for picking up packages. Next!"

I should, probably, have pushed back, but I didn't, I went to the long line which moved at a snails pace toward the window. Eventually I got to the front and handed in my slip.

More sighs.

"Well, I'll try to find it for you.I guess."

While he was gone I turned to the man behind me. "Isn't that what this line is for?" I asked, confused.

"It's always like that here. It's the worst post office in the city. Everyone knows that.They're horrible."

Ahhhh.

And it's been true. Every time I go to this post office, I feel a little postal. I've taken to hoarding my missed package cards so that I don't have to go as often. Or I send Will. Even the much nicer folks in the closer-but-not-in-charge-of-packages post office seem to fear the people at 104th.

"Oh, sorry, you'll have to go there for that. I'm really, really sorry about that."

So there you go. Going Postal. All down to the meanest post office in New York.

I have a "final notice" card sitting in my kitchen that I'm kinda dreading. Can you tell?

snippits of the week

Evelyn came home from school a few days ago vibrating with excitement. "At school, there's this day mom, and you make a card for EVERYBODY to tell them you love them and I need to start RIGHT NOW!" And just like that she started working on her Valentine's Day cards on her own. Stickers, markers, paper, done.

So different from Briton who needs some sort of unusual and mom designed "project" that he will help with to get into the idea of Valentine's Day. I'm debating over introducing her to glitter. I mean, on the one hand I can already here the squees of excitement, glitter is pretty fun after all. I can also see the glitter explosions in head. Glitter dog, glitter bed, glitter food. I think my vacuum can handle it though.
This morning I checked the eco-system/bio-bottle and discovered one of the fish doing the death sideways swim. Not good. No one else has noticed yet. Circle of life, right?

I forgot to mention this before, but when we were down in Chinatown we got thrown out of a grocery store. I was taking photos at the $1.25 food stand when Evelyn spotted a seafood store and wanted to go look at all the different fish, which was all fine and dandy until I took a picture and was immediately chased out of the store. Will's guess was that they were selling something illegal, which is probably right, at the time though I just thought they were a little crazy and hustled Evie up the block, just in case the little crazy turned to big crazy. (City Rule Number 2 being put into use right there)
Speaking of food. Shallot, rosemary, new potatoe and feta pizza. Yummy. Really, really yummy.
Nigella has been taking lazy to the next level these days. There is a lot of napping going on with this dog, which is good because the dog above us barks All. Day. Long. so I'm glad mine is content to be a side table most of the time.
Have a wonderful weekend all!

project bio-sphere

Thursdays are usually field trip days. By Thursday we've had enough time to get most of the academic things out of the way, we've had soccer and some socialization time and are generally getting a little antsy to go out and DO and so we do. We go.
This week I had plans to take Briton to the Abigail Adams house but when I mentioned my idea of building a closed eco-system to him last week he asked (begged) that we get on it. Like right now mom. Or at least on Thursday. I mean, Abigail Adams or Bio-sphere? Easy question.

Right, I mean, he is nine.

The basic instructions for this come from this blog, which I found on Pinterest, but we switched out seeds for already sprouting catnip so that we could get everything we needed at Petco (we had the bottles and tape). It was a good afternoon project, lots of discussions about what might happen (could the guppies have babies? What if they run out of room? Ahhhh - the circle of life, I see) and only one foul up when I realized that the bottles I got (water bottles, since buying three bottles of any soda would just lead me down the I love Coke train which I've worked hard to get off of) had longer necks than bodies and so we had to dissect a fourth bottle to make the spacer higher, but in the end, it worked. Might not be pretty, but oh well.
Briton is lobbying hard for the guppies to be in the ecosystem only temporarily and then moved to a tank in his room. Where in his room I don't know, but he has plans. They are very pretty little fish. The orange one is hyperactive I think, he whizzes around the bottle at top speed while the yellow one and the snail hang back and watch.

And so will we. Sit back and watch. And see what happens (I hope they live!)

a slightly faster project

Most of the time, I love the slowness of knitting. I love that I can pick it up on the subway or in a waiting room or a line and add a few stitches here, a few stitches there. It's meditative, relaxing. Most of the time, I'm in no hurry.
Except sometimes I am.

Sewing is, by contrast, a faster hobby. Not everything in sewing is fast, of course, some projects take time. But most of what I sew is on the simple side, something I can start in finish in an evening or two. The downside of sewing is that I can't do it while hanging in the living room watching a movie or sitting on the subway. Unless you're talking embroidery, which I'm not, because I'm terrible at it (although this is tempting me to try again).

So I knit. And it makes me patient, or more patient at least.
I just finished a sweater, so you would think I'd be pretty happy with my knitting self right now. And I'm making good progress on both Will's sweater and a sweater vest for myself that I cast on last week. But on Monday I got the sudden urge to have something quick. Cozy and quick. Brought on, I think, by a bevy of girls I saw sitting outside the Hungarian Pastry Shop in their thick cowls and scarves.

I do not knit scarves. Ever. I've made one scarf in my entire life and that was my first "I'm going to teach myself to knit" project back in college. I can't be sure but I think it turned out hideous. And short. I've blacked it out.

The problem with scarves is that to be good, they have to be long. And long requires a lot of time and wool. And if I'm going to put a lot of time and wool into something, I want it to be a more exciting thing than a scarf. Because scarves you can buy a plenty.
Cowls, on the other hand, are a different matter all together. I love to knit them. I've made a good six of seven of them in the past two years, some of them went so fast that I didn't even bother to record them on Ravelry. Add some chunky Quince Puffin that has been languishing in my stash and I was off.

I used the stitch from this scarf because it's beautiful. Simple and complex at the same time. It's also easy enough to memorize the pattern but interesting enough to keep me, well, interested. My only regret is not using larger needles. I should have gone up to a 13 at least so that the weave was looser. I'm hoping some blocking will help with that, it's pretty darn dense at the moment. But for two easy evenings and a morning bind off, it'll do. Now I just have to wait for it to dry from the blocking. Impatience, impatience, impatience.