I’ve been busy this weekend, working up two patterns I’ve had off the needles for some time. “Meadowlark” will be released next weekend, but “Foxhollow” – shown above – will be out either tonight or tomorrow.

What do you think?

UPDATED – Pattern now available! Go get it! ravelry.com/patterns/library/foxhollow

Let me say it up front. I love Spring. As I get older, it’s becoming my favorite of the seasons. I crave the extra hours of daylight from now until late-June. I crave the first dry and sunny mornings, when bike riding to work is a joy in short sleeves and a skirt. I love how green and fresh everything is, like the world is enjoying a good deep stretch after a long, cold winter.

Rain or shine, I have biked (or walked) to and from work every day for about a month now. In addition to enjoying the relatively flat ride, biking gives me an extra hour every day. My commute is about 20 minutes; easily half that of taking public transit.

This morning, I decided to forgo an extra hour of sleep in favor of getting up at 6 and spending a peaceful morning working on pattern stuff… in the back yard.

We don’t so much have a yard as an extended patio. Our “yard” is about 20 feet long and 13 feet wide, a mixture of landscaping and brick work. Because of the dogs, we’ve opted for container gardens, which are starting to really fill in with lettuces and tomatoes and herbs.

We just have room for a small patio table, so I sat there, enjoyed a couple cups of coffee, and took another pass through Watershed to clarify some questions I’ve gotten from knitters.

I love being outside in the morning, and I love having a few hours of quiet before my day really starts going. The only problem? I wanted to go for a run today, and it was tough to tear myself out of my little quiet patio.

It’s a three day weekend here in Canada, and we still haven’t decided what – if anything – to do with ourselves. The campgrounds are going to be nutso, and we’re contemplating driving to St. Charles to visit the family. (Dad’s still in the nursing home and just came down with Pneumonia, but is otherwise doing ok.) If not, I’m going to enjoy spending time working on the yard. We still want to change somethings, namely, putting down pea gravel on top of the dirt areas to prevent the dogs from digging and provide more drainage. Ahem.

It’s supposed to be gorgeous weather still. And I’m looking forward to 3 days off.

In the meantime, wow, do I have a LOT of knitting to do!

Mom doesn’t ask for a lot of handknits, so when she mentioned that she’d love a new black scarf for Christmas, I decided it was a great opportunity to design one just for her.

Instead of a rectangle scarf, I chose a small shoulder-shawl, perfect for draping around her neck. I used Fresco by Classic Elite; a warm wool/alpaca/angora blend that’ll keep her cozy. With just two skeins, this shawls knits up with less than 350 yards of sock-weight yarn; perfect for all those gorgeous skeins in my stash.

The shawl begins at the top center and works out, with a knit-on sawtooth border that’s then continued around the cast off edges.

Maybe because a good part is stockinette, but I found this design absolutely addictive and am already casting on for a second version in a multi-colored sock yarn.

Look for the pattern to be available soon!

Earlier this summer, I was tasked (by myself!) with designing the shawl project for the June Year of Lace. If you remember my early summer, it was kind of… well… stressful. This project, rather than making things worse, actually kept me sane.

It was great to just focus on a short-term deadline, and the yarn as it passed between my fingers and the needles. It was great to design. To plan. To chart. And then to see it become something beautiful and tangible.

The yarn is a seasilk from Zen Yarn Garden – one of my favourite Canadian hand-dyers. It’s got a soft hand, and a lovely luster, and it made for happy knitting.

For now, the pattern is only available to current Year of Lace subscribers.

For the full flickr set, click here.

The dogs are doing great in the big city. At first, Jackson was a little nervous about all of the new sights and smells, and especially, people. He can be an anxious dog at times. We suspect it’s because he had been abandoned at 4 months, and went through at least four homes in a short period of time. The first few walks were an adventure for sure. He’d take offense to someone – anyone – and start barking his head off.

Great welcome to the city, eh?

Now, a little over a week in, he’s doing a lot better. He seems more relaxed, and really is enjoying walks down the sidewalk rather than through the woods.

Sandra and I have been exploring the various off-leash options available to Toronto dogs and their humans. Last Sunday afternoon, we went to Kew Beach and let them play in the water (green flag, I think) for a bit.

Naturally, they were extremely happy.

Toronto dog owners, if you have any tips or advice for us, we’d love to hear it!

Well, if you follow me on twitter, you know some of the big road trip disaster of 2009. It could have been worse, but it was pretty bad overall.

Our original plan had been to spend about 2.5 weeks driving from Calgary to Toronto, spending a few days camping here, a few days there, longer with my folks near Chicago, and detouring through Door County for a nice little break. The first kink in the plans was a massive miscommunication with f-up by the movers. My quote request had asked for delivery in Toronto AFTER July 13th. Somehow, they scheduled everything for delivery on June 25th. We had to beg and plead to shift that to a slightly more manageable date of June 28th. Still, we had to cover nearly 500 miles per day to make it, and were exhausted by the end.

The driving itself went well. We found very few dog-friendly places along the way. This great lake in the black hills was beautiful – and deserted – except for the not-so-friendly ranger who nearly fined us for having the dogs off leash and letting them go swim for a bit.

We did ok in a few of the cities by checking at the visitor center or phoning Parks & Recreation, but all in all, dogs are most unwelcome in almost every green space, state or national park.

The KOA in the Badlands, South Dakota, was a dog-friendly highlight. Not only were the sites pretty large, they had a massive fenced-in dog park, complete with agility runs. It was great to be able to let the boys just go after several days of driving with only short breaks.

All in all, they did well in the car. They both love car rides and settle nicely into their space at the back of the jeep. It was hard on them to drive so many consecutive days. I wish we could have just stayed put a little, given them a chance to get worn out.

We did make very brief touristy stops at Vulcan Alberta, Little Big Horn battlefield, Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, Wall Drug, and the Badlands.

(For all the photos, view the flickr set.)

But, by the time we were driving out of South Dakota, everything that had gone ok thusfar started to go wrong. Really wrong. Seriously wrong.

First, the air conditioning conked out. Not a big deal… except when it’s clocking in at 98F in the shade. Next, Cooper got a bit of a belly bug, so we had to stop the car every 30 or 45 minutes to let him out. Then, the car started making noises… bad noises. By the time we crawled into Albert Lea, MN at 9pm at night, we knew we had to stay overnight and try to get it fixed in the morning. Unfortunately, the campgrounds were closed, and the only place taking two big dogs – and us – was the Super 8. The horrible, disgusting, exceedingly dirty, scarier-than-any-place-I’d-stayed Super 8. To add insult to injury, the manager charged us $75 for one night. An insane price, but we had no other choice. We couldn’t keep driving and risk breaking down alongside the road. And neither of us felt comfortable pitching the tent illegally.

After a sleepless night, I drove into town to find the repair shop, and left Sandra and the dogs behind, knowing it was too hot out to keep them in the car for even a short time without air conditioning.

Seven hours and five hundred dollars later, we hit the road for the last leg of the trip before my parents’ house.

From then on, I suppose it went well, albeit quickly. Mom loved her grand-dogs, and they loved the huge backyard. We got to spend the friday night at Ravinia for the indigo girls concert after all. And, we even snuck in a quick visit with the Threadbear boys en route to Toronto on Saturday.

Sunday, the movers showed up on time and presented us with a final bill of two and a half times the estimated weight. Yeeeah. Good times. They had the truck weighing receipts to ‘prove’ it and everything. I’m pissed that their estimate wasn’t slightly more accurate, and I feel like we were – one again – totally taken. To add insult to injury, Sandra’s credit card had been turned off due to suspected ‘fraudulent charges’ (i.e., all the travel), and because it was a business card originally, no one could override until business hours on Monday morning.

So, stressed, incredibly poor, pissed, frustrated, and exhausted.

That pretty much sums up our ‘vacation’.

In the end, I decided to go back to work last Monday, and save the rest of my days off for a time that we can actually use them to go out of town, even just for camping for real for several days.

Look for the next post to be decidedly more positive. The dogs and Sandra are settling in really well to life in the big city, and it’s been so great having them here, and knowing I don’t have to say goodbye any time soon.

A lot of friends have been asking what I think about Toronto. It’s probably pretty obvious, but I absolutely love it. I think I’ve always been more of a big city kind of girl, even growing up an hour outside of Chicago, in the middle of farms and fields. 

Growing up, one of my favorite memories with Mom was riding Metra into downtown, to go for lunch and shopping in the Loop. I remember the bustle of the train station, the crowds waiting on corners to cross the street, how my neck hurt a little from walking around, very uncool, and looking up. 

My love affair with cities started way back then. I was fascinated by the way the wind moved a little differently through tunnels made of tall buildings and open streets. By the way cars could crowd together, barely moving. By the strange juxtoposition of urban natural spaces; Lake Michigan, Grant Park. 

I never lived near Chicago long enough to truly get used to it on adult terms, though, and I’ve only explored the areas outside the Loop a handful of times; one Indigo Girls concert in Lincoln Park, a trip to Wrigley Field, and a visit to the lovely dyers at Lorna’s Laces. 

Other cities too, have stolen a piece of my heart over the years. Most notably, San Francisco. We met on a brief visit back in 1998 or so, and it was love at first sight, driving in the cab north on 101 past the rolling light-dotted hills of South San Francisco. If I close my eyes, I can still picture the dark water on my right, the speckles of streetlamps breaking the darkness of the hills at my left. It felt magical, and I knew I would live there someday. 

When I moved to Canada, I was ready for something different, but I wasn’t ready to leave my city by the bay. That piece of my heart that she claimed as hers still lives somewhere around Fillmore and Geary, my old neighborhood. 

So, as you can see, I probably fall in love a little too easily. Over the years, I’ve quickly and without fear of heartbreak added Tokyo, Paris, London and Hong Kong to my list of urban loves.  And now, Toronto.

If you asked me what, specifically, I love about this place, I don’t know that I could answer just yet. It’s something about how it feels to me, almost like a place I’ve lived before. Maybe it’s because we’ve visited here nearly a half dozen times prior to beginning this long and arduous move. Maybe it’s because I’ve known people from here for so many years, and with prior knowledge, it’s been that much easier to adopt as my own. 

Or maybe I just fall in love far too easily. 

In any case, I have fallen, and I do love it here. Even though I probably should hold that feeling back, at least for a little longer.

(Bonus points if you know the song I’m referencing with the title above…)

I spent a large part of my weekend in coffee shops with americanos and my laptop and a couple of stories. Fiction.

Short fiction; I wrote it.

If you knew me back then, you know that I majored in fiction writing in university. I won grants. I published a couple of things. And then, when I turned 22 or 23, it all got very hard. I didn’t know where my voice went. I liked to say I just needed time to marinate.

In reality, I probably just needed some time, some experience, some heartbreak. I probably just needed enough knowledge about life to turn little shards of my life into believable slices of other people.

In the past two days, I’ve written good, solid, enjoyable first drafts of two pieces of short fiction. One is just over 3100 words. The other, 2600. I am so very proud of both.

This afternoon, I also found out that my roommate and landlord needs to rent out more rooms in the house. This means that I’ll be needing to make some decisions, find a new place to live, whether or not Sandra is able to be here in two months. I’m feeling a little lost over the whole thing. As much as I feel I’ve just started to settle in, I’m not comfortable with sharing the house with new strangers, nor is it fair to express concerns at this point. After all, this was only meant to be a temporary arrangement and it’s already lasted far too long.

So, it’s unlikely that we’ll have the house in Calgary sold and a new place closed on. Now what?

I spent a lot of time these days trying to just not feel lost, trying to remember that the ground is under my feet even when it feels like everything is unstable.

Maybe that’s why the writing is coming easier. It feels good to channel into some new and ever-changing vehicle. It’s a way to let go. And hopefully, I’m writing things that others will actually enjoy. Someday.

The title of this post refers to both the photos and the writing. The stories I’ve cranked out this weekend are pretty challenging for me. They’re not pretty; the main characters are not women you’d want to be, or maybe even know. Both stories are sad, and ugly, and heartbreaking at times.

I find a certain amount of beauty in “ugly” and always have. I relate to broken down buildings, to graffiti, to the parts of our world we might wish didn’t exist.

This is why I take photos of stark, urban, industrial places. This is why my eye is drawn to the parts that are flaking, falling apart.

I just find so much to love in something like this, the opposite of pristine and perfect.

Does it make it more ‘real’, that life isn’t sanitized and gorgeous? Or does it just make it more approachable, and easier to live inside? Can I relate better to an imperfect world? Can we all?

Or maybe there’s just a perverse part of me that’s drawn to that which isn’t ideal. It’s comforting in a way, to see the insides of a place, of a thing.

So, I’m working on being ok with ‘ugly’ too, from the things I create, from the photographs I post, from the words that I write.

Perfect is, after all, entirely overrated.

It’s a lazy kind of Sunday. Gloomy weather and one beer too many last night is making me stay in bed, delaying that inevitable getting up and being productive.

This is probably the first weekend I’ve had here with no big plans, with no eventful happenings. I met up with Lara yesterday for 12 grain pancakes and her roommate’s maple syrup. I took a long walk home from downtown. I took a handful of photos. I stopped in at the Gladstone for a couple of hours of music, although I left before the Karaoke started. I stopped in at the Cadillac Lounge for a beer and sat alone and texted with my friend Carin. I went home and fell asleep in the same clothes I’d been wearing all day and slept the night through.

Somehow, the day passed into nothing. Today will too, and I’ll probably have accomplished very little by the end of it.

I’m ok with that.

I spend so much of my time and energy worrying about what I need to do next, how I’m going to do it, and what would happen if I didn’t. Sometimes it feels good to just do nothing.

Which is why I’m still in bed three hours after waking up. Doing a lot of nothing.

I will get up at some point. I will go shower, change into real clothes. I will make a cup of tea. I will maybe even go out for coffee. (Must remember to buy a french press so I can caffeinate myself from home.)

At some point, the gloom outside will mask the setting sun, and then it’ll be evening, and soon time to go back to sleep before starting another week.

Today marks the third anniversary of the shop. It’s odd to be celebrating that and not be there. I can’t help but feel fairly disconnected right now. Living my life in two different places will do that, I suppose.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been living here for nearly four full months. In some ways, it feels like I just got on that plane to move here yesterday. In others, four months kind of feels like a lifetime.

But this is how time goes. The same speed, the same rhythm, no matter how we choose to perceive it. It’s kind of comforting that way, the realization that our perception can only change our memories, and time just marches on underneath it all. Comforting that what feels like a lifetime really rarely is.

Wow, you guys are creative. I love all of the suggestions from the contest, and although picking a winner was tough, I gravitated almost instantly to Kim’s suggestion of “Elsewhere”. Not only does it involve a Buffy reference, but it kind of fits my mood these past few months; transitory and wishful.

Thank you, Kim. It’s a great name.

So, what else is going on? My mom was diagnosed with a highly-aggressive pre-cancer, and went for a partial masectomy this past monday. She’ll now have to go through radiation, but they’re confident they got it all, and she won’t have to do chemo. It’s been a bit of a crazy ride for our family… going from normal to scared to hopeful to relieved in a matter of a little over a week. Having a father in his 80s has taught me to worry for my parents, but that worry has mainly been focused on Dad. This is the first time Mom’s been sick, or has had any serious problems, and it freaked me right out. I’m not ready to consider my parents not being there, not being my parents.

I’m looking forward to spending Easter with them. I have four days off of work, so it’ll be a nice visit.

I’m also pretty thrilled to see my mom. See, I’ve actually done great on WW this time around. I’m down to my 2005 weight, which, if you know me, is an absolutely huge achievement. I set a goal to be there before Spring, and I beat that goal by 3 pounds and one week. Go me!

The best part of the past couple of weeks has just been going to the mall to try on clothes and have stuff actually fit and look good. It’s a revelation, actually. I had gotten to the point where I hated mirrors. I’m still 15 pounds away from my ultimate goal, but I’m turning into a vain little thing. It’s fun to see myself and recognize the old me a little.

That, and I got to buy size 10 jeans.

Seriously haven’t done that in years.

So, it’s not a bad way to start a new season. My mom’s fine. I’m feeling good about myself. I love my job. And I’m hopeful that this new season will be the start of things falling into place.