Life's a Stitch

My health insurance contributes $300 to the price of new glasses every two years. Four years ago that covered the total cost of my progressive lenses in decent frames. Two years ago, it covered all but $126. Now, buying comparable frames and lenses I could end up paying over $200! What’s with this? Do the suppliers recognize that many people have insurance coverage and up their prices accordingly? Is the insurance industry not keeping up with the true cost of eyewear?

The same seems to be happening with my dental bills. It  might have something to do with the fact that my dentist moved to Gucci new waterfront offices with a view of the seals playing in the harbour. Come to think of it, only the staff benefits from the view, as all I can see is the ceiling.

Sometimes cutting corners to save money backfires. Here is my Touch Me scarf. I tried to economize by buying four balls of the yarn instead of five, even though it was on sale. My gauge seems to be right on, but the finished product will be way short. Maybe my cables are tighter than most. Funny for a loose woman knittingwise. I called the shop where I bought it and they’re completely out. So the choice is to wait for another shipment and hope the dyelot is close or go with the shorter scarf. Stay tuned. The good thing about Touch Me is that it’s weighty enough to stay in place, so a short scarf is OK. Just think how much I could have saved if I had bought it all on sale to begin with.

Thanks for the well wishes regarding my headaches. I’m going to keep a calendar because I’m sure they are hormonally related. When is my meno going to pause?

It was a nice relaxing weekend until Saturday night at 11:30. The evening was exceptional, Bryant home from his summer camp job for 24 hours. Since C was away, we shared a "Mumsy-Bry Night" (as he called it) starting with what is described as a genuine New York pizza from a new place in town. Now I’m a New Yorker from way back and I know pizza. Believe me, the taste buds never forget. I give this one a 95%, the sauce lacking in garlic and oregano. I’ve only had one or two NY pizzas, outside of NY, that were semi-decent.

We followed the meal with a video – Pirates of the Caribbean. My boy is pirate par excellence. Too bad you can’t make a living imitating pirates unless you’re Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom. Here he is cooperatively modelling a WIP, which matches his hair. "Excuse the bedhead," says he.

11:30p.m. – it hit. There’s nothing like waking up to the pain of a cluster headache. I thought I had conquered them preventively with new meds and a daily dose of feverfew, but they’re ba-a-ack. Good thing I still had some ice packs in the freezer and pain killers left over from my knee surgery. Every time I have a bout I swear it’s the worst headache of my life. The ones earlier this week were nothing compared to this and I’m pretty pain tolerant.

So today I’m laying low, a combination of pain meds and headache hangover. In need of comfort I indulged:

Comfort food = Nectarine crisp, a very simple recipe, topped with low fat whipped topping:

Comfort knitting = Touch Me. Pure indulgence, I’ve begun the Vintage Velvet Scarf from Scarf Style. It calls for five skeins of this mortgage-the-house yarn. I’ve settled for four, three were in my stash from a previous sale. I’ve omitted the first and last stitch from each row, which will add an additional row after every 16th, so the length will be acceptable. It’s an interesting combination of a reversible cable done in a 1×1 rib stitch and mistaken rib on the sides. I’m having a better experience with Touch Me, having been given bad advice last time about needle size, from a sales clerk who based her guidance on her unique knitting habits.

We Catholic raised kids had a solution to finding lost items. We prayed to St. Anthony, the patron saint of things misplaced. He has even come through for my husband who is of the Protestant persuasion. This week St. Anthony responded twice without being asked.

When I finished the wedding sweater for my daughter, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the width of the shawl collar. I had just enough yarn to follow the instructions but It seemed narrow compared to the photo on the pattern. Lo and behold, while searching for my car keys, I unearthed a full skein of Lily Chin Grammercy, the yarn from the shawl collar, hiding in my basket of scarves. I got brave and undid my bind off of 368 stitches. I figured I could get another 1.75 inches out of it and be much happier with the project as it will fit her better.

St. Anthony #2 happened when I was about out of yarn for my Amazing Lace project, The choice was between binding off, a bit too soon, or ordering another skein of Regal Silk, no longer on sale. Same search for car keys revealed a forgotten full skein hiding in a laundry basket.

Thank you St. Anthony, but please can you help me find my car keys?

My husband has made a fatal error in the world of spousal behaviour and I will never let him forget it. This is a good thing, believe me. Let me put it into context. We were discussing the clutter in our house and how it makes no sense to spend money on things that collect dust i.e. So then we talk about spending money on things we don’t need. He says, can you believe this, "I can understand spending money on jewelry." Stop, forever preserve those words of wisdom, carve them in stone, shout them from the rafters – "I can understand spending money on jewelry." Wait, he tried to backpedal, "I only meant that it’s better than spending on something that collects dust." Too late, my dear.

This is the same wonderful man who told me that the cost of knitting needles doesn’t count as an expense as they are necessary tools for my hobby. Alright, so he was trying to justify the cost of his lathe, the necessary tool of his wood working hobby. I’d have to buy a lot of needles to compete with his lathe. Maybe I already have. If not, I could put the money toward jewelry. I’m keeping this guy.

I’m over my funk. Thanks for all your wishes. We had visitors over the weekend  – our Vancouver Island friends, whose daughter was married the same day as Elina, can you believe it. We were out of touch for a few short months, enough time for the girls to set the same wedding date. We shared pictures, good wine and great memories.

Something to make you smile, my sister’s first scarf, off the needles and onto a cooperative model:

I came home from work to find the house empty of wedding guests for the first time in ten weeks. I’m rattling around this big empty house finding evidence of good times. There are the photographer’s proofs but then there’s the stuff we don’t have pictures of, the memories left to our hearts and heads.

The play pen is empty of sweet baby sounds.We have nine beds and nobody sleeping in eight of them. There are no sisters to knit with and Gracee is going through tug of war withdrawal.

Jelly beans are hiding in odd places in every room. Elina’s wedding favours were jelly bellies in little round tins, however they were overlooked at the reception and the excess have become a staple of the Boesen diet in recent weeks. Do pear jelly bellies count as a fruit?

Pre-wedding chores that had to be done, that didn’t get done, are still there. No grout on the kitchen tiles; the entry door still shakes uncontrollably when you close it. Only now it’s deafening because the house is so empty.

There’s evidence of  wedding – a white dress in a heap on the closet floor, six cake knives with celedon bows and a dozen beribboned Akvavit glasses. A box of leftover invitations, a worn out dishwasher, and thankfully, only a few unpaid bills. There is a jug of well utilized spot remover, a recycling bin filled with cans and bottles and five additional pounds around my middle.

I’ve found an odd assortment of foundations: bustiers, crinolines, push up bras devoid of anything to push up. There’s a box that held a "Free Bra – a new definition of freedom." An odd concept for a wedding.

About this wedding thing, I can honestly say that I never spent any time dreaming of my kid’s weddings, they seemed too young and my dreams were of their education. I could visualize graduations but not marriages. So, this was an educational experience for me. A positive one, all in all. But, it’s over now, and it’s so quiet here.

Can you tell I’m sad? This won’t come as a surprise, a teacher once told me I’m gregarious by nature.

Not one, but two in a row. You know those moments when you knit into a stitch and the yarn from the previous row breaks? That’s what happened when I was knitting this morning with cotton chenille. A little annoyance when compared to oh shit #2. Can you identify this?

If you recognized this as one of my brand new Knit Picks Options interchangeable needles in a broken state, you would be correct. I admit, I was pushing it with a 720 stitch ruffle scarf made from heavy yarns like the cotton chenille mentioned above. First I noticed the join becoming rough feeling. A few minutes later – pop! Twenty stitches dropped and a broken cable.

Mind you, this doesn’t change my opinion of the Options set as good product, just don’t push it with heavy yarn and too many stitches. This is a project for the big Boyes. I knew I kept a set of those for a reason.

My new camera has arrived and here are the first shots. It’s a teeny tiny Canon and boy, is it fast. I would never have been able to catch Gracee mid romp like this with my old Sony. And the flowers are my Japanese Anemones, which seem to be blooming early this year:

Nor is it a vacation destination. I’ll get to the point. You wouldn’t take your knitting on a date (or would you these days), but definitely take it with you if you are accompanying a male and ordering from the professional’s desk at Home Depot. No matter how hard he tries to convince you that it will only take 20 minutes, your knitting is a necessary part of the trip.

Background: with our jammed schedules, and so little time to spend together, my husband has convinced me that a trip to Home Depot is a date. While on vacation at our condo in Washington, Chuck was back at work and so was my friend and condo neighbour, Marsha. That left her husband and me to tackle some condo association business; and that would be replacing rotten decks.

One night Chuck called and asked what I’d been doing on my time off. I told him Dave and I went to Home Depot four times to scout out decking materials. He observed that not only is Home Depot a date in my life, it is now a vacation destination. Time for a reality check, knitters, Home Depot is neither a date or vacation spot. It is a place to knit. Go for it!

What I didn’t finish at Home Depot, this is a lengthwise scarf made of seven yarns, mostly from my E-Bay purchase from the Blue Ewe. A bit on the long side at 84" it is destined to be a gift for a tall person.

This is living proof that defies that old adage about new tricks. Meet my "much younger" (as she introduces herself) sister, Jane, who has learned to knit. Not only did she catch on really quickly, her first official project is of challenging eyelash yarn and she’s completed one ball without one mistake. She may be younger, however, I will always be first 😉

On the other hand it never hurts to start them young:

And here is another shot of Maya, (my niece’s new baby and knitter-to-be), pictured with her Auntie Amalie (also a knitter), in the strawberry hat I made for her:

No, I still don’t have a camera, but thanks to my SIL, my knitting buddy, Marsha, and Dorothy, we have pictures. What a wonderful time we’ve had in Washington so far. Not one, but two yarn crawls, a fun trip to the casino, lots of sunshine and laughter. Of particular interest to bloggers, here’s Marsha and I with Dorothy of Missouri Star. I invited Dorothy up for a night and we all had the best time.I’m finding that there is an instant connection between knit bloggers that guarantees a good time. And Dorothy, in particular, not only an admirable knitter but a warm person and inspiring mom.

More wedding photos, first a better one of the wedding sweater. Then a few favourites, especially the one of Elina, Mari and Bryant. There is also the Danish wedding cake.

For some fun, we have the bride shaving her 5:00 shadowy legs in the parking lot between the reception and the winery tour. I’m sending that picture to the Bic company.          Winery tour, you ask? The bride HATES to dance and refused to have dancing at the reception. I can’t blame her as I didn’t develop a love of dancing until I hit 40 and now you can’t stop me. So, I told her she needed to have something at her wedding that people will remember as fun. Mom to the rescue – I booked a tour of a nearby winery, whose products we featured at the wedding:

That’s all for now, my camera should arrive by the end of the week and I’ll have my own photos again. And next week I’ll have reliable e-mail and can start responding to comments again. Thank you all, in the meantime, for your wonderful remarks.

We’re away for the post wedding week without a computer or camera; just good company, fun and lots of knitting happening. Here are some of the highlights and lows of the past week:

Highs: A super composed, articulate bride; beautiful wedding day weather; a brunch reception like no other; being surrounded by friends and family from far and wide; so much laughter my sister was in pain (I mean that with good intentions); a surprise extreme bathroom makeover in a scottie theme (thank you, Ellen and Greg); teaching my sister to knit.

Lows: Dropping my camera the night before the wedding and cracking the LCD screen; the dishwasher breaking with 17 guests; no water in the house for the day after the wedding; two special guests not being able to attend due to serious health matters; Gracee being sprayed by that skunk again the night of the wedding.

I know I’m leaving out lots, but that’s all I can manage given the computer situation here. I’m in Bellingham with no wireless connection and no camera so I’ll be posting sporadically. Lots of knitting to report on and hopefully a get together with Dorothy.