Category Archives: education

Apr15

What’s new?

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Hi, crafty people! What’s new?

I have been knitting up a Baby Surprise Jacket this week. It’s an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern, and if you have been a knitter for a while you will surely know that she is (was) one of the geniuses of the knitting world. I have five of her books. I’ve been using the book, The Opinionated Knitter, to  make it, but I think it might be in Knitting without Tears too.

The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK and I had every intention of making it the smallest size possible by using 4mm/US6 needles. However I pulled out my supplies at a coffee shop while waiting for a friend last week, and for some reason my brain led my hands to screw the US8 tips on to the interchangeable cables. So instead of a potential gauge close to 6st/in, my gauge is more like 5st/in, so rather than fitting a teeny baby this year it will be more likely to fit next year. Which is a bit of a shame as the colours match the kitty fabric in the sewn outfit I showed you last time. Hopefully the dress and sweater will be wearable together.

So of course now that it’s almost done (you may have noticed there are no buttons yet) I just have to cast on for another. (The poor poncho is languishing yet again – ah, the thought of all those ends to weave in!) I will definitely remember to use the US6 tips this time and have picked out denim blue, along with meadow green, raspberry and one of the other pinks that has lost its ball band. It will be more girly at least.

One thing about a new baby in the family – lots of motivation to create!

I have bought fabric for a skirt for myself too. I have a Burda pattern (#6666) for a tiered skirt and found a lovely turquoise-y blue mottled rayon at work to make it with. I wanted to start sewing today but thought I’d better wash the fabric first, so it’s having a very short wash in the machine right now. It looks like an easy pattern, just a bunch of rectangles with lots of gathering along each top edge, and as my favourite maxi tiered skirt that I’ve been wearing for the last five years has started to disintegrate I’m hoping that this will be my new favourite. If it works out, I might want to make more!

Netflix watching, now that (sniff) Outlander has been suitably binge-watched, is Suits, recommended by a friend. Light entertainment while I get my knitting and crocheting done.

Piano practice has taken a back seat (less motivation to practice when there are no more lessons for a few months – ahem) and now I am excited about my Duolingo German lessons. It’s free (duolingo.com) and a friend is doing it too, plus I have three Facebook friends who are native German speakers (one is a co-worker). My hope is that one day Tai Chi Man and I will get to return to Switzerland to visit his cousins and I will not be hopelessly lost. We both learned German at school (and passed the exams to graduate) but heck, that was over 30 years ago.

Hopefully you are enjoying a wonderful Easter weekend where you are (and perhaps some chocolate). Tschüss!

Mar15

New venture

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I do apologise if this blog gets a little quieter in future. However I have been working on setting up a brand new website/blog all about the benefits of a Whole Food Plant Based diet.

Having been vegan for thirty years, and getting more and more interested and informed on the plethora of scientific evidence that this is the way of the future, I wanted to start putting my money where my mouth was, as it were. Actually, I have, for now, set up a free WordPress blog, so no financial investment at this time. However since graduating from the Centre for Nutrition Studies Plant-based nutrition course at eCornell, and even before that, I have wanted to do something concrete to help get the word out.

I know there are many resources out there, but each website, book or documentary adds a little more to the mix, and different approaches appeal to different people. Even if only a handful of people get the message via my new blog, and it makes a difference in their lives, then it is worth doing.

The yarn has been lying dormant for a couple of days while I played with Squarespace (professional but even though it is supposedly user-friendly I found it frustrating to set up), considered my options (do I want to commit to a monthly fee for a site which won’t be generating income, at least initially), investigated the WordPress options (from free up to $30 a month, depending) and just dived in to a regular basic blog because I just wanted to get started already!

Setting up the blog took a bit of time, getting the first two posts published, creating a new Facebook page, opening up a new Twitter account, and I needed to get out for a walk in the evening to burn off some of the tension of all that laptop time.

I’d love it if you were to check out my new website, Grains, Greens, Berries & Beans. Long name but I like the alliteration and the other options I considered were already taken. My youngest son helped with the logo that appears on my Facebook and Twitter profiles. I gave him my idea on paper and he translated it into digital!

I have so much information to share that it will take a long time to publish just what I already have planned, and of course new things are appearing on the web all the time. I hope to create a comprehensive resource for all things related to the Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle. I’m excited to get on with it.

Thanks for visiting.

 

Jan29

Knitting, crochet and courses

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Whoopee! I am now a graduate of the Centre for Nutrition Studies whole food plant-based nutrition programme. I even have a badge for my blog, which is now in the sidebar near the top. It doesn’t fit in that well at the moment. I think it may be time for a renovation around here. I’ve been using the same WordPress template for, like, forever!

So that’s one FO! A finished course, for which I will get a certificate. I did the course partly for myself, partly so I could help others by educating them about healthy eating by not just giving them my opinion but actual facts backed up by actual science. And now I CAN!

The other FO is a crochet one which I whipped up in a little under an hour today.

It’s a cute lamb lovey, made from a kit that we sell at the store. It’s more expensive there than online, but I get a staff discount. And I’ve been eyeing these kits for ages. They come in many colours (always with three different colours/textures in one ball) with a different animal head or ball to go on top.

Rather than go with the crowd and knit a hat, I crocheted a granny square and added the lamb’s head to the centre. I was inspired by someone on Ravelry who has been posting photos of her projects to one of my favourite groups, the Colourful CALs/KALs group.

If you can’t find these at your local yarn store, they have them at Herrschners.ca. They are called DMC Top This knit hat kits.

What else? Ah yes…

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Knittin’…..started these Baby Janes a couple of days ago. Haven’t picked them up since. But if I actually get them finished they will match the bubble gum blanket’s border and will make a cute set. It’s a free pattern from Red Heart – I found it at work in the yarn section.

And the caterpillar is coming along. I did  add some hexagons today, and as you’ll see from the photo I positioned the bits for the head and feet. Tonight I sewed them on because I was too impatient to wait until I had added all the hexes.

We had a very pleasant Sunday. A slow pace, a walk along the waterfront, a cup of tea at Chai Baba. And a couple of interesting new recipes, which the boys were very dubious about. Beetburgers (a beautiful colour) in buns with grilled pineapple (another idea from Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease cookbook) with salad, followed by lime custard tart. I used an unbaked crust idea from the Fat Free Vegan blog (because I couldn’t find the right ingredients for the original crust) which was made with rolled oats, dates and fresh orange juice. The filling was silken tofu with lime juice and maple syrup layered with fresh fruit. It was rather good!

Despite all the doom and gloom in the news (best not to watch) I hope you manage to stay joyful and positive and spread good news instead of bad. ❤

 

 

 

 

Dec14

FO: Girly Santa hat

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I am excited about my new Finished Object…

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I don’t know how much wear this hat will get over Christmas but for some reason I just had to make it.

This lovely boucle Astrakan stuff works perfectly as a brim but crocheting it was out of the question. You just can’t see the stitches. It’s too much of a gamble. So I pulled out the old straight knitting needles, cast on ten stitches, and knitted a strip that was just about long enough to go around my head. I seamed the short edges together and then I managed to single crochet around a long edge with this hot pink Red Heart with Love. A lot of double crochets and gradual decreasing, plus a messy pompom, finished off the hat in two days.

I don’t have a pattern for it, I’m afraid. It was a design-on-the-go, see-if-it-works type of thing. (The pompom is held on with a bow on the inside of the hat, so it’s removable when the hat needs washing.)

I am feeling quite virtuous today, having gone to the pool two days in a row. Yesterday I swam 20 lengths, today 30. I would like to maintain a frequent swimming schedule but I am making no promises because I know myself!

I just realised it’s almost bedtime and I haven’t practised my piano tunes today. Oops! However I have spent a few hours on my Nutrition course and have learned some very depressing facts about the state of the US food industry. Ugh!

Have a good day and talk to you again soon.

Dec9

Snow! And more yarny projects

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We woke up to snow this morning and it has continued all day. Tai Chi Man has cleared the drive a few times to make sure it doesn’t get icy when we take the car out. We were planning to go to a friend’s house this morning and were on the road by 8.30am for a potentially 40 minute drive, but the traffic on the highway was crawling along so slowly that we decided to turn back.

I took the opportunity to start studying my new course – it’s an online course with eCornell all about plant-based nutrition. I’m just on the first module but by the end of January I will have a certificate to say I’m up to date on all the science and the reasons why a whole-food plant-based diet is the way to go. Just confirms what I’ve already known for years, of course, but I’m still learning new stuff from this course and it gives me some extra ammo when sharing with people why this is the healthiest way to eat. It may even become a career for me later on.

I also frogged the partially completed toque (hat) that I started a week ago and restarted it on bigger needles and with two fewer stitches. The pattern tells you to knit for 7″ before decreasing, but at 6″ I put in a lifeline and then tried out the decreases. I had enough yarn that I decided to rip back again, knit two more rows, then decrease again. I actually could have done at least two more rows, looking at the amount of yarn I had left, but no way was I going to frog for a third time. This process also included un-knitting a row because I had all my knits and purls the wrong way round!

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The fisherman’s rib would look tidier in a less bulky yarn, but I’m just glad this one is done. I’ll take it to work and put it on a mannequin head for a bit, then I know exactly who I’m going to give it to. (Yarn is Dynasty hat yarn, Fabricland’s house brand.)

Another small project I finished yesterday is this Dumpling Kitty, who I have named Custard. This is a free pattern, only available as a Ravelry download, hence the Rav link.

This cute kitty is made with Stylecraft Classique Cotton DK and a 3.75mm hook. I happened to have the perfect colours and I know exactly who this one is for too.

I now only have one WIP and that is the caterpillar blanket. I have made a start on it and will give it a separate post of its own soon. Have a great day!