Spring is coming!

Whether you (for readers in the Northern hemisphere) count candlemas or groundhog’s day as the beginning of Spring, or wait until lunar (or Chinese) new year or equinox, Spring is on its way. My family may be surrounded by several feet of snow in the Eastern US but in Central Scotland, these little beautiful harbingers of Spring are showing their pale and delicate faces!

Growing up in the mid-Atlantic states and the forests of the Eastern coastal plains, the early Spring plants were skunk cabbages.  Now, the thing you need to know about them is that they smell like rotting flesh.  They STINK.  They smell this particular type of pungent in order to attract flies for pollination.  Some people would say that they are horrible to be around. In my family, however, we were always very excited to spot the first emerging group of skunk cabbages, because that meant Spring was slowly arriving.

I do not mean the twittering birds and fully-blossomed flowers stage of Spring, but the slow, steady and hopeful beginning of the earth thawing and re-awakening. 

While snowdrops are certainly very different than skunk cabbages, they too, fill me with the hopefulness of Spring.

Cheater’s stuffed cabbage- a quick meal

What do you make for dinner when you don’t really want to cook and the only fresh ingredient you have is cabbage?

Cheater’s Stuffed Cabbage!

All you need is some tinned tomatoes, dry lentils and some seasoning. And some cabbage of course! In the bottom of a steamer pot, dump a can of tomatoes, with an approximate amount of lentils (I probably use about 1 1/2-2 C dry), some seasonings and a bit of water.  This is all inexact.  It is meant to be.  You don’t feel like cooking so you won’t feel like measuring either!  The key is to just eye-up how much extra water to add and then go crazy throwing in some seasonings.  I usually add a lot of cayenne pepper, about 1/2 tsp or so of veggie stock powder or a spoonful of vegemite, and some black pepper. Then, sit back and let it cook for a while.

When the lentils are almost soft but still chewey, add some cabbage leaves to a steamer tier above and walk away again.  When the leaves are soft and the lentils cooked, spoon into the cabbage leaves and create little boats.  I do not bother wrapping them in a fancy way- especially with the small winter cabbage leaves.  I close them by tucking the ’stem’ part of the leaf into the top.
Bake in an oiled dish at medium heat for a while.
Change the seasonings, add some grains (rice, barley, etc), and use this as a staple no-effort meal!

Plant cuttings

Growing up, I was surrounded by snake plants. We had them in the living room, sometimes in the bedrooms, in the office and other rooms around the house. They’re great for purifying the air and for making me feel that a home is truly a home! If you want to grow some, just snip a bit of a leaf off from a mother plant and root it in water. They are very slow growing plants so it will take a long time. I put mine in water in June and didn’t see roots until August. Somewhat counter-intuitively, until you think about the biology of cell energy use, the smaller clippings produce roots quicker than the larger ones. Once they have a good root system, they can be potted.  Since my life was busy this fall, I did not pot them until this month, when two of the three began sprouting a second leaf from the bottom.

Not only are they great purifiers and pretty darn cool looking, they require little attention. If you have a dark-ish area (there was always a snake or two in the hallways of my childhood home), they will grow fine there as well. They also like to be pot-bound and sparsely watered.  Talk about the perfect plant!

Art; light, lines and movement.

Look at this artwork- the way the solid black conveys movement through the lines, the texture and shape of the piece.

The way the separate components create the whole.

What a beautiful hat…

Wait! What? You thought I was talking about the sculpture in the background? Nope! Just a hat I am crazy proud of having completed!

A friend kept borrowing another friend’s black, ribbed knit hat and I decided I would make her one.  I used the brimster hat pattern but needed to alter the decrease.  I swatched and the aran weight yarn I was using was perfect but the number of stitches cast on were going to make the hat too large for the recipient.  Instead of casting on the original 112, I used 108 and just knit the tube to the stated length.

Then, since I wanted to make sure I used the same sort of decrease (using the same number of rows as the original pattern so I didn’t make it too tall), I counted how many stitches I needed to lose each row.  The answer, in this case, was six. If I only decreased by six as stated, however, I would have to decrease for much longer and the hat would be taller.  Since the hat was knit in the round, I couldn’t simply cut out a few stitches on the ends when calculating how to decrease with less stitches.  The pattern asked that I lose “96″ stitches by the end and end up with 16. It knit a few stitches and then began the decrease pattern, knitting a few at the end of the round as well.  Excluding the knit at the beginning and end, it was a pattern repeat of 94 each row but I only had 92 to work with after subtracting the 16 that needed to remain.  In order to lose a total of 96 stitches without lengthening it, I decreased by 8 stitches each round and it worked perfectly.  The recipient loves it and has worn it constantly!

Looking forward to some deep sea adventures!

A little boy I know recently got into sea creatures and the ocean. When I learned this, my mind drifted to a large box of old national geographics (spanning several decades!) waiting to be claimed in the boathouse. I searched each edition for evidence of an aquatic connection and made it home with this stack. I’m looking forward to collaging with him (if he’s interested!?) the next time I go for a tea and a chat with his mom.

I also managed to pick up a magazine from one of my sisters’ birth month! The recipient will have to wait for her birthday, although I will say is that it is either June, July or August in the 60s, 70s or 80s!

A Doctor’s Coat

 

At the charity shop last week, I spotted this cute peacoat. I have a long and large peacoat appropriate for wearing over many layers but nothing lighter for Scottish winters. This jacket was listed as £12.99 and I was unsure about spending that much.
I tried it on standing in the aisle and looking in the mirror, looked it over and saw a button missing on the inside- easy to replace. I pondered the price for a while longer, knowing I needed a professional jacket for Winter interviews or events but unprepared to pay more than £7.
I decided to try it on in the changing room and then saw that a bit of the cuff was scraped down- like wool or fleece can get when worn.
I waited to speak to the manager about the pricing, wondering whether the price was the “like new” price or if it had been priced with the wear in mind.
She said that the cuff was just dirty but I held it at and angle and showed her it was worn. Just then, I received a phone call I had been waiting for so I appologied and answered it, thinking I had just lost her patience. She went into the backroom.

As I got off the phone, she returned and then pointed out that the coat’s lining was messed up (it was puckered where the previous owner had sewn the back button back on), although it was not visible on the outside.
As she did this, I could tell that her attitude had changed and she was actively seeking flaws with the coat. After I agreed about the lining, she said that she was going to have to way-lay (or something!) the item.
I then got slightly nervous thinking she was going to have to give it to the scrap collectors instead of selling it, and asked “what does that mean?”
She replied that she was going to have to get rid of it and would I be able to give her £5 to get it off her hands?
I was relieved! I thanked her and mentioned that it will be perfect for interviews and said that it was difficult to find peacoats (well, I said duffel coat, as they’re called here in the UK) in charity shops!
So, I now have a cosy 80% wool coat with a great collar that buttons up very high!
The first dressy occassion I wore it to was my PhD Viva/Thesis defense yesterday. I am going to be a DOCTOR! So, this is my Doctor’s Coat!

Buried treasure

…glinted to me from a half melted snow drift as I walked along the road.  It fits perfectly.

Underground knitting

An email went out from someone I met at the town’s knitting and crochet group with a day and location and I showed up! The town’s group meets on a day I cannot make and this alternate group has met a few times on different days so that people are not locked out simply by already being busy on a certain day. Last night I took a few hours out from studying and sat at the Bistro sipping a slushie and chatting away! It was also the first time I sat in such a large crafting group in public and it was a lot of fun! 

Organisational tasks completed this week

There is just something so optimistic about bright, frozen January days that make me enjoy organising life for the up-coming semester, season, year, or even just afternoon!

1) Switching my student loan billing back to electronic.  Some time last calendar year the loan companies decided that if I couldn’t prove (via java script) that I could read pdfs, (which I could read but just not “prove”), then billing reverted to paper. This is not a good strategy when I live in another country. With a new computer that is recogonised in this decade, I have switched all correspondence back to electronic.

[1.5) I have a google documents spread sheet set up with all of my loans/debts listing the total ammount, when it was disbursed, whether it is subsidized or unsubsidized, the total amount, etc. This tells me exactly at a glance what date I should pay each (although I pay everything on the 10th since some are due on the 14th and others on the 21st) and enables me to easily see which ones have higher interest rates or are closer to being paid down.]
2) Filled up a bag for the charity shop. Mostly clothes, some books.

3) Lost a pair of gloves on the bus. I’m quite bummed about this and am putting a positive spin on it by telling myself that I now have more “organised” drawer space.

4) Organised my schedule for the up-coming semester, during which I’ll be tutoring 7 classes.

5) Worked on gathering my thoughts on my thesis…in preparation for my viva (thesis defense in the US)!

Sewing Skills and Clothing Maintenance

After observing my niece repeatedly shove both her phone and iPod into her hoodie pocket and catch them as they fell back out, I noticed that her pocket was torn almost half-way off.  I asked her why she didn’t fix that and she said she didn’t know how.  Cue the aunt! I told her to get ready to learn, grabbed the supplies and set her up in a well-lit area. The knit material was actually the perfect fabric to learn basic clothing repair on since it is forgiving with its stretch and the thickness can easily hide any mistakes. Incidentally, she did a fantastic job!

I really enjoyed showing her how to do a backstitch (here’s a link  incase you forget!) and then sitting and watch her take care of it herself! It also reminded me to get my needle and thread out for my own wardrobe and I’ve mended several holes this week.  Hopefully she’ll mend more of her clothes in the future!