Got one done. Just need to be sure & finish the other before Winter ends.
Tag: I’m a Luddite
Goals
Many other book bloggers did “2024 Goals” posts in January. That seems like a nice way to generate a blog post, even if this goal post (haha) is a little late.
TBR/TBF
Books to be read or, if already begun, finished:
TBA
Events to be attended:
https://mysticrealmsfantas.wixsite.com/mysticrealmsfair
https://www.newchristendompress.com/conference
TBK
Items to be knitted:
- Finish woolen knee socks, to be worn with trousers, before Spring (for self)
- Wanderer shawl: bias-knit chevron patterns to show off the beautiful striped yarn my sister gave me for Christmas (for self)
- Brioche hat: continue to make different editions of this brioche hat, in different color combinations (gifts for various others)
- Maybe try to ad lib a brioche bonnet (for sister in law?)
- as the Spirit moves
TBSE
To be set up: My classroom in the new school building, which we hope to be moved into by Fall.
TBW
To be wrote: The book that goes with this map:
Last year, I went on a writing retreat in order to make some progress on the draft. At this rate, it looks as if I may have to do the same thing again.
TBC/P
To be cleaned/planted: Clean chicken coop (add more space for hens?), maybe actually plant a garden this year???
TB Top Secret
Various family events with loved ones, which privacy forbids blogging about.
A Caveat
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
James 4:11 – 15
Learning to Brioche Knit
I bought this pattern from Etsy seller Lavanya Paricella, here.
I had never brioche knit before, but this pattern was easy to follow. It turns out, with brioche you knit the same stitch again with a second color. Lavanya’s pattern accomplishes that by having you knit all the way around the hat in Color A (black in my case), using yarn-overs, and then all the way around in Color B (muted teal). With each round, you knit together the yarn-overs from the previous one and also make new yarn-overs in the current color. This is no harder than doing colorwork where you carry the yarn over, and in many ways it’s easier.
I have seen hints that some brioche patterns have you knit the two colors successively as you go around (or maybe that is something you need to do when brioche knitting flat, since otherwise your two yarn balls would end up on opposite ends of the piece). Anyway, I still have a lot to learn, but I consider this experiment successful.
When you read about brioche, you’ll read that it’s “twice as thick” as regular knitting. I wouldn’t say it’s quite twice as thick, especially if we are comparing it to cables, but it is certainly thicker, plushier, and stretchier. It creates a reversible fabric, where one side is that houndstooth type pattern you see above, and the other side looks like a rib knit, with Color B standing forward and Color A in the background. (This particular hat has garter stitch above the brioche.)
I bought this pattern because it had the look I was seeking for a hat I wanted to gift to a certain nephew. Now that I’ve seen how fast it knits up and how well it shows off a color story, I can’t wait to knit this pattern with all kinds of other color combinations!
The pattern comes in two weights: fingering weight yarn (very fine), and DK yarn (normal, medium yarn). I used DK on this pattern because a) that’s what I had on hand and b) I wanted to finish quickly in time for the birthday. The fingering-weight version looks even better in the pictures, because as you can imagine, it has a finer pattern. I want to try it sometime, but for now, DK is just fine. I happened to have a ball of black and a ball of pale teal, both of them wool blends, so apart from buying the pattern (very affordable), this hat was “free.”
Here are some different ways to wear it.
The Chickens of Christmas
A recent conversation with my son (the chicken-loving one):
Him: Why are there cows and sheep in the manger scene, but no chickens? Did they just not have chickens back then?
Me: No, probably chickens were just so common that no one thinks to include them. Remember, they definitely had chickens because Jesus told Peter he would deny him three times before the rooster crowed.
Him: Oh, that’s right!
We decided that every manger scene needs a few chickens, actually. The presence of the rooster would foreshadow Christ’s suffering and death. They are Easter birds, but they are Christmas birds, too. Christmas chickens!
Creative Jack O’Lanterns
carving it
the elaborate plan (This is going to be a character from Doors.)
some of the many results
My son keeps asking me to buy more pumpkins cause he keeps getting more ideas. I don’t mind; pumpkins are cheap this time of year. Jack o’lanterns are no longer a measure to keep evil spirits away. (We don’t need that; we have Christ!) They are now a whimsical autumn art form. My son is an artist and I can’t restrain him from doing artist things.
Baby Chicks’ Field Trip
This is their first trip outside in the grazer after being in the garage under the red heat lamp. As you can see, their main concern is to drink water.
After the Great Chicken Massacre of 2023, we waited impatiently until we could buy more chickens at the farm store. This time, we bought one of each kind of layer they had. With these seven, plus Jane Wayne, our run will be full up.
If they all survive to adulthood, we will have …
- Henrietta (the Americauna – dark stripe down her back)
- Lapis (the Sapphire Gem)
- Mad Max (the Rhode Island Red)
- Sally (the Buff Orpington)
- Susan Kamkwamba (the Brown)
- Barb (the Barred Rock)
- Fatima Leghorn (the white Leghorn)
… in addition to big sister Jane Wayne.
Harvest Wreath
Here it is. I made this from wheat stalks that I cut from a wheat field literally yards from my front door.
I mounted them on a $2 wire wreath frame, using a $3 roll of florist’s wire.
Just one thing I’d do differently … projects with wheat are best done outdoors. Those spines are really difficult to get out of the carpet.
Off-the-Grid August Starts Now
I won’t actually be living away from electricity. I just a need a moment to catch my breath.
The Adventures of Jane Wayne
Jane Wayne, the sole survivor of the Great Chicken Massacre of 2023, did not appear outwardly traumatized. She hung out in the cool darkness under the lilac bushes just as she used to do when her sisters were alive, taking a dust bath and watching the humans dash around cleaning up blood and feathers. She remained in the yard all day, making periodic forays to her usual haunts, scratching in the pile of grass clippings, hiding under the camper. But when night fell and it was time to put Jane in the coop (and make it secure this time!), she suddenly was nowhere to be found.
My son and I wandered all around looking for her: first our yard, then the farm and machine yard, then as far as the bridge over the irrigation canal. Our hearts were sinking. We figured that the predator had probably returned and dragged Jane off as well. We were still raw from the massacre, but had been taking comfort in the fact that we still had one chicken to care for. Now, with heavy hearts and against the background of a brilliant red Idaho sunset, we trudged home.
The next morning, clinging to some faint hope, we wandered to the back to see whether Jane had reappeared. And there she was! Roosting in the upper branches of the lilac bush by the wood pile! Jane had apparently spent the night in the bush. This is normal wild chicken behavior. We are not sure whether Jane found the coop too full of distressing memories, or whether, without the crowd to remind her, she has forgotten that her normal routine is to go into the coop at night and rest on its upper rafters. (Another theory is that she had already been spending the night in the lilac bushes, and this is what enabled her to survive the massacre. This theory is disfavored, because we would usually do a visual check that the Barred Rocks were in the coop, and there were always four black butts faintly visible, perched up in the peak of the structure.)
Since her newly acquired status as Only Chicken, Jane has continued retiring to the lilacs on a nightly basis. Ordinarily, the humans will pluck her down from there, put her in the coop, and close the doors. (The small human is particularly good at this.) We want her to get used to spending the night in the coop, so that she will lay eggs there when she starts laying, and as an example to the next batch of chickens we already plan to buy. Once or twice, she has evaded us of an evening. There was a second vanishing, and a second despairing walk to the bridge and back along the canal. She may have a hiding place that we still haven’t discovered. Jane has unexpected depths. But so far, she can still be counted on to show up when a human emerges from the house bearing something tempting, like yoghurt.
Out of Babel Books 