Life's a Stitch

It was absolutely beautiful! Of course I’m a biased mother of the bride. For now, a couple of photos:

As of tonight we have 17 people staying at our house, each in their own bed. Notice I didn’t say in their own bedrooms. Chuck made it his goal to provide a decent clean mattress for everybody via Freecycle and they are distributed throughout the house. I laughed this morning when I went outside to get the newspaper. It was wrapped in a plastic bag that appropriately said "Compliments of your hotel management." The guests are here, the party tents for the rehearsal dinner are up (and leaking like a sieve), and today will be the pre-wedding Costco run. I thought that would be a cultural experience for the Danish contingent.

Nearing the home stretch on my shawl. You remember Marsha, of chlamydia clivia fame, who is also my knitting buddy (see two posts below)? I started this while we were together on vacation in May. It’s almost done, a very fast knit – the Shoalwater Shawl from Fibertrends in Regal Silk. I highly recommend it for new lace knitters. Here’s a tip: the yarn was so drapey that it didn’t matter whether I SSK’d, SKPSSO’d or K2Tog’d so I did all the stitch reductions as K2T, saving lots of time. And I tend to be a knitting purist.

T minus 24 hours and counting… I feel like I’m on the mother of the bride freight train and the brakes aren’t working. Wish me luck.

I heard a great quote. "As a parent you don’t need to worry about developing a sense of humility. It’s dished out to you every day." In generous portions, I might add. So, last night I coloured my hair in anticipation of the upcoming wedding. DS says "Oh you changed the colour of your hair." I say, "Yes, this is my natural colour." He says, without batting an eyelash, "No it’s not, your natural colour is grey." This from the boy who promised me yesterday, that in return for his newly pierced nose, he would not engage in alcohol, drugs, sex and tattoos, for this summer anyhow. Phew, now I’m relieved.

Doesn’t this go well with grey hair? I recently noticed my feather and fan scarf sitting in my scarf basket without the ends woven in. It didn’t take long and now I have an officially FO:

This is my Clivia plant. We’ve had it since its babyhood, an offshoot of our friend, Marsha’s, plant. They usually bloom for the first time in their fourth year. That year, of its first bloom, Marsha was here for a visit. As she entered the house, Chuck exclaimed proudly, "Marsha, I can’t wait to show you the chlamydia you gave me!"

What followed was a good example of a pregnant pause. Swirling around in my mind were things like "She gave you WHAT?" or "That’s a fine Howdy doo." Marsha is a nurse and I  did a stint as a social worker in a sexually transmitted disease clinic so we are well aware of the C word. Chuck, however, is a Minnesota farm boy, not exposed to such things, and innocently confused his plant with his STD’s. That was a laugh so hard you could pee your pants memory. I’ll bet you all have some of those and I dare you to share them.

I’m needing some laughs what with the wedding, the skunk and my mom not reliably on her meds. But just when you think you have it bad, you hear a worse story. My friend’s daughter is getting married in early August. It’s kind of a hippy wedding on a farm.The invites asked people not to bring their dogs to the ceremony; you get the idea. It’s very wholesome down to the vegetarian option on the reception menu. I guess we’re wholesome, too, offering veggie food, but they have an interesting problem that thankfully, we don’t share. Since sending out the invitations, four of the guests have died; including the groom’s father. She’s calling it the kiss of death wedding. Calgon take us away. Now.

Two weeks until the wedding and we had an unwanted guest. Chuck went out at midnight to turn off the sprinkler, leaving the front door open. In walked the guest, leaving his calling card. A skunk sprayed the inside of our house. This is not like your dog getting sprayed, this was a direct hit on the carpet, ceiling, walls, lighting fixtures, anything in a 30 foot radius. You can’t imagine the stench – skunk mixed with burning rubber and strong garlic; only made worse by the fact that insurance doesn’t cover damage by vermin. Did I mention that we spent $400 on carpet cleaning just last week?

A couple of skunk facts: tomato juice only masks the scent temporarily and the chemical nature of skunk spray gives it a time release factor. We’ve done it all – the combinations of peroxide, bleach, garden lime, vinegar, and mint leaves. Febreze (what a joke), Downey, Windex, Shout and Oxyclean. Pressure washing, scrub brushing and painting over. It’s lessened a bit, but will take months to dissipate.

Thank goodness I had put Elina’s wedding dress back in the garment bag and that my knitting and yarn were upstairs in a closed off room.

A sweeter smelling part of my life, how about this single stem of half a dozen roses from our garden? Along with the gardener:

I’m a shopper. And one who doesn’t pay full price for anything. So, when I saw these, at 20% off when bought as a set, I was hooked. Finally an interchangeable needle set that meets all my requirements: nickel plated, smooth joins, screw on tips, soft cables, lots of sizes… Slightly more expensive than the Denise set, and way less than the Boye’s. Not that I need more needles, but I couldn’t resist. It’s the new Knitpicks set. Looks very well designed.

The best shopping news ever – Trader Joe’s is coming to Bellingham! Now if they’d take that leap over the border I’d really be excited.

The only place to buy Regal Silk and other good yarn at lower than usual cost? Fabulous Yarn.

What’s better than a bargain? Free. These are this year’s poppies. The purple ones come from a woman in my knitting group. Her mom grew these before she died and she made a habit of distributing seeds each year to people who admired her purple poppies. I’ve continued that tradition. The pink ruffled ones came from a nearby elementary school’s garden.

Thanks to everyone for your comments on the wedding sweater. It made the anguish worth it. There’s nothing like the support of others, knitters and knitters-to-be. Watch out you non-knitters, I have my eye on you.

It’s done, it’s done, the wedding sweater is done! And why does it feel like I knit it twice? Probably because I did. The Lily Chin Grammercy was very frog friendly. The mohair was not, but I didn’t have to take out too much of that. Can’t wait for the bride to see it in real life, but she won’t be home for a week or two.

The "sweater," from White Lies Designs, is more like a full length shrug/bolero in construction, giving it its form fitting appearance. It’s a very pretty look. I changed the lace stitch called for in the original pattern and made the sleeves three quarter length with a ruffled edge. My only complaint is the side seams, which in lace, always look bulky compared to the body fabric. Now bring on that wedding. Maybe not today, it’s going to be in the mid 30’s (high 90’s in F), a rarity in Vancouver. Thank goodness it’s three weeks away.

Dear Amazin’ Gracee, the stubborn, not very smart due to a head injury at three weeks old, rescue Scottie, received her own phone call the other day. We have some overpriced minimal doggie health insurance that gets charged to our Mastercard on a monthly basis. This month our expiry date changed and Grace was the recipient of one of those automated voice messages, which pronounced her name "Amazon Grace." Can’t you picture a huge Amazon scotty? I guess she is bordering on that image as the vet told us the other day, that at 24 lbs, she’s becoming a chubby puppy. Poor Grace going to have to go on a diet with the rest of us.

Speaking of amazing, thanks for the comments on the Amazing Lace photo from my last post. I haven’t been responding to comments as my computer is temporarily out of commission again. So, the truth is, as if you didn’t know, it’s not my car. And they weren’t even my sunglasses; a girl can dream, can’t she? Truthfully I can’t even dream about that kind of stuff, being blessed with some sort of practical gene. Apparently my daughter didn’t get that gene as she spent $150 on those shades. I haven’t spent $150 on all the sun glasses I’ve bought in my life. Just a matter of differing priorities. How about Regal silk for the Amazing Lace as a priority?

What is it that makes a wedding turn intelligent young women momentarily into roiling pots of emotion and practical mothers into snaggle tooth vipers? If I were to choose an actress to play my role as mother of the bride, it would be Shirley MacLaine. I know all the dynamics, so why did I think I was immune? Nobody escapes the clutches of impending marriage emotions. Thank goodness those moments were fleeting ones. Seriously, it’s been a wonderful week with the bride-to-be, wouldn’t have missed a minute of it! 28 sleeps to go until the big day.

Met with my first stumbling block on the Amazing Lace. Consider this:

1. I learned to read charts in my first Fair Isle Class. We were taught to read them right to left.

2. I graduated to Charlotte’s Web where the chart is only pictured to the centre stitch. When you reached it, you knit back the other way, mirroring the first half.

3. I  made the presumption that the Shoalwater Shawl was read the same way. Not. After finishing two sections I realized that I was one stitch off in my lace patterning. The chart looked similar to Charlotte’s Web, but when you hit the middle stitch on this one, you don’t knit back, you repeat the row.

Knit and learn.

Finally, challenge #2 for the Amazing Lace. Pay no attention to my the minivan in the background:

1. Now that we have the dogs figured out, how about those birds at 5:00 am? Perhaps it’s the same flock flying westward to keep up with the sunrise in different time zones.

2. Lucky again – I made a pledge to a family member’s walk for charity won a $50 IKEA gift certificate. It happened to be my yarn fairy Godmother, Valerie. I wanted some silk yarn and voila! She sent me Sari silk right out of the blue (pictured in the photo withsome think and thin she sent as well). I saw a patio table I like at Ikea and poof! She sends me a gift certificate. Thank you, Valerie, hope we get to meet someday. By the way, there’s this diamond pendant at Costco…

3. What ever happened to: Marina (the body is complete unless I get crazy and decide to lengthen it again) and the wedding sweater (almost done, but I’m nervous that it’s looking small).

4. The wedding – T minus 33 days and counting. Help, my house is a MESS, I need to lose the four lbs I gained on the cruise and I hope my mom is reliably on her meds.

5. the Whine du Jour – you know those spam deterring distorted letters you have to type in to post a comment on some blogs. Has any been so distorted and lo-o-o-ng that you give up, but not for lack of trying?

6. Chuck’s heart attack – he didn’t have a near death enough experience (thank God for that) to love life enough to make a total lifestyle change. On the compliance scale I’d rate him a 4 out of 10.

7. Speaking for myself, after one of the family was lamenting that life wasn’t fair, I was thinking if life were fair, I’d probably be a heck of a lot worse off.