Life's a Stitch

These past few days I’ve attempted to leave comments on all you Blogspot people’s sites to no avail. Is the problem fixed? Just know I’m thinking about you: Jayne, I can relate to the Glysomed tube in your knitting basket, especially knitting with seasilk. Marianne, I’m putting that Japanese Feather shawl that you pictured on my must-do list. Mitchypoo, that creepy 13 list reminded me of when I saw rice in the bottom of my carport garbage can, only the rice was moving – maggots! Angie, best wishes, we need more good nurses. Allena, Yumm, I can smell those buns here in Vancouver. There are more but my battery is about to die.

I’m taking Angie’s advice to pepper my projects with some instant gratification. This is a narrower version of the Midwest Moonlight scarf from Scarf Style, a la Blogless Marsha, who alternated her solid squares with stockinette. I’m using the periwinkle variegated cotton yarn from my last post:

What did Blogless Marsha and I forget when we went to the Seattle Knitting Expo last weekend? Why, knitting of course. What were we thinking? We knew we’d have a couple of hours to kill between a visit to the marketplace and our workshop. We made the best of it, though, and hand wound yarn Marsha bought so she could get right to knitting when we returned home.

I had never been to one of these knit junkie conferences before and this one won’t be the last. We were on a one day plan, but you could have been there for three days of yarny heaven. We chose a three hour class on how to knit and purl in Tunisian Crochet. More on that another time.

I took Amtrak down and the bus back. As we were crossing the border back, and going through customs, the officer saw that my declaration card indicated I had spent $195. He asked why I was in Seattle. I looked him right in the eye and said I was at the Knitting Expo. A stifled snort of laughter escaped his lips. Or did that sound come from his nose? He couldn’t contain himself, giving me the "now I’ve heard everything" look. I know better than to argue with customs officials, but my ‘I’m over 50 and I take no shit attitude’ slipped out. If Chuck had been present he would have given me a swift nudge to keep my mouth shut."Whatza matter," I snapped, "it’s good clean fun." He replied " And I suppose that $195 is a suitcase full of yarn."  He pondered my fate in a pregnant pause and thankfully let me pass through the door without a potentially bus-missing search. About that suitcase? Wishin. This is all the yarn I bought, three skeins of amazingly coloured soft perle cotton:

In my non-knitting life, part of my job involves writing a weekly newspaper mini-column for parents and kids. After 400 of these it can be difficult to come up with a new topic so sometimes I go to the news for ideas. This weeks tragedy in Virginia gave me plenty to work with:

Kids and Crisis

Natural disasters, war, and school shootings are in the news every day.  Even those not directly involved can be affected.

• Be prepared for disaster and how your child might react.
• Children want to know they are safe. Reassure them that the adults around them are doing their best to keep them secure.
• Do not lie; provide simple facts to young children, more details to older ones.
• Avoid overexposure to repetitive media coverage and disturbing images on TV, radio, newspaper or the internet.
• Look for physical symptoms of stress: nightmares, head and tummy aches, irritability, sleeplessness, changes in behaviour, refusing to go to school.
• Respect their fears; giving them ways to express their anxiety through talking, creative or physical activities. Before they can feel good, the bad feelings need to come out.
• The Chinese word for crisis means “dangerous” and “opportunity.” Use a crisis as an opportunity for preparation for the future.

Same goes for grown ups. Tragedies of this proportion can rock the foundations of your faith. We were talking at work about the existence of God. A book for troubled times, When Bad things Happen to Good People, is as relevant now as when it was published by Rabbi Harold Kushner in the 80’s. It has seen many people through very rough times.

I remember this interview with him on CBC, a couple of years back, when his book on coping with life’s disappointments was released. This is a gentle, intelligent man, who has experienced tough personal loss. He’s written over ten books with interesting conclusions: Even God cannot solve all of the world’s dilemmas. Sometimes decisions made at the time of crisis aren’t the best ones. Wait for things to even out before giving up something as important as your faith.

It’s not knitting but it was comforting for me and I thought I’d share it.

In anticipation of his birthday, my boy has decided he doesn’t want to turn 17. After discussion we agreed we could pretend, for now, that he is still 16. It reminded me of a friend from way back, whose daughter was eleven, and asked her mom when she would get breasts. Seizing this teachable moment my friend explained to her daughter that first she would probably grow some pubic and underarm hair. "Yukk!"  exclaimed her pre-teen in disgust, "It’s gross, it sounds funny when you scratch it, and if I get any of that I’m shaving it off."

When I was a kid all I wanted to do was grow up so I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. The thing I wanted to eat daily was cantaloupe, followed by butter lettuce with olive oil and salt, and then chocolate cake, not necessarily with icing. In college, my roommate and I were a good match, she liked the frosting, I liked the cake, and we’d trade off my icing for her cake. The same held true for oreos – I ate the cookies and she ate the cream.

Food has a scary influence in my life. I’m beginning to believe, however, that yarn is taking over. Funny thing how both, for me, require a well developed adult sense of self control. I’ll let you know how successful that sense is when I come home from my weekend at the Seattle Knitting Expo. I could be like a kid in a candy shop after selling a substantial part of my stash at our yarn swap last week.

A member of our Chicks With Sticks group, who was at the swap, is seeking to purchase an out-of -print magazine.If you have: Piecework issue Sept/Oct 1994, and are willing to part with it for a price, please let me know.

More Print O’the Wave in Seasilk in progress:

This blogger is tired from just too much going on, so I’ll opt out of any creativity with a list. Nothing like point form to get the job done:

• At work we’re recovering from a visit by a federal cabinet member. It was an honour albeit from the wrong political party. This minister seemed too nice to be in politics.
• Full weekends ahead: this coming Saturday with Blogless Marsha at the Seattle Knitting Expo, the 21st at an all day watercolour class, and the following two weekends will see a Boesen invasion of the Minnesotan kind. Two SIL’s and a BIL coming to YVR just in time to see their nephew as the Cowardly Lion in the school play. Can’t complain about an entire month of weekends filled with good times including a couple of birthdays for my resident Taurus men.
• On the home front there’s paperwork – taxes, insurance claims, and bills. And the never ending cleaning and organization that doesn’t get any better even with fewer people in the house. I know this belief is in contravention of every positive thinking organizational life skills expert on the planet, but I am certain that it will take me two years into retirement full time to get my house in order, and I’m a long way from that day.
• On to knitting, I taught an entelac class last week. That was fun. This week’s knit night will include a stash sale, that will be really fun. I hope to leave there with less than I arrived with. And I am trying hard to remain faithful to Print O’the Wave (a beautiful, but repetitive slow go) and Marina (take two on picking up the sleeves due to yarn weakness and breakage), with little progress on either:

It hit me why I’m not feeling so cheery this Easter. It’s the first year that there will only be three of us home for the holiday. That’s why I’m feeling all sentimental. I’ll miss hearing the sound of cupboards and appliance doors squeaking open and thwacking shut in search of Easter baskets. I think these semi-adult kids still take great pleasure in the search.

I’ll miss the group laugh during the yearly retelling of our story about the time we came home from church to find a squirrel perched on the fence eating the last of our Easter hunt treats. The squirrels cleverly had their own hunt while we were out of the house. Can’t you just picture it? "Hey, hey, Skippy, they’re gone, get moving, it’s a gold mine." We dug up the odd buried foil wrapped chocolate egg for several years after.

I’ll especially miss all three kids turning to smile at me in church when our talented organist revs up for my favourite rendition of Jesus Christ is Risen Today. Bad Catholic that I am, the pleasure I derive from that moment in a church I don’t frequent nearly enough, is almost sinful.

Throw in a little anniversary anxiety, a year since Chuck’s Easter week heart attack, and the complexities that has added to our life, and that explains everything.

Mr. almost-all grown-up, soon to be seventeen, has been asking me to knit him a Piet. Meet the Easter Piet, who will be hiding in our house, in a nest of plastic grass, Purdy’s chocolate and sugar free gum, waiting to be discovered by a certain six foot tall little boy.

There has been a thread winding its way though the blogs where women talk of their husband’s disdain for one of her outfits. In her January 12th post, Super Eggplant had the dress her guy described as appropriate for a polygamist’s wife. My dear Chuck hates my LL Bean sundresses, which he claims fit me like a sack. I told him I will put them away for my next husband. Now Lynne‘s man is in on the act. Her kimono style top was described by him only as "interesting." I empathetically commented on her blog and she wrote to me saying the only outfit a man truly understands is naked. Can you imagine all the google hits I’m going to get with the words man and naked in the same sentence?

That reminded me of a story that gives credence to her theory. I had a friend who tried on a leather skirt. She asked her husband his opinion. He said, "It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to stay on that long."

On to knitting. Meet my Print O’ the Wave, a free pattern from Eunny, in Seasilk in the ivory colourway. This is my current portable project as opposed to Marina, which requires more than one knitting bag and is my stay at home project.

I ordered the yarn on line. All I can figure is that I got the last two skeins. I know that hand dyed yarn has inconsistencies, but why else would they send two completely different shades of the same yarn? This photo doesn’t really illustrate how little they have in common. I was initially concerned as the darker one looked like the ivory one, having survived a diet coke spill. If I wanted that colour I could have handled a spill all on my own. Now that I’ve alternated the skeins, the difference gives it a fair bit of depth and I’m actually appreciating it.

This project would make a lovely wedding shawl, but with no wedding plans this year, thank goodness, I told Chuck I’d wear it for our 25 anniversary in December. With clothes on underneath, of course.

Another lesson in "when spell check doesn’t work." I am employed in the field of nonprofit social services. A newer to the field co-worker came into my office and asked me which is the correct term – nonprofit or not-for-profit. I typed in both to see which would look better in her grant application and accidentally came up with a new fund raising idea "pot-for-profit." Don’t ask me where that came from the "p" is nowhere near the "n" on the keyboard.

Must have been that Eric Clapton concert again. I was talking to another co-worker who was at the same event. The people sitting next to her were a couple with their 10 or 11 year old son. The entire concert, the mom and dad were smoking pot. The times, they are a changing. Wrong show. I was at that one, too and the air was thick with purple haze. It was very interesting, the average age at the Clapton concert was over 50.

Here is my completed Irish Hiking Scarf, the one that was almost abducted while we attended the concert. It’s made with Elsebeth Lavold Angora in Aubergine. The longer you fiddle with this yarn, the softer it gets. An aran weight, it’s a quick knit. Elann has it reasonably priced and I bought enough for a sweater. I’m looking for a shawl collared cable design like this one at Patternworks, but they charge $9 to mail to Canada. I’ve got plenty of time, I still have to finish Marina. I’m now onto the sleeves so it shouldn’t be too many more years.

Here’s the set up:

One day, eight years ago, we moved into our house. To save a bundle of money we gutted the interior of a tear down and started over. After numerous delays we moved in – no kitchen, no carpet, one usable bathroom. It was a day from hell, working for a challenging boss, and our kids’ school principal died. We were distracted. Those are the reasons we forgot to go to the Eric Clapton concert for which we had tickets for goodness knows how long.

After that sad story you can understand the importance of attending Clapton this past Friday night. I nearly mortgaged the house to buy tickets for Bryant and Chuck. It was their Christmas gift. So pardon my annoyance over the couple seated, oh maybe 18 inches, in front of us. He – 60ish, a beer guzzling, big bellied balding guy. She – late 50’s, unnaturally dyed jet black hair and fire engine red, nicely manicured, fingernails, with an oh-so-small chip on the left index finger. How did I know there was a chip? Because her hand spent the entire concert rubbing his balding bean like a puppy’s belly, not quite in time to the music, less than a foot and a half from my eyes. On the more lively pieces she vigorously scratched behind his ears. He leaned into her hand just like Gracee does, when in my imagination, her doggy voice is saying "more, more, more." Was it a figment of my disgust, or was there a drift of dandruff accumulating on my knees?

I must be turning into a crotchety old witch, I thought. I looked at Chuck. He reassuringly whispered to me, "The only thing more obnoxious than her rubbing his head like that is the fact that he’s letting her do it. Oh, I get it," surmised my groom, "I bet their dog died and he won’t let her get another one." Being polite half Canadians, we didn’t say a darned thing, so it’s our own fault.  When, suffering from scratching fatigue, however, she rested her elbow on my knee, and I did abruptly move away.

For the most part Eric Clapton and particularly his pianist, Chris Stainton, were beyond amazing and distracted us from the Incredible Itchies. It was a pleasure attending a concert of historic proportions with a truly appreciative 16-year-old. Bryant makes fun of me when I take photos of my knitting and he fully expected me too pull out a project mid-performance. "Here is my knitting at an Eric Clapton concert," he would mock me, in a voice that’s supposedly mine, sounding like nails on a chalk board. No, I didn’t embarrass him that way and that’s why my knitting bag was ransacked, when during the course of the evening, someone broke into our car.

So excuse this witch, who had to drown her sorrows this weekend, with the purchase of some Schaefer Anne yarn. Heh, heh, heh (that would be witchy laughter). 

Just a quick post. This has been a hellish week at work.

I was talking to a co-worker who had recently signed up for Weight Watchers with her husband. At the first meeting he observed "Wow, this is a great place to meet motivated women." We chuckled at his idea for a pre-emptive strike. They’re motivated and you know they’ll look even better in a couple of months. Scary, I actually hired this guy once many years ago. Really, he is a very decent man who merely identified an opportunity. I can see him recruiting his single pals for the next meeting.

On the size front I think my head is disproportionately small compared to my middle parts, so it doesn’t take much yarn to make a hat. This is a beret made from Twilley’s Freedom Spirit, really lovely 100% wool yarn from England. I haven’t been able to find a Canadian source: