Life's a Stitch

A few years back I was lamenting the fact that there no longer seemed to be time or energy to do anything except parent and work. I never thought things could possibly get easier, but as those little chicks get their flying wings, time has magically reappeared. Over the past year, in addition to working full time, I’ve found time for knitting, blogging, ball room dance class with Chuck and a couple of weekends ago, after a break of nearly 17 years, I went back to my attempts at watercolour painting. Just over a year ago I pulled out the paints and was terribly discouraged that I had lost any knowledge I once had. Knowing how much I missed that part of my life, daughter #2 gave me a watercolour set for my last BIG b-day, but still I was discouraged. I decided to start from the beginning and took a one day introductory workshop with a wonderful teacher, Frank Townsley. So here is my unveiling. It just an ordinary amateurish watercolour landscape, but it’s provided me hope and joy that I can manage to pursue this again:

See you on Friday!

I haven’t talked much about our recent foreign student. We have hosted over 50 students in ten years and generally it is a good experience. Three of the four exceptions have been between the ages of 18 and 19. We are in the midst of one of those exceptions. This student wasn’t adjusting as well as the others, spending her time at the computer or at school, which she wasn’t thrilled about. When I talk about computer time, I mean 12 hours a day, sometimes falling asleep at the computer. I talked with her about balance to no avail. The other night I believed I caught her involved in some inappropriate behaviour in a chat room. The next day we found photos stored on our computer of “indiscreet” poses taken in our home. That was that. We arranged for a transfer in homestay arrangements, but as a mental health professional I believe that she needs more than that so I’m trying to put together some assurance that she gets the help she needs before she gets into further trouble. This misguided child was accessing sketchy chat rooms using her real name and photos.

     For a break we went down to our little place in Bellingham, WA. It is my refuge, but this time we were greeted by a leaky roof, broken gas fireplace, shorted out stove and a drippy fridge. I’ll have to plan a few days in a row when I can sit around knitting and waiting for repair people. I hit four knit shops and didn’t buy one thing. I went with shopping in mind but none of them had what I was looking for; Lamb’s Pride bulky for the flower basket knit along, Heirloom Alpaca in red for a cable scarf, and something black and metallic for a shawl I’ll be making for a gift.

     Didn’t accomplish much knitting, but I did start a simple cable scarf:

So how long should a scarf be? Please tell me that size doesn’t matter. Is 45" acceptable, 48", 70"? I’ve found scarves an excellent way to indulge in expensive yarns that I might  not otherwise buy. But sometimes two balls doesn’t seem quite enough for me. OK, get your minds out of the gutter. Any opinions on size? I once knit an 80" one and that seemed too much, but 45"? Really, I’m beginning to think size matters.

Here is my completed Fey Fantasia, measuring in at 54". I’d love to have it a bit longer but it is pricey yarn and there is no way I’m in for a fifth skein. It has a nice weight so it stays put when thrown over the shoulder. Some scarves don’t and need length to be wrapped around my neck. This was fun yarn to knit, even twice:

When it comes to carpet stains I am like a dog with a bone. I will not let it go without a good fight. I know all the products and swear by a few. I’ve had two puppies, a baby with projectile vomiting, and the normal spills of life but this week I met my challenge. My office is located up an escalator from a Starbucks. My staff think Starbuck’s is better than any coffee the office might offer them and spend a good deal of money on their ventis. Now I’m not much of a coffee drinker, I do like good decaf, but price matters and I’m not coughing up $5 a day for Starbucks. Not when there’s yarn like Granbia in the world. I opt for my daily two litres of peppermint tea instead (mostly clear, easily cleaned up). When I arrived at work on Wednesday there was a HUGE stain on the carpet. HUGE doesn’t describe how large it was. It was a venti venti! After grumbling that nobody cared for the carpet quite as much as I do, I went at it. Half a bottle of Folex and half a tub of Oxy clean failed to make a dent. I consulted with the world via the web and found the following recipe: 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide plus 1 teaspoon of ammonia used within half an hour of mixing, followed by a blanket of weighted paper towels promised success. My co-workers expressed fear that I was making a poisonous gas. I agreed not to breath it in and off I went into battle. It looks like I’m winning, but we won’t know for sure until it’s drying and we see what rises to the surface from the underlay. I have not been overcome with poisonous gas so that’s a plus.

No knitting pictures today, hopefully a photo of a finished object on Monday. In answer to a question yesterday regarding the Fey Fantasia scarf – it is done in Mistaken Rib over 39 stitches.

Have a great weekend.

When all else fails, read the directions. How long is it going to take me to learn that? Remember the Colinette Mercury I was knitting with a while back? I described it as being aptly named because the yarn "melted" into a pool even though carefully wound. Last night I found the label and noticed printing on the inside, printing I had missed the first time around. It says,"Mercury by name, mercury by nature. This yarn is liquid and will flow into its own form and tangle if set free!!! I added the exclamation points. Then it says, "So be in control!" That is their exclamation mark. Later into the instructions, "Do not attempt to wind this yarn on a yarn swift." Ha-ha I did that. "Well, look what happened to it" the label says to me. You were supposed to wind it into a ball over the back of a chair, place the ball in a small plastic bag, an "get knitting tangle free." Apologies to the s-i-l who spent two hours untangling the liquid mess. I’m seriously wondering if the ends I wove in will stay and have advised the Mercury scarf’s recipient that a needle and thread might prove good insurance against yarn with a mind if its own. I don’t think I’ll use Mercury again.

After I figured out my Fey Fantasia this project started to remind me of Groundhog Day. The movie, not the actual day that has recently passed, but the Bill Murray film where he gets to repeat the events of the day over and over until he gets it right. Fantasia is my Ground Hog Day scarf. It’s not bad enough  that I frogged it when I was 75% finished, the other night after merrily knitting away at my Chicks with Sticks group, I discovered a mistake that must have occurred in the first row of the evening. Instant replay; I had to frog it back by half for a do-over. At least the entire scarf is now being knitted with wavy frogged yarn. And here’s my new method of knitting with pinky extended:

Another trip to Alpha Crafts and I discovered why I was so unhappy with the way the Fantasia was patterning. Upon close examination of their knitted samples I realized my scarf was not wide enough to allow the pattern to happen. The labels probably indicated this, but I can’t read Japanese/Chinese characters at all. The western numbers don’t even make sense since the needles sizes are different as well. So, three quarters into the project I frogged it. I knew I’d be unhappy with the results and would rather take the time to fix it than stew about it every time I wear it. It’s looking good:

Thanks to all for your suggestions yesterday regading a closure for my jacket. There were lots of ideas I hadn’t even thought of and I’ll let you know my decision after I try a few. See you on Thursday.

Thanks to Beth and Christine, I have a new section on my sidebar of buttons for blogs I read. Trouble is, they were OK when I initially put them on, but then several disappeared leaving funky little symbols in their place.  Through trial and error I rewrote the code for the links and now they look fine. I love defying the old saying about teaching an old dog who new tricks. I’ll keep working to get more buttons up as time permits.

Speaking of the quirks of cyber knitting, I have two new entries for the strangest google searches people have used to find my blog. Drum roll, please. I’m not sure which is stranger – one was "cushy tushy toilet seat" and the other "mouse turd photos."

And speaking of drum rolls, here is the unveiling of the finished Fleece Artist Garter Stitch Cardigan apres felting. I need to figure out a closure. The pewter ones I bought are way to heavy. This is a very light weight jacket. I’m thinking of sewing on a trim of grey velvet ribbon and not using closures at all. It need something to finish it off. Suggestions appreciated.

My office, at a local community service agency, is located in a shopping mall. Malls are like little cities with unique environments and people who consider the mall their home of sorts. There are the mall walkers – the healthy heart people who walk the halls for exercise prior to opening; the mall rats – the teens who hang out after school, and the regulars – those whom you see on a regular basis who couldn’t possibly be shopping all the time, but have some other need met at a shopping centre.

I guess I’m a regular since I eat breakfast every working day at the MacDonald’s inside the WalMart at the mall. When the kids were young I found it too hectic to get them and me ready at the same time. Each day I would drop them off at school and head to MacDonald’s for my 20 minutes of quiet prior to work. They know me there and I never have to tell them what I want. It’s always the bacon and egg bagel, no butter, no sauce, half cheese and a medium diet coke. I read the newspaper they’ve saved for me and get in ten minutes of knitting.

One of the other regulars noticed me knitting. He is a man in his 60’s with some special needs, as they say. I’ve seen him in the mental health office on my floor. He is very friendly and told me his wife, who died four years ago, was a knitter. The next day he delivered her stash and pattern library to my office. I was pretty touched. You can learn a lot about a person you’ve never met by their knitting collection. She was very organized, her patterns in binders and plastic sheet protectors. She was smart, you have to have smarts to knit the fair isle patterns she had. I imagined the two of them, he with his disabilities and she, managing their life and happily losing herself in her knitting. When I’m gone I hope my knitting collection goes to someone who will appreciate it.

Alison, from Just Another Day, has designed a button for me. She will do one for you in exchange for something from your stash. What a nice blogger! Now I have to figure out how to use Typepad to get it on my sidebar and we’re cookin’. Once I have that knowledge, I’ll learn how to add other blogger’s buttons as well.

The fey scarf: I’m still not sure this is how it’s supposed to be patterning, the store sample looked quite different, but then again, it was a different colour:

Update: Thanks to Caryn of Fuzzy Noodle Knits for her help in getting my button to my sidebar. I’m not sure I’ve done it 100% correctly, but it’s a start.

What am I ? I am three stitches neither knit nor purled. Give up? I am the three stitches on Li’s pinky finger, placed there as the result of an onion chopping accident.

In our house we have an event dubbed "the Cutco cut." Chuck’s had one, my mother has done it and now it’s my turn. Way back when, we were gifted with nice Cutco knives. I’ve always heard that it’s more dangerous to cut with a dull knife than a sharp one so we keep these honed like razor blades. They are a pleasure to work with. But last night, they not only cut through the onion like butter, if you’re squeamish, don’t finish this sentence, it took the little pad of my pinky finger with it. Bryant immediately went for his magnifying goggles to inspect the biological waste attached to the knife. "Cool," says he, you can see your fingerprints. "Get me my knitting," was my response. Armed with my knitting, my Starbuck’s mug filled to the brim with red wine, off to the walk-in clinic we went. The dr was wonderful. His assistant, the one I was praying wasn’t the dr (he was a very youthful, skinny, pale as death, could pass for the teen age receptionist’s little jr high school aged brother), gasped when he saw my finger. "Nice reaction," I said, not feeling badly enough myself. He was excused from the room, hopefully having learned a lesson in patient relations. When my sister was in dental assisting school, instead of "oops" or a variety of four letter words, they were instructed to state "there" in an emphatic manner. The moral of this aside: beware of dental assistants who repeatedly exclaim "there."  Back to the matter at hand, so to speak, this is my first experience with stitches other than those resulting from surgery or childbirth. Not bad for a woman of a certain age. Despite the huge bandage and the throbbing sensation in my pinky, it has barely slowed down my knitting.

I’ve started knitting yet another scarf, this time with Fey Fantasia. Again, I can’t seem to find it anywhere online except in parts of Asia. I feel really lucky to have a store in my area that carries it. This is supposed to be self patterning, but so far there’s not much in the way of a pattern that I can see:

I’ll be back on Friday.

This family drama took place a while ago. Dramas this past week include one daughter breaking up with boyfriend, another boyfriend moving to Edmonton to be close to the other daughter, and a sick boy who missed all his midterm exams.

Scene 1. Setting: Chuck and Li for a rare night on the town at Aqua Riva, a
very nice downtown Vancouver restaurant. Cell phone vibrates. Li bends over forward
in her seat so as to talk on the phone, positioning herself partially under the table.

Mom: Li here.

Caller, speaking rapidly: Hi Mom I know your cell is almost out of batteries
and if it dies you MUST call me back it’s an emergency.
Mom, calmly: What happened?
Child: The dog ate two bottles of glitter glue and it’s EVERYWHERE!
Mom: What was the dog doing out of the kitchen unsupervised?
Child: I don’t know. Mom, help quick, is she going to die?
Mom: It’s Crayola so it’s probably non-toxic.
Child: So, are you coming home to clean it up?
Mom: No, I’m at AquaRiva eating cioppino.
Child: What do I do? Use Folex? Where do I start?
Mom: Start with the carpet and then clean the dog.
Child: I’ll leave the dog for you.
Mom: No, if the glue dries on the dog her hair will need to be shaved.
Child: (Big sigh) Oh O.K.

Scene 2. Two hours later. Setting: living room, a mountain of almost every
towel in the house in the middle of the room. Wet sparkly dog running
around. More towels in kitchen.
Mom: The towels need to go into the wash ASAP.
Child: I did the dog you do the towels.
Mom: Child, the towels need to go into the washer.
Child: There’s something else in the washer.
Mom: When it’s done, move it to the dryer.  The towels need to go into the
washer.
Child: Suppose there’s something in the dryer?
Mom: Put the dry clothes is a laundry basket and move the wet ones over.
Child: Suppose the wet ones have something that can’t be dried?
Mom: Ask the person who owns the clothes.
Child: I don’t know whose clothes they are.
Mom: It’s not difficult, there’s only one other person home, ask her.
Child: Can’t you wash the towels?

Mom: silence

Child: Hey Mom? I know what you and Dad mean when
you say it’s a good thing the dog is so cute or you’d kill her. When I saw
globs of glitter glue all over I wanted to kick her but she looked up at me
with that sweet face and gold nose….

I realized, due to foul weather, I never took a photo of the Iceland scarf: