Tag: I’m a Luddite

Learning to Brioche Knit

On By Jennifer Mugrage5 Comments

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

On By Jennifer Mugrage1 Comment
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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

On By Jennifer Mugrage9 Comments

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

On By Jennifer Mugrage8 Comments

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

On By Jennifer Mugrage3 Comments

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.

The Adventures of Jane Wayne

On By Jennifer Mugrage2 Comments

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.

The Tragedy of the Chickens

On By Jennifer Mugrage9 Comments

So it was my fault.

Now that I no longer have to get up early to teach, I like to sleep in a little bit in the mornings. In the summertime, this means that I am getting up well after it is light outside.

I didn’t want the chickens to be trapped in their tiny run for two hours between 6 and 8 when I finally got out there.

I thought they would be overcrowded and start pecking each other.

So I left the door to the run open, allowing them to let themselves out in the morning.

*deep sigh*

That worked great for a few weeks. Then, disaster struck! A raccoon, a raider, a being of violence, came in the dark of the night, in the wee hours of the morning, probably around 5 a.m. He slaughtered my poor girls in their beds. I feel the worst about my three sweet silky bantams. Their heads were bitten off literally in the coop where they sleep. They were the only ones who had started laying, and who would crouch down when they saw a human, in case the human wanted to pick them up.

The Barred Rocks put up a fight. One, either Ginny Cash or Andrea, was dragged away without a trace (possibly she had been taken the day before). Another was found, partially eaten, near the lilac bushes.

But the rooster — ah, the rooster. Meriadoc Brandybuck. He seems to have fought the predator. His carcass was found, mostly eaten, in the small tunnel-like pass-through between house and garage. Damp raccoon tracks led away from it towards the front of the house. And … still alive, hiding under the lilac bushes, was the smallest of the Barred Rocks, Jane Wayne.

We don’t know, but we imagine that he gave his life for her. “You go! I’ll hold him off!” he cried, dashing into the gap while Jane, clucking and shedding feathers, fled. Merry, as we call him, had previously shown signs of behaving like a rooster in the sense of pushing the hens around a bit and being selfish about the food, but he had never yet displayed any protective behavior. But in the darkest hour, Meriadoc rose to the occasion – so we imagine – and showed his quality: the very best.

Tears were shed. Carcasses were gathered up. Blood was cleaned from the inside of the coop, which looked like a crime scene, which in fact it was. Certain members of the family wanted to give the chickens a “Viking” funeral, where we would put them on a small, flammable boat, push it out into the irrigation canal, and then shoot an arrow (this step was unclear) to set the boat on fire. This was felt to be impractical, so we settled for a pyre in the burn barrel that involved firewood and a little bit of gasoline. A funeral was held. Prayers were said. The brave deeds of Meriadoc were recited (this is how stories help us make sense of tragedy). We also recalled the endearing little habits of the dead, particularly Jasmine, the black bantam silky, who was our sweetest, the most reliable layer, and will always remain “the bestest of chaekens.”

And, lesson learned. Just because a predator hasn’t come so far, does not mean that one never will. I will make the coop more secure, and will lock it in the future.

I’m a Luddite, all right. A really, really bad one.

Guilty Pleasure: Stoneware

On By Jennifer MugrageLeave a comment

I got this fantastic mug at university. I bought it from a sale the Art Dept students were having. Back then, buying anything at all was a big decision that I had to justify. When my Japanese roommate saw it, she got all excited and said the mug looked Japanese. I probably should have given it to her (sorry, Makiko!), but I didn’t. I am still treasuring it all these years later.

Faithful OOB readers have seen this mug before, in my “I Like Bears” post. I think my husband got it for me during a trip to Yellowstone years ago, then it spent several years in storage, then I re-discovered it, with new appreciation, after our most recent move. I use it now because my book The Strange Land features a Bear of Justice.

This lovely thing was purchased at the Fantasy Faire, from a stonewear booth (advertising slogan: “Get Stoned”). I asked the potter, an older lady, about her process, and she said, “I take some clay. I throw it on the wheel. I make a cup. I glaze it, and then I fire it.”

Do you like stonewear?