Life's a Stitch

No stupid dogs, just stupid owners. That dog owner would be me and there is no way I’m showing my face at the same bank. See post from not that long ago – April 3rd:

Started with dogs and ending with Kat’s, Kat’s blog contest that is, here are five places where I have kit:

1.In the pre-op room before knee surgery.

2. In the recovery room after knee reconstruction surgery. Heck, I was awake for my surgery and I would have knit through it if they had let me.

3. In physical therapy while hooked up to the squeeze and freeze machine.

4. In stop and go traffic

5. The mile high club of knitting – on the potty in a plane. Just had to finish that row I started while standing in the line up!

I found that subject on an e-mail in my in box over the holiday weekend. How much fun, being re-united with pen pal, Kate, from 40 years ago! I can picture the two of us attending the concert at the Pan American Union, in 1966, and agreeing to stay in touch. The last time we communicated was briefly during college. A lot of life has happened over time and I’m looking forward to picking up where we left off.

It made me think, though, how sad it is, that if a woman changed her name, it is nearly impossible to find her by Googling. If I hadn’t have mentioned on my blog that I grew up with the complicated name of Lilice Lesinski, this wouldn’t have happened.

Recently, when my daughter announced her intentions of marrying, I was disappointed that she was planning on taking her husband’s name. I realized that I did just that. I did it, however, because after a life of Lilice Lesinski, a somewhat simpler last name seemed appealing.  I’m a little sad about it because my generation of girls are the last of the Lesinskis. I know a couple who agree to give their boy babies his last name and the girls hers. That would have worked for us. Confusing for the kids, maybe.

Is there anyone else from my past lurking out there?

Here’s Marina, nearing the completion of the body. I’ve gotten past the hesitation regarding the fact that it is too cropped for me and that I’ll continue for another inch and a half. You can see the armhole steek that will require stitching up an inch and a half from the bottom to compensate for my adjustment. I was quite relieved at knit night when a very experienced knitter showed me how a simple mattress stitch will work just fine. I had disasterized the situation into the possibility of some fancy grafting.

Easter treats:

Treat #1: A Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory caramel apple Easter bunny. Marshmallow cheeks, licorice whiskers, gumdrop nose and Smartee eyes; all coated in white chocolate. Even Bryant found it too sweet.

Treat #2: Hot Cross Buns? Look again, those aren’t currants and candied fruit. They’re very decadent chocolate chips.

Treat #3: Pumpkin Creme Caramel. Yumm.

Treat #4: In Canada, if you work for the government or non-profit social services, you get a four day weekend. The first days off since Christmas.

Nature’s nasty trick: my best cousin ever has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I know, I sound like a broken record. You can tell my age by that one, what would be the contemporary equivalent? Anyway, you’ve heard me say it before – Marina and I are back together. Sometimes I think the breaks in our relationship are a good thing; that we’re still together because of our times apart. I’m optimistic that we’ll make it work in the long run if we respect our requirement for breathing room. Mine, at least. I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want to disappoint you if this stretch was a short one.

If you look carefully at the photo, you’ll notice that the last inch and a quarter (above the last crimson band) is new knitting. The colours are absolutely accurate and look amazingly like the Woolcraft Marina photo rather than the colours called for in the Starmore pattern. Thank you to Denise, who requested the list of colour substitutions I used in Marina. You’ve gotten me started again.

Oh my goodness, a four day work week, followed by a four day weekend, followed by a four day week! It’s a little strange not having the girls at home, we’re taking a break from students, and Bry and Chuck have to work on Easter Day. I still plan on cooking because going out feels like a one hour holiday and there are no leftovers. A joyous Easter weekend to you all.

Don’t you hate when that happens? My 9th grad math teacher, Miss Lahrman, supposedly a former nun, told us, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Well, I work with a woman named Audrey. Consider Audrey’s husband, who has hell to pay as far as his wife is concerned. He’s doing his penance by calling their insurance company. You see, he had all good intentions of helping Audrey leave for a business trip. He even took her laptop outside and strategically placed it behind the car so she could load it into the trunk. Can you see it coming? She didn’t. Audrey now has a laptop with tread marks on the screen. I really really hate it when that happens.

My good intentions of listing all the Herringbone Ribsters has been delayed. I intended to make a database of all those to whom I’ve sent the pattern, adding their name to the sidebar as I see their progress on their blog; or if not a blogger, when they send me a picture of their finished scarf. Help me out, please, if you’re a blogger and are posting about the scarf, let me know and I’ll put a link on the sidebar. If anyone has a photo, please send it to me and I’ll add it to the gallery. My e-mail address is: boesencrew at shaw dot ca.

One more note about the scarf – it will remain available on my blog for the price of a comment. I decided not to publish it as I would have to relinquish ownership and I’d rather keep it to give as a gift to all you nice knitters. This is Shanti modelling her scarf. Shanti might be the talk of knitting blogdom right now. She posted about her stash on Sunday – over 700 high quality skeins of it! And she has the most amazingly organized database to keep track of it.

Thank you all for your encouragement. I especially appreciate your stories, it’s amazing how common, but hidden, mental illness is. This is as public as I have been with something that’s been a part of my family’s life since I was 11. The added bad news is that my mother removed herself from the waiting list for housing near me without saying anything. We now have to start from scratch.

I’ve been dealing with Bryant’s pukey flu. It’s been a long time since I had a middle of the night emergency clean-up with one of the kids. He managed to spew across the bed, onto the floor and into the desk drawer. It even managed to make its way underneath the mattress. The only comfort was that I am now aware that my 15 year old actually eats peas.

Working away on my Heavenly wrap. It’s been two rows forward, six back. If I don’t take the time to count the stitches after each row, I end up ripping back. It’s not easy ripping back because of the sticky mohair content and I pull out more stitches than intended. It’s far more sparkly than in the photo. I just read that mohair rips more easily if you put it in the freezer for half an hour. Maybe it’s nature at work; something that keeps the goats from sticking together like velcro when the herd huddles together in the winter. Isn’t that an image?

Here’s a good lead on a yarn sale: Chez Casuelle – 20% off all yarn and free shipping to the US or Canada for orders over $25 or $15 to anywhere else in the world! Thanks to reader, Claudia. If I owned a knit shop I would stock it like this one.

Sometimes life is a stitch and sometimes it needs stitches. It’s one of those times. You see, I grew up with a mother who suffers from mental illness – 40 years of it, so far. When she’s on her medication all seems well, but when she’s off, watch out! She’s off right now and I know she doesn’t have the insight to help herself, so I pray that I’m able to manage by long distance. She was supposed to move near me last year, but changed her mind. I was very disappointed as I know her life needs stitches from time to time and it was going to be difficult and complicated if she didn’t come. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.  Wish me luck. My mom was the one who taught me to knit in Brownies when I was six. That’s a nice memory.

Oh, Ms. Grace, you’ve done it again. I heard C get up at about 6:30 this morning to take Gracee out. Then I heard him in the living room screaming. Worried about his finger situation, I listened closely. He’s yelling about the dog and twenty dollar bills. That darned dog. There were teensy bits of money all over the living room. A friend of Bryant’s had given him $60 to pay me back for concert tickets I Mastercarded. The dog actually went into my purse and helped herself to the money, a packet of salt (which apparently didn’t appeal to her as it was in tact, but soggy) and an eyeglass cleaning wipe.

I spent a fair amount of time putting together weeny little pieces of twenty dollar bills to see if they might be salvageable. I knew the old story of having to have both sets of serial numbers for replacement from a bank. I consulted with the Bank of Canada site and found out that they will replace "mutilated currency" if they think you have a valid story and if there’s enough of the bills to identify their value. I figured a photo of the culprit would help my case.

In the meantime I showed them to my bank manager and he agreed to try to submit them for me, even though two of them only had partial bits of both serial numbers, as he knows where to find me if they’re returned. What a nice guy to give me the benefit of the doubt and hand me $60.

I wonder what remnants we’ll find in the yard?

I seem to be balancing the stress of life with nice surprises. I received a box from Germany with this beautiful seagrass basket. It’s from a blog contest I won on the Scottish Lamb’s site before she took a break from blogging. Jean put your name in for a chance at the basket if you mailed a hat and bootie set to the Preemie Project.

My Puerto Rican grandmother used to yell in exasperation, "Enough ees enough, too much ees too much." I’m with you, Grammy. Last week Chuck’s finger had an altercation with the table saw (instant replay of earlier in the year when he put several fingers through the band saw). He got eight stitches and a round of antibiotics. Last night, he was in bad pain and I decided to get brave and look at it. Whoa. Bryant described it as reminiscent of the movie, Saw. Into the clinic today and right to the hospital, back on to IV antibiotics (another replay of earlier in the year when his knee was infected). Enough is definitely enough. I think he needs to ditch the woodworking and knit. Knitting needles are sharp, but you have relative control over them.

My oasis this past weekend  was a meet-up with other bloggers.  On Sunday, Nadia and I had the opportunity to meet up with Caro, a Vancouverite living in Texas, along with several other non-knitting people, bloggers and not. One had a shopping blog. Now there’s a concept! I thought I was a shopper par excellence until, even I, got shopping tips from her. Shopping and blogging are a natural, but mix shopping and knit blogging and I’m in heaven. I bought a bit of Christine’s stash on e-bay and can’t wait for it to arrive. She creatively grouped a collection of like coloured yarn making it irresistible to stay away from her lot of pinks.

And finally, it’s a wrap – C’est La Vie # deux. Two of these are enough for now. Two of the ruffles were almost too much. This one will be a gift.

I’ve ordered the sweater from White Lies Designs for my daughter’s wedding. She has convinced me to knit it although it won’t fit properly over the sash of her wedding dress. She wants it so much she says she’ll remove the sash! It’s not like she won’t be able to wear it after the wedding. We’ve decided to go for 3/4 length sleeves without cuffs.

While browsing White Lie’s fabulous patterns, including lingerie, we came across an interesting typo in the description for a corset set. It says it "puts the fun in fuctional," leaving out the "n" in functional. A subliminal message? Check it out, see if it’s still there. We wrote them an e-mail. It gave us a good giggle.

Here are some photos. The first is the third colour of yarn from the Yarn Co-op’s Fleece Artist purchase, in a colourway called "Wild Flowers," a little pale, but pretty. Speaking pf pretty, the second is from a package from Leah of Knittin Pretty. She sent out thank you gifts to a number of people who made suggestions for baby patterns. You know my spring colours, thanks, Leah.