Knitting -- jumper/pullover -- increases

So if you're starting a sleeve with a 64 stitch cuff, and you need it to be 100 stitches above the elbow,
you have to add stitches.
There are at least 2 ways to do this, one very easy and one more complicated.
The easy way is to basically cast on a new stitch.
Loop the yarn around your thumb and catch it onto the needle.


The other way, which I usually use, is more complicated but it seems easier to knit on the next round.
YMMV
Knit the stitch but don't pull it off onto the other needle.
Instead, you knit into the other side of the same stitch.
Let me explain that.
When you normally knit a stitch, you run the needle from front to back into the side of the stitch facing you.
You loop the yarn around and pull it through.
There is another side to that stitch and it's on the inside of the knitwork.
To increase, you now insert the needle from front to back in that side of the stitch.
You loop the yarn around and pull it through.
Now you pull the old stitch off the left-hand needle and you have two stitches on the right-hand needle.

So now knit the row above the cuff.  Increase one stitch at the start end.
Knit 15 stitches.
Increase one.
Repeat this.
Knit to the end and increase one.
You will have +4 of however many stitches you made in the cuff.
You will only increase at the ends of the rows from now on.

You can also increase in purl but I won't make you do that.

With a 64-stitch cuff, and a 68-stitch first row, you have to add 32 more stitches, 2 at a time.
Your elbow will be about row 70 of a 145 row sleeve and you need 100 stitches there.
You have to increase on 16 rows of the 70.
So do increases at the ends of every other KNIT row.
You will purl the row after the one where you added the 4 stitches, and knit the next row.
It is called STOCKINETTE STITCH when you knit one row and purl the next.
You will knit a row, purl a row,
AND THEN INCREASE AT THE ENDS of the next row,
which is row 5.
You will also increase at rows 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45,  49, 53, 57, 61, and 67.
Then work without increases until you do row 145.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Numbers 6:1-9

Your assignment was to read Numbers 6:1-9.

This is the famous nazir vow. 

The Lord spoke to Moshe saying,

Speak to the children of Israel and tell them any man or woman who takes on a vow, the vow of a nazir, to separate themselves to the Lord, shall swear off wine and strong drink, wine that is made with yeast and strong drink that is made with yeast shall not be drunk nor shall any drink made from grapes, and fresh or dried grapes shall not be eaten.

All the days of the nazir vow, anything made from grapes or the vine, whether winter grapes or pulp, shall not be eaten.

All the days of the nazir vow no razor shall come on his head until the days of the nazir vow to the Lord be past, what grows on his head as hair shall be holy.

All the days of the nazir vow to the Lord he shall not come in to a dead person,

whether his father or mother or brother or sister, he shall not render himself tameh for them if they die because the nazir vow to his Gd is upon him.

All the days of the nazir vow he is holy to the Lord.

If anybody die near him by accident and the head of his nazir vow becomes tameh, his head shall be shaved on the day that he becomes tahor -- on the seventh day he shall be shaved.

On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest to the door of the tent of witness.

This is not a vow to stop somebody from drinking.  You can make a neder performance oath for that.  This vow prohibits all grape products, including use of the vines and leaves.  It also requires the person who made the vow to stay away from dead bodies.

The rabbis later codified specifically that whoever makes a nazir vow has to observe all the conditions.  He or she cannot make the vow and then ask to be allowed to eat grapes while still abstaining from wine. 

The nazir vow says something important about the Jewish legal system which once again shows that it parallels other legal systems. That's for next week.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:30

Genesis 1:30

 

ל וּלְכָל־חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ וּלְכָל־עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּלְכֹל רוֹמֵשׂ עַל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה אֶת־כָּל־יֶרֶק עֵשֶׂב לְאָכְלָה וַיְהִי־כֵן:

 

Transliteration: U-l’khal chayat ha-arets u-l’khal of ha-shamaim u-l’khol romes al-ha-arets asher-bo nefesh chayah et-kal-yereq exev l’akhlah va-y’hi-khen.

Translation:    And to all wild animals of the land and every flyer of the sky and every creeper on the earth that has a living soul, every green herb for food, and it was so.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

יֶרֶק

Green (n)

 

I’m going to give you all of the verb hayah now even though it was in the last lesson.  Notice that this verb has three of the special letters so of course it won’t look like anything else you’ve seen.

 

Present of hayah almost never appears in a sentence.  The masculine singular, hoveh, הוֹוֶה almost always simply means reality, what exists, what people usually do. 

 

Past

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
הָיִיתִי	הָיִינוּ	First
הָיִיתָ	הֱיִיתֶם	Second/masculine
הָיִיתּ	הֱייתֶן	Second/feminine
הָיָה	הָיוּ	Third/masculine
הָיְתָה	הָיוּ	Third/feminine

 

Future/Aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶהְיֶה	נִהְיֶה	First
תִּהְיֶה	תִּהְיוּ	Second/masculine
תִּהְיִי	תִּהְיֶינָה	Second/feminine
יִהְיֶה	יִהְיוּ	Third/masculine
תִּהְיֶה	תִּהְיֶינָה	Third/feminine

 

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- changes

As I type this, it's dark.

The sun has risen but it's cloudy.

Flicker jee, my catbird, is out mewing in the pokeweed.

The lady cardinal is chipping around in our backyard quad.

Her husband is recovering his crest; he recently molted it.

When things brighten up, the wrens will start up.

The chickadees are out settling their winter turf, no doubt expecting me to put out food again this winter.

Which I will.

The robin clucks once in a while.

The mockingbirds are still living in my holly tree but their chicks are grown so dad doesn't feel like he has anything to sing about.

And the crickets are all singing loudly.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Knitting -- jumper/pullover sleeve length

OK now that you, like my friend, are done laughing about my description of how to get the cuffs the right width, here's something else you can laugh at.

How many times have you wished your sweater sleeves were longer or shorter?

Let's make custom length sleeves on this sweater.

I usually do 145 rows from cuff to armpits but YMMV.

So measure your underarm from pit to wrist.

The number of rows you make will be 6.5 times those inches because we're using Cotton Fine or something like that.

To make sure, look at the wrapper on the skein; somewhere it will say "stitches per inch."

This is important because you need to increase the size of the sleeve you knit from wrist to armpit or it will be too tight on your upper arm.

I usually go from 52 stitches at the wrist to 100 stitches  above the elbow.

That means my sleeve winds up being a little more than 17 inches around above the elbow.

Do your measurements, make your cuff, and next week I'll talk about how you do those increases.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Hey you guys!

Yeah, you guys, the ones reading my Beilis stuff.
You're not leaving any comments.
Don't hold back!
If you find mistakes and inconsistencies, email me or tweet me as to where you're posting your comments.
'Cause if you are finding this stuff, obviously I need all the help I can get.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

DIY -- it's so clean!

OK you will NEVER get into this situation because you are a much better housekeeper than I am.
But last week, I got my baking soda out of the fridge (you do have baking soda in the fridge to absorb odors, don't you?).
I mixed up two cups of thyme disinfectant.
I spent 15 minutes scrubbing one counter.
It's right next to the stove; everything splashes on it.
Because I'm so terrible at cleaning (there are always more interesting things to do),
this counter was a horrible mess.
So I used some elbow grease and the baking soda, a terrific no-scratch scrubber.
For the worst parts, I did break down and use a steel wool soap pad.
And I got the last little shreds off with the old fingernail-scrape technique.
Then I wiped with the thyme tea, and took the rest upstairs to disinfect the toilet.
I came back down and wiped the counter, getting off all the baking soda grit and the film of salts left by the castile soap in the disinfectant.
It  is all odor-free now, disinfected, de-grimed, and I can keep up with it regularly from now on.
Ay, there's the rub.
That's fifteen minutes you will never have to spend because you keep after your cleaning better than I do.
You will spend 15 minutes on two counters five times the size of what I scrubbed.
You'll use half as much baking soda and thyme tea as I did and still have leftovers for the toilet.
And you won't wind up with a chlorine smell, and you won't breed superbugs.
What's not to like?
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- step away from the hedge shears

Death can result from pruning trees and shrubs at the wrong time.
In 2014, all over the DC region, owners of fig trees realized their trees were dead.
Why?
Because they pruned in late autumn of 2013.
This would have been dangerous any year, but it was followed by one of the worst winters ever.
And the fig trees died.
My neighbor didn't prune his and it survived and has leafed back out.
Lesson: don't trim in autumn.

In an absolutely horrible incident, a woman was stung to death by hornets when she pruned her azalea in August.
Those of us who are allergic to stings don't prune at any time, but we could prune safely if we did it at the right time.
Shrubs and hedges should only be pruned in January and early February, no later than the end of March.
Not only are all the insects still asleep, but the birds haven't started nesting yet.
So you get a two-fer.
You don't have to worry about death from a sting allergy.
You don't disturb nesting birds.

I have a testimonial on this.  Normally I would trim my privet hedge all summer.
The only reason I had to prune again and again in the summer was, it was the wrong time to prune.
In 2014 I had every intention of pruning in January.
I couldn't.  There was too much snow.
I pruned in March.
I haven't had to prune at all this summer.
I've learned my lesson.  My back hedge is in desperate need of shortening, BUT I will do it in the winter.
Especially as my cricket count suggests a mild winter.

You are ruining your landscaping and forcing yourself to work more than you have to, or paying your yard workers more than you have to, by doing your pruning at the wrong time.
STOP THAT.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Leviticus 7 and 27

Your assignment was to Leviticus 7:16-18 and 27:1-28 for more talk about vows

If his qorban was a vow or a freewill sacrifice on the day he brings his sacrifice he shall eat it and the next day he may eat the rest of it.

The rest of the meat of the sacrifice shall be burned in fire on the third day.

If he definitely eats some of the meat of the sacrifice of his peace offering on the third day, it shall nullify the acceptability for the one who offered it, it shall not be accounted to him, it shall be pigul and whoever eats of it shall bear his sin.

And the second part starts:

The Lord spoke to Moshe saying

Speak to the Israelites and say to them any man who takes on himself a vow against your evaluation of souls for the Lord,

Your value for a male of 20 to 60 years old shall be 50 sheqels of silver according to the sheqel of the sanctuary.

This is where I explain that “pay” thing.  Free speech in Judaism included vowing to give things to Gd.  The “vow” in the first part was a nedavah or a neder.  The person making the vow could eat some of the freewill sacrifice. 

As a sacrifice, the freewill became holy and it had to be treated as such.  There are other verses covering how fast a peace offering or a festival offering had to be eaten.  A person who didn’t obey these laws was subject to kares, dying after seeing all his descendants die first, unless there were witnesses (yadda yadda) and then he was subject to flogging.  Since the sacrifice is nullified retroactively, does the person who made the vow have to bring a new payment?  In the case of kares, I would say not.  There were no witnesses to fulfill the burden of proof.  In the case of witnesses, I suspect that they only acted on behalf of the flogging for pigul.  I believe it would take a different set of witnesses to make him replace the freewill offering, before a court of 3, because that’s a property issue – but I don’t have any support for that.

The second part is about something called arachin.  Any Jew could vow money to the temple.  When he vowed the value of a person, including himself, the amount was fixed by Torah.

I want you to notice that the values for females were less than the values for males.  At first glance, to us, this seems to be a devaluation of females.  But remember previous discussions about the naarah and her vows.  Who pays the arachin that she vows, if they are not annulled?  Her husband, or her father.  The lower values on females assumes that the money comes out of the pockets of some man in her life.  The exception is if she is a widow or divorcee with her ketubbah paid out.  That money can only stand up to so much in the way of paying arachin and setting a lower value on her means she won’t impoverish herself unless she’s a total idiot.

I need to stress that arachin is money, not services to some value.  You cannot get services from somebody who is one month to five years old inclusive, not even to a value of 3 to 5 sheqels. 

What’s more, arachin is not property.  People can vow moveable goods to the temple; this is called heqdesh.  They can also make their houses or their fields heqdesh.  But in these two cases, the priests auction off the house or field, and hopefully the owner will make high bid.  Then the owner (but no other winning bidder) also gives “the added fifth” so that the temple actually gets 125% of the value.

For next week, read Numbers 6:1-9.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:29

Genesis 1:29

 

כט וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים הִנֵּה נָתַתִּי לָכֶם אֶת־כָּל־עֵשֶׂב זֹרֵעַ זֶרַע אֲשֶׁר עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ וְאֶת־כָּל־הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ פְרִי־עֵץ זֹרֵעַ זָרַע לָכֶם יִהְיֶה לְאָכְלָה:

 

Transliteration: Va-yomer elohim hineh natati lakhem et-kal-esev zoreai zera asher al-p’ney khal-ha-arets v-et-kal-ha-ets asher-bo fri-ets zorea zara lakhem yihyeh l’akhlah.

Translation:     Gd said behold I have given you all seed-bearing grass that is on the surface of the whole eart and every tree that has fruit tree on it bearing seed, it shall be yours for food.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

הִנֵּה	Behold
נָתַתִּי	I have given, set, placed
אָכְלָה	food

 

I’m going to give you all of the verb natan now because it’s a very common verb.  Notice the disappearing nun at the start of the future/aorist.

 

Present

Singular	Plural	Gender
נוֹתֵן	נוֹתנִים	Masculine
נוֹתֶנֶת	נוֹתְנוֹת	Feminine

 

Past

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
נָתַתִּי	נָתַנּוּ	First
נָתַתָּ	נְתַתֶּם	Second/masculine
נָתַתְּ	נְתַתֶּן	Second/feminine
נָתַן	נָתְנוּ	Third/masculine
נָתְנָה	נָתְנוּ	Third/feminine

 

Future/Aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶתֵּן	ניּתֵּן	First
תִּיתֵּן	תִּיתְּנוּ	Second/masculine
תִּיתְּנִי	תִּיתֵּנָּה	Second/feminine
יִיתֵּן	יִיתְּנוּ	Third/masculine
תִּיתֵּן	תִּיתֵּנָּה	Third/feminine

 

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- morning glories

When I painted my fence last month, some of it fell on the sprouting morning glories.
The paint fell.
Anyway, not only did the morning glories survive the paint, they are now blooming.
Twining over the fence and around the seeding mustard plants.
Trailing among the carrots.
Attracting hummingbirds.
I saw a female ruby-throated hummingbird the other day.
She is pale green and at first you'll think she is a large dragon fly, but she flies differently.
She was probably flying from my morning glories, which were just closing for the day,
to the Rose of Sharon in my neighbor's yard which was at its fullest bloom.
So August is full of strong colors, the deep magenta of the morning glories,
the bright saffron-to-orange of the tickseed, which attracts bees,
the white or pink or red of Rose of Sharon and crepe myrtle,
the orange red of zinnias and the blue of chicory where the goldfinches feed.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Outdoors -- the sparrows of August

The sparrows are flocking!
I looked out my front door, which has a large window,
And there were 50-60 sparrows flocking on the wires.
Power lines, cable lines, FiOS lines, anything would do
As long as the sparrows could feel a little secure on them.
Another August event!
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Money where your mouth is time

For all those who believe in the recent review of studies saying organic is better,
It's time to put your money where your mouth is.
There's this 2000 acre estate for sale in Virginia and they want $70 million for it.
It's time to crowd fund purchasing that estate and breeding draft horses on it
and housing them in the stables where the old owners bred useless race horses.
There are 20 residences.
Each one should become the center for an organic farm.
It should be possible to produce everything that will grow in environmental zone 6.
There are also greenhouses.
Those can be used to produce seedlings for planting the next spring.
Otherwise the place is going to get chopped up by houses and roads and turned into an environmental nightmare like the rest of the area.
It could be run like one farm in my region; everybody who owns a share in it gets to pick their own.
Everybody else has to buy from the roadside stands or however else they sell their produce.
But it's going to take a firm hand to make sure all 20 tenants use only organic means.
Well?  Have you got what it takes?
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Is that all there is?

My hand held mixer, which was over 25 years old, has broken.
My mini-chopper isn't large enough for processing reasonable amounts of vegetables.
So I'm looking for a multi-function food processor.
This is what I get from the reviews on Amazon.

Cuisinart.  Customer service stinks.  Product quality has gone downhill. 

Hamilton Beach.  Buy hearing protectors.

KitchenAid.  Not powerful enough.

Ninja.  Breaks in 4 months of only making smoothies.

Omega.  Under-powered but expensive.

All others only available from overseas to in-country customers.

If you have something else to recommend, let me know.

I'd like something like 9-11 cups with a chute at least the width of the average salad cucumber and NOT CURVED.
It should have 400 watts of power or more without sounding like a plane taking off.
It should have multiple speeds.
It should be able to chop, slice, whip, and also mix cake batter.
It should not reduce things to pulp until I tell it to.
It should close tightly enough so that liquid doesn't spurt out from under the lid.
It should be easy to clean; most of the ones above are poorly made with crevices and flanges that food gets under and you can't reach it.

Shame on the companies above, who have been in the kitchen appliance business for decades and don't know how to make a good product.
Shame on the newbies who haven't learned from the mistakes of their elders.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- more Numbers neders

Your assignment was to read Numbers 30:3-16 carefully.

A woman who makes a neder to the Lord and prohibits something to herself in the house of her father when she is a naarah

And her father hears her neder and the prohibition she places on herself and holds his tongue toward her, all her neders are established and all her prohibitions that she placed on herself shall be established.

If her father dissuades her on the day that he hears any of her neders or prohibitions that she placed on herself, it shall not be established and the Lord will pardon her for her father dissuaded her.

If she is already married and has neders on her or a statement of her own mouth that she prohibited to herself.

And her husband hears, on the day that he heard and holds his tongue, her neders and prohibitions are established that she placed on herself.

If on the day of her husband hearing he dissuaded her and annulled her neder that was on her and what she spoke with her mouth that she prohibited herself, the Lord shall pardon her.

The neder of a widow or divorcee all that she prohibited herself is established.

If she made a neder in the house of her husband or prohibited something to herself with an oath

And her husband heard and held his peace toward her and didn’t prohibit her, all her neders and prohibitions that she placed on herself shall stand.

If her husband absolutely annulled them on the day he heard what came out of her mouth for her neders or prohibitions on herself, they shall not stand, her husband annulled them and the Lord will pardon her.

Every neder and oath of prohibition to oppress the soul her husband may establish it or annul it.

But if her husband actually held his peace toward her for twenty-four hours, all her neders or prohibitions that she places on herself are established, he established them because he held his peace toward her on the day he heard.

If he definitely annulled them after he heard them, he shall bear her sin.

These are the laws that the Lord commanded Moshe between a man and his wife, a father and his daughter when she is a naarah in the house of her father.

 

Now let’s look at a seeming contradiction.  I said that the husband or father had to annul the vow “on the day he heard it.”  But one of the verses above says “for twenty-four hours.”  The Hebrew for this phrase is me-et le-et, from one point in time to that same point in time, 24 hours later.

Why isn’t this a contradiction?  Because as already discussed, “day” can be ambiguous.  Mishnah established what it meant for purchases, but Torah established what it meant for the vows of a naarah.  It means 24 hours.  The husband may be out in the fields and not come home until dark.  He didn’t have a chance to find out about the oath.  But if he is given 24 hours, then the naarah can’t play tricks on him by only making vows while he is in the field and trusting to the onset of dark to prevent him from annulling them.

The other issue is that it says he has to hear it, but it doesn’t say he has to hear it from her.  So anybody in the house who hears her say it can tell the husband and he can annul it. 

 

Again, people make stupid vows, and there’s no reason for a husband to put up with all the stupid things his child bride might vow just because she tries to outwit him.

For next week, read Leviticus 7:16-18 and 27:1-28 and we’ll talk about more vows.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Another thank you

And some more truth.
Today the pageviews on this blog reached 5,000 from non-bots, as far as I know.
Early in its history, vampirestat botted this blog about 790 times.
So if you're looking at the top of the blog, subtract 790 from the number of pageviews, and
THIS BLOG HAS NOW REACHED 5000 PAGE VIEWS FROM REAL PEOPLE.

Again, thanks for all the visits, and I hope I'm posting things that will keep you coming back.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:28

Genesis 1:28

 

כח וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁהָ וּרְדוּ בִּדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת עַל־הָאָרֶץ:

 

Transliteration: Va-yivarekh otam elohim va-yomer lahem elohim p’ru u-r’vu u-milu et-ha-arets v’khivshuha u-r’du bi-d’gat ha-yam u-v’of ha-shamaim u-v’khal chayah ha-romeset al-ha-arets.

Translation:     Gd blessed them and Gd said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and dominate it and subjugate the fish of the sea and the flyer of heaven and all wild animal that creeps on the earth.

Vocabulary in this lesson:

כִבְשֻׁהָ

Dominate it

 

This verb form shows an important feature of the Hebrew language.  It could have said v-khivshu otah but instead it combines the object pronoun with the verb.  The suffix should look familiar.  Let’s go through the forms although you would never say some of them.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
כִּבְשֻׁנִי	כִּבְשֻׁנוּ	First
כִּבְשֻׁךָ	כִּבְשֻׁכֶם	Second/masculine
כִּבְשֻׁךְ	כִּבְשֻׁכֶן	Second/feminine
כִּבְשׁוּהוּ	כִּבְשֻׁתָם	Third/masculine
כִּבְשֻׁהָ	כִּבְשֻׁתָן	Third/feminine

 

 So when it looks like a verb but doesn’t have the ordinary personal ending for the binyan, or the person, number or gender, think about otam and its personal endings; you may be looking at a verb with a personal suffix ending.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved