Life's a Stitch

Have you ever had a once in a lifetime experience? I guess when they happen you don’t know it’s a once in a lifetime. Maybe it’s the first in your lifetime. Last weekend, on the ferry between Vancouver Island and Vancouver I lost count after seeing 21 Orca whales. There were many more, but it was difficult to count them all. I didn’t want to waste time going back to the car to get my camera, so it’s one of those photos etched in my brain, hopefully forever. I doubt I’ll ever see that many whales in the wild at one time. It was breathtaking. Right up there with the flock of wild parrots I once saw in Mexico.

Earlier in the day I saw a woman walking five Scotties, the third time I’ve ever seen so many Scottie bodies in one place. The first time was when I was five years old, accompanying my cousin on a hunt for a puppy. We visited as Scottie breeder and right then I decided that someday I would have one, and now we’re on our second. They bought a poodle and named it Tiffany Plato Bonaparte Socrates Ramp.

My Marina is my once in a lifetime Alice Starmore knit, as I can’t justify budgetwise buying one of her kits. I was fortunate to find a pattern and a good source of yarn. The other unrationalizeable project is an Ab Fab throw, but I’m in the process of figuring something out that will satisfy that urge. More on that another day. For now, the back of my Devan baby sweater:

Gracee looks truly repentant, doesn’t she? Either that or sick to her stomach (see my last post). She came through it fine, a little chocolate breath and a brown beard, but no worse for the wear. Maybe it was a case of sympathetic nervous eating for me – yesterday was our annual general meeting at work and my fear of public speaking caused me to indulge in some good nervous eating: a half bag of Miss Vickie’s potato chips, a piece of Starbuck’s green apple cake and a cinnamon bun.

I knit few rows on Marina on Monday at knit night, but not enough to take a photo. I have completed two too little baby sleeves, though. The body measures 13 inches, neckline to bottom, and the sleeves are 7.5 inches long. They just seem a bit short. Maybe my kids had long arms, but I’m tempted to add a bit on. 

Before:

After:

Gracee’s in the dog house:

Was it good, Grace? At least it wasn’t knitting.

I just found out that I’m going to have lots of knitting time in December. This has been the year of major appliance repair and/or replacement in our house and now it’s my turn. I’ve decided to go ahead with an ACL graft and a few other nips and tucks inside my knee after having problems so severe that I can’t turn over at night without dislocating my right knee. Sounds icky and painful but I’m concentrating on the positive aspects, besides the obvious one of having my upper and lower leg finally connected together enough time to catch up on my knitting. I’m making my list:

1. Major work on Marina.

2. Watching a couple of seasons of "Six Feet Under."

3. Reading a few Canadian books sitting on my shelf – Unless by Carol Shields, All That Matters by Wayson Choy, and the Island of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston.

4. Updating our will.

5. Completing last year’s taxes.

6. Another attempt at sock knitting. On the way home from the surgeon’s office I bought this:

Being Ms. Practicality in most parts of my life, my daughters can’t understand when I don’t get excited about their dating anniversaries. "We’re going out, it’s our two month anniversary," they might say. I suppose in this age of brief marriages you’d better celebrate anniversaries while you can.

Chuck and I hardly celebrate our wedding anniversary. Once his sister called from Minnesota, and after 45 minutes on the phone, she wished us Happy Anniversary. It came as a shock to both of us, neither of us had remembered. We didn’t forget after that, but we still don’t do much as it’s so close to Christmas. We did it big twice, buying a stereo for our 10th and taking the family to Mexico for our 20th. Maybe there’s a relationship between big fancy weddings and feeling compelled to celebrate in a large way. We ran off on a Monday afternoon to get married.

Today I thought I’d check out when my first blogging anniversary will be and to my surprise it already was! It was September 3rd last year that I started this habit. Might have to increase my stash in celebration 🙂  Back then I thought, "How will I ever come up with enough stuff to regularly blog?" My family assures me I’m never at a loss for words.

Instead of a knitting picture I’m posting my latest sunset photo taken from our deck. My dream is to win the lottery so I can have a water view someday, but you can’t beat these sunsets for now. Have a good weekend.

That’s a catchy title. I usually enjoy my two glasses of wine in the evening, but I haven’t been able to recently. No wine for me. My neck has been in spasm and alcohol makes it worse. I took half a muscle relaxer for the first time. I told my daughter that it felt like having a glass of wine without the headache. She told me it was more acceptable to drink wine than do drugs. Darn.

The air was cool last night and it smelled of fall. Walking past my knitting basket, Marina called out to me, letting me know that if I didn’t start making some progress pretty soon the air would be warmer and smelling like spring; too late for Marina. It was far less painful than I imagined, getting into the swing of Marina. It helped that my magnetic board hadn’t budged and was still marking the right row.

I once saw a button that said "Be kind to me, I have teenagers." I only have one teen now, the two girls having graduated into their 20’s. I still deserve kindness. This isn’t a bad story, just an example of teenage logic.

So, Chuck is in MN, the girls are back to Edmonton and Victoria, the student is at the pub and I asked Bryant if I could take him out to dinner. He hemmed and hawed, calculating how he might fit me in with his social life. After a while he replied:

"Actually, it’s not real high on my priority list."

Where might he have heard that response before?

"You mean," I asked, "that going out to eat with me is not on your priority list?"

"No, I just can’t see spending the money, why don’t you take the money we would have spent and send it to the hurricane victims."

Good answer. Except of course, he will take my money tonight to go to the movies.

Thanks to all for your comments about the Regia tin. I would have brought more back for RAOK’s, blog contest prizes and gifts, but there was only one.

Here is a project I started in Germany; I needed something totable. It sort of looks like a sock, but it’s sleeve of a baby sweater knit in sock yarn.

UPDATE: Bryant and I have decided to make a contribution directly to someone affected by the hurricane and will send our donation to the aunt of Christine, of Blue Ewe fame. This elderly aunt lost all in New Orleans and Christine is providing her with temporary shelter.

Just as I was feeling really sorry for myself, unable to attend my M-I-L’s memorial service, I receive a thoughtful RAOK card from Christina of Between the Stitches. Perfect timing, funny how that happens. Thank you, Christina.

I’ve booked a couple of things to look forward to. First is a watercolour flower painting workshop in November with my daughter, two exchange students, a co-worker and a friend. These flowers, taken in the garden of artist Otto Niemeyer, in Germany, will be the subject of my painting. Then a group of us bought tickets to see the play Beauty and the Beast, one of my favourite musicals, in December. An old friend from Northern Ireland had a saying, something like – to be happy you need someone to love, something to work for and something to look forward to. I think it makes sense.

Successfully made it through the first day of school with all the expected protests. On the way to school, with the 15 yr old held captive in my car, I decided to brig up the M word; that being Math. He age-appropriately let me know of his mathematical feelings in a silent way by firmly plugging his ears with his fingers. Could have been worse; noisier and more profane. I guess I’m a lucky mother.

On to the lighter side. Why Germany is a knitter’s paradise:

1. In Northern Germany I found many yarn shops with a good variety of yarns, mostly imported from Italy. Does that mean that Italy is even a better yarn heaven? I know that isn’t the case in Denmark, as items made and sold in DK can be more expensive than those exported to other countries due to exorbitant sales taxes.

2. Most shops sold Inox needles, but a few carried Addi’s for between 4.60 and 7.50 Euro. In Canada the same needles range from $17-$25 Cdn dollars. Even with the additional 50% exchange difference, this is a bargain. Addi crochet hooks were 3 Euro, compared to $9 Cdn.

3. I couldn’t find any sock yarn other than Trek and Regia where I was, but the selection of those were amazing. I bought some to make a Bee’s Knee’s baby sweater as, after this trip, I’m not sure I’ll ever make socks again since I found a shop that sold knitted socks from most Regia yarns for 10 Euro. They were beautiful but I didn’t get back to buy any.

4. Germany has a good system of mail order knit shops. Here’s my favourite. Martina’s customer service is wonderful. I don’t speak German, but I could navigate around the site, and Martina graciously e-mailed answers to my questions in English.

5. My best knitting souvenir, the one thing for which my family members cannot understand my enthusiasm, was this tin, which made it dent free across the continents:

A finished Kiri! Here are my thoughts:

1. The provisional cast on is unnecessary. I simplified it with a similar cast on to the one in the Charlotte pattern.

2. My last skein was a different colour lot – way different. I’m glad I discovered it towards the end as it looks appropriately like a border.

3. I think I’ll add a bead to each point of the scallop.

4. A self striping yarn would be nice with this pattern. The one I used was a bit too subtle.

5. I skipped the last row as I was running low on yarn and it doesn’t seem to have made a significant impact on the design. Here’ s what I had left after fixing the three mistakes I found during blocking:

Elina, who just found out that she passed her RN exam, as if there would be a different outcome, left to join the real world in Edmonton. Mari, who deliberated all day about returning to her academic semester of her co-op program, or to skip it and complete another work term, is leaving to UVic tomorrow.  Chuck leaves in the morning to go to Minnesota to attend his mother’s memorial service, which will take place on what would have been her 92nd birthday.  And Bryant starts grade 10. All these necessary life transitions…