Christmas Stockings!

For those of you who have read my blog, you know that I love to knit Christmas Stockings and every year, I look for new people to knit stockings for. Last year, I offered to make stockings and a few people contacted me about my offering. Now you can see the stockings that I created this year and a little story about each one.

Stocking # 1

 This first stocking that I knit was started in July during my volunteer shifts at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. It took me a while to figure out what design to do on this stocking as I was asked by a friend from high school to knit this for her mother-in-law to be. After my many questions, I chose this yarn that I bought at Baad Anna's on Hastings street in Vancouver and a bit of yarn from my mother's stash and started the design of a candle.

It felt right to me that Joie should have some light in her stocking along with a traditional look in colour and design which is why I chose the candle. This was the first stocking that I knit this year and the last one to be delivered on December 23rd. Just in time. The friend who asked me to knit it and her partner were absolutely delighted and said it was perfect. I spent 5 hours visiting with them when I delivered the stocking and thoroughly enjoyed my time. What gifts we can bring each other.

 This is stocking number 2 that I started knitting on my way to the Western Canadian Oireachtas, which is the Western Canadian Regional Championships of Irish Dance for my daughter. I was actually half way through stocking number 5, but ran out of yarn and had to re-do it causing this one to become stocking number 2. This is for a little girl who lives in Victoria who has amazing parents that I am blessed to know.

I originally met Bliss Prema years ago in another incarnation. We have seen each other through many changes and I am grateful for each and every moment that I have had with her. If you have any interest in personal growth, spirituality and following your dreams, look up her name online and see her latest offerings to the world. She is a gifted woman and her husband Seamus form Ireland is a beautiful man. I look forward to knitting a stocking this year for their next child. Thank you for giving me the gift of knitting Uisce's.

This stocking is for Leslie, my daughter's Irish Dance Teacher for about 11 or more years. This is my version of the logo for Scoil Rince de Danaan (Leslie's Irish Dance school) and it took several musings in my mind to figure out what I was going to do for an incredibly intricate design. This was the last stocking that I started even though it was not the last one to get finished.

This one came about in August when I asked Leslie's Daughter Beca if she thought that Leslie would like a handknit Christmas Stocking from me and Beca replied emphatically yes and that all of their stockings had disappeared and they (Leslie and her two daughters, Meredie and Beca) didn't have any. As soon as Beca said that I knew I would be knitting three and the process of design started.

I design each stocking and sometime I draw out the graphs or I go on Ravelry to find a design that works for what I want. On Leslie's I was trying to figure out how to transition from the dark blue to the lighter blue and my daughter, Boedicea, made her first graph for me to use on her teacher's stocking. She created the graph for the swirls and that is her design.

This is the stocking for Meredie and her name is on it in red even though it is hard to see as the red and green were both quite dark. By the time we got to the De Danaan Feis the first weekend of December, I still had 2 1/2 stockings to knit that needed to be finished by December 17th. So I knit all weekend while volunteering at the Feis. This one I had folded over and safety pinned together so that the name was not visible as Meredie, Beca and Leslie were all at the Feis, and Beca knew that I was knitting a stocking for Leslie, but did not know about the ones for herself and Meredie.

Meredie is a musician and I had to make sure that this one was musically correct, and it is. I knit this one in one weekend and alot of knitting was done during the Beoga concert. They were impressed with my ability to knit musical notes. Silent night is the song on this stocking and Meredie was delighted when she saw it.

This is Beca's stocking and I did have a bit of a struggle at first with this one. I was not sure what to knit for Beca. She does hair and make up and all sorts of things for all the Irish Dancers at De Danaan. I feel like I have know her forever, but I think it is only since she was a teenager.

I wanted to knit something for her that had some classic elegance with an Irish flavour but was not too fussy. I started working on this Aran style stocking and realized that a take off on Belleek china was where I was headed with this one. I crocheted the little shamrocks to put inside the cable Christmas tree.

I normally knit the names in, but I wanted to do Beca's in a more scrollwork pattern and so I crocheted the gold yarn to be able to sew it on the stocking. This method also made it easier to knit at the De Danaan Feis as there was no name to identify the recipient of this stocking.


These were the stockings that I knit this year and I hope to knit many more next year. I have already got three orders for next year and will be starting on them soon.

If someone special to you deserves a handknit Christmas stocking, contact me.

Knitting stockings is something that brings me immense pleasure and I really look forward to making more.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May your house be full of humour, your heart full of love and your belly full of good food and may your New Year bring you all you need!

Janet

12/12/12 - My Mother Robin's 68th Birthday.

We have all been told about this most auspicious day and many have planned events to celebrate or prepare for the disaster to come, depending on whether you are a pessimist or an optimist.

Nothing has prepared me for this day and I have entered into it with much else on my mind. 2012 has been quite the year and much has happened in my life. One year ago, my mother Robin was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she is now at a stage where there are many things that confuse her. Her level of cognition is such now that she will remember certain things and hang on to those things tightly because nothing else is making sense to her.

I am quite sure that she will remember that it is her birthday which is interesting in itself as I never really remember her liking her birthday that much. But I was thinking about what my daughter and I could do to wish her a happy birthday and let her know that we remembered which is rather ironic knowing that we are not far off her not remembering us. If we talk to her on the phone, she will often forget that we called and if we go see her, there is nothing to remind her we were there, so we sang Happy Birthday to her and made sure it went on the answering machine so that my mum Christine can play it to her every time she says,  "Why didn't Janet call for my birthday? " or "Did Boedicea wish me a Happy Birthday?"

I have spent 2012 watching my mother Robin disappear at an alarming rate, piece by piece of her reality, her personality and her memories leaving her faster than any of the rest of us can keep up with. I can see for myself and for many others that yes, this day is causing a great shift in our world and yet the shift is within, not dissimilar to what happens with Alzheimer's. A shift inside each person I know has been occurring this year changing how they perceive the outside world and what they expect to get from within and what they expect to get from outside of themselves.

What I can see in having been around Alzheimer's for the last year is that those of us who will fare well are those who see the positive in each and every change that we have been lucky enough to be part of. That is right, I see it as lucky to be going through changes in my life and I am grateful for all those around me supporting my dreams. I know that my mom Robin is in a place where she is fearful of what will come and the truth is that Alzheimer's is fatal. The anxiety shows up and she becomes miserable. At the same time, I can see that when she is in a place of peace, she has almost a delighted look on her face.

So on December 12, 2012 my mother Robin turns 68 and even though the woman I grew up with has disappeared, there is a replacement that physically resembles her and I wish her the happiest of birthdays and most of all I wish her internal peace a gift I think we all could use. I will focus on Grace.

Happy 12/12/12. Make your life your own.

March 2012 Northern California coast

at mine and Christine's Wedding

Janet 

Workshops!

I still love workshops and teaching people how to bake. I also love spending time in the kitchen. Recently we had the cookies workshop and this weekend on Saturday, there will be the tourtière workshop.

cookie dough ready to be rolled up.

cookies cooling

And after!!

Cookie dough rolls ready for the freezer

Then an evening of Shortbread and the final workshop of the season will be Stollen on Sunday December 16th.

During the cookies workshop we made three different cookies and baked a few of them and good fun was had by all. There was plenty to take home and to eat as well.

I have enough cookie dough for the holiday season and now I can make something else. Check out the Spelt Bakers website for more information on my latest workshops!

Pies make me happy!

I love pies! When the bakery was open, I would hand roll the pastry for hundreds of pies and make the fillings. One of my favourites is cherry pie, but not just any cherry pie, I want a great big sweet dough that tastes almost like a biscuit and melts in your mouth and inside I want Montmorency cherries that are so sour that you don't want them fresh. They are best in a pie with lots of organic cane sugar and a little bit of corn starch just to make them perfect when they are cool enough served with some Devonshire clotted cream.

But that is not the only pie I love! There is the sweet creamy filling of a pumpkin pie with traditional english spices made for Thanksgiving served after a huge Turkey and just before days of clubhouse sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey casserole and every other turkey leftover idea you can find in books and online. 

Then there is the delicious tarte au citron that Melanie gave me the recipe for. I have to say that there is nothing quite like a french lemon pie and a lemon meringue pie is NOTHING like it! Lemon meringue pie was not one of those pies that I craved when I went wheat free (in 1985) and I was okay not eating them, but the tarte au citron is so full of flavour and not too sweet and it doesn't look like the cloud of the meringue slipped into lemon jello when you cut it open. 

My Dad loves the strawberry-rhubarb pies that we did at the bakery and I have always made mine the same. He always tells me that it has enough rhubarb. Not too much, and not too little like most of the ones he has tried in Canada. Again, it is not too sweet. 

Raspberry pie was one that I had never made before I met Christine. She told me about raspberry pie and I had never heard of it. It seemed so foreign to me. I had raspberry jam tarts so I am not sure what seemed so strange about it, but it was a new one for me, but, it being her favourite, I was going to make one and I wanted it to be damn good!!!

That was not the strangest pie for me to make though, The strangest pie for me to make was a very common and traditional pie. Apple pie. I discovered that I was allergic to apples when I was 17 and have not eaten one since. I don't really miss them, I'm not even sure what they really taste like. However, at the bakery people would always ask for apple pies. so eventually with Christine's help I finally started making apple pies. She would make the filling and taste it and adjust and make it absolutely perfect. I would then roll out the pastry and scoop this mass of apples and organic cane sugar and cinnamon and then cover it with another layer of my favourite sweet dough. We would put these in the oven and the smell of them was like that of a log cabin on a wintry day where you are all sitting at the table next to the fire with a warm cup of tea. Funny how I had such an image in my head with the smell of these pies that I could never eat. 

Now that the bakery is closed and I am not rolling out hundreds of pies, I am playing more with pies and one of my most recent pies was the one above in a happy face. What a delight it was to present to a friend, a smiley faced pie. I am quite sure that I will show people how to do that at my upcoming workshop on pies. A pie that makes you smile twice!

VIA Rail and Coffee

This year Christine and I took the train from Montreal to Vancouver. We wanted to go see her family in Quebec this summer and she took the train 2 weeks before me and I arrived by plane on August 15th and then we were scheduled to go back by train leaving on August 25th arriving back in Vancouver on August 29th.

Christine next to the train

We talked all through the start of her trip until she got into Ontario where there appears to be no internet and wireless access. However, she did tell me a few things about the train ride and one thing she warned me about was the coffee.

On the train going through Ontario

Not many people drink coffee the way I do. I take a dark french roast, I grind it fresh and then put it in my stovetop espresso maker. It makes about 4 shots of espresso and then I warm up the cup and add organic cane sugar and coffee cream to get it just the right colour. I remember asking Rick at Continental coffee (Commercial Drive and 2nd in Vancouver, BC) if I should try a lighter roast and he said, "Janet, if you like your coffee burnt, just have it burnt." So, I have stuck to the Dark French roast and never looked back.

I also travel with my stovetop espresso maker. If I could I would knit it a little waterproof travel bag, but knitting and waterproof don't go together. At Christine's parents there was a coffee grinder, so that was not an issue, but on the train, there is just hot water and no stove for me to put my coffee maker on and the coffee that is available on the train is not bad, it is just not, well, the kind of coffee that will kick your butt in the morning and sending you running down the halls ready to take on the world, like mine is. So, we needed a solution. There was no way I was going to survive 4 mornings with a gentle reminder that coffee was a distinct possibility somewhere in the world. I need my "woohoo, good morning, time for a ride" cup of coffee. Full of flavour attitude and the distinct possibility that scotch is the only "stronger" flavoured drink you can find. That is my kind of coffee.

So, we decided to try the Starbucks coffee in the little envelopes. I got a Dark French and a Mocha version and Christine got the Columbian. We were so impressed. It may not be quite like at home, but that was a damn good cup of coffee with a beautiful fresh flavour. It wasn't until the last day on the train that I realized that this Starbucks coffee was called VIA.

I am easily amused and this discovery totally amused me. So I had to take this picture and I will say if you like a good strong cup of coffee and you are planning a cross Canada train ride, grab some VIA for your VIA rail vacation. Both the train ride and the coffee were fantastic and they go together!!!

Bye bye old mac

Some days are just like that. where you have to say good bye to an old friend who has helped you along the way and been there for you through thick and thin. They've helped you when you were down and when life was good.

They have held you together and even given you information you did not want to know.

That is how it is for me today. Today my very first Macbook that was bought in 2007, finally quit. She was a good one though, she quit just after backing up a whole bunch of information somewhere on a cloud in the middle of the ocean and it is time for me to get a canoe and paddle out there and get it.

Off I go on a whole new adventure with a new macbook pro and a canoe. I am still a little bit lost with the whole clouds in the middle of the ocean thing. It really isn't like it use to be.

As many of you may know,  I love to knit. I have been knitting since I was 8 years old when I use to take the MacDonald bus up to my Grannies house from Carnarvon Elementary school up to 33rd and then walk to her house every Wednesday afternoon for at least a month. Knitting is something that has been done by the women and some of the men in my family for generations. Both my mother and father learned how to knit.

However, I also like to do minor house repairs and one of the things that I learned through doing house repairs is that often times, for both cleaning and maintaining, a knitting needle is extremely useful.

I have used my knitting needles for caulking a tub. I find it works better than most products on the market and I ALWAYS have a knitting needle that is not hard to find.

Today I cleaned out the lint screen from the dryer and that hard to reach spot that stops the lint screen from sitting properly in the dryer.

I have also been known to use knitting needles to make a row in the garden for carrot, beet and lettuce seeds.

They are great for untying knots, just wiggle the needle right in there and you can untie almost any knot.

The larger ones are handy for making a small hole a bit bigger in drywall.

Knitting needles are an incredibly versatile tool and between them and my swiss army knife, I can do just about anything...

I just hope that there are now some knitting needles that I can take on the plane, maybe bamboo ones?