Category Archives: vegan

Oct8

Yarndale and other holiday fun

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Yarndale and other holiday fun

I have been on holiday! I only had my old iPad Mini with me, and no phone, so I was only spending minimal amounts of time on t’internet, hence the gap between blog posts.

I had a lovely time. It was quite the whirlwind – the itinerary involved flying from Canada to London, England, driving down to see my cousins on the south coast, driving up to Yorkshire to spend a few days enjoying the area, including Yarndale, driving back to London, flying over to Jersey, a few days with the close family, then flying back to London, then flying home.

Kudos to Tai Chi Man who drove about 750 miles while we were in England. And motorway driving is NOT fun.

Highlights of the trip:

Yarndale, of course…

I was excited to meet Kathryn from CrafternoonTreats. We had been in touch prior to the day, because I have been helping to moderate her Ravelry group for a long time now and I just had to make sure we met up. She was a vendor, so she couldn’t avoid me, LOL. All of the yarn she dyes is wool, but knowing I am vegan she and her friend Helen had dyed up some natural coloured Stylecraft Classique Cotton with Procion dyes as a gift. So lovely!

Sorry, my photos aren’t great. iPad in poor light.

A few other souvenirs…

Being vegan helps me be disciplined in my yarn buying! Most of the yarn on sale at Yarndale is wool. So all I bought was this Louisa Harding Giardino (though it was pretty expensive)! And of course I had to get a Yarndale bag.

I was fan-girly about Lucy from Attic24, whose blog I have been reading for years. She is one of the organisers. I saw her, but didn’t talk to her, in the Knit ‘n Natter room. And I also spotted Tatsiana from Lilla Bjorn in the Scheepjes booth.

My travel knitting was a simple pattern from DROPS called Rascal. A two-row pattern repeat, it was just knitting back and forth until I felt the shawl was big enough. And I wanted to give it to my sister when it was done, so I had to finish it before I came home.

I forgot to get daylight shots before giving it away.

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It’s made with Lion Brand Mandala in Phoenix.

Other notable mentions…

Met up with my English cousins (one I haven’t seen since 1988) for a lovely day of hiking and lunching and catching up.

Took the tube around London, including Camden Market, Regent’s Park and Tower Bridge. Went up inside the bridge and got a funny feeling in my tummy looking down through the glass floor.

Seven hour drive north to Ilkley in Yorkshire where we had a lovely cosy Airbnb. Hiked around Bolton Abbey, saw some of the cycling world championships, got absolutely soaked on a three hour hike up on Ilkley  Moor. After Yarndale, a 5.75 hour drive back south to Gatwick airport.

The island of Jersey in the Channel Islands (close to France) is where most of our family lives and I stayed with my mum and Tai Chi Man stayed with his dad. That gave us the most time with our respective parents. And one day was spent almost entirely with my sister, including lunch at a vegan restaurant and a walk on the beach with her dog.

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A successful trip, all went to plan, with the only travel hiccup being a three hour delay getting out of Jersey. But as we had split up the three flights home with a stay at a Heathrow hotel this time it wasn’t a problem.

We were happy to see so many vegan options in many places. Supermarkets and restaurants are now offering so much more than they used to, so finding food is easier than it ever was. We still mostly self-cater when travelling, but it’s good to know we won’t starve if we have to rely on outside sources. There was a lovely cafe in Ilkley called The Veggie, the Sinful Vegan in Jersey, tons of vegan places in Camden Market, and I can’t forget Ransom’s Garden Centre in Jersey which has so many vegan mains and desserts that it’s hard to choose. (I had the coffee walnut cake, which was so rich I couldn’t finish it all in one go and had to save some for the evening.)

So we’re back to our regular scheduled programming. We arrived home Saturday evening, and Tai Chi Man had Sunday in which to recover somewhat from the jetlag and was back to work Monday. Thankfully my schedule meant that I am not back to work until tomorrow, Wednesday, so I’ve had time to blitz the house and do some grocery shopping. I haven’t quite had the energy to get to the gym yet though.

I’m back to crocheting the Party Cardi (a video tutorial on The Secret Yarnery’s YouTube channel) now that I have had a delivery of two more cakes of yarn. My stashbusting for September was pathetic, with the only outage being some tiny pumpkins, and then of course the incoming yarn from Yarndale. However I have blanket plans, because there’s nothing better than a blanket project when the weather gets cold. What are your favourite blanket patterns? I have some Red Heart With Love (which will probably become a giant granny square) but also a tonne of random worsted and DK to use up. I need ideas!

 

May26

FO: Scrapsrific Rainbow Blanket

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FO: Scrapsrific Rainbow Blanket

I am pleased to say that this mystery crochet-along is finished and I have a VERY colourful blanket to show for it.

This was designed by Joanita Theron of Creative Crochet Workshop and was a 7 week MCAL. As the word “rainbow” was in the title, I just had to pick some appropriate colours of DK yarn (mostly Stylecraft Special DK) to which I added grey and white. By the end I had run out of the pink, red and orange, which is a shame as a full rainbow spectrum border would have been awesome.

I used my own border idea – one round of single crochet and three rounds of granny clusters. I also fudged the numbers on the rectangular strips to make them the correct size for my squares. Even after machine washing and drying, there is some bumpiness and rippling happening, but I’m not going to fret about it. It’s about 38″ square and used 540 grams of yarn. My only FO for May!

So it’s back to the daisy-making. I finished two more squares on Thursday:

I still haven’t completely memorised the pattern. It’s a tricky one.

In other news, my kitchen cupboards have now been fully decluttered, but I haven’t moved on to the next room yet.

My experiment in getting up earlier is going well. Each day I set my alarm clock 5 minutes earlier and I am finding it quite easy, as long as I go to bed reasonably early (around 10pm).

I bought rayon fabric in vibrant shades of fuschia and turquoise to make two tops to go with  my new leggings and yesterday I had time to cut out all the pieces. Next time I have a good block of time, I will go and start on the sewing, probably Tuesday.

This weekend, I did a lot of volunteering for Vegfest, the annual vegan festival in my town. Last night, Tai Chi Man and I helped set up, getting the gym and some of the classrooms converted for use by vendors and speakers. This involved a lot of furniture moving and sticking green masking tape on the gym floor to mark it out for vendors’ tables.

Today I was back at lunchtime to be an entrance greeter for the afternoon, taking people’s donations and giving them information. I was outside but thankfully it was cloudy – if it had been full sunshine, I’d have had to find some shade. At 5, the festivities were over, but then the cleanup began. A team of us put the school back to rights, cleaning, tidying, mopping, taking out the garbage. We were done by about 7.15.

It’s good to get a little couch time at the end of the day. It’s been a very physical weekend and I need to recharge.

 

Mar27

Brightening up my life

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Wow, what a great day I’ve had so far. My dear friend Jeanette came and picked me up this morning and took me south to the little town on the lake which we love to visit. It’s only 15 minutes’ drive away but you always feel like you’re on vacation when you go there. We had lunch at the cafe there (well, it was actually coffee and cake but who’s counting) and then had a look around the small shops nearby.

I tend to favour cheap and cheerful stuff and balk at spending mega bucks on an item of clothing, or really even spending anything on myself at all. But the third store we went into, I came across a cute backpack-style bag that was just so “me” that I had to look closer. The turquoise colour and the floral embellishments drew me in, but the “we are vegan” tag sold me!

I had no idea that there was a company called ESPE (www.espe.ca) that makes all-vegan bags and wallets. A Canadian company! A vegan product! OMG!

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Can you see why I had to have it? Huh? It’s a bit smaller than my regular backpack-type Adidas bag, but SO much prettier.

Then of course I saw some wallets by the same company. Unfortunately there weren’t any in the turquoise but I like lime green too so…

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As if that wasn’t enough, I (ahem) saw another item that I fell in love with too, and my grabby little hands couldn’t leave this behind…

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The funny thing is that this is the first time I’ve ever seen these products, and yet on the drive home we stopped at a garden centre so I could prettify my dining room table with these…

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…and what should I see but more products by the same company (thankfully the wallet I looked at was a bit more expensive at the garden centre, or I might have been a bit miffed).

Now I’m home and on a sugar-retail-therapy-induced high. Gratitude to my lovely friend for taking me out today, to the weather for being sunny and bright, and to companies with a strong vegan ethic.

May5

FO: Classique Cotton bag, and other stuff

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I had a little play with some of my Stylecraft Classique Cotton colours. I thought this would make a nice bag – sometimes you just need room for a phone and a key, and maybe a driver’s licence and a credit card.

I used the plum colour to seam it and I’m not 100% happy with how it looks, so rather than go with my original plan, which was to give it to a co-worker, I may just keep it for myself.

See that magazine there? It’s not often that I find a magazine worth buying, but I happened to be in London Drugs today and as usual I browsed through the available knitting magazines (there weren’t any crochet ones). Vogue Knitting has had some, shall we say, Interesting designs in the past that maybe a stick-thin model can get away with but on me, an average height, average weight, rather plain middle-aged girl, they would have looked just plain dumb! However I saw interesting articles, Canadian content and patterns I would actually knit, including a Cowichan-style sweater. Even though I don’t knit with wool, being vegan, I have long wished to make such a garment. I’m sure the knitting police won’t arrest me for using acrylic!!!

I actually bought two magazines.

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Whilst I already have adopted the whole-food, plant-based lifestyle and am now pretty adept at cooking vegan meals without oil, I do like to experiment with new recipes. Not only that, but I am currently preparing an educational presentation on the diet which needs to be ready by  next weekend for its first airing, and having this magazine to hand will, I think, be useful.

If you haven’t yet watched the Forks Over Knives documentary or checked out their website, I heartily recommend them.

I will shortly be retiring to bed with my new magazines, and the only reason I can get away with that tonight is that Tai Chi Man is working out of town so is not here to object to me reading in bed. He always goes to bed earlier than I do, because he works full-time and wakes early and is pretty knackered by about 10pm. Whereas I tend to stay up late (Netflix has a lot to answer for) and get up later in the morning.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Happy crafting!

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.

 

Jan18

WIPs and Windows

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I do like a bit of alliteration, don’t you? The title just flowed out of my fingertips.

I am holed up in my bedroom this morning. This is Day Three of the window/door installers invading our house at 8am and changing out all the windows and doors. That’s about 15 windows, a sliding patio door,  and three regular external doors. The first day, I was at work most of the day, so it was just the two boys who were at home, literally chilling out! We had to turn the heat down because there was so much activity, with guys coming in and out, windows coming out and new ones going in. And the noise! Hammering, drilling, voices, music.

Day Two was ok as they were mostly working downstairs and the thermostat is upstairs so it was fairly comfortable.  Today I have turned it down again as they are doing the three doors, one of which is in the kitchen on the upper floor.

I know we will have a much warmer, quieter house when all is said and done, but poor old Tai Chi Man now has a new job on his home maintenance list. That of painting the primed window frames inside. We will have to get the bathroom and kitchen ones done ASAP so they are sealed against moisture.

Lurking in my bedroom is actually rather pleasant. I brought tea in here, my laptop, crochet, iPad (you know, all the essentials), I have an en suite half bathroom, so I can stay here while the guy working in the kitchen does his thing.

And I took a couple of quick photos of my WIPs to show you…

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It’s hard to get this all in one photo, but I am working bottom to top on this baby blanket,  (that’s a link to my Ravelry project page) and right to left. The green of the caterpillar is now coming in. There are only two plain white rows of hexagons in the whole blanket, which is good, as the colours make it more interesting to crochet. I am being sure to weave in all ends as I go and with the join-as-you-go method there will be minimal finishing.

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This second WIP is the Dreamy Lace Baby Throw from Lion Brand. (My project page.)

My boss said the other day at work that someone had over-ordered on the pink Red Heart With Love so she gave me a ball of it to work up a small baby blanket. The pattern asked for Pound of Love, and this ball is only 7oz, so rather than chaining 141 I did 101 to make a smaller version. The ball suggests a 6.5mm hook and that’s what I’m using. After the initial set up row, it’s a one row pattern with an easily memorised repeat. This progress was made last night at a friend’s house.

Before picking up this pink project again, I will be adding more to the caterpillar blanket, as time is ticking by and there’s a baby on the way.

My plant-based nutrition course is going really well. I have completed two parts now – Nutrition and Society, and Diseases of Affluence. Next, putting it all into practice – Applying the Whole Food Plant Based Diet principles. This third part starts today and has to be completed in the next two weeks.

I noticed that Forks Over Knives has a cooking course starting at the end of the month – it’s $349 if you sign up now, $399 after the 21st. I was tempted to go for it but then I realised that the information may be presented in the course that I am already paying for. So I’ll see how that goes, then if I feel I need more,  perhaps they will offer it again at a later date.

If you haven’t watched the Forks Over Knives documentary, I highly recommend it. It’s one of many documentaries that are available now on healthy eating to prevent and reverse chronic disease. A quote from one of the doctors on the course, “Food is the chemotherapy that you take three times a day.” That’s why it’s the most important thing you can do for your health.

OK, time to get some yarny stuff done. Have a wonderful day 🙂

 

 

 

Jan11

January WIP update

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The time flies by! I just checked the date of my last post and it was 6 days ago! And I had forgotten I already showed you my stash flash, because I was about to post the photos…again!

Hmmm, guess my brain is all full up.

The Hungry Caterpillar blanket isn’t coming along as quickly as it should, but here’s the progress so far…

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The first two (green) segments of the caterpillar’s body are now incorporated. I’m working right to left on each row, and this is row 4 of 9. The edges are curling a bit, which will all be fixed when I add the border. I could have used a 5.5mm hook, with hindsight, and if I had I could have used my Addi Swing hook. Ah well, too late now.

Have you heard the word “hygge?” It’s a word that’s being bandied about on the interwebz and it is a Danish word with a complex meaning that needs a bunch of English words to describe it! A friend and I have started a women’s group of the same name. We had the first gathering last night at my house. Just four of us for the first one, though I’d like to add a few more. One woman recently had a baby and brought him along. OMG, newborns are so tiny and cute. I asked her to give the caterpillar hat a trial run, because I was nervous about the size. It was PERFECT! So I guess I don’t have to make another one.

And funnily enough, Kathryn of Crafternoon Treats was talking about the exact same thing in Episode 24 of her podcast that I watched today.  Have you seen her podcast before? I love it.

Last night, one friend was knitting on a pair of socks, another was knitting a rat cave which she intended to felt, and I was crocheting a really easy cowl. I wanted something I could do mindfully and mindlessly at the same time! You know what I mean? You can concentrate and enjoy the lovely fuzzy feeling that comes with forming the stitches with the colourful yarn, and if you want to chat you can continue crocheting because every row is the same and easy to memorise.

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This is Loops & Threads Facets. 100% acrylic, a bulky yarn in the colourway Capri Blue. This is a daylight shot but it still doesn’t do it justice. At the end of the first skein, I had a piece 20 inches long, which wasn’t quite long enough to join into a cowl. So as I was going to be starting the second ball anyway, I decided just to use up the whole of the second ball too and hopefully get a cowl that I can double up around my neck. I doubled the amount of pattern repeats across as my yarn isn’t anywhere near as bulky as the one used in the original design. Agnes Lace Cowl

Since starting this, I have become quite attached to it. Rather than give this one away, I may just weed out and donate some of the other older accessories I have. I might even make a hat to match (time to grab a Michaels coupon)!

Well, I must make some more progress on the blanket and also put a couple of hours in on my eCornell plant-based nutrition course. I’m at mid-point right now. Halfway through the second module of three. I am learning a lot and it’s getting me all fired up to share more with people about the health benefits of a whole food plant-based diet. I am cooking without added oil now and the kids are having to get used to dinners without fake cheese. Whilst we are keeping maple syrup in the house, once the coconut sugar is gone I won’t be buying any more. Ditto the white flour.

I am being a lot more outspoken on my personal Facebook page about animal rights at the moment. I’m sure some of my FB friends would like to/have blocked my posts but the truth really does have to come out. And it will, one way or another.

Hope you’re having a compassionate week.

Dec26

The aftermath…

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Well hello folks. I hope you have had an enjoyable few days. If you celebrate Christmas, I trust your day was awesome, filled with family fun, good food and warmth.

Christmas Eve was a quiet one, with my commitments including bread-making (so that I had wholewheat and white bread for the Brazil Nut Roast the next day) and pastry making (again for the nut roast). I did a quick search online for rough puff pastry as the commercial frozen pastry has crappy ingredients, and I found this one which turned out brilliantly. Making it a day early and refrigerating overnight probably helped it to be flaky and delicious.

Christmas Eve dinner for the five of us was a very basic nut roast made from almonds, cashews and pecans, plus scalloped potatoes from a recipe from the very wonderful Silver Hills vegetarian guest house recipe book, and salad. I got a bit carried away and made two desserts from the same book – a pear coconut pie and chocolatey pecan squares.

Day 1 – stuffed!

Entertainment involved watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (creepy, Jack Skellington reminds me of the pin men on an old British TV show that gave me nightmares) and Cards Against Humanity, played in front of a real fire for a change.

Christmas Day morning was relaxed as we decided to have dinner rather than lunch as we planned to go to the movies to see Rogue One in the evening. I crocheted most of these slippers that day, which I am very pleased with…

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They have non-slip fabric on the bottom which I bought from work. These took most of a skein of Red Heart With Love in Mallard, two strands held together, and a 7mm hook. The pattern is Slipper Boots by Erika Knight. It is an ingenious design, easy to understand and execute. I think it will be simple to adjust it for bigger feet too and I’m thinking of making another pair for Tai Chi Man’s uncle (he visited last year and absolutely loved and appreciated the slippers I made him).

So the prep for Christmas dinner was pushed back to the afternoon, and that involved assembling the Brazil nut roast (while watching Love Actually for the tenth time on my laptop), parboiling the potatoes for later roasting, cutting up the Brussels sprouts and carrots and broccoli. I roasted the sprouts along with the potatoes, steamed the carrots and broccoli, and made a simple gravy. Plus of course we had hot apple cider as always. Dessert was Bananas Foster without the rum, which basically means simmering them briefly in a sweet caramel sauce. The recipe is in my Betty Goes Vegan book, which is always over the top on sugar, and I cut the maple syrup quite drastically. We had it spooned over plain cashew So Delicious ice cream.

Day 2 – stuffed!

The movie, Rogue One (a Star Wars prequel to Episode 4)  was good, full of loud explosions and storm troopers and rebels of course.

We rounded off the day with hot chocolate and vegan marshmallows.

Tai Chi Man and I didn’t have to work today so it’s been another day of relaxed vegging on the couch, finishing off the slippers, checking out my new Twitter account (I am now on Twitter @nicolaknits) and eating leftovers. The kids are still in bed at 1.30 in the afternoon. We have horizontal snow blowing past the house which doesn’t exactly inspire me to get outside.

I am thankful.

 

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.

Oct31

Happy Hallowe’en?

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I’m sitting here in my favourite spot tonight; in my living room at my end of the couch (the other end belongs to Tai Chi Man but he’s out this evening). I don’t expect anyone to ring the doorbell because we have only ever given out candy once or twice in the 20 years we’ve lived here. We are the Scrooges of Hallowe’en. Keep the door shut, maybe even dim the lights and pretend to be out or deaf!

Being vegan, and raising vegan kids, meant that going out trick or treating never really appealed that much. The one time we did it, we had to pull out a lot of the candy and give it away. And I am not going to buy crap that I wouldn’t feed to my own children just to hand it out at the door.

When the boys were younger, we did carve pumpkins, but to be honest that has lost its appeal too. So much effort and mess for such a short-lived result, not to mention that my conscience is pricked when I think of our culture using food purely as decoration when they are so many people who are lacking enough to eat.

Well, that’s enough of my whining, now for some crochet. I have links! The coat that I mentioned in my last post is a free pattern based on one worn by some celeb or other who I probably have never heard of (did I say I don’t watch TV and that the celeb magazines at the store leave me cold)? The original cost over $1,000. Well, mine is going to be less than $50.

Coatigan in Grannies is the name, and here is the Ravelry link, and here is the Red Heart link. I’m not sure how realistic the gauge is, when you consider that I am using Stylecraft Special Aran, which is thinner than Super Saver, and a 5mm hook rather than the suggested 6mm for the size of square I need. I am aiming for the middle size and my squares should be 6.5″ but there are closer to 6.75″. And I usually go UP a hook size to meet gauge.

Here are the first nine squares:

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The pattern uses a smaller, more coordinated, range of colours but I have a lot of this yarn to use up. I rejected lemon yellow, white, cream and fondant pink as I felt they would stand out too much. The lightest colours in these squares are parchment, camel, silver grey, and I am using them in the second round of each square. The centres can be brighter, but from the third round out I’m trying to keep things fairly sober. The last two rounds of each are black.

I’m not going to stress too much about how they look at this point. I am just going to crochet a bunch of them (I need 62 for the coat) and lay them out and if one just looks like a glaring mistake I’ll make a different one to replace it.

And now to pick up my hook. I found Leonardo di Caprio’s film, Before the Flood, available for free on You Tube today, so assuming it is still available I am going to watch it while I crochet.

Happy crocheting! Boo!!