"2015"

For the past few years I have listed on my facebook what I learned or my big accomplishments that year as a way of remembering the good and nodding to 2016. I thought this year I would share some of them with you…

1.       I learned how to gut a fish

2.       I learned how to fix a leaky sink

3.       I learned how to build a simple garden bed

4.       I figured out a good technique to do simple color work in knitting

5.       I figured out how to do open work hand sewing

6.       I figured out how to copy my grandma’s travel knitting bags

7.       I sold at my first craft show

8.       I made my first sales on my Etsy page to  people I didn’t know… (it’s the little things)

9.       I learned bobbin lace… (need to make something more than a book mark)

10.   I learned how to make jam

12.   Learned how to make my Grandma’s Glug and Pepercorkers

13.   Learned I will be strong and do what needs to be done

14.   Rediscovered why I love the library

15.   Learned how to darn knitting (a couple of different ways)

16.   Grew my own prosperous garden on my own. (It was tasty)

Grandma K's yarn bags avalible at etsy.com/shop/GrandmasTools

What did 2015 teach you?

Grandma's Mittens

My sympathies recently go to my Great Grandma G. I have been enjoying the busy Christmas season and was asked to make a special order by a couple people, Mittens for children. I am always in love of a challenge but this challenge has me reminiscing over the yearly gift from my Great Grandma.  When I got the traces of the hand both me and the person buying them enjoyed the effort it had taken to get them. It was clear those children were not interested in “making turkeys”. When I talked to my mother a little later I immediately apologized.

A finished pair I made for a client

I remember being older, my mother saying in a trip to Grandma’s nursing home on one of our many trips to the Cape, them saying alright time to do the trace. I remember placing my hand on the paper on the table and them tracing my hand, inside my hand someone writing my name and my color of choice. (It was usually a list of colors and she always seemed to find the perfect multi colored yarn for me.) Then them doing it for my brother. I was apologizing for all the earlier times though. How many times and for how many of my cousins had they started tracing our hands only to have us walk away before they were done.

Mittens for sale on my Etsy page GrandmasTools

So this Christmas I may not be getting a gift of all new mittens from my Great Grandma G but I am passing on her love to children I may never meet. Every time I knit it pass on all my ancestors love, and warmth. They may be looking at me thinking “you are going about that all wrong,” but I like to think they will be proud at the hand knit socks for my dad, aunt, and brother or the mittens for my aunt, brother, dad and Grandpa. (Don’t worry nothing has been spoiled, they either know already because they asked or don’t read my blog.) Let the love we share this Holiday season be found in our loved ones as much as it is in the memories of what they have given us.

My Great Grandparents at my Christening.  From left to right Grandpa and Grandma G, Grandma E and Grandma B. 

Let there be Light

It seems that there is one thing that many girls of my Generation share beyond Barbie, it is the American Girl Doll. I was definitely one of the obsessed. I got my first of the books in 1^st grade and it was a set of all of the dolls available at the time, the Christmas books. I devoured them. I bought more, from the scholastic book magazine through school and at museums.  Of course every girl has her favorite. Mine was Samantha. I had all her books and I wanted a Samantha doll more than anything. I earmarked the magazine, dropping not so subtle hints that I wanted her. I wanted her because she was sophisticated, she like me liked to climb trees, she made her own ice cream, she loved to help her best friend, she helped those in need and most of all because she looked like me, brown hair and eyes. I had her craft book, and I eventually I got her bed, (the brass one, not the new one Mattel just put out, where is the class?).  I loved that doll, she is probably the only reason I can braid hair today, since she is how I practiced until I could do them.

Samantha Parkenton Property of American Girl

                                                 

My family however made it out that they had other plans the year I got her. I don’t even remember what year it was but I remember getting mad anytime they even suggested that they purchase one of the other dolls. My dad wanted me to get Molly, because she was during World War II (I think he was predicting my college thesis with her.) I didn’t like her because I felt bad since her dad was away fighting and she also wore Glasses and I was still angry I had to wear them myself. I think my Grandpa K said I should get Felicity because she was during the time that made American Revolution. I don’t think he actually cared which one I got but he was just trying to help my parents throw me off track that I was going to get Samantha. My mom and my Aunt however wanted me to get Kirsten.

Kirsten Larson property of American Girl Dolls.

There reasoning was sound and the truth was I would have been happy with a Kirsten doll because she was my second favorite but I wasn’t going to let them know that. They wanted me to get a Kirsten doll because she like my Grandma K was from Sweden. Alright Grandma wasn’t from Sweden but her parents were. She was a farmer, like most of my family has been, she was blond haired, my entire Swedish side all as brown hair, and she was kind. I can tell you very little about any of the books now but two of Samantha’s stories and one of Kirsten’s still ring in my mind. Kirsten’s is about St. Lucia.

Kirsten Larson in the St. Lucia costume from Surprise for Kirsten property of American Girl Dolls

If I could go back and talk to my Grandma K. I would ask her what she knew about St. Lucia and other Scandinavian traditions. When we were cleaning out her house we did find a white angel looking thing in a plastic bag. I think this was her family’s representation of St. Lucia, the Saint of light. I know very little about the story of the St. herself but this I do know on the beginning of the darkness (around the Winter Solstice) the youngest girl, sometimes dresses up in a white gown with a red sash around her waist with a crown of candles on the top of her head, comes forth with treats for the rest of her family. I think I like that idea, that no matter how dark our lives may be there is always some kind of light. I fell in love with the American Girl dolls because of that idea, that these girls were living in an uncertain world where everything was changing but they each found a light to share. Pleasant Rolling provided us that when she created the company, sometimes we have trouble finding the light but like all things finding tradition in simple things can give us that light we have been looking for. I may not be able to ask my Grandma about St. Lucia and if she celebrated it but I can Thank Kirsten for teaching me about her and connecting me at least a little bit to my Scandinavian side.

And Happy Yule to all of my followers.

Nutty Christmas

So at work a few weeks back the food specialist who assigns what we cook gave me a little treat that I in turn took all day to make. .. chestnuts. I sat in front of the yarn all day knitting and sewing and every now and then when a visitor walked in I would take one out of the bowl make an x on it,  then I would dig a little put in the ash fill it with coals, cover them slightly with ash and place said Chesnut on top. As the x peeled back I would take it off and eat them.

I will ignore the fact that the whole time I had Chesnuts Roasting on an open fire sick in my head and enjoy the fact they were, to use a 17th century phrase, toothsome. Now I am not a nut person, nutty yes but not overly fond of nuts in general. In truth unless it is the ocassional penut butter on my toast or penuts with my dad I don't eat them.  My Grandma K however was.  Every Christmas on one of the tables in the living room would be alittle pewter tray, a silver hand held nut cracker, and an assortment of nuts. If I asked nicely she would crack on open for me. I remember acorns, walnuts and others but most of all I rember being more fasinated by her opening them up then eating them.

So here is to a nutty holiday,  whether it is the nuts in your life or the nuts on your plate.

Plug it up...

In October I came upon my first house emergency but it also gave me my first kitchen hack. My Hot water tank went. My dad ended up driving down and at least got me water back in my house because I couldn’t find a plumber who could at least get me water until I could decide how to handle buying a new tank with money I didn’t have. So for a month I was with water but without hot water. Doing dishes was easy, except one problem. I had no way to plug the sinks and had one tub to put in.

In the tub I put the hot water but how to plug the rinse water without a plug how to keep what little water I had heated in the sink. In comes some Yankee ingenuity.

So no plug, take a metal lid of a jar that is slightly smaller than your sink and place it so the lip is facing up. You will still have some go down the drain but it will be a small amount and at least keep the water where you want it till you’re done. You save four bucks and it gets the job done.