Good-bye asparagus, Hello strawberries!

What’s today? Sunday? Tuesday?! How did it get to be Tuesday?

What do you mean it’s already June?

You're kidding me. Excuse me, I've gotta go throw my tomato plants outside.

(first fruits of my tomato plants)

Thank goodness I made a quick stop to the farmer’s market over the weekend. It’s coming to the end of the local asparagus season. I know. It was way too short. If I had blinked once more I would have totally missed it. But look at the bright side, it’s now the beginning of the local strawberry season!
(asparagus, strawberries and golden beets from farmer's market.)

Yippee! You can take your tasteless Cali-styrofoam-a strawberries and stuff it. These local gems are worth the wait. They're deep red and juicy through and through with just enough tang and a whole lot of flavor.

according to the paper, local berry farms are also opening up their gates for the season. Dudink's Gardens has freshly picked strawberries for sale from 1pm to 5pm daily. They're at 2219 Gomerich Road (off of Minetown) at the south end of Nanaimo. Many other local farms are also offering their a spring bounty of goods.

We celebrated another seasonal milestone this past weekend - the first BBQ of the year. Now, technically, there’s no reason why I can’t BBQ throughout the fall and winter around here other than I’m a total whiny wuss when I’m not in the mountains or buckled into a kayak. Well, sometimes even then I can be a whiny wuss too…

Though I have thought about cracking open the BBQ mid-January, especially when we get one of those mild spells, it's still pretty dark and cold after 5pm. It is still winter and I would much rather throw a stew into the crockpot or roast up some veggies and chicken in the oven than stand over a BBQ in my down jacket and toque.

So, I meticulously went through the whole dish soap gas leak testing procedure to make sure I don’t burn down the house. Though it’s a pretty new BBQ and there’s no reason for failure, it’s always a bit unnerving to be testing for gas leaks. That first lighting of the BBQ is always seasoned with a pinch of trepidation for me.

For the first BBQ of the season, I pulled out a couple of lamb chops from the freezer package that I got from Horizon Heritage farms last fall. I’ve been saving these babies for some good old fashion open fire cooking. I also threw on a bunch of sausages, locally raised meat of course, so we’d have enough to see up through a busy weekend.
I also threw a bunch of locally grown veggies onto the BBQ. I got one of those pizza BBQ grill pan thingamabobbidies. It’s basically a round sheet of metal with holes and a handle. It’s perfect for lazy buggers like me that don’t want to bother threading their veggies on a skewer. I simply lay them out in a single layer on the grill pan over medium heat and let the fire do it’s magic.

Both the lamb and the veggies got a simple treatment of olive oil, salt and pepper. I heated the grill on medium high and threw the lamb on for 4-5 minutes each side. Don’t mess with it while it’s cooking. Just leave it alone to do it’s thing. Some leftover spaghetti squash and a dollop of parsley pesto finished off the meal.

The lamb chops were gorgeously rich and meaty. Even DH, who is usually 'meh' about lamb, was smacking his lips and waxing poetic. The little selfish muggle in me was hoping he wouldn't like it so I could have it all to myself :p

On Sunday, we were already sick of the heat and headed up to Mt. Cokely to romp about for the day. It was the perfect day of mountain adventuring and exploring. Red columbine was blooming along the road and the air was alive with bugs. Lots and lots of little biting, carnivorous bugs and we then remembered why we should have worn long sleeved shirts and long pants.
We got home late as usual. Sore and bug tortured, but happy, I was grateful that I had leftover BBQ sausages, veggies and other tasty bits that made for a bowl of leftover bliss in less than 10 minutes

Sauteed asparagus and local boerwurst sausage along with organic spelt, roasted veggies and parsley pesto (yes I love this stuff). Except for the grain which is from the BC mainland, everything was island grown and raised.

BTW, I’ve happy to announce that Nesvog Butcher in Terminal Park Mall along the Island Hwy, is now offering local beef and cheese, along with local free-range eggs and other tasty tidbits.

This coming week (I guess that's now, eh) is another non-stop week. I’ve got a Spinner & Weaver’s Guild potluck (no, I don’t know what I’m making for that yet), a meeting with a reporter from the Bulletin about the 100 mile diet (yippee!), a standing date for some kayaking, a couple of knitting lessons, farm stuff, a dinner party on Friday and a new bushel of 100 mile fleece to card and spin. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Have a great week!

Jen

Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Pinch me, I must be dreaming...

...because that’s what it felt like yesterday. A lovely, hundred proof dream.

It started like any typical morning

But often dreams are quite mundane in the beginning. Like all those dreams you have of waking up and going through your morning ritual. You actually think you’ve woken up for real until you go into the kitchen and there’s Oscar Wilde making chocolate chip & pumpkin pancakes and your dining room has turned into an underwater petting zoo.

I hate it when I have those repeated waking-up dream cycles. They leave me cagey for the rest of the day because I’m half expecting the floor to turn into vat of hairy scorpions.

Anyways, my typical morning oozed into a typical early afternoon by the time I finished work. As I pondered over what to do with a sunny afternoon, DH asks me, “ Do you want to go up a couloir?”

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. YES!!!!!

In lightning speed we packed while stuffing calories down our belly and zoomed out of there, leaving our friend Pete, who’s staying for a few nights, to hold down the fort.

By 3pm we were at the trailhead to Mt. Cokely and Mt. Arrowsmith, where we had our pre-anniversary romp on Sunday. Armed with our ice axes, headlamps and an lean assortment of gear, we headed up.






A view of the Alberni Inlet

Unlike Sunday’s snow and wind, the sun was beating down on us and back at us as it ricocheted off the brilliant white snow. The air was so clear, you could see the whole Alberni inlet.

The climbing was a hoot! We hiked up to the base of Cokely and had our choice of couloirs to play in. Every time I looked over my shoulder, the view just kept getting better and better. When the clouds rolled in, the view was filled with drama and grace.

A truly radiant view of the Alberni Inlet














That's me heading up slopes.

















That's me topping out onto the ridge.

Time slid by as we made our way up the coulior and onto the ridge. The snow was fun with just enough steep bits to keep me on my toes and plenty of rompy stuff to play on. On the other side of the ridge was an equally breathtaking view of the east side of the Vancouver Island and the mountainous mainland.

The view of the east side of Vancouver Island.

That's the mainland on the other side of the water.

With sunlight at a premium, we made our way down and back to the car as the last drops of sunset were being squeeze out of the horizon. It was perfect timing, we made it back to our car by 8pm without the help of our headlamps. This is one of the useful benefits of daylights savings time.

One last look at the sunset. On the left is bottom of Arrowsmith and one of our favorite ice climbing crags. It's looking a bit lean now.




Our spirits and minds satiated, our bellies were empty. As much as I loved spending the day playing, I didn’t look forward to scraping up a dinner for us at 10pm. I hadn’t anticipated this climbing day so I didn’t prepare any dinner to return home to. I also hadn’t had a chance to do groceries. I guess it’s scrambled eggs and bagels for dinner.

But it was not to be. When we arrived home, not only were we welcomed into the arms of our friends and house guests, Nat and Pete, they had dinner waiting for us!

Pete had made pasta from scratch and a homemade fresh tomato sauce with sautéed spinach and ricotta cheese. It was spectacular. I didn't take any photos of it because I was just too hungry and it tasted too good to stop eating.

He had trepidations about cooking for me but I assured him that I was grateful to have anyone cook for me at any time but to have some make such an amazing meal when I was so in need of a home-cooked meal was loving, mindful and absolutely freaking brilliant of him. I love that concept, guests coming over to cook real food meals for me. I gotta get more folks onto that bandwagon ;)

Take it from me, chefs, professional or otherwise, love being cooked for. There are some that are a bit snarky and culinary chauvinists who can’t bring themselves to appreciate a lovingly made meal, but don’t worry about cooking for them. They’re already too full of themselves to have room for dinner, let alone dessert ;P

Talk about a dream of a day. An afternoon of snow fun with my honey and home filled with great friends and a delicious home-cooked meal waiting for us. Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Just to spoil me completely rotten, tonight we’re going over to our friend Karin & Dave’s house for a dinner and some quality time with their brood of felines.

Have a great day!

Jen

Midweek Roundup

I know, I know. It’s been a week since I’ve blogged. I’m such a bad blogmistress but I have reasons for my absence. Many, in fact.

Last Saturday, my band of merry climbers returned to Mt. Arrowsmith for more ice climbing. Our previous climbing crag was weeping and thin and so we hiked up a bit farther and found a bounty of newly formed ice a bit higher up. After an hour long slog up a snow gully, we got down to business.

(climbs at the start of the snow gully)
















(our friend, Dave, humping up the gully)















(The start of the climb)















That's me on some sweet, sweet ice. Yippee!!! I led all the climbs that day ! (Applause)

The ice was beautiful and solid. The climbs were rompy and fun. It was a fantastic day that left all of us good and tired. Us lucky buggers got to return to Dave’s place where his wonderful wife had dinner and a tribe of cats ready and waiting for us.

Here’s my most favorite cat in the world, Lakshmi (aka. Meep), keeping me company during a pre-dinner knitting session.

So cute! One of these days she's going to 'accidently' fall into my knitting bag and I'm going to have to bring her home with me.

On Sunday morning, I rolled my aching body out of bed, down the hill and onto the ferry to get to the Vancouver for dinner and the Serena Ryder concert with my dear friend, Abby. I had a few hours to kill before meeting her and ended up wandering about downtown in shellshock at how busy and frantic the city was despite the pissy weather and rumors that whole world was going to be hunkered down in front of a big screen TV watching commercials sandwiched between slices of a football game while stuffing it’s face with buffalo wings and 7-layer dip.

Lo and behold, I ran into my friend Ky, a vegan warrior and knitting fiend, and Aaron, another vegan warrior and knitting novice. We sequestered ourselves in a corner of coffee house and had a mini-knitfest amongst all the hustle and bustle of rainy Vancouver Sunday. I was working on my 3^rd incarnation of the sleeve for my Honeymoon sweater. Ky was working on a lace shawl for his grandma for her 85^th birthday present. Awwww.

Aaron, who’s totally new to knitting game, was working on a scarf for his mom. Double Awwwww. Well, he was knitting when he wasn't talking up the cute girls who kept coming over to ask him what he was knitting ;)

Men who knit are sexy but they do swear a lot. They’re not able to go 2 stitches without cursing. Their patterns must read ‘Knit 2, Curse 1, Purl 2, Curse 1’. LOL!

The Serena Ryder concert was incredible and intimate. I can’t believe that they booked such a small venue like the Media Room for her. Supposedly, it was sold out pretty fast. That said, I’m glad that I got to see her at such an intimate setting. She’s got talent up to her eyeballs and then some. With a voice that channeled the greats of past decades, mixed with exuberance and an eclectic, unique style all her own, she was absolutely captivating. My girl crush for her multiplied a hundred fold that night. It goes to show that you don’t need a zillion dollars of lighting, lasers, fireworks, an opera of costume changes, an army of stylists and a bunker of gimmicks to put on an incredible and memorable show.

I decided to stay in Vancouver for a few days and work out of my folks place. I even got to give my sister her birthday present in person. Happy Birthday T!

I also got to meet up with the whole gang of vegan warriors for a knitting and 100 Mile diet vegan baking lesson. The guys have been going to the monthly Winter Farmer’s Market at the WISE Hall and had a bounty of locally grown ingredients to use, along with stuff they’ve preserved from the summer. Have I mentioned how that boys swear a lot when they knit? They also swear a lot when they bake. I forgot to bring my camera so I don’t have any photos to share. But when I left, pretty much every flat surface in their house was covered with a cooling rack loaded with cookies, cakes and dessert bars and the living room was filled with flour dusted boys knitting up a blue streak.

After a never-ending streak of errands, I hopped onto a ferry back home Tuesday night. I got home just in time to watch ‘House’ and fall asleep in my knitting chair.

Yesterday I celebrated the soggy weather by staying indoors and baking up a storm. I made muffins with locally grown kiwis and hazelnuts. I also made a mountain of bagels. The house was toasty and yummy smelling all day long! Aromatherapy really does work ;)

The muffins were made with the recipe from Muffin Mayhem.
I used 1 cup of local kiwi fruit- peeled and cut, a 1/2 cup of local hazelnuts (from Footes Hazelnut farm). I used 1/3 cup of local wildflower honey and whole milk for my liquids.

I had a Mid-Island Weavers and Spinners Guild meeting last night. We’re getting ready to host our own fiber show next month. It’s so exciting. I’ll post more info as soon as I get it. Aside from setting up the space for the event, each of us are also in charge of bringing a baked goodie to sell. I'm batting about a couple of 100 mile diet goodies ideas to bring.

Once I’m done wrestling with work, I’m dedicating the rest of the today to knitting and spinning. BTW, here’s the 5th and (thankfully) final incarnation of the sleeve for the Honeymoon Sweater:

I tried many different stitch combinations from Old Shale to ripples to a meandering ridge stitch to try to capture the big rolling waves that dominated our crossings in Kyoquot Sound on our honeymoon kayak trip. I had this pattern idea whispering to me from very beginning. For whatever reason, I tried every other idea before I went with this. I really have to sharpen my knitting intuition nerves and just go with my gut from the get go. It’s basically a braided cable on stockinette.

It’s actually the sleeve, shoulder and upper chest piece. It’s one piece extending from wrist to upper collar. My friend, Karin, says that if it doesn’t work for a sleeve, it could work as a boa constrictor cozy :P

A bonus feature of this pattern is that because the cabling constricts about ¼ to 1/3 of the width, once I return back to just stockinette stitch, the sleeve widens enough to fit around my upper arm and shoulder. That means no need to increase stitches at this junction point.

Once I get the other sleeve done, I’ll have a better idea of what the rest of the torso will look like. I have a few ideas fluttering about in my head. Hopefully, I won’t have to go through 5 incarnations to figure it out how to capture the spirit of that breathtaking coastal adventure for the rest of the sweater.

So that’s what I’ve been doing instead of blogging. Of course, if didn’t do all that stuff, I wouldn’t have anything to blog about so I have to do all that stuff. You see how that works? It’s a vicious cycle. Oh woe is me…

Have a great day!

Jen

Good Morning Starshine

gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby

noopy

la la la - lo lo

sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba

naba

lee lee - lo lo

tooby ooby wala

nooby aba

naba

Early morning singing song...

I’m counting down the days before I see my loveliest of lovely friends, Abby. She’s taking moi to see Serena Ryder in Vancouver. SR does a great version ‘Good Morning Starshine’ that’ll shake the chill off of these winter mornings. I downloaded her newest CD “If you memory serves you well’ from iTunes and it’s on high rotation over here.

I heart Serena Ryder. Definitely one of my big girl crushes. She’s even wearing a crush worthy blue wool coat on her new website. Her new CD is a collection of covers. She takes an eclectic range of songs from Lenny’s “Sisters of Mercy” to Paul Anka’s “It doesn’t matter anymore”, twists them, punches them up, slows them down and caresses them until they fall down onto their knees and then rise to the rafters. I can’t wait for the concert!!!

As usual, my plans for the weekend for a simple few days of knitting and spinning and chilling didn’t quite work out that way. Saturday was a rush to meet work deadlines and messing with the 100 Mile Diet Nanaimo website. I might have to trash the site and start from scratch again. Oh well. It wasn’t all work. I managed to grab a few hours of sunshine that blessed our Rusty Coast while I did my errands on foot. With my Vitamin D tank full, I scurried back to my corner and began reassembling the website. Hopefully it’ll be up again soon. I have a bunch of 100 Mile Diet and local food issue events coming up soon.

After an aggressive treatment of mold pills, fistfuls of raw garlic, Cold-FX, Chinese satan spit and non-stop video game playing, DH is slowly rising from his mucus-lined state. He was feeling well enough to join and our friend Dave for a day of ice climbing a Mt. Arrowsmith on Sunday. The ice is definitely fattening up nicely. There was even ice gestating in areas that don’t normally see anything more than verglas.

Yes, that's me up there. You're just going to have to take my word for it ;)















So pretty!

Back at home, we let the day of climbing sink its good aching into our bodies. I managed to get the second sleeve of my MIL’s sweater started. I eventually pried myself out of my knitting chair and made us dinner:

Chorizo from Quist farms, local veggies and homemade grubs (a.k.a. gnocchi) made with russet potatoes from Saanich and flour from True Grain bakeries. The pesto is from a batch I made in the summer from Nanoose Edible’s basil and have squirreled away in the freezer. A respectable 100 mile diet post-climb dinner if I may say so myself. For dessert, I enjoyed a small glass of blackberry wine from Cowichan’s Cherry Point vineyard. Bursting with blackberry’s deep sweetness, it was like sipping summer.

All in all, it was a well played weekend.

Happy Eating!
Jen

Stinking Rose Therapy

Now that the subzero temperatures and the snow has pretty much subsided, people are now complaining about the rain like it's something new here on the Rusty Coast.

I’m one of the sick puppies that actually likes the rain. Good thing I live here. Too bad, so many others here have WWW Syndrome, (Wicked Witch of the West syndrome) and act like it’s going to melt them. Hopefully, acid rain won’t get to that point. Considering that we’re a Gortex nation out here on the Rusty Coast there wouldn’t be so much bellyaching about the rain. Mind you, I’m learning that those that complain about the rain seem to celebrate the sunny weather by heading to the malls. Very odd, very odd indeed.

Unfortunately, all this damp and cold is not helping DH’s war against phlegm. Poor dear is battling a month-long bronchial infection. Yesterday, he downed 2 heads of garlic by way of nachos. Let’s just say that vampires won’t be bothering him anytime soon. He took a bath this morning and I swear, you could have used the bath water as soup base. Not that I would but I could.

On top of his deadly garlic therapy, he’s also taking penicillin, Cold-FX, ginger tea by the barrel, mega-vitamins and Chinese herbal medicine (Ho Yan Har cha). Probably a bit over the top and I’m wondering if maybe the mix of mold pills and the herbal stuff may simply be confusing his body. He’s been on a vigilant fight to get healthy so we can go bang on some ice this weekend. So far I think the score is Cooties:57, Kevin:2.

Oh well, the avalanche reports are heading up to ‘considerable’ and ‘high’ danger ratings for the backcountry.. Maybe it’s better that we stick around home for the weekend and watch endless hours of CSI, knit and spin up a storm, simmer up a big pot of soup and let the cooties run their course.

Here’s what I have worked up on the wheel right now. It’s a Romney-merino blend. Super soft and luxurious and totally over the top for a beginner’s spinning wool but it’s what I’ve got. I've also have a couple balls of Briggs & Little's Country Roving for practicing my treadling and simply getting some mileage under my belt. I've been experimenting lots and my little head is trying to process all this new information. I'm still overtwisting the yarn like most beginners but not as badly as I when I first started.

Here’s some more photos from our Winter Adventure trip. They’re of the Columbia Basin’s Banks Lake area in Washington State. There’s some amazing ice that forms up there and there’s little avalanche hazard. We’re hoping to get back down there in the coming months. Until then, we have the joy of subjecting all of our friends to an endless slideshow of the gzillion photos we took on our trip.

Have a great weekend!

Jen

A drippy week

It’s been a crazy week filled with a drippy faucet, a phlegmy husband and sweaters that never end! Thanks to the plumbing prowess of a good friend, the faucet has been replaced, the husband is slowly drying out thanks to more medication (I guess my ginger tea voodoo wasn’t strong enough), and one never-ending sweater actually found an end!

Of course, with all this silliness happening, I was in a mad swirl of baking. It calms me and anyways, a happy working oven makes the chilly winter days cozy and lovely. All my goodies were made with locally milled organic Red Fife wheat flour from True Grains bakery in Cowichan Bay, organic fair trade cane sugar from Level Ground, local fruits, nuts, milk and eggs.

I started with a rhubarb-blueberry-plum jam oat bars I made with jam I canned over the summer. When you're elbow deep in canning, wondering why you're going through all this trouble in final sweltering days of summer and you're thinking to yourself, "I'm never to going to use all of this up." Middle of January seems like a long way away but it eventually does creep up and man, it's like Christmas when you start digging into these fruity jewels.

I also whipped up a batch of cranberry hazelnut muffins with local cranberries excavated from my freezer and local hazelnuts from Footes farm. It was made with my usual muffin recipe.
















Finally, I whipped up some bagels for DH who is a bagel fanatic. I used the Montreal bagel recipe in Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid 's "Homebaking: The artful mix of flour and tradition around the world". They weren't much more work than making regular bread. The bagels were so good that DH did the cutest little happy bagel dance in the middle of the kitchen. Oh, I guess I shouldn't have told you all that ;)
















Now onto other things (warning! Knitting rant ahead!)
Remember this twinkle in my eye:

Well, it’s finally done!

It took 2 months but I did manage to finish it with a few balls of yarn leftover for a small shawl or a couple pairs of mitts or socks. BTW, the next time I pick a pair of 2.75mm needles and say, ‘I think I’m going to knit a sweater with these’, just smack me upside the head. It will cause me less brain damage than all the noggin against the wall action that occurred when I was in the middle of umpteeth day of working the second sleeve. The torso looks long but it shrinks up when I put it on. I’ll have DH take a photo of me in it as soon as he wakes up from his mucous-lined sleep.

As mentioned before, the construction was inspired by this simple design for Knitty.com.

Of course, I took one look at that wonderfully, simple and elegant design and said, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look stressful enough. No, let’s throw in a cabled back panel and I must use absurdly, thin yarn with a very loose ply. Let' s have the sleeves narrow off smoothly and end in a leaf point that sits exactly over the top of my wrist. Yes and I’ll wait until the very end to decide on how I’m going to finish it all off so I can have the masochistic pleasure of frogging and reknitting through the same 3 inches seven times before I decide to finish off with the simplest and most obvious edge for the bottom of the sweater. Yes, that ought to drive me sufficiently batty for a few months.”

That said, I love it. I absolutely, positively love it! It's much warmer than I though it would be. I dubbed it the "Midsummer Night's Dream" sweater. Ironically, summer would probably be the only season I won't be able to wear it because it's so snuggly warm. Oh well, I will wear it during the rest of the year and have a puckish forest wrapped around me.

That’s one never-ending sweater done. I’m now feverishly working to finish up my MIL’s sweater. I even brought it with me on our Winter Adventure trip. Here’s a pic of me working on it. It was taken inside a picnic shelter turned winter cabin at Waterton Lake National Park. It was quite luxurious compared to our usual winter climbing accommodations. It even had a wood fired stove. I was feeling very Little House on the Prairie working my knitting by the light of a gas lantern with the winds howling about outside and a wood fire smoking us out inside.

Here’s how the wonderful winter world looked the next day:

Here's DH and I on my Happy Birthday climb!















That's it for now.

Happy Eating!

Jen

Pining for Ice

I managed to make the trip across the Strait and got home Tuesday night. Other than going to the Rolling Stones concert, I didn’t really do much other than shovel snow and cook for my family. I did manage to get a bunch of knitting done. I missed my Dear Husband and my Dear Home. However, my parent’s home has heated floors which are a nice first thing on a snowy morning.

During my visit to Vancouver, I managed to score a couple of locally grown treasures:

The persimmon is from my mom’s tree. So far, the tree has only produced a half a dozen fruits but I’m hoping that it will be more productive in the coming seasons.

The alien fruit with the 5 o’clock shadow is a prickly chayote. It’s from a friend’s grandma’s garden. Supposedly they’re pretty easy to grow around here. I might have to put them on next year’s garden list.

Chayotes are in the same family as melons, cucumbers and squashes. It has a very mild green taste like a cucumber but a bit more denser flesh like a winter squash. You can pretty much do anything with a chayote from eating it raw to braising to stir-frying to pickling and pretty much anything in between.

Chayotes are used all over the world and especially in Latin American and Asian cuisines. Can’t wait to experiment with my stash of chayote. I'll keep you posted

I’ve been puttering about and enjoying the cold and snow. DH and I have been wandering about the house in our down jackets and wooly cozies and gleefully celebrating this cold snap.















(our front porch)















(the garden shanty is still up)

Unfortunately, it’s all about to change. It’s going to be a balmy 5C here today. DH and I selfishly want the cold arctic outflow winds to stay. The snow is nice too. I know, I know. There are folks who are snowbound, other's are without power and it's rush hour is a mess. Still we are hoping that another arctic outflow will come and bomb us again with nice freezing temperatures so we can go ice-climbing. It’s been so long since we’ve had a good ice season. I would very much like to climb on something that isn’t melting as I ascend. As fun as it was last year, I certainly would prefer scaling waterfalls that weren’t still running.

(Hey,that's me! This is from last year on Mt. Arrowsmith. I'm leading up on ice smear that barely was. We returned the following day to play some more but the ice had decayed too much to safely climb it.)

(A half frozen waterwall just outside of Port Alberni. Yippee!!!!)

(That's me again leading up that half frozen waterfall. The water is still gushing underneath all that ice. Farther up, the ice had opened and I had to stick to the sides for some mixed climbing. So much fun!)

We spent last night watching both Ice Ages movies back to back as part of our ice inducing rituals. Here I am all bundled up and knitting away while watching movies.

Speaking of knitting, here’s the fingerless mitts off the needles and onto my hands:

For those wondering, it’s just a tube with a crotcheted thumb. I used Patton sock yarn, probably discontinued since it was in the discount bin. Any sock yarn will do. I knitted them on circular needles. You could use double points or circulars or regular needles. I knitted it as a flat piece but you could knit it up as a tube on DPs and simply open up the tube for a couple of inches for you thumb.

I knit, seam and make the thumb with one piece of unbroken yarn, It keeps the number of ends that need to be woven in to a minimum.

Fast & Dirty fingerless mitt instructions:

- 3.5 mm needles

Cast on 36 stitches (I knit fairly loose)

RS - Knit up K4, P2 ribbing. You can do it as a simple ribbing or do something funky cable ribbing. Keep in mind that some of the cable ribbing doesn’t have the same amount of elasticity.

WS –Knit what appears in the row below

Knit until it’s long enough for you. Keep in mind that it will stretch in width and shrink in length once you put it on. It will look like it won’t stretch wide enough to cover the circumference of your hand. You can simply knit up a couple inches, cast/off, seam it quickly and try it one to double check your gauge. Once you’ve figured out your numbers, keep it for future mitt projects.

Crochet the side edges together to make a tube. When you get to where the thumb ought to be, slip on the mitt and mark off how much space you need to leave for the thumb hole.

Continue crocheting on only ONE side of where the thumb ought to be. In other words, the tube will not be closed up for where the thumbhole ought to be. Continue crocheting both sides together once you get past the thumbhole. Once you get to the top of the mitt, crocheted back down to the thumbhole.

Crochet round and round and round the thumbhole. Decrease where it’s needed. Yes, you probably will need to try on the mitt to see how much you need to decrease. Again, once you figure out your numbers for this, write it down so you can use it again. I tend to crochet a few rows then decrease 2 stitches each row after that. Keep in mind that there won’t be much stretch in the crotched stitches so you don’t want to have the thumb piece too tight.

Bind off and weave in your ends.

I was able to get a pair of mitts out of one 50gr ball of wool sock yarn and still have some leftover. A grand total of $4 for a pair of custom-made toasty mitts.

I'm outta here to play in the snow before it all melts away.

Enjoy!

Jen