Life's a Stitch

When my kids were little they ate ants on logs – peanut butter on celery with a parade of raisins on top. Gracee eats ants, not on anything. She stalks the ant, pounces, shakes it up in her mouth and then spits it out. Lovely. This time, however, the ant fought back. No matter how hard she tried to get rid of it, a part of the ant appeared embedded in her tongue. Poor girl, with a little coaxing we managed to free her of her burden:

Next week I will be in Edmonton for my daughter’s graduation from the university. It seems like a dream. As one of my co-workers put it – one off the payroll! I need a break, having over extended myself in a variety of ways. You should be around my house right about now. Maybe you shouldn’t. There seems to be a fair bit of ranting going on. When the kids were little I used to yell "Calgon, take me away" after the commercial from a long time ago. Once, my two-year-old said, "If you’re going with Calgon, I’m going, too." That was enough to break the tension. We need one of those tension breakers right now. Oh boy, a trip to Pam’s Wooley Shop seems like a good diversion. I’ll try to post from there, have a good weekend.

I never pictured myself as a knitter of Fair Isle, especially on size three needles. My first Fair Isle was accomplished at a class featuring a  Philosopher’s Wool pattern with12 beautiful colours. I went in with trepidation, but was relieved when I discovered the following:

1. Although a Fair Isle pattern may have many colours, you are generally only knitting with two in any given row.
2. Many patterns can be knit in the round eliminating the need to purl to achieve stockinette.
3. The strands of yarn don’t tangle because you knit with both hands, one colour in each.
4. Since you are adding new colours at the extra stitches in the middle of the front, a.k.a. the steek, you don’t need to weave in the ends since you will cut the steek anyway.
5. You usually don’t have to read the chart stitch by stitch. More often than not, a repetitive rhythmic pattern emerges and after a series of stitches you no longer have to refer to the chart for that row.
6. Forget the analogy to a knitting episiotomy, cutting up the steek is not traumatic.

Seriously, you can do it! So, here is Marina with a pattern emerging:

A pasta problem. Given:

1. One family member is allergic to wheat.
2. One is on a chronic variation of Atkins and doesn’t eat anything white (OK, you purists, I know there is no such thing as a variation to Atkins).
3. Two won’t eat white clam sauce and one likes his pasta hot and naked (with olive oil and herbs).
4. Two won’t touch whole wheat pasta.
5. We are trying a sample of brown rice pasta.

Problem: How many pots were cooking on my stove tonight?

Answer: Six – one each for the rice, the rice pasta sample, the whole wheat pasta, the angel hair pasta, the red meat sauce and the white clam sauce. And then there were four different salad dressings and two kinds of Parmesan.

I must be crazy. Most people cook spaghetti for an easy meal.

But you know I like a challenge, so here is my progress on Marina’s ribbing, front and back:

After a career in the world of non-profit social services, I often wonder what it would be like to work in the real world. Today I got a taste of another world, but I’m not sure it’s the real one. On my last day off I accompanied Bryant to "wardrobe" to get his clothes picked out for his role as "date boy" in a milk commercial. I was able put up my feet and knit away on Marina while Bryant was suited up in clothes he’d normally see in his dreams. As he wears a uniform to high school he doesn’t need much more, other than a pair or two of jeans and some khakis. It amazed me that in the world of commercials, the wardrobe person can pay anything to anyone for something she wants. They can literally rent the shirt off your back if they like it. So I did. Not a shirt, but a scarf I had in my stash. They sent a driver to pick it up at my house. If they use it I will be paid rent. If not they will pay me a restocking fee to put it back on the floor of my closet. Such a deal. You can tell I’m not in the business.

It was very relaxing until I discovered that I was knitting an Alice Starmore mobius. I can’t figure out how it happened, but somewhere in my 360 stitches I twisted things around. With no intentions of tearing back ten rows of corrugated rib knit on teensy needles, I did a premature snip of the steek to get things turned around. Thanks to Thomas, in Denmark, for featuring this solution on his blog. Here is my straightened out rib. I’m thrilled with the colours except for the very bottom where the pink shows through underneath the blue. I think this is due to the type of cast on I used. Again, there’s no way I’m ripping out ten rows to fix this. It will have to become a design feature or I can stitch over them afterwards with the blue yarn. Am I the only one bothered by things like that? I know I had a couple of unplanned "design features" in my Philosopher’s Wool Fair Isle, and I can’t remember what they are, although at the time I fretted about them.

I’m just back from our extended holiday weekend away. For those who aren’t in Canada it was Victoria Day, a celebration of Queen Victoria’s b-day. I think it’s Canada’s excuse for a May holiday. There was a lot of good knitting happening. I finished my flower basket bag and successfully swatched (finally) for Marina. I’ve spent more time swatching for that project than I have knitting some scarves. 

Here’s the view from our deck this weekend. My kids have grown up visiting this place from time to time. Notice it’s on a golf course. We are not golfers, but we are good golf critics, and being situated above a tee, it’s how my children learned foul language. Right. Knitters never swear; only golfers:

Throughout my swatching for Marina I’ve left my box of yarn on the floor. I came in yesterday evening to find five skeins of Jamieson and Smith is various stages of shreddedness. It’s funny how the 15-year-old boy, who hardly cares enough for the dog to ever take care of her, can come to her defense when mother is ready to kill her. "It’s not her fault," says he, "you left the stuff out (where has he heard that before) and besides it looks like the "Budda Bone" (a tightly wound bundle of thin string having the effect of doggie dental floss when chewed) she had when she was a puppy; she thought you left her a box of new toys." Luckily second daughter came in at that moment and elected to bail the dog out by offering to re-wind the mass of woolen spaghetti strewn about the living room. Three hours later, what was once five skeins was now ten of varying sizes – all usable. I’m impressed how families can band together in times of knitting crises.

First – big news for the son of a stitch  – his agent just called and he has a part in a commercial! It’s exciting news, his first official job.

OK, so less is more, more is less is the rhyme I’ve made up to remember how to get gauge. If you need more stitches you need a lesser sized needle, if you need fewer stitches you need a greater sized needle. On that note, I started swatching for Marina. The gauge is supposed to be 16 stitches over two inches on 3.25mm (3US) needles. I’m getting 11 stitches to two inches. Holy, if more is less, I’m gong to be knitting this project on circular toothpicks. 

I got up enough nerve to try 3.0 mm needles. Picture those bamboo barbeque skewers. The result? Thirteen stitches per two inches. Still not good enough. I thought that maybe if I used my gauge and knit the smaller size it might work. When I took the total number to be cast on and divided by my gauge, it was still larger than the largest size in the pattern. I apologize if this is sounding too much like math. Here are my options:

1. Use my gauge, but reduce the number of cast on stitches by one Fair Isle repeat to get nearly the right size. I’m afraid what this will mean if I do this for the sleeves as well. Will I end up with bat wings or teeny weeny tubes for sleeves?

2. Try knitting on size 2.75mm needles. Think circular toothpicks. One of my co-workers brought in me in a set of old steel needles on wire cables. She inherited them from her mom. Hopefully her mother’s talented knitting spirits will come through those needles and I’ll be on my way.

These are some of the pre-felted roses of all sizes and leaves for my flower basket bag. Go on over to the knit along site of you’d like more info. I’ve recently posted three times about my adaptation of the pattern to knitting in the round.

Have a good weekend. Happy Victoria Day  weekend to all in Canada.

I’m a few days over 50, but I can still remember the song "I Can Sing a Rainbow" from Captain Kangaroo when I was four. Mind you, I can’t remember where I put my keys from day to day, but I can remember the words to almost every song I’ve ever learned. Maybe if I start singing everything I’d remember more.

That reminds me of another story. One of my children, who will remain unnamed to protect her/his innocence, at age three, used to sing for hours on end. We used to call it opera time at our house.This child had learned many camp songs as Chuck was executive director of a charity that ran the camp where we lived for four summers. One evening I heard enthusiastic singing from the bathroom , "Someone’s pooping Lord, Kumbaya…" Oh I wish I had a recording of it, I still laugh out loud when it comes to mind.

Back to the rainbow, I received a box from Four Seasons Knitting in Toronto. Jo-Anne, with her customary good service, had upgraded my shipping to express post at no extra charge, as her service was not up to her own speedy standards. This is my Alice Starmore Marina to be! I am happy that the colour selection looks more in line with the photo in Woolcraft than the colours called for in the original pattern.

I found out that my  S-I-L has been printing off my blog to share with my M-I-L, who is in her 90’s and lives in a nursing home in Minneapolis. We don’t see each other very much and I’m so excited to be in her life on a more frequent basis. Before I met her, my husband "warned" me that his Mom was genuinely one of the sweetest people I would ever meet. Points for him, I had heard that if a guy is respectful of his mom he’ll be respectful of you. He was right. She is patient and kind, truly lives her faith and has a great smile. My S-I-L is her clone. Hi Mom and Karen! I miss you.

I don’t remember if I listed this in my 59 Things About Me; although I never seem to be at a loss for words I have a deadly fear of public speaking. People talk about the adrenaline rush they get from presentations, but it is exactly that, that I hate. I have enough adrenaline rushing through my veins at any given moment that a milligram more makes me feel sick. I have a hard time figuring out the pleasures of cocaine and speed. This week was one of the only major fund raisers my non-profit agency has sponsored during my employment. It was a Ladies’ Only Golf Clinic and I was elected to speak about the good works of my program. I truly believe in the good that we do, but why do I have such a hard time speaking in front of crowds? I have a masters degree in counselling, I am well versed in the field of phobias, but I admit it – I HATE PUBLIC SPEAKING!

Complicating factor – we were informed of the untimely passing of a friend whose funeral took place at the same time as the golf clinic. Although Al was 83 he experienced an unfortunate accident (a fall) causing his unexpected but supposedly peaceful death. What makes it more incredulous is that we had dinner with him just last week. Al was a lifelong committed golfer, and as I was unable to attend his memorial, I tried to be brave in his honour while I spoke to a banquet room full of golfers.

Our friends from Seattle came up for the funeral and stayed with us. We did a lot in Al’s honour these past couple of days. We remembered his fondness of wine and drank a fair share; we talked of our conversation with him two weekends ago, about how on the night they met, Fran, his lovely wife of over 60 years, literally danced him under the table, and we danced; we reminisced about his love for good food and we ate lobster. (Hey Vancouverites – if you want a rare treat, try Lobsters Only, a supplier to restaurants, but they sell to the public on a cash basis – $11.75/lb).  We didn’t need an excuse to do any of the above, but it was fun remembering Al and the good times we had together.

Oh yeah, we knit. I’m 75% done with my flower basket bag:

I think sometimes that some afflictions in blogland are contagious. The Harlot has her issues with Mr. Washy and Karen,of Needles and Wool fame, has just reluctantly replaced her second set of front loaders. I am replacing my eight year old Kitchen LemonAid washer and dryer after repairing the damn thing almost once per year. As if it’s consolation, everyone in the business of w&d’s tell me that they’ve never heard of anyone having such problems with that product. If fact Kenmore, which is Whirlpool, which is KitchenAid, is the most highly rated brand on the market. Well, poo-flonk (as my son says), replacing a washer and dryer rates right up there with new roofing, brakes, clutches and mufflers. I bought that top of the line set thinking that was the last time I’d be shopping for a w&d for a long time.

Off I went. I found a terrific deal on a Maytag Neptune. I really paid attention when I read Karen’s blog about her experience buying one, reading about class action suits, and changing her mind. I really read that, but why did I make the same mistake? It was SUCH A GOOD DEAL! And besides, they couldn’t possibly be selling the same model in Canada. Guess again. It was the exact same model. Is Maytag exporting to Canada because they can’t sell them in the States? A good friend called Maytag and they assured him they are not; that the problem has been solved. But the bad PR combined with my recent lemony experience sent me running to Sears where I purchased their considerably more expensive set. The upside is that they are stackable and are larger capacity machines. My daughter is of the opinion that the chances of getting a lemon twice in a row are slim when you buy the highest rated item.This solution, however, presents a new problem – I hear you can’t felt in a front loader. Any suggestions? I’m feeling sorry for my washerless self as I watch Mt. Laundry grow higher than its usual tree line self. And how come all those good sheepy and wool festivals seem to take place on the East Coast? Thought I’d throw that in to this whine fest.

I’m ending the week not on a knitting note, but on a painting one. This is the second in the tree series we have been working on in my watercolour class. I am really enjoying this experience.  Have a wonderful weekend.