Life's a Stitch

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.

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: