This first one was a really quick knit I read about here the pattern is Schmatta and it’s so warm & toasty. I finished it off with some white mis-matched vintage buttons from my button bowl given to me by a dear friend (thanks Tracy!).

This is me goofing around trying to get a shot of me in the cowl but not very successfully!

I really need to wait til there is another photographer in the house besides the dog & lizard.

Next up: The Crofter’s Cowl, my first journey into lace – oooo, ahhhh. I know! wow, and my first chart – golly so much all at once, but it was for beginners and I highly recommend this pattern by Gudrun Johnston, easy peasy.

I’m just a bit disappointed that the color way of this Kitchensink Dyeworks yarn didn’t really show through, it’s brighter in person. I guess I’l have to promise more photos.

I did a bit of Valentine’s knitting for the Monkey’s too. They each received a heart knitted from a pattern as unique as themselves.

Crafter Monkey received the red heart the pattern from HERE. Quick and easy, I knitted two and stuffed it with extra yarn from the skein.

Wee Monkey received the purple heart the pattern from HERE. Another easy pattern, I made two and stuffed it.

Monkey Boy was thrilled with the multicolored green heart – (he should be, it was a much fussier pattern than I expected) but then he is worth it! You can find the pattern HERE.

As I created each of theses hearts the days and hours before St. Valentines Day it truly made me reflect on the individuality of each of my Monkeys and how each pattern and the yarn I chose really embodied their personalities so much.

It has not been an easy road, this chronic disease is part of a larger group of diseases known as the autoimmune diseases which encompass diseases like: diabetes type 1, celiac disease, and Graves disease.

Multiple Sclerosis affects each person differently. The one thing I have learned for certain after talking with many patients, their family members, doctors, PA’s, and nurses is that we each are unique in our symptoms and treatments. For instance, I have been suffering from migraines for almost two years now and in all that time I have not run across one person who has had similar symptoms. Yet, I can knit up a storm (the mobility of my hands is not affected).

In January I experienced my first flare up since diagnosis. This event had quite an impact on my health, my marriage, my children, and our lives. It is something none of us care to repeat, it has made us stronger and treasure good health even more.

This flare up has reminded me to take nothing for granted; to live life each day, hug your husband & children lots, eat consciously, get regular exercise (both mental & physical), practice yoga, take my medicine, and ask for help.

For more information on Multiple Sclerosis please check out these quality sources:

National MS Society

Multiple Sclerosis Association of America

Multiple Sclerosis International Federation

National Institute of Health information page on MS

We have been saving our yarn bits & pieces for the birds. I remember reading over the summer from either a wonderful blogger or a magazine article (so sorry I can’t cite it) about how the family would save up theirs and then come spring time stuff them in an inexpensive suet feeder hang them in a tree for the birds to pluck out to line their nests with. One of the Monkey’s suggested we weave some of the longer strands through pine cones to be hung up on the trees too (great idea if you don’t have a suet feeder).

Our neighborhood birds will have a great selection of colors and fibers to choose from this spring. I can’t wait to spy the nests.

This has been good news for the Mama who has been a bit behind on the Monkey sweater front. Cold nights and hot tea have been conducive for cuddling with Monkeys, wool, good books & movies.

Monkey Boy was a bit reluctant to try on his sweater in progress, due to knitting needles still attached and then because I reached for the only other thing I could think of to help hold the pieces in place = clothes pins! Hey, they worked!

His sweater pattern is based on this one but it is heavily modified. I started it in the round from the bottom up because I hate to seam! I’m using wool yarns I’ve picked up from some local fiber festivals over the past two years that are from regional farms that were giving me very close gauges AND of course were to Monkey Boy’s tastes. Green and stripes rank extremely high on his list of requirements.

Modeling for Mama to take measurements and pictures: Not so much!

No Monkeys were harmed in this photo shoot (they rewarded with chocolate!)

I have had time on my hands to finish a few UFO’s and catch up listening to my favorite podcast Never Not Knitting, Alana does such a great job that I was flabbergasted to listen to the fact that she may or may not be back after maternity leave (I really hope so – I love her style) check her out! As you can tell I started this post a bit ago but wanted to have more of a story to tell before I posted it:

The first thing I thought I learned when dyeing yarn was to test your yarn and dye with small samples. So of course I did this before attempting to dye nearly 900 yards of wool for a sweater project for me. I was looking for just the right green. Not too bright, not too olive, not too mossy, not to yellow-y, but the just right for me green. Yeah I know it when I’ll see it. My test samples came out wonderfully, I chose the shade I wanted and reproduced the dye recipe for the volume of water and wool.

It doesn't look any better in the day light! Ug!

So after a few tears were shed, I invested in some acid dyes and tried again….

Prepping the ugly with a good wash

I'm not foolin' around this time... scale, mask, gloves, measuring spoons.

Carefully monitoring with thermometer nobody likes pre-felted yarn!

Out of the dye pot and on to the laundry line.

I love how the color turned out, a rich chocolate-brown with navy undertones. Certainly not the green I had originally intended but a perfect color to go with the pattern I received for a gift from loneknitter: Idlewood designed by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. I have really been following Cecily’s designs and love everything that falls off her needles! If I only had the time to knit everything she’s been publishing. My Idlewood has been good therapy for me, a bigger project to just pick up and knit a few rounds when I’ve been healing mode.

After watching for almost a year, it was time to try on a mask, chest protector, glove, jacket and foil annnnd…… I loved it!!! I did keep going back and brought a partner (thanks Kristi). It is very mentally and physically challenging.  Much more different from the team sports I participated in high school and college (soccer & basketball). I get a great workout, it fills my competitive side, relieves stress (oh boy did I need this desperately in my life), has helped my coordination and balance (I’m not getting any younger), and I do believe is forging new mental pathways (this is especially good for me, again the not getting younger thing, and couldn’t we all use a new mental challenge?). And after all these benefits; I have been pacing myself against the Crafter Monkey with sit-ups, crunches, push-ups and now that we’re on break…  jumping jacks! I’ve sent packing twenty-one twenty-three pounds and don’t plan on ever wanting them back again! (I love that my skinny jeans have become my fat ones) It’s crazy but I really don’t feel like it’s hard to go or even like it’s exercise, I look forward to it, to the challenge, it’s something so foreign to myself and my muscles that I learn so much that it ends up being and education and workout all in one. Some of us Mom’s have commented at practice that we find ourselves lunging while doing laundry or advancing and retreating while putting dishes away, we laugh, but I secretly think the Coach thinks we’re nuts (hey we gotta work on our form in our own way)!

On the CM’s fencing anniversary – her one year anniversary of her introduction to the sport I had the opportunity to spar with my daughter. Now of course I do not have that much experience – only about six or so lessons versus whole year under her belt. She did not wipe the strip with me, I did give a bit of competition, nobody got hurt, we shook hands at the end, and I still gave her a ride home. But really all kidding aside…. it was so fun to fence her. I’ve watched her style develop over the months, so I kinda knew what to expect but she still had a few tricks up her sleeve and she is much faster than her ‘ole Mom… the bout ended 2-5 CM. Not bad for my first time, (I did score the first touch) I won’t let her live that one down – can you tell we had some verbal bantering going on beforehand? It was so great to see her get frustrated not only trying to figure out how I fenced but also because I fence left-handed, not because I am a lefty, but because my right hip was giving me trouble early on in practices, so I switched and now it’s much more comfortable. Although working with the left has put me at strength disadvantage it’s been a great way to balance out my body.

So now that you know what I’m doing in the New Year to stay fit and mentally challenged, What are you doing?  Are you looking for a new challenge? Join me!

We sit, we knit, we chat, we drink (caffeine or otherwise) we wish we had more time to do this more often, without crazy Monkeys niggling us for things like snacks, help with bathroom issues, zipping up jackets, refereeing, finding the green crayon, etc.

So I took the plunge last month and started a local area Fiber Lovers group! Yep! I invited everybody I could think of, plastered the town/county with fliers and was pleasantly surprised when sixteen women joined me at the local coffee shop to crochet, knit, quilt, spin, and chat! There are even a few weavers in the mix, but alas looms don’t generally transport very easily. I was thrilled with the warm response and am anxiously awaiting our future gatherings!

Our next gathering is Sunday, January 8th at 6:00pm at T.F. Brown’s restaurant in Batavia, NY! Join us!! Bring lots of fiber friends!

The same as with any tourney, there’s always plenty of down time between bouts too.

Time to hydrate, relax, and meet new fencers from far off places like the big city of Rochester!

But everyone wore their game faces when it came time to hit the strip…

But I know what you are really waiting for…. the SOCKS!!! So here they are.. but just a few pics…

And how could I forget the die-hard fans….

Monkey Boy was sooooo happy I brought him a Beast Quest book from work. I don't think he looked up until he finished it.

He was patient enough to wait for the rest of the matches to finish before completing the book though. He can really read when he puts his mind into it! This tournament was a bit different for me though because I did not take the day off for it, so I could only jet out from work on my lunch break to see a couple of bouts and then had to head back. But the club has installed a new scoring system that can upload the results online, so I got to see how Crafter Monkey was doing maybe not in real-time but just as helpful although I did keep hitting the refresh button A.lot. But you can just check out the results here & now on the club front page.

When I asked the CM what kind of fencing stuff for Christmas she wanted she answered, “I just want to fence more, so I can get better!”  So simple, so focused.

This is my Mom, together we worked (with the help of Dad) to make many stuffed perogies for our Christmas Eve (Wigilia) dinner.

Mixing and rolling out the pastry/pasta dough is extremely sensitive and important! Never try to roll out the whole batch at once.

Recipe for Dough:

6 cups flour

6 eggs

1 container of sour cream (not light sour cream folks – this is holiday fare!)

Measure flour into large mixing bowl and create a well into the middle, set aside. In another bowl, beat eggs and sour cream together until everything is smooth. Pour the egg & cream mixture into the flour well. Stir to incorporate all the egg mixture into the flour, do NOT over mix! Dough will be slightly sticky, turn out onto a floured surface and knead gently. Do NOT over knead. It will result in a tough chewy dough – not what we want!

See? It's really sticking to Mom's hands.

Now please don't ask how thick to roll out the dough, because I'm just gonna tell you to roll it out 'not too thick and not too thin'. Too thick and your perogies will be chewy-al dente all over, too thin and the filling will explode when you boil them.

Now for the fillings: our family prefers two choices = sauerkraut with mushrooms, and cheese. Mom cooked the sauerkraut with mushrooms  and mixed up the farmers cheese with ricotta the night before so we could just work on the process of rolling out, filling & boiling for one day.

I highly recommend refrigerating the sauerkraut overnight. It was easier to spoon onto the dough circles and seal up the little pouches of tastiness. That mixture can be quite greasy and little pieces of cabbage can inhibit the perfect seal.

It takes a very special tool to seal the perogies. Perhaps there's still time for you to ask for one for Christmas. It's called a 'fork'! Pretty new & unique! Go get yourself one if you don't have one yet - it's all the rage!

To seal a perogi properly: dip a finger in some water and rim half of the circle of dough, fold over dough with filling inside, press firmly, and then proceed to fork seal, then flip and fork seal the other side. After you have quite a few stuffed and sealed, bring a large pot of salted water to almost-boiling. If you put the perogies in a rolling boil you will most certainly cause the fragile pockets to burst!

Gently remove the perogies from the almost-boiling water after the dough has begun to cook. You really will be able to tell, they become more rigid. Run them under cool water, but be careful not to let the water stream burrow a hole in it. Once cooled and mostly dry, the perogies are ready for the freezer bags (our preferred method of stashing them so we won’t eat them all before Christmas Eve).

Of course there will always be a few that break or explode in the cooking process, so you will be forced to taste test along the way. Quality control is a good thing. There are many bonuses to making these: working with family, carrying on a Polish family tradition, learning the tradition, and sharing the tradition with my kids.

On Christmas Eve we cook the defrosted perogies up in a frying pan with some butter and olive oil along with chopped onions. Served along side monk fish, sweet rice, lazy perogi (unstuffed) and sauerkraut with split peas we pass around the traditional oplatki.

Me & Mom just starting out... many thanks to Dad the photographer, barista, and perogi boiler!

This is only half of the dining room table. I did marry an Italian, so unbeknownst to me when we first started really getting serious it really is ok to eat meat on Christmas Eve! I was so shocked my first CE dinner with Mr. Monkey (not yet my Mister) to see all sorts of pasta in red sauce, meat balls, bricihole and not a piece of seafood to be seen. So the other half of our dining room table is loaded with foods covered in red sauce! Have a blessed Christmas Eve.