Life's a Stitch

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:

All year I had been saving a quote on which I was going to base my Valentine’s Day post. I heard it on the radio in the middle of the night and was so touched I scribbled it on a scrap of paper. It has surfaced from time to time in my pile of task oriented clutter and I’ve made a conscious decision not to chuck it. Do you think I could find it? No way. I’ve searched the wonderful internet to no avail, so I guess I’ll have to base this on my foggy recollection of Winston Churchill’s marriage proposal to Clementine. He said something like: Are you fool enough to love me, mad enough to stay with me and spend the rest of your life with me? In the middle of the night that sounded so romantic coming from the man who looked like a bull dog. He really had a way with words.

The runner up for romance is the line from Cole Porter’s in the Still of the Night – "Are you my life to be, that dream come true?" Oh sniff, sniff, after seeing DeLovely I can’t hear that song without tears. These hormones are something else.

I haven’t totally given up on my Autumn Silk Cardigan, the romantic lacy sweater is coming along slowly but surely. I have dropped all the stitches off the needles twice and that put a crimp on my motivation. So, here is where I am:

That’s right, listen up, Vancouver knitters, Koigu is FINALLY coming to us! I was at my knit night at Knit and Stitch in West Van, and Inge, the owner, proudly told me after all my pleading to stock it, the owners of Koigu paid her a surprise visit. Initially they told her they weren’t taking on new clients, but after ten minutes in Inge’s fantastic shop, they gave her a credit application. The Koigu is on its way!

By the way, Inge’s motto is "Knitting forever, housework whenever." Keeping that in mind, here is a finished Granbia scarf:

Even after my recent Fleece Artist project fiasco, where my Garter Stitch Jacket reacted to blocking with steroid-like growth, it is my favourite yarn company. I have made their narrow fringed scarf and the Garter Stitch jacket, and am starting another Kid Silk multidirectional scarf. My stash includes their Triangle shawl kit. Most of their products appear to be sold in "kits," that is a hank or two of wool with a pattern printed on the yarn label. For hand painted, quality yarn in Canadian dollars, the price is still reasonable enough to use for other projects. The yarn they sell in hanks comes in large enough quantities to complete a project with very few knots and ends to weave. The colours are beautiful and the textures luxurious. My next Fleece Artist purchase will be their 2-ply cashmere for another Rippling Waters scarf. When can you have a 100% cashmere scarf for $33 CDN?

Another favourite is Manos del Uruguay. This is a photo of my daughter modelling her Manos multidirectional scarf (pattern link on sidebar).

No knitting, just Gracee learning to knit in her sleep through osmosis:

I was listening to a dog behaviour expert on national radio. He was explaining that humans have to respect the animal’s doginess and give them opportunities to indulge in the purpose for which they were bred. Greyhounds need to run, retrievers need to fetch, shepherds need to herd. Scotties were bred to kill rodents and I controlled my reaction last night when Ms.Grace hunted and killed a mouse in the house. I respected her Scottiness and dutifully cleaned up the many mouse turds and hair that were the byproducts of the hunt. I never thought I’d say it, but Bryant’s method of mouse hunting by blow dart gun was a lot more efficient and probably easier on the mouse.

I’ve started knitting with Granbia; a new yarn to love:

It’s vibrant but not so shocking as it looks in the photo. The colours remind me of a British Columbia November sunset.