One item was a tote bag I’d made out of an old, teal Lopi wool sweater jacket. We tied the pieces up with corks like a shibori resist, then felted them to get the raised baubles all over the bag. After sewing the bag together, I sewed a lining out of a bright, turquoise cotton, and hand-sewed a strip of the same cotton onto the back of a pretty, floral ribbon for the strap.

The reason I think this bag didn’t sell before is because I didn’t put any kind of closure on it. That was the detour into Lucetland that I took several weeks ago. I found some rainbow multicolored yarn in my stash to use for the cord and went to YouTube looking for how-to videos. Once I found one that I liked, I took a crash course in creating cords with the lucet.

I found some really neat buttons at KnitPicks a while ago. They used the scraps left over from their Harmony wood knitting needles to make them, which goes great with the spirit of what went into making the tote bag. Now the bag is listed on Etsy.

I just finished a custom order for my lamb baby booties sized to fit newborn to 3 months. The customer requested I change the cream to light pink and use sage green trim. I had to specially get the sage yarn, but I think they turned out well. I like the color combination of light pink and sage green, although I personally prefer the lamb to be white, brown, or black. The baby who will ultimately wear them will have warm, cute little feet.

I first heard the traditional song “White Coral Bells” sung by Laurie Berkner on one of my son’s CDs when he was little:

White coral bells upon a slender stalk.
Lillies of the Valley deck my garden walk.
Oh, don’t you wish that you could hear them ring?
That will only happen when the fairies sing.

Johann loved this song. We sang it together over and over again. He liked to pretend fairies were all around us. Whenever I see our bluebells in bloom, I think of this song, even though they aren’t white Lillies of the Valley. I like to think the fairies like our garden and come to visit. The bluebells are enchanting enough.

As part of the celebration, I baked her a cake and decorated it to reflect her research. Tori used the DIDSON, a dual frequency sonar system, to evaluate fish predation behavior in Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. That’s the black box to the far left of the cake. The rest of the cake is what she would have been collecting data about underwater. We decided that would be easier to depict than trying to represent one of the sonar return images.

On Sunday I baked the cake and Eric drew templates of the animals he wanted on it. I especially needed him to do the diver. I just can’t draw people yet. We had previously looked in several stores for marzipan. That was rolled out and then the templates were used to cut out the shapes Monday morning. I then used food coloring to “paint” the shapes and a dab of icing to “glue” them to the cake. From left to right they are a diver, DIDSON unit, barracuda, loggerhead sea turtle, and a scamp grouper. The purple sponges, yellow finger sponges, and red fan coral were marzipan I dyed with food coloring and formed into the needed shapes, much like I did for Johann’s 9th birthday party cupcakes.

I put on a school of Swedish fish as a joke, since it’s one of the favorite snacks of everyone at the university. There is also a nurse shark gummi at the bottom of the cake. When I was looking for ocean-themed candy at the store, I was very disappointed to only find those two candies. The bubbles are sugar pearls. The sand is ground hazelnuts. The rest is icing and sanding sugar. The cake was fun to make and Tori loved it. She not only wanted a picture of it before it was cut, but she also asked to have her picture taken while holding the cake. She said it was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for her. I was surprised by that. That definitely made the effort it took to make it worthwhile.

It seems as though our spring has already been busy. I think I’m slowing down, while the rest of the world is speeding up. Getting around to doing all the traditions we love about the holidays has been harder lately. But as a result, the celebration has expanded.

Christmas was not just one day. Besides St. Nicolaus Tag and Advent last year, we had Christmas in Texas, a belated Christmas at home to avoid transporting gifts, and Ukrainian Christmas. Decorations went up late and didn’t come down until around Valentine’s Day. Christmas greetings became New Year’s wishes.

Baking still continues. I could just abandon the long list and say the time has passed, maybe next year we’ll do more, but I didn’t want to do that this time. Then it would never happen. It didn’t matter to Johann when we did these things, just that we made the effort to do them and had fun. So we are spending more time in the kitchen together. And by taking our time to do everything we wanted to regardless of the date, we are building more good memories.

We finally made the first batch of Scramble, what my family calls homemade Chex mix, and distributed it to some of our friends. When I told one friend, “This is for you. We finally got around to our Christmas Scramble,” she said incredulously, “Tammy, do you realize it’s April 6?!” I looked at her innocently and said, “It is?” I should have called it Easter Scramble, then it would have been early!

Eric said if they were going to complain it was late, I should have offered to take it back. He wanted to eat more, you see, and wasn’t all too happy about seeing so much of the long-awaited Scramble go out the door.

At any rate, I like the feeling of Christmas lingering. Everyone is usually nicer at Christmastime. People make more of an effort to remember those in need and to help their neighbors. As far as that goes, it should be Christmas every day.

St. Patrick’s Day was easier. We normally don’t do much. We made matcha green tea shortbread cookies. Green food is always fun! And we watched the parade when it came through town. I actually felt caught up!

Then spring was suddenly upon us. We eagerly watched the garden waking up and felt the chill go. We were excited and antsy to get outside. If we didn’t get out, we felt like we would explode! Yay, spring is finally here! Oh, wait. When is Easter this year?

Easter is a bigger holiday for our family, which went back to it being harder to get everything done. We were also invited to a friend’s house to celebrate Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year, which was a wonderful experience. We had never been to a Buddhist ceremony before, so I wasn’t about to pass up the invitation. It was a chance to learn more about a different culture. And our friend cared enough about us to want us to be a part of the blessings, paying respects to family and friends, good luck, and well wishes for the New Year, which is a key part of their celebration. That alone meant a great deal to us.

Yo-Yo Ma is quoted as saying, “A Sengalese poet said, ‘In the end we will only conserve what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.’ We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.” Understanding the spirit of the day was enough; it didn’t matter that we aren’t Buddhist or don’t speak Thai. We had great company, good food, and came away with a greater understanding of our friend’s customs, and a deeper appreciation for the Thai culture as a whole. What better way to foster the lessons of “love thy neighbor” and “the Golden Rule”, than to enjoy “cultural cross-pollination”, as my father-in-law put it?

The Easter tree didn’t go up until Easter Sunday, after we came home from the Songkran celebration. Usually we put that up ahead of time, like the Christmas tree. Johann had his Easter basket and egg hunt on Sunday. We got the mini-daffodils Johann hoped for on Tuesday. We finally got the hard-boiled eggs decorated Thursday night. The traditional Ukrainian foods will come in the next week or so. And then there is teaching Johann how to make pysanky, Ukrainian Easter eggs. So, it will be Easter month. I suspect Eric and Johann won’t mind, as, overall, this will translate into more good food and fun activities.

Meanwhile, the garden is continuing on without me. I need to get out there and do some pruning. The snowdrops and crocus were lovely, but short-lived. We still have some daffodils blooming. Now the bleeding hearts are coming up. The hostas aren’t far behind.

We are looking forward to watching the garden grow. Ever since Johann heard the Thomas Nashe poem entitled “Spring”, he has been quoting his favorite lines. “Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king… the pretty birds do sing– cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!” Johann got up on his own the other day and used his ipod to record the birds singing at 6 a.m.! Everything seems to go into upheaval in the spring. But in the whirlwind, we are enjoying the beauty around us.

I finally got the buttons sewn onto my new cardigan yesterday afternoon. My plans to finish it two weeks ago got delayed by Eric coming home from his trip to London, followed by all of us getting sick. Thankfully, it is still cool enough outside to wear my new cardigan!

I’m so happy with the way it turned out. Lily Chin’s tip on binding off with a crochet hook served me well on the front band edge. It’s so much harder to get a nice, not-too-tight bind off of a large number of stitches, in this case 281, without this technique.

I was worried the sleeves wouldn’t be right, since I changed Laura Grutzeck’s Essential Cardigan pattern in the Interweave Knits Summer 2010 issue from three-quarter length to full-length sleeves. I measured one of my favorite sweaters that fits me well as a gauge for final length. I calculated the changes I needed in order to create the lower half of the sleeve and have it match up with the upper part of the sleeve, for which I used the original pattern stitch numbers and directions.

Part of why I chose the Essential Cardigan pattern, besides the fact that I loved the wide button band and the asymmetric placement of the buttons, is the fact that it has minimal positive ease. I was concerned about running out of yarn. Now that I’m done, I’ve got three full skeins plus part of a fourth left over! Finding interesting ways to use up leftovers is a fun challenge for me, so I am already thinking about how to make the best use of my extra yarn.

Here’s some more of the pictures that Eric and Johann took of me down behind the Art Association. The top three are Johann’s. The bottom three were taken by Eric.

As I am putting the finishing touches on my wool and silk blend cardigan, I am dreaming about what I will do next. There are six different projects up for consideration. I took a short detour yesterday afternoon trying to find a closure solution for a felted bag I want to list on Etsy, which resulted in watching YouTube how-to videos and learning to use my new lucet. Having done i-cord before, I wanted to try something new, even if than meant taking more time to do it.

Right now, my cardigan is completely assembled and the front band is finished. All the ends have been woven in. All that is left is blocking the seams and sewing on my gorgeous, tagua nut buttons. I have the sweater on the blocking board drying.

So while I am waiting and trying to decide what to make next in addition to the new pair of blue socks I have going for Johann already, I was thinking about my poor, neglected plants. I feel particularly badly about my culinary bay laurel plant.

When we first brought it home, it did well. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to water it. The other plants seemed to be handling my sporadic watering well enough. I thought the bay laurel was also. The leaves still looked green, but when I took a closer look, many of them had dried on the plant! I could still use them in cooking, but as for signs of life, well, there weren’t any.

I was upset my green thumb didn’t work this time. My neglect also caused a living thing to die, which is much worse. People laugh at me, but I feel badly about killing anything, although I admit, I’m not guiltless. I have smashed mosquitoes and those carpet beetles that ate my wool. But I will go out of my way to catch a critter, say a spider or a cricket, and carefully carry it outside and release it, rather than kill it. I didn’t even call the exterminator to get rid of the mice. I used peppermint oil, which is a scent they don’t like. They escaped to the basement, where they found the bird food and happily stayed for a short time, until the storms and flooding coupled with the sudden food shortage caused them to leave on their own.

At any rate, we decided to go back to the store soon and buy a new bay laurel plant, this time making sure to water more often. Eric raised the plant light for me, so the light would be more diffused. I started looking into what I would need to do to seal the terra cotta pot to help the new plant keep its moisture better.

This morning I went over to water the other plants. I had stopped watering the bay laurel, thinking it was dead. I had planned to save the leaves, toss the plant, and get to the plant nursery sometime this week. And there on the lower branches was new growth, beautiful, bright spring green leaves, sprouting in multiple places on the lower half of the bay laurel!

I pruned it as much as I dared and watered it thoroughly. Do you think the plant knew its fate if it didn’t give me a sign it was still alive? What I do know is that it never ceases to amaze me when life beats all the odds and keeps on going.

My sweater is almost done! Because I have a small blocking board, I had to lay out the cardigan pieces a few at a time, but I managed to get all five pieces blocked last week. This is when I hold my breath while I see if I did indeed keep to gauge enough for the pieces to be the correct measurements. I noticed one sleeve is ever so slightly tighter than the other, but the pieces blocked well.

I am grateful that I have the sewing experience that I do, so that the finishing work isn’t as painful. It can be difficult if you’ve never made any clothing before and don’t have a working knowledge of how garments are constructed. If I had the desire, I probably could make a good amount of money doing the finishing work for other people. Someone I know once tried to talk me into it for that very reason. I don’t think I could stomach it, though. My attitude is if you knit it, you should learn to make it up yourself. It’s part of the process.

I sewed the shoulder seams Monday morning. I got one sleeve in yesterday. Hopefully, I will be able to get the second sleeve sewn in tonight. Maybe by the end of the weekend I will have the cardigan completed. I hope so, because after how warm it was today, I may not have as long to wear my new sweater this season as I thought!

Once I reach the second sleeve on any sweater, no matter how much I love it, it is a dangerous time for the project. By then, I’ve done every other piece needed. The pattern has been memorized. The challenge is gone. The puzzle has been solved. I tend to ask out loud to no one in particular, “Why do sweaters need the second sleeve? I already knit one. Isn’t that enough?”

I had hit that lull in the project, but I also realized that I got sidetracked as well. This is nothing new. I tend to have multiple projects going at once. Sometimes that helps me be more creative and productive. If too many are going, however, it has the opposite effect, so there needs to be a careful balance to keep pushing me forward.

Five little projects created the diversion this time:

1. I taught a friend’s girl scout troop how to knit a while ago. Her daughter is one of my son’s friends. She didn’t want to make a purse, so we figured out another way to use her knitted square. She asked if we could make a dream pillow with it. A little over a week ago I sewed her pillow with the knitted square as the front and a scrap of her old jeans with a zipper closure as the back. I also made a separate zippered insert filled with buckwheat hulls. She can add lavender and other things as she chooses.
 2. I also sewed a small zippered pouch for Johann to keep his picks in. Now when he goes to practice his guitar, he can find them, a novel concept.

3. I finally finished the Jane Austen handbag I was working on over Christmas vacation. The top edging turned out a little tighter than I’d like, but overall, I’m pleased with it. Now I have a nicer way to carry knitting projects with me to Johann’s guitar lessons or wherever. Plastic shopping bags weren’t cutting it.

4. and 5. A college friend’s wife had her second child a few months ago. Babies don’t stop growing to make it easier for you to knit them a gift. The 3 — 6 month size jumper kit, which I bought for my now nearly 12-year-old son, that is still floating around my sewing area somewhere is proof of that. So I decided to hurry up and knit a teddy bear for the toddler big sister and a pair of baby socks for the new baby brother.

Note to self: do not knit socks when you are running a fever. You might forget to turn the heel and not realize it until you start to decrease for the toe. Now that the socks have been corrected, washed, and blocked, they are ready to be mailed with the teddy bear.

I also realized that in a state of sleep deprivation before I got sick, I forgot an important increase on one edge of the second sleeve of my cardigan. I found my mistake and fixed it, but not without having to rip out and re-knit 8 inches. It was painful, but will be worth it in the end. If the sleeve doesn’t fit right, what’s the point?

So now I’ve finished all those little projects that needed doing and I’m ready to block my cardigan pieces before the final finishing. If I can get it done this week, I will still have time to wear it this season!

One of my favorite quotes is an anonymous one: “When the world wearies and ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.” Nature provides an unlimited source of inspiration for me. Winter has its beauty just like every other season. There is nothing like the hushed silence hovering over freshly fallen snow sparkling in the early morning light or hoar frost covering the trees and bushes as if decorated with glittering fairy dust.

At this time of year, I always look for snow drops. They look sweet and delicate, yet are tough enough to endure freezing temperatures and snowfall. They are the first signs of renewed life in the growing season here. And they come at a time when I start to miss working in my garden and can’t wait for spring to sproing. Forcing bulbs indoors helps, but snow drops promise that even though winter isn’t over, spring will come soon. During especially hard winters, like a year ago, that is a great comfort.

When we first took our current apartment 5 years ago, snow drops were among the first bulbs Johann and I planted. We started with 6 pips. We noticed that more and more came up each year, but they have multiplied in a very special way. I counted 35 this year. They seem to be multiplying very closely to the Fibonacci sequence. It would be interesting to start with just one and see what happens. However, I wouldn’t want to have to wait 9 years to see if we’d end up with 34!

Now that the first of our bulbs have started to bloom, we are excitedly keeping an eye out for the crocus and noting how tall the daffodil leaves are. So much to look forward to!