Last week I discovered this new Moomin game, and the Snook and I are both obsessed with it now. It’s basically Farmville, BUT WITH MOOMINS. It’s on iOS and Android, and it’s free (though you can pay for extras). Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go brew up some lingonberry syrup so I can throw a party for the Hemulen.
PS. If you sign up and want to friend me, my code is HYMPJX.
We’re not done yet, but it definitely feels like the finish line is in sight. On Thursday the plumbers arrived to hook up the toilet, vanity, and shower. We still don’t have hot water, but at least it’s running now! A man also came by to measure up for our glass shower screen, so that’s being made this week. Then on Saturday our main contractor came back to install the new cornice as well as the remaining bits and pieces. Unfortunately we hit a snag with the medicine cabinet that’s meant to go over the toilet – it was built too big! They’ll have to make a new one. Hopefully by next week he’ll return to finish that off and hang the mirror over the vanity. (He wants to line it up with the top of the shower screen once that’s installed.)
On the plus side, we were at least able to move back into our bedroom. (We’ve been sleeping on the foldout IKEA couch in my office for the past four weeks.) We’d covered everything in our room with drop clothes and tarps, but there was still construction dust everywhere. We vacuumed and mopped; wiped down the dressers, bed head, and walls; and washed the curtains.
It still feels dusty.
BUT! On Friday we also got our new reverse cycle air conditioner hooked up. Bring it on, summer. 🙂
Feature photo courtesy of Steven Cooper
I spent last weekend in Springbook, Queensland at CampJS. This is a four-day conference for anyone interested in web technology held at the Koonjewarre Retreat Centre. My Canva colleague Damon was the organiser, and my other colleague Harley came along as well. On a whim, I’d pitched doing a workshop on “Knitting and E-textiles” a few months before and it turned out to be one of the most popular suggestions. I updated my “Granny Was a Hacker” talk and worked with Damon to order knitting supplies for everyone. Then I had the genius idea to knit a special beanie as my prototype for the workshop, and use a Gemma kit with LEDs (based on this Adafruit project) to add some blinky goodness. It was a big hit! I actually ran through the talk on both Saturday and Sunday. I probably had 20+ people at the workshop, and I kept seeing web developers (mostly men!) knitting for the rest of the event. The Camp itself was great, and I met a lot of fantastic people from across the country. Games were played, goon was drunk, and Wi-Fi was cursed. I highly recommend it.
The CampJS Beanie
I knitted the hat out of oddments of leftover 8ply Filatura di Crosa Zara. All up, it probably uses about 2 balls worth (with the majority in brown). You’ll also need some 4mm needles, as well as a blunt darning needle. I actually knitted it flat and sewed it up, but I’ve provided instructions for knitting it in the round too. I got the Gemma controller from Little Bird Electronics, along with some LEDs and a coin cell battery holder. (They also sell a “starter pack” with all this stuff plus some conductive thread and needles, if you don’t have any.)
Size: Medium / Large (I knitted the larger size, and it’s roomy for me.)
Requirements: 8ply wool in brown, dark green, light green, and blue; 4mm needles.
To knit flat:
Using 4mm needles, cast on 121 (133) stitches.
Row 1: K2, *P1, K1, rep from * to last st, K1.
Row 2: K1, *P1, K1, rep from * to end.
Repeat these rows until you have 35 (41) rows of ribbing in total.
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch.
Knit the graph in stocking stitch as shown, working the odd rows from right-to-left and the even rows from left-to-right. For the first two rows, I used the fairisle technique of carrying the wools along the back. I suggest you ignore the tree trunks and use duplicate stitch to embroider them afterwards. For the tops of the trees, I treated them as intarsia and knitted them in solid blocks of light green. Then I duplicate stitched the dark green accents on later. You can this in progress here.
Once you’re done with the graph, switch back to the brown wool and knit two rows of stocking stitch. (You should have the Right Side facing you.) Then begin your decreases:
Decrease row: K1, *K2tog, K1, rep from * to end
Knit 1 (3) rows stocking stitch
K1, *K2tog, K5, rep from * to end
Purl 1 row
K1, *K2tog, K4, rep from * to end
Purl 1 row…
Keep going like this (narrowing by one stitch between the decreases) until you have only 21 (23) stitches left. Then break off the wool leaving a long tail, thread it on your darning needle, and run it through the remaining stitches. Cinch it up tight.
To finish, sew the back seam. (You’ll need to reverse the seam where the brim folds up.) Weave in your ends. Attach your Gemma as shown on the Adafruit website, and load up the provided sketch. When you plug in your batteries and flip the switch, it’ll blink!
To knit in the round:
Using 4mm circular needle or DPNs, cast on 120 (132) stitches.
Ribbing: *K1, P1, rep from * to end.
Repeat this row until you have 35 (41) rows of ribbing in total.
Knit 4 rows.
Knit the graph in stocking stitch as shown, working all rows from right-to-left. For the first two rows, I used the fairisle technique of carrying the wools along the back. I suggest you ignore the tree trunks and use duplicate stitch to embroider them afterwards. For the tops of the trees, I treated them as intarsia and knitted them in solid blocks of light green. Then I duplicate stitched the dark green accents on later. You can this in progress here.
Once you’re done with the graph, switch back to the brown wool and knit two rows. Then begin your decreases:
Decrease row: *K2tog, K1, rep from * to end
Knit 1 (3) rows
*K2tog, K5, rep from * to end
Knit 1 row
*K2tog, K4, rep from * to end
Knit 1 row…
Keep going like this (narrowing by one stitch between the decreases) until you have only 21 (23) stitches left. Then break off the wool leaving a long tail, thread it on your darning needle, and run it through the remaining stitches. Cinch it up tight.
Weave in your ends. Attach your Gemma as shown on the Adafruit website, and load up the provided sketch. When you plug in your batteries and flip the switch, it’ll blink!
Most people say to cook with a wine you’d be willing to drink, but is that always true? We tested all kinds of wine, from cheap to expensive, light to big—and even flawed—to find out what matters and when.
Source: Should You Really Only Cook With Wine You’d Drink? The Truth About Cooking With Wine | Serious Eats
It’s been a while since I shared a bathroom renovation update! Happily, progress has been made. The plumbing and electrical rough-ins were completed, and then two guys spent a day re-rendering all the walls. The floor was then levelled and waterproofed. A small “nib wall” was built to create room for the toilet connection. AND THEN the glorious tile got applied, and suddenly it was a room again!
Not much further to go…
My dentist gave me a mouth guard last year because I started grinding my teeth in my sleep. (My job was stressful.) This morning, I somehow managed to lose it before breakfast. I remember waking up, feeding the cats, making toast, and reading the Internet. Tonight we ransacked the house looking for it. I even went through the trash can. After half an hour, I found it… in the butter drawer in the fridge.
I didn’t even have butter on my toast. What the hell.
Throwback Thursday: Susie the Deer | Charlie Chat – My sister excitedly sent me this link on Facebook recently. I was thrilled! Our grandparents lived in Butler, Indiana when we were little, so we knew the legend of Susie the Deer. We may have even seen her on occasion venturing out from the woods behind Grandma Veva’s house. I definitely remember there was a salt lick on an old tree stump in the backyard (and may have even tasted it myself – EW). My Aunt Deb commented on FB:
Fed Susie many many times. She had her whole head and shoulders in Mom’s new house on Ivy Lane. We even put out a salt block for her. She would never let her fawns out of the woods behind our house. She loved potato chips. We stopped class one day cause she was sticking her head up to the screen, so we opened it up and fed her cookies. She was up town often, traffic just moved slow around her. Fond memories of growing up with her.
Isn’t that lovely?
Ooh, excellent. The Sew Tessuti blog has posted two fantastic new tutorials about sewing invisible zippers: NEW Invisible Zipper Tutorial, and How to attach your invisible zipper to a facing like a BOSS! In the past I’ve mainly referred to Colette’s Invisible Zipper Tutorial, but this one looks to be a slightly different technique. I’ll give it a whirl next time!
And Then I Read: THE BLUE SWORD by Robin McKinley – A review by Todd Klein of one of my favourite books from middle school. I actually prefer the book’s “prequel” though – The Hero and the Crown. I remember getting inspired to write my own fantasy novel in high school and spending hours coming up with the characters, only to later realise they were all just copies of Aerin, Tor, Galanna, and the others from Damar.
Here we go again on another renovation adventure! It’s time to turn our old and busted ensuite bathroom into something more modern and less gross. As with the kitchen, we’re going with Harvey Norman Renovations to manage the whole project. We spent last night clearing out the bathroom and moving our bed into the guest room. Here are the before photos:
The big change is that we’re swapping the toilet and the shower. That way the shower can run parallel to the window and can be a little bigger. Then we’ll have a smaller vanity beside it (where the towel rack used to be). The walls will be tiled up to the ceiling with white rectangles, and the floor will be white hexagons with black grout.
The first task, of course, was to demolish the old bathroom. In three hours, five guys and a jackhammer took it down to the bare bricks. Now it looks like a prison cell! Here’s hoping the rest of the build goes smoothly…
(Yeah, they chipped the damn window. They’re already arranging to get it fixed…)
