Reviews

I thought I would review some of the books that I bought a few weeks ago.  These books have nothing do to with soapmaking or knitting, but this is what I like to read in my spare time, maybe you will too. 

The first book I read is  Moonlight in the Morning by Jude Deveraux.  This book is part of the Edilean series, a series of novels all revolving or taking place in Edilean, Virginia.  I have read the other books that are in this series, they vary a lot in content.  One of the previous books is about how the town was founded in the 1700’s, this current book is modern day.  This book follows the story line in Lavender Morning and Scent of Jasmine. I do find this series a little hard to follow and figure out, because the author will write one book present day, followed by another that is historical, then returns to present day for the following book.  Jude Deveraux has done series in the past, but they were easier to figure out, they all had a common book title, like the James River series all had Lady in the tile or the books with Velvet in the tile all went together.

 

I am a reader that wants to know more about the characters, what did they do after the book finishes, and that’s the great thing about having books in a series.  Sometimes the characters are related, for example, one book is about one brother, and the next is about the sister, but the brother ends up in the second book as well.  So, the reader can see how things are working out for the brother after you left him in the first book.  This Edilean series defiantly follows that same pattern.  This book is about one of three girl friends, staying in the town of Edielan.  Jecca comes to town to visit her friend, Kim, for the summer.  Jecca meets Kim's brother, and the romance begins.  I just could not get over that the woman’s name is Jecca, not a name that I am familiar with or hear every day.  To me it just looks like Jessica spelt wrong.  This books goes the way that many romance novels do, I liked it.  It was a fun read, a little predictable.  I read books to escape, and this book fit the bill. 

On a totally different note, I read the first book in the Dresden Files.  I really liked it and will have to get the rest of the series; there are quite a few, which should keep me going for a while.  In this book we meet Harry Dresden, a wizard just trying to make a living in the modern world.  I knew that there were more books to be read, I wasn’t expecting everything to be jam packed into the first book.  Many exciting magical things happen to Harry, many making his life more difficult.  We are introduced to many magical creatures, spells, and what is really going on under the surface all in this first book.  Harry makes a living at finding things, and helping the FBI solve crimes.  It’s interesting that Harry is a wizard, but has to worry about things that everyone worries about, like paying the rent and getting a date, but he also had to worry about creatures trying to kill him, and figuring out problems that are on the average person’s plane, but also have a magical under current.  It was a really good book, Harry is a likeable character, I am looking forward to reading more. 

To sort of bring it back to the knitting, I read the first in the Knitting Mysteries by Maggie Sefton on my Kobo.  I read the Double Knit Murders where we follow of Kelly Flynn to Colorado.   I had seen these books pop up whenever I typed in knitting novels, I really liked the Friday Night Knitting Club by KateJacobs, so I thought I would try out other books that had knitting in them.  My problem with these two books is that I am reading it because I already know how to and like to knit.  There are whole sections of the first book that was all about teaching Kelly to knit, it was not very interesting to someone who already knows how.  I understand, one had to set up the character, but it was written out almost like a how –to- knit book.  The second book was about an alpaca farm, which I don’t know anything about, so that was interesting.  I have a feeling the next book is going to be about spinning, and I have no interest in that. The books are setting up for some romance, but nothing really happens in the first two books.  The mystery part of the books was pretty good, not too predictable. The way the books are written is a little basic, they are very easy to read and follow, for me, the writing was too simple, for lack of a better word.  Maybe the books are written so you can knit and read at the same time?  There are more books in this series; I didn’t realize they are all about the same person, Kelly.  I feel bad for Kelly, having all this murder surrounding her!  I’m not sure if she moves towns, if not, I would not feel safe with all this murder going on.   I am discovering there are more novels that have knitting in them, I think I will try out more of those rather than continue on in this series.  

Manotick Farmers Market

This post is a little late, but better late then never!  

Last weekend, we went to the Manotick Farmers Market.  Manotick is pretty close to where we are, so we thought we would check it out.  This is the first year that this area has had a market.  It is located right across from  Watson's Mill, a gorgeous location. 

 Manotick is a smallish town, known for it's great interdependent shops and boutiques.  

They had a nice variety of vendors, which was great for a small market.  

Everything from apples and apple products,eggs, meats, goat cheese and oats.  The producers are all from Manotick, or the towns nearby, I love local food.  I love that the local farmers got together to make this market.  

We bought some vegetables from Roots and Shoots Farm, they are a certified organic farm, with come interesting vegetables.  We got pears, apples, zucchini and tomatoes. 

I especially loved the Zebra tomatoes, they were green when you cut into them too!  They tasted delicious.  

The thing I was noticing as I walked around the market, was I could make soap out of a lot of the products people were selling.  I could make oatmeal soap using the oatmeal from the grain vendor, and goat milk from the goat cheese vendor.  I took a class at the last HMSG conference  in May about using alternatives to water in soap, so I would like to try it with the local apple cider.  I am looking for ways to make my soap more unique, I love the idea of using local organic ingredients.  If only someone local would start growing olives and coconuts.  

More Evendim

I am still plugging away at my Evendim.  This sweater is a bottom up pull over with a cool collar detail.  I was attracted to the sweater when I saw it in the Twist collective, I loved the asymmetrical collar with that matched the cable/lace detail at the cuffs and bottom of the sweater.  I knew it was knit in the round, with a raglan sleeve, I don’t know how I thought it was going to stay in the round when there is a button detail on the shoulder.  I must have thought that it was just a decoration, the buttons didn’t really open, but they do!  This makes the sweater knit back and forth, with the button band as the divide.  This has caused not problems, I guess, but challenges?  It just means more things to do when completing a row.  When the sleeves are attached to the yoke, there is a bunch of instructions, a lot of “at the same time”.  If one forgets one of these instructions, since the whole sweater is attached, the whole thing has to be ripped out.  I guess that is the price you pay for no seaming at the end.  The pattern is really well written, there is a warning to read the whole yoke section before starting, so none of the instructions are missed.  Right now, I am doing the sleeve and body decreases, but I have to remember to add in short rows into the button band AND add in button holes where appropriate.  I must say, that I have had to rip out multiple rows because I have forgotten something.  I have also fudged a few things, because I couldn’t face ripping the whole thing out, hopefully no one will notice. 

I just had to try it on to make sure it fit.  Ignore the T-shirt I have on.  

The sock stitch holders are where the button band is.  

I use the magnet board method on keeping track of all these instructions.  I linked to the Knit picks version, I have a super old version, it does the same thing, mine isn't as fancy.  I move the magnets to mark what row I’m on. In this case, I have a magnet marking all the “at the same time” instructions.  I made a mistake in the type of decreases because one of my magnets was blocking the instructions. I also use stitch markers to mark where I have put the increases, or button holes, it makes counting easier. 

 My better half uses the excel spread sheet method.  He takes all the instructions and types them out line by line, then uses a post-it note to mark what row he is on.  This is WAY too much work for me.  It’s quite interesting watching him grow as a knitter and how he makes it his own.  I have taught him how to knit a few years ago, but he can take in the techniques and change them in a way that makes it easier for him.  Knitting itself had come a long way too, so much more is available to us that wasn’t 20 years ago.  It’s much easier to share information, much easier to find different ways to do things. 

I was so inspired to start this sweater, I just couldn’t wait, it’s just bad luck that it has turned out to be the hottest summer in quite a while.  Another “issue” with knitting a bottom up raglan is the whole sweater is resting on my lap as I knit.  It makes for very hot knitting conditions.  My sweater should be finished in time for the colder weather.  Right now, it's hard to imagine the cold will ever come back.  

Carp Farmers Market

Today we went to the Carp Farmers market.  It was incredibly hot today, but we decided to go anyway.  The market is located at the Carp Fair grounds in Carp, Ontario and is open from 8:00 until 1:00.  

We had never been before, we had heard that it was a really large market, so we were excited to check it out for ourselves.  There was a little bit of everything.  There was a huge barn that had crafts and food, the venders were set up like in a craft show, a main aisle in the center and stalls on either side.  There were venders selling crafts, meats, and garlic in the barn. 

Outside, quite a few venders were set up under tents.  There were people selling things from meat to jewelery to vegetables.  I love farmers markets because you can get things that you can’t normally get at the grocery store like Elk and bison meat, purple broccoli and corn popped while still on the cob. 

There were people selling ready made food, meant to be eaten on site at picnic tables set up for this purpose.  The most popular was the Bacon on a Bun stall, we didn’t realize that we should have come hungry, or we would have tried it.  Another impressive stall was Pizza Alla Antica, it had a mobile pizza oven.  It was a really interesting set up!  Again, we weren’t hungry enough to take advantage of it.  

The thing we did get was from the Bitten Cookie stall, selling homemade ice cream sandwiches and cookies.  She had multiple types of cookies with vanilla ice cream inside.  They were really well made, frozen perfectly so all the ice cream didn’t leak out when you took a bite.  I had a Monster Mash, a cookie with M&M’s baked in, and Tim had a Peanut butter cookie sandwich. 

We bought bagels made with beer, at a stall appropriately named Brewgels.  We bought cider cinnamon raison, sesame seed, and strawberry fruli-lemon-cranberry-poppy seed.  

We bought mini squashes, red cabbage, tomatoes, baby cucumber and garlic.  I will have to show you what we make out of these! 

Next weekend is the Garlic festival.  They have extended the market over two days with lots of events like garlic braiding demonstrations, chefs demonstrating cooking with garlic and sessions on how to grow garlic. 

They do have multiple things to see and do at the market, today there was a Horse show.  

I highly recommend checking it out.  The great thing about a farmers market, the farmers are selling produce in season, so it changes all the time.  I think the craft vendors change as well, all the vendors listed on the website weren’t there.  I think this keeps it fresh and interesting, we will definitely go back!  

Woman in the Heat

We have been in a heat wave in this part of the country for a couple of months now.  Weather usually above 30 degrees (Celsius) every day, it’s not a normal summer for us.  Usually we have one or two days of over 30 deg., rain at least once a week to cool things down.  We have has almost no rain, maybe one or two days out of the month.  This is causing some major problems.  I thought our biggest problem was going to be a drought, but it turns out it’s brush fires.  The fields and lawns are so dry, it doesn’t take much to start a fire.  Again, we have never had this big a problem.  My sister in another part of town saw the burning fields, really scary.  Nothing happened, she is fine, I’m sure nothing like in other parts of the world, but very unusual for this area. 

This weather is causing problems for me, in the wardrobe department. A few things happened to me when I was down in Halifax for that wedding that are a little un-lady like to talk about, but I’m going to anyway.  To start off, I had bought a new blouse while I was there.  It was a nice grey crepe.  I sweated through this on the walk over and in the un-air conditioned church.  This shirt happens to show every bead of sweat that I produce, with a dark ring.  It happened with all types of moisture, I spilled a little from my water glass on my shirt, and after the water dried, a ring remained.  Lovely,  not a whole lot that I can do about it, hopefully no one looked at me that closely.  I danced with my arms down at my side. 

I was wearing a pair of strappy sandals with heels.  The heat melted off one of the rubber soles from the heel, so I had an uneven “clip, clop” of a walk back to the hotel.  It was so hot, that my feet were sweating as well, and rubbing in my sandals.  Huge blisters occurred.  You would think that my feet being open and airy in sandals this wouldn’t happen, but it happens to me every time.  It’s not like I can wear socks to a wedding!  Maybe I should make myself some fancy socks to avoid this problem.  I have never understood how women can wear closed toe heels with nothing else on their feet.  My feet would be way too hot, and start sliding around, causing all sorts of painful problems! 

I was also wearing a skirt.  I guess you would say I am a full figured woman.  When I stand, my thighs touch.  So, walking around in a skirt , my thighs to rub together.  This starts to hurt after a while in the heat!  This makes a nice red mark on my thigh, which makes it uncomfortable to do anything, sitting or walking, everything rubs against the sore spot.  One takes to sitting, un-ladylike with legs spread and walking like a bowlegged cowboy, just to avoid the rubbing.  I know women wear skirts in public in the summer, how do they avoid this problem?  Is there a product I could rub into my thighs to make them glide against each other?  Do I develop a thigh callus?  I don’t get it. 

I have, of course, been wearing my wedding and engagement rings, together on one hand.  The heat is giving me a rash under them!  I really want to wear my rings, but the rash is just so itchy!

All these problems are caused by what I feel society expects me to wear.  It’s fancier if you were heels, heels are more uncomfortable than flats, the majority of the time.  I feel I would be judged, or inappropriately dressed if I wore pants, flats and a mesh T shirt to a wedding, but otherwise, I really don’t know how to solve any of my heat wave problems.  I feel I am missing some important woman knowledge.  Was there a class in school that I missed where they discussed these things?  When other women get together, do they chat about this and share tips?  I am just going to do what I’m sure every other woman does about one thing or another, suck it up and deal with the pain, cursing men that are not plagued with these problems.  

Changes

There have been some changes in my life, I am now employed.  This is has cut down on my free time dramatically, and I haven't quite figured out how to keep doing all the things I started while I was off of work.  The new job is fabulous, I am really happy to be there.  The people are very nice, which is always a good thing.  


I was hoping this blog would force me to craft more so I would have something to talk about, but that hasn't really happened either.  I think I might have to work under pressure.  Since I don't have any craft shows, or prospects for other things, or a clear direction, I have been at a stale mate.  I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, I had a few job prospects that kept me waiting for a long time, so I felt like at any moment I would have to drop everything and work a full time job again.  So, I have to pick a direction for my soap business and go after it, using the time that I have.  I still enjoy making soap, I make too much for one family to use, so it does make sense to try and sell it.  If the people don't buy, that's another matter.  


I have a few things I have been meaning to write about, so you will see that in future posts.  I thank you for your patience, I will get this figured out!