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Knitting, writing and other joys

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Knitting, writing and other joys

Category Archives: Thoughts

Redirect, Redefine, Renew

24 Sunday Jul 2022

Posted by Katherine in Technology, Thoughts, Writing

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Tags

Knitting, technology

I can’t change the direction of the wind,
but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
[Jimmy Dean]

Malware infected my website and showed up as the dreaded, ”white screen of death.” My friend, Janet, redirected atimetoknit.com to this blog while I decide what to do about my site. I’ve had a site online for a quarter of a century and want to redefine my offerings. I still have hand-knitting patterns to share including new ones so I am renewing my efforts in that direction while still maintaining a general topic blog.

Knitting

With the help of my friend, Lynne, we are making progress toward publishing another Great Lakes Chill Chaser pattern. This one is, ”Niagara Shawls.” The lace shawl in the photo above is one version. We are trying to make this pattern easy to follow, but flexible enough that knitters can choose how use garter or lace repeats to personalize their project. We are getting there.

Writing & Other Joys

Recently, most of my writing has involved revising patterns and recovering text from my ailing website. I accomplish most when I make written lists. Not only do lists help me prioritize tasks, but they encourage me and keep me on point.

My main joy since my 79th birthday last November has been enjoying my 80th year. Each morning, my little buddy, Louie, and I go on a gratitude walk. I find that sets a positive tone for the day and keeps us agile. I’ve started going through the address book on my computer and writing at least one real letter a day to old friends. I’m exploring handwork skills that have fascinated me for years. I’m teaching myself new computer skills. I’m learning a lot of things that make me wonder how I didn’t learn it sooner. I’m realizing the effectiveness of Anne Lamott’s advice:

Almost everything will work again
if you unplug it for a few minutes,
including you.

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Hoosier Hood

15 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by Katherine in Knitting, Pattern, Thoughts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

free knitting pattern, Knitting

O, it sets my heart a clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
when the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
[James Whitcomb Riley] 

Hoosier HoodIt was 6 AM and my ears were cold. I was on my morning walk with my buddy, Louie, and I just wanted to get home where I could warm up. As we walked, I dreamed of a hat that I could quickly knit in one piece out of one 200-yard ball of yarn. When we got home, Louie got a treat and I knit the Hoosier Hood.

Here is the pattern (select the following link to download the PDF file): Hoosier Hood. I hope you enjoy it as much as my warm ears have.

Note: James Whitcomb Riley was a poet who wrote in hoosier dialect. Most of his poems appealed to children and the children’s hospital was named to honor him.

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Buffalo Plaid Christmas Stocking

08 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by Katherine in Free Pattern, Knitting, Thoughts

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Christmas stocking, free pattern, Knitting

When we were children
we were grateful
to those who filled our stockings
at Christmas time.
Why are we not grateful to God
for filling our stockings with legs?

[G.K. Chesterton]

Buffalo Check Stocking

Knitting

Last summer, I wrote a brief article for the Call of the Wool, the Dayton Knitting Guild newsletter. It was about the Christmas stocking tradition among the knitters in my family and included this new pattern as a ‘thank you’ for the encouragement and support I’ve received from the members of the guild. Here it is for you, my much appreciated blog readers, at no charge. Download a printable PDF by selecting this link.

Writing

While I knit, I listen to audio books. Some are checked out of our local library using the Libby app, and some are purchased. About a third of them are non-fiction history books—mostly about the American Civil War and World War One. Code Breakers are an interest of mine. I enjoy the books of specific historical writers such as David McCullough, Barbara Tuchman, Shelby Foote, and James McPherson.

I often listen again to a number of fiction books—especially if a favorite author is about to publish a new book in a series. I recently re-listened to Jacqueline Winspear’s Masie Dobbs series.

Other Joys

My furry buddy, Louie, and I walk every morning at six. Now that it is dark and chilly, I carry a flash light in my pocket. Lately, Christmas lights brighten our December walks and make it a happy exercise.

Another joy is having my grandson arrive every morning for school in my sunroom. He connects with his classes by WiFi on a laptop loaned to him by the school. I feed him breakfast, and serve him hot tea. PE has been reduced to exercises but I don’t think this will set him back. I wish I could have attended seventh grade in my grandma’s sunroom.

Other Free Christmas Patterns

  • Three Pines Christmas Stocking
  • Argyle Christmas Stocking
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Alternatives

30 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by Katherine in Review, Technology, Thoughts

≈ 5 Comments

People are very open-minded about new things
as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.
[Charles Kettering]

Logo_lineup

My first computer was a TRS-80 in 1982. It used my TV as a monitor and an audio cassette recorder to save files. Its memory was 4K. Instead of software, it came with a manual about how to program basic. In ’85 when I traded my nurse’s cap for a triangle and T-square, I only used a computer for word processing. By 1990, I was doing graphic design on a tiny Mac screen using Quark XPress and Freehand. Photos were processed and stripped in at the printers.

As output devices improved and finally reached industry standard for print media, I added Photoshop and Illustrator to my computer tools. Shortly after 2000, Quark hit a period where the software wasn’t as adaptable to printing as Adobe Indesign so I changed to Adobe Creative Suite and have used it ever since. When Adobe went to a cloud subscription arrangement, I stayed with my last purchased upgrade (6.0).

Since then, I’ve started a search for replacement software just in case the time comes when I can’t get the old Adobe software to work. The criteria for my search includes the following items as essential:

  • Be able to open and edit old files that were created in other software
  • Usable on both my iPad and Mac
  • Designed to work simply—low learning curve

Eureka! I’m so excited about the new software I found.

Concepts (by TopHatch)

I rely heavily on Illustrator for the vector art I design. Concepts is an app for the iPad (and other tablets). It has already expanded my horizons in illustration. Here is what the company says on their Website:

Concepts for iOS is a vector-based sketching tool with an infinite, whiteboard-like canvas for note takers, visual thinkers, architects, designers and illustrators. The app’s clean, customizable interface, flexible vector lines, and beautiful brushes in Copic colors encourage people to explore, create and share ideas on their iPad Pro, iPad and iPhone. Creators can sketch notes, plans and drawings in the moment, bridge their work across apps and workflows, and present and share with others wherever they go.

Cost: Download is free. In-App purchases for some features are under $20.00

Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher

I’ve been using these three pieces of software on my Mac, plus Photo and Designer on my iPad for two months. They do everything I’ve ever dreamed. Affinity Photo is comparable to Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Designer is comparable to Adobe Illustrator, and Affinity Publisher is an elegant alternative to Adobe Indesign. Check out their Website (especially the price — under $50.00 each)

NOTE: I have no business or personal connection with these companies.
I simply enjoy using their software.

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Cryptology

17 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by Katherine in Favorite Things, History, Technology, Thoughts, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

If you reveal your secrets to the wind,
you should not blame the wind for
revealing them to the trees.
Kahlil Gibran

When my sister and I were little, we tried to teach ourselves hand signs for the alphabet with an eye toward secretly communicating with each other. She can still remember a couple of words. Later, I taught myself Braille but never mastered the ability to read the characters by touch. Still later I studied the Cherokee syllabary with fascination. Symbols substitute for each of the syllables in the Cherokee language. I’ve extended my interest in codes and cyphers to my current reading list. Here are three books that I’ve enjoyed the most. (Note: I actually listen to these as audio books since I am a knitter and I listen while I knit.)

The Zimmerman Telegram

The Zimmerman TelegramBy Barbara W. Tuchman
I’ve read and listened to this book several times. It amazes me and it’s author is one of my favorites. Here is an excerpt from the publisher’s summary:

In the dark winter of 1917, as World War I was deadlocked, Britain knew that Europe could be saved only if the United States joined the war. But President Wilson remained unshakable in his neutrality. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel America into the war came into a quiet British office. One of countless messages intercepted by the crack team of British decoders, the Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message from Berlin inviting Mexico to join Japan in an invasion of the United States. Mexico would recover her lost American territories while keeping the U.S. occupied on her side of the Atlantic.

How Britain managed to inform America of Germany’s plan without revealing that the German codes had been broken makes for an incredible, true story of espionage, intrigue, and international politics, as only Barbara W. Tuchman could tell it.

The Woman Who Smashed Codes

The Woman Who Smashed CodesBy Jason Fagone
The subtitle is A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America’s Enemies. The woman at the center of the story grew up close to where I live—she was a farm girl who went to college when most women didn’t. Her story is charming and amazing. The Zimmerman telegram is mentioned in this story. The publisher’s summary states:

In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told.

In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation’s history for 40 years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizabeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler’s Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma – and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life.

Code Girls

Code GirlsBy Liza Mundy
The subtitle is The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. This book mentions both William and Elizabeth Friedman. Of interest to me was the discussion of the Navy WAVES who helped construct the bombes (machines used to decrypt messages) at National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio. Also, since my aunt was a Navy WAVE cartographer during World War II in Washington DC and I was a Navy nurse 20 years later,  I was fascinated by the personal descriptions of life and working conditions. The publisher’s summary adds:

Recruited by the US Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than 10,000 women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of codebreaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, best-selling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

Next, I plan to read Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures.

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30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by Katherine in Thoughts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

attitude, photography, prayer, St. Francis

Photographer, Jim Miller

Photographer, Jim Miller

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek to be consoled
as to console;

to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
[The prayer of St.Francis]

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Thank you, Mr. President

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Katherine in Thoughts

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

gratitude, Independence Day, President Obama

[Two hundred forty years ago], our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all [people] are created equal.
Abraham Lincoln (edited in brackets)

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for serving us these eight years. Thank you for maintaining your dignity and thereby our national dignity in the face of severe conflict, for exercising restraint, for forging ahead against the odds, and for setting the highest example of American citizenship. You are a man of true courage. On this Independence Day, folks like you make me proud to be an American.

With Gratitude,
Katherine

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Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

11 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by Katherine in Favorite Things, Reading, Thoughts, Writing

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

book review, knitting design, reading, writing

Emotional truths can sometimes
be conveyed more effectively,
more compellingly, through fiction.
[Diana Ossana]

Journey to MunichI’m a reader. I read volumes of non-fiction—history and wars in which the United States has participated. But mostly, I read fiction. Mysteries are my favorite.

Jacqueline Winspear, one of my favorite authors, developed a character, Maisie Dobbs, who weathers hardships and tragedies by using life events as learning experiences. For me, the books about Maisie are examples of how truth can be effectively represented in fiction. It is like the difference between illustration and photography. Scientific illustrators tell us that illustration can often represent a specimen more accurately than a photo would.

Ms Winspear’s website includes the following about her most recent Maisie Dobbs novel (which I thoroughly enjoyed):

Journey to Munich
12th Maisie Dobbs Novel

Traveling into the heart of Nazi Germany, Maisie encounters unexpected dangers—and finds herself questioning whether it’s time to return to the work she loved. But the Secret Service may have other ideas.

VestsI am a writer. I mainly do technical writing and have been working on my knitting pattern collections. The image at the left shows six of more than a dozen vest patterns I am working on. The one on the dress form is the latest and was knit using silk and marino yarn that my daughter spun. I am also immersed in producing patterns for a textured knitting collection that I call Great Lakes Chill Chasers.

The greatest challenge for me in writing patterns is assuring accuracy. I have over seventy designs for which I could produce patterns, but assuring accuracy slows me down … which brings me to my last point.

Calculator I am not so good with arithmetic. There is a lot of calculating involved in writing patterns in different sizes. The best helper I’ve found is a calculator app for my iPad.

MyScript© Calculator is magic for sure. It was free! How does Vision Objects© do that? Also it works well and is fun to use. Write numerals and function symbols (+, -, =, etc.) with a finger on a touchscreen and then watch your writing change into real equations with the correct answer. It even charmed my five-year old grandson. When I used it in a knitting class to help people figure their stitches and rows from their gauge, it was fast and accurate. Some students even downloaded the app for their smart phones during class.

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Love Renews

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by Katherine in Favorite Things, Thoughts, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Easter gifts, hand-spun yarn, renewal

The spiritual meaning of love is measured by what it can do.
Love is meant to heal.
Love is meant to renew.
Love is meant to bring us closer to God.

[Author Unknown]

Easter 2016
I celebrate the gift of Easter. Other folks celebrate different days of commemoration. I celebrate each person’s right to celebrate what ever renews the spirit in love.

Each day enriches my life and yesterday was especially enriching. My daughter sent me a box of delightful gifts among which was the skein of yarn in the photo. She spun the yarn using a blend of marino wool and silk. It is delicious and is like a magnet to my hands and a pair of knitting needles. The bouquet in the watering can was a gift from my sister, also one of a cluster of gifts from her. My heart is full of gratitude. My spirit is renewed.

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Civility

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Katherine in Thoughts, Writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

civility, elections, Pier Massimo Forni

All the great things are simple,
and many can be expressed in a single word:
freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
[Winston Churchill]

I try to avoid controversial topics on my blog, but I feel compelled to digress for this post. I study a lot of history and have noticed that people do not behave any better nor any worse now than they ever did. All nations have blots of bad behavior on their historical record. Also, there seem to be very few incisive thinkers in this world—many folks run their mouths without engaging their brains.

In the USA, we have been besieged by political campaigns for too many months. Very little of what has been said is accurate, true, or useful. Most of it has been a smoke screen to cover the fact that these politicians have no idea how to address the real problems in this country or the world. The whole experience has been generally ugly, abusive and useless. Some have behaved in such a horrid manner that I am appalled anyone would support them.

There are many primary elections across our country today. I ask my fellow citizens to remember their responsibility to support and serve our constitution to the end that all people can know freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. I ask for civility.

Civility means a great deal more than just being nice to one another. It is complex and encompasses learning how to connect successfully and live well with others, developing thoughtfulness, and fostering effective self-expression and communication. Civility includes courtesy, politeness, mutual respect, fairness, good manners, as well as a matter of good health.– Pier Massimo Forni, Civility Project at Johns Hopkins University

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