On this day in 2004, Major Knitter was born. I began blogging and my knitting world has never been the same since.
I'm not sure what the best part of blogging has been for me:
documentary of a large part of my life
the many new friends I have made
sharing the passion for knitting
The blogging world has changed over the years. Most blogs have faded. Only a very few continue. Ravelry has come.
One thing for sure is that my knitting has improved over the years. I have learned new knitting skills. I have learned that while I enjoy learning new knitting skills, knitting for the sake of knitting is no longer enough for me. I need to have a purpose for my knitting. So while I have learned to knit lace, I don't particularly like lace (either the knitting or the wearing of it), so I no longer feel the need to master the art of lace knitting. Another skill I have tried a few times, but have never completed, still remains on my bucket list. Yes - that would be a steek. I have knit the projects in fair isle, but have never crossed the finish line. It still eludes me (Mostly because I picked the wrong projects).
So this year of blogging will have a goal. I will endeavor to actually knit a project and successfully steek it.
Now that I'm a teenager, I think it's about time I take my knitting to the next level. Are you with me? What skill do you want to master this year?
Most people don't associate Connecticut with farmland. But once upon a time, it was all farmland. My town is known for its onion farms. In fact, we still have wild onions that pop up in our yard. But the other thing that we grow in abundance is a bumper crop of stones. Every spring I begin to dream about a beautiful garden filled with perennials that will come back year after year with little to no maintenance. But the very first attempt to dig in my yard meets with rocks, rocks and more rocks. It's quite disheartening. What's a person to do with so many rocks? Well, I'm glad you asked. Because for centuries people have been putting these rocks aside and using them to build the quintessential New England stone wall. But there's not a standard look or shape of a stone wall. On my morning walk, I decided to snap pictures of the various sizes and shapes and styles of these walls to show you just what I mean.
This first wall is a utilitarian wall. It's basically meant to say "Let me get these darned rocks out of my yard and I'll mark the boundary of my property while I'm at it." While this neighborhood is only about 60-70 years old, this style of a stone wall is as old as time itself.
The second wall is the opposite extreme. This is hewn rock laboriously fit together, piece by piece by a seasoned mason. The original stone wall was added to and doubled (or tripled) in height by a new neighbor. That neighbor moved and the next neighbor wanted even more privacy, so the white wooden fence on top of the stone wall appeared. This type of a privacy wall has become a common practice this century.
This is the most common type of stone wall I see on a daily basis. It's a stone wall, that may or may not have been hewn slightly. It's probably more likely than not, just well placed stones in such an order that they stay in place. These old style stone walls generally have no mortar.
Another view across the street of this classic look.
More basic - but same idea. This is on a main road and our town has been around since colonial times (maybe even longer - as the Pequot Indians have been here for 7,500 years.) I wouldn't be surprised to discover that some of these basic stone walls were built when settlers first came to Westport in 1693.
Contrast that old with the new. Here is a stone wall I saw being built in the last 15 years. Look how perfectly the stones fit together. Once again, the privacy wooden fence on top has become the norm.
Here's another take on the modern stone wall with a privacy fence.
Here's a favorite of mine. It's the historical marker in front of the stone wall in front of the The Wakeman House where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda lived when he wrote The Great Gatsby.
But I digress...
Here's a favorite wall of every child I have ever seen walking along this sidewalk. It's got a nice smooth concrete top to the stone wall that runs the length of the Long Shore Golf Course - once a private country club - but now the town public golf course since the 1970s. I don't know why - but children always seem to love to walk on top of walls. This stone wall maintains a bit of a historic look with its natural placement of stones which seem to be selected but not really hewn to fit together nicely with the concrete top for a more modern look.
Of course, what country club would be complete without a big fancy entrance. This is the only break to that otherwise perfectly child-friendly stone wall along the golf course. And although I prefer the natural look of most of the stone walls, I definitely appreciate a bit of grandeur at the entrance to the now-public town golf course.
After the golf course, we head home and see a larger variety of the types of stone walls. See what I mean about a bumper crop of rocks? I'm sure several years ago, these were not there. They seem to get pushed to the surface after years of freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw. OK - that's not a scientific theory - it's just my thought.
Finally, we get to my favorite stone wall. Why? Because it's the one I look at every day. It's in my yard. You don't see as many of these, but they exist. Someone decided to place the top layer of stones vertically to give it a decorative look. Or perhaps it was to discourage young children from walking on top of this stone wall. I don't know. But it's the stone wall that borders my yard and I like it.
How about you? What is something you walk past nearly every single day, but don't stop to appreciate? Please share your thoughts and post about your quotidian vistas that make your part of the world unique and memorable.
Secundogeniture is going to school in Alaska. Naturally he wanted to go somewhere south and warm for spring break. Where did he choose? Why, Seattle of course. It is 75 degrees warmer than Fairbanks, after all.
I flew home from Los Angeles via Seattle to see him for the weekend. Seeing him was the best part of all, but the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum came in a close second.
No words necessary to describe the beauty of this place. The only problem is that the photos don't quite do it justice.
I knit therefore I am. I knit everywhere. I knit here. I knit there. I especially knit on the go.
So in the summer of 2013 which was quite the year of traveling, I packed the yarn, needles and pattern for a forest green Sampler Blanket and got in the car with my Scouting friend John Farley to drive to the new Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia for the 2013 National Boy Scout Jamboree.
Here's John's first selfie en route to West Virginia. I swear I offered to help with the driving, but he said "No." OK - better for me. I can spend the next 24 hours knitting!
I managed to knit about half the blanket on the drive down to West Virginia. We broke up the trip in half, so there was a nice dinner and an overnight halfway down. Knitters instantly understand what this means - MORE KNITTING TIME!
Finally we arrived at the Summit Bechtel Reserve (this is a photo from the following year's trip - but it's the only one I have of the sign). For the next few weeks there would be no knitting on the Sampler Blanket. I left it in John's truck for the duration.
We parked the truck in the staff long term parking area. The excitement was palpable. Look who's a happy camper!
John was excited, too, as we boarded the bus for fun and adventure.
The bus dropped us off at Base Camp A - our home away from home for the next few weeks. Coincidentally, our color for the Jamboree was green. How fitting!
Since the Sampler Blanket was too large for Jamboree knitting, I brought some socks to knit for the duration. Even sock knitting is cool at the Jamboree.
We had a lot of exposure to Mother Nature while we were at the Summit. John is a retired middle school science teacher, so it's always fun to have an expert telling us about the flora and fauna. I don't remember what type of moth this was, but let me just say it was H-U-G-E!
We had our official name tags. This must have been early on during the Jamboree, because by the end, my lanyard was adorned with mementos from all the Scouts and new friends I made along the way. My first adornment was a mini Gumby. Because Marines (and Scouts, too) should always be Semper Gumby (this means always being flexible).
The Jamboree was so much fun. We met our close friends and made new friends. Sometimes we even dressed alike. Here's Caroline, me and Dianna posing for a picture in our Sub Camp headquarters. Matchy-matchy!
And the knitting continued. I made a batch of my miniature Scout sock ornaments.
Camp life is always fun. We got these new fancy schmancy bunk bed cots. These were seriously the coolest cots I've ever seen.
Before you could say Summit Bechtel Reserve, the youth arrived. I managed to see Primogeniture once or twice during the entire adventure.
I saw Secundogeniture more often. He came by to decompress, charge his phone, and enjoy things from Mom - like extra patches for trading, ice cream, and the use of the computer.
Lunch consisted of 'shelf stable' on the go food. It was plenty of food, and I managed to lose about 10 lbs while I was at the Jamboree - between the food and the miles and miles and miles of walking. Hmmmm.... maybe I should stay here more often!
We got the chance to walk around between our work shifts and see the displays and activities for ourselves.
John met up with another friend and fellow board member from our Council - Charlie.
We got the one currency that all adult leaders treasure - a coveted Staff patch. It was a great time but it was time to head home.
And of course, we sang the classic John Denver song about West Virginia as we departed.
Our first stop on the way home was a delicious steak dinner. I'm not sure what the true quality was, but I can tell you it was the single most delicious meal I have ever eaten! Two weeks of camp food will do that to you.
And we met up with our Long Island friends for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. Here we are sitting on the rocking chairs like the Old Timers we are. Look who didn't bring any civilian clothes with her? Hahaha.
And I managed to nearly finish knitting the blanket on the long drive home.
The best part of any trip is arriving home. Home Sweet Home!
Once home, I blocked the five strips for the blanket and only needed to join the strips into one full sized blanket and call it a day. Somewhere along the way, after I blocked the strips, I had to clean up the basement and I put the blanket away for safe keeping.
Of course, you know this means it got forgotten. Out of sight. Out of mind.
And in the two and a half years since the Jamboree, every time I saw John, he would tell the story of the Major knitting the entire blanket on our drive down to West Virginia. I knew while knitting the blanket on the drive to the Jamboree that this needed to find its home with the Farley family.
I saw John again in December as we were interviewing the candidates to be leaders for our Council's Jamboree Contingent for the 2017 Jamboree. He told the knitting story again. I casually mentioned that we should get together for dinner with our spouses.
And of course, the first thing I did when I got home was find the blanket. I joined it sometime in the past year, but still hadn't given it the final blocking. So I wet soaked it.
I rinsed it thoroughly and pressed (no wringing allowed) out the excess water, repeated this until the water ran clear and soap-free.
I laid out the Sampler Blanket on my pool table with its plastic protective covering which is the perfect surface for wet blocking and drying my hand knits.
Finally, last night, BF and I had a delightful and delicious dinner with John and Josephine and I gave them the completed green Sampler Blanket.
We have company for New Year's and I think you know that one of my favorite parts of hosting guests is becoming a tourist myself. Today Secundogeniture, Miss E and I went into NYC to visit the fashion district. We started at the Fashion Institute of Technology and walked up the Fashion Walk of Fame (Seventh Avenue) to Times Square. After snapping hundreds of pictures, we found an utterly amazing Garment District meets Times Square meets Tinsel Town meld - Star Wars & Costumes Exhibit. Miss E is a big Star Wars fan. I only saw the original (and maybe one more) back in the 1970s. After seeing this out of this world amazing costume show - I think I need to revisit the Star Wars saga.
Click on this Flickr link to join me on my virtual tour of the Star Wars and the Power of Costume Exhibition. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
This weekend was a fabulous holiday extravaganza. After a late night in the city, I woke up very early to prepare for my annual Toys for Tots Christmas Party with the ladies from the Women Marines Association. We meet in East Hartford several times a year and it's another one of the highlights of my year.
This year I made each member her very own Toy Marine out of a wooden clothespin.
Dottie (93), Aggie (93), Carolyn, Adele, Rosena, Rita, Jane, Donna and Jennifer with our Toys for Tots collections for children in Connecticut.
While many people are familiar with Toys for Tots, few people know that it's a Marine Corps Reserve program.
But the best gift of all was this surprise visit from Helen (95) who came by to say Merry Christmas and drop off her donation for Toys for Tots. Check out this amazing group of WWII Marines. What a treasure!
Helen, Aggie and Dottie are true treasures. Semper fidelis ladies. Merry Christmas!
My son's high school is amazing. I can't think of any better way to describe the talent, opportunities and productions these students have.
This past week the students from the Theatre III and the Audio Production classes filmed their production of an Old Time Radio Broadcast of Dracula - complete with a word from our sponsors - as presented in 1938 with Orson Welles.
Here's Secundogeniture and his team on the sound and special effects. My son had the electronic SFX.
I hope you enjoy the show. It's actually great to listen to it as if it were 1938 and you were listening to an old time radio program.
With Primogeniture off to college and in his own apartment this year, I'm trying to reinforce all those years of Boy Scout cookouts and thrifty habits so he'll be able to eat healthy meals for a few dollars. I got him set up last month in his new place and even got him a slow cooker. I decided to try my hand at some tried and true slow cooker meals to pass along to him. Then just last week I saw a tweet by Crystal Paine from MoneySavingMom where she referenced an article called Making 28 Slow Cooker Meals in 3 Hours. I was intrigued so I visited Kelly McNelis' site New Leaf Wellness to see what other slow cooker meal ideas she had. I was immediately hooked and purchased Kelly's e-cookbooks and selected two groups of recipes from this article to get started with. I printed out my grocery lists and recipes and went grocery shopping.
The first step to being a good grocery shopper is knowing where the deals are. I look through the weekly ads; clip my coupons; and check out my favorite blogs: Krazy Coupon Lady and Living Rich with Coupons. These two blogs have a team of amazing ladies who have done all the research for me and tell me what's on sale at my local grocery stores and drug stores and also tell me about the coupons I can use to reduce prices even more. *NOTE* I no longer clip Sunday coupons. Instead I use Coupons.com and other online sources and only print the coupons when I see a deal and know I'm going to the store. The second part of this research is checking out where the meat is on sale. I went to my local Stew Leonards for the ground turkey because it was nearly 50% off. I picked up the chicken at Stop & Shop because it was on sale there. I confess I got a little antsy and purchased my ground beef full price because I really wanted to get started.
Remember: chicken, pork and London broil often go on sale for around $1.99 each week (or every other week). You just need to check the store. This will make your meals cheaper than eating out!
When you read New Leaf's recommendations about the prep day, she recommends you buy good quality gallon freezer bags. She makes a lot of freezer meals in plastic gallon freezer bags and shares horror stories of cheaper plastic bags ripping at the seams after all your hard work. I will tell you that I only buy HEFTY bags. The competition just doesn't compare. I can't tell you how many times I've purchased bags from the leading competitor only to have the Zips not open and close. That is very frustrating! I've never had that problem with Hefty bags so they have become my bag of choice. Yesterday, Hefty bags were on sale at Stop & Shop and I also had a computer generated coupon from Coupons.com. Hefty.com also has coupons regularly. With my shopping list, coupons and a highlighter, I was ready to shop.
I bought my ingredients and set them up on the counter. (Here's where I confess to a few shortcuts I wouldn't normally do)
I bought canned beans. I prefer dried beans soaked overnight and cooked on my own. But once again, I was anxious to give this a try, so I opted for this shortcut.
I prefer to use my own canned tomatoes from the garden or farm share. I was lured into the Stop & Shop 10 cans for $10 and once again the promise of a quick deal was upon me.
I also make my own chicken stock - but since I'm sending these meals to Primogeniture, I thought it more expedient to purchase ready-made stock.
Special sales of note:
Hefty bags were on sale
Peppers and zucchinis were from garden/farm share
I could have used the corn from farm share, too
Canned beans were on sale + I had a coupon
Pasta sauce was on sale
New Leaf recommends printing out the recipes and freezer labels the night before to speed up the process. This was a huge help. I didn't have any Avery address labels so I printed them out on plain paper and taped them to the outside of my Hefty gallon freezer bags using clear packaging tape. This worked like a charm.
I made two recipes at a time. New Leaf recommended these cool bag holders. I ordered some - but in the meantime I used two mixing bowls to hold my gallon Hefty freezer bags open to facilitate filling. It worked just fine. This simply doubled my dishes afterwards. I really had so few dishes to wash it was amazing. I make more of a mess in the kitchen on a normal night cooking dinner! Here's what I had to wash when I was done.
2 mixing bowls
2 strainers
cutting board
2 knives
2 bowls
garlic press
When I filled up each bag, I pressed out the excess air and sealed the bags. I then pressed the meal flat and placed it in my freezer.
It only took me about an hour and I had prepped seven slow cooker meals for the freezer. I still have the ingredients for about 14 more meals... but I forgot a few ingredients at the store yesterday so I need to go make a quick trip this morning so I can cook the meals with the ground turkey and chicken. Secundogeniture and I are going to visit Primogeniture next Monday and also make an official college visit. We'll deliver these meals to him then. I can hardly wait.
If you make some of Kelly McNelis' slow cooker freezer meals, please let me know which ones are your favorites. I started with Seven Kid Friendly Meals and Six Ground Beef Crockpot Freezer Meals. I love an adventure. And who doesn't like to come home to a house that smells like a home cooked meal?
Tomorrow I'm doing one of my very favorite things - I'm teaching a merit badge class to a group of Boy Scouts. I'm no longer Scoutmaster, so teaching this merit badge is my favorite contact with the Scouts. I get to add my enthusiasm for all things textile - while instilling a passion for it in the next generation of young men. I always wonder if any of them will go on to pursue a career in textiles.
Each time I teach the class, I add at least one new item. I already updated a few things for this class - but tonight I couldn't resist and added yet another.
This is a cute little loom. It's a peg loom by Harrisville Designs. It's basically the same as the simple loom I have the Scouts make out of a piece of cardboard. There are some great instructions for making vertical stripes and tricks for tucking in the loose ends in the back. So it was worth the price... even though mine broke before I even used it.
But it's time to call it a night as the class starts bright and early in the morning. I can hardly wait.
