Life's a Stitch

…to bring you a multidirectional scarf. Have you ever intended to knit a swatch and it turned into a project? It just happened. I was so excited to swatch the Fleece Kid from Fleece Artist and I just couldn’t stop. Oh boy is it beautiful. I’m using 5mm (US8) needles which is comforting as I was expecting to use teensy tinsy ones after discovering the yarn was two ply instead of the four ply I was expecting. It is so soft and rich with colour and the pattern is high on the "just one more row" factor. This is my new favourite scarf pattern:

With two out of three kids back at school it was time to take Gracee to the groomer. They prefer the shaggy Grace to the groomed one. What do you think? I think I have to learn how to fix ‘blue eye" in dog photos.

Can you identify what happened here?

How about a close up:

Using your best Maxwell Smart voice: "Would you believe I was trying to dye my yarn with red wine?"

The truth: I am a fairly easy going person. I take things in stride. When I get frustrated I find that winding yarn is an excellent way to burn off those feelings. I was EXTREMELY frustrated tonight. Mostly angry, but I’ll spare you the details. So off to the winder I went accompanied by a large glass of red wine. My winding stuff is on a pull out desk and the wine was carefully placed on the desk’s hutch. I wound for a bit and paid attention to make sure the glass was not moving. Not enough attention as when I hit my stride rehearsing the conversation I would love to have with the object of my anger, off the glass jumped, shattering into two million pieces including the ones that embedded themselves into my hand and foot as I tried to clean the mess. I would have had far less mess and far more satisfaction had I thrown the glass, but I’m not that kind of person.

The solution:

These products have come to our red wine rescue on more than one occasion. I know someone, whose husband is a supreme court judge who wouldn’t allow company to drink red wine in their white carpeted house. If they had only met my two friends pictured above, life would have been more pleasant for them.

Moral: Drinking and winding don’t mix.

I’ll be back on Thursday.

Mari convinced me to drive her back to the dorm rather than drop her off at the ferry to fend for herself and all of her stuff. She bribed me with 90 minutes at the Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria, easily the best little yarn shop in BC.

So, Elina, Mari and I took off with enough time to catch the 10:00 am ferry. As we crossed the bridge, 20 minutes ahead of the terminal, Mari started saying "Uh-oh, Uh-oh, I had the schedule wrong, they are on the odd hours, not the even hours." No big deal, we spent an hour eating muffins while waiting for the ferry.

Click on the photo for a nice view of Mount Baker from the ferry. 2.75 hours later we landed in Victoria and headed straight for downtown.  After a Chinese lunch buffet I spent my allotted hour and a half at the Beehive while the girls were at a uniform shop buying scrubs for Elina’s job in pediatric cardiology – Clifford the Big Red Dog, the Pink Panther, Nemo…

I bought one skein of Fleece Artist Kid Silk in my usual jewel tones. It’s kid and silk and has enough for two nice scarves, one for a gift and one for me. I’ve decided there will be no more guilt over stash enhancement. OK, maybe just a little guilt. I know my stash is smaller than many and right now I have a little money to spend on yarn. In a few years that might be different and I’ll have to depend upon my stash. I’m usually good about using up what I have. This sound like guilt talking, so I’ll stop.

Afterwards, I convinced the girls to let me stop at a button store to add to my collection of Scottie buttons. Then a quick trip to the dorm and back onto the ferry with no time to spare.

Everyone on that ferry has a story. There was the ancient Volvo with the tall guy, the black dog and every possible possession packed into his car. The brand new Toyota Matrix, driven by a 70+ year old woman, the car still with protective peel off stuff on the hood and a sticker on the window; she looked very cool. Then there was the multiply pierced young woman in the cafeteria being bothered by the shaggy guy pouring beer into his coffee cup. The treat was the Chinese senior choir practicing on the top deck and of course, the BC ferry clam chowder. A perfect day.

The boy  has successfully learned to knit and purl. He’s had some troubles with the first and last stitch in each row, but he’s learning quickly. He found some camouflage yarn on clearance at Joann.com (a boy after my own heart) and a coupon for free shipping (he really takes after me), so for $2.18US, he will have enough yarn for wrist bands, and a scarf.

Bryant also knows that my level of TypePad can support up to three blogs and announced, "If I get serious about this knitting I can have a blog and I’ll call it Son of a Stitch." That’s my boy! I’ll fess up, he named my blog as well.

An almost finished front side of the Autumn Silk Cardigan. It has a v-neck:

I know, you must think I’m giving my child a complex. It’s just that I’m so used to having girls that when my son does anything that is stereotypically male, I think back to those magic words. Congratulations, it’s a boy!

Background info: for the past 14 years, we have rented out our condo in WA as a vacation rental. After a week at a condo people leave weird things behind. We’ve found underwear, Rolaids on more than one occasion, and a Hustler magazine (all together now, "Eeewwwww"), but this trip revealed the most odd item of all. Why don’t they leave Addi turbo knitting needles? No, the last renters left a .50 cal blowgun. This "survival" item was left in a bedroom. Lord knows what they were doing in there.

Mari and Bry came back home a day ahead of us. We received a panicked phone call that night because Mari saw the bag of bread jiggling on the counter. When she bravely prodded it, out jumped a small mouse who proceeded to the toaster oven for shelter. Mari looked in the toaster window and was nose to nose with said mouse. I understand that it was a scene similar to one seen on cartoons – both with shocked looks, paws and hands in the air. Mouse proceeded to the stove and disappeared into the wall.

When we arrived home form WA, Bryant greeted us proudly, showing off the blow darts he made out of pencil erasers and sewing needles. You know where this is going, don’t you? We are a peaceful, non-violent, non-hunting kind of family, but my son, the boy for whom I was congratulated upon his birth, tonight has two notches in his blow dart gun for the two mice he has "successfully" hunted, his father enthusiastically egging him on. The have even fantasized mounting the heads of their prey as trophies of their success. Congratulations…

I’m thankful for "problems" like these when the world is coping with war and disaster. With no daily TV in our lives, one very visual day of US TV this past week really put things into perspective.

As I’ve said before, when under considerable strain, "someone get me my knitting!" And they did. Here is the start of the sleeve on my Garter Stitch Cardigan.

I like taking an extra day of vacation time and starting back to work with a short week. It also gives me an extra day to recover from a break that reminds me of the Berenstein Bears and Too Much Christmas. I work hard and I play hard. OK, I knit hard, too.

This holiday season I hosted five parties. My office party, the one here for Chuck’s former co-workers form the health department, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Whew! I’m not complaining, I enjoy stuff like that.

The past days in WA were wonderful, having hit three knit shops, watching five movies without falling asleep (the key is to stay sitting up), spending New Year’s afternoon playing Catchphrase (a traditional family past time), and knitting for countless hours. One of the highlights was snaring a new person in my knitting web. I have created a new knitter – the 13 yr old daughter of a friend. I’ve read that, as a knitter, you always remember who taught you and I’m honoured to have that space in someone’s life. The first photo is my close friend Lynn, my eldest daughter and my new knitter, Samantha, with Gracee, on the beach two blocks from our place in Bellingham. The second is a scene from a round of Catchphrase for blood. All in all it met my expectations for a perfect break: we ate too much, drank good wine, visited three yarn stores, shopped some good sales, had fun with friends, and slept without an alarm clock.

On the knitting front here are updates of the Garter Stitch Cardigan and the Autumn Silk Cardigan:

Bryant, age 14, has said the words every knitting mother wants to her, “Do you think you could teach me to knit?” I would love to teach him to knit and I would enjoy his company at knit nights. He asked how long it would take him to learn. I told him it takes practice, but a half hour a day for two weeks should be a good start. He was thrilled to learn that it takes less time to learn to knit than to learn to ride a unicycle. I love kid’s logic. His interest was spurred by the new Stitch and Bitch book. He has four projects in mind. I had made him two items from the first book. Maybe he figures he could get them faster if he knits them himself. I’m looking forward to this.

On my own knitting progress: I’m where I was, prior to frogging, on the Autumn Silk Cardigan. The yarn is splitting a bit from having been worked twice.

A safe and Happy New Year to all. I’ll be away until Wednesday the 5th, down to WA, the land of many knit shops and no computer. Happy Knitting!

The purchase of a yarn winder and swift often comes with the need to justify the expense. No justification needed here. All you need is the opportunity to wind the huge hanks of Fleece artist yarn that comes in the cardigan kit. I can’t imagine winding that by hand.

Looking over the cardigan pattern there’s a suggestion to increase the needle size to make a larger sweater. I figure that if there’s enough yarn to do that there must be enough to make the recommended size longer. Here’s hoping. I’ll be depending upon my kitchen scale to monitor how much I’m using.

It’s fun to see what the colours are turning into when knitted. I was hoping the splashes of rust would be more prominent.

Due to the absence of knitting related items under the tree I felt the need to fill the void. May I introduce you to (drum roll) a Fleece Artist Garter Stitch Jacket kit. I’ve made a concerted effort to depart from my blue, green, purple, jewel tone habit. If you look at my photo album it is pretty much monochromatic. The yarn feels much softer than the jacket looks in the pattern picture. I’m looking forward to an easy knit to balance the more fiddly Autumn Silk Cardigan.

There was one item from my knitting list that made it under the tree – a wonderful book called Knitting Into the Mystery – about the meditative nature of knitting and a shawl knitting ministry. Thank you, Elina.

Look what arrived this past week:

I recently entered a blog contest and won. It was on Jenla’s Knotty Girl blog – their How to Make the World a More Positive Place contest. The prize was a Christmas stress relief package – a basket with a sheepy mug and ornament, hot chocolate, Scottish whiskey fudge, shortbread, chocolate, lingonberry jam, a skein of Karabella laceweight  mohair and a set of bamboo needles.

Thank you Jen and Laura! If you aren’t familiar with their blog, check it out – creative and entertaining, lots of talent there.