Life's a Stitch

So, eldest daughter is here for five days and we’re talking…You think when you are raising kids and you are in the same house you have a pretty good idea what’s going on. You think you provide those little guys enough supervision until thirteen years later you hear that that when Bryant was twoish, the girls would put him into a laundry basket, place another one on top, lace the two together with a skipping rope, and feed him carrots through the holes of the basket pretending he was their captured bunny. He has fond memories of this game but has a slightly different recollection. While the girls pretended he was their sweet little bunny he thought he was pretending to be a cougar. I take that to be a comment on the way he was feeling while caged up in laundry baskets.

The girls also told me they would play princess, where one would lie on the couch and bark orders to the other, her servant girl. One bet who was the princess and who was the servant.  Birth order rules here, with princess first born directing lowly second one. Second one says that she hated being princess anyhow because it was too boring to lie around on a couch.

With that in mind, here is the princess’s Manos multidirectional scarf (pattern link on side bar) in blocking mode:

So, it’s the end of the s-i-l knitting adventure. I can safely say that Ellen now knows how to knit. Here’s proof – she’s knitting Plume in a colour we’ve nicknamed Gracee since it is a perfect match for the dog.

I admit I knitted one scarf for her while she was here. The Colinette mercury was just  too much for a beginner. We call this one the rubber band scarf because the texture is like fabric covered hair elastics. So, now it’s back to reality without daily yarn shop visits, too much good food and wine and with that little interruption to each knitting day – work.

But there are other bright spots happening this weekend – my daughter found herself with six days off and a terrific air fare so she’s flying in for the weekend. And we have a new student arriving from Switzerland.

I have searched  and can’t find the two yarns below anywhere but Korea and Hong Kong. They must be sold under a different name in North America. Can’t wait to get back to Alpha and stock up.

Part three of the great S-i-l knitting caper. On their last full day in BC we decided to check out Felicia’s recommendations of Daiso at Richmond BC’s Aberdeen Mall (for $2 bamboo knitting needles) and Alpha crafts at Yoahan Centre. Thank you, Felicia!

Alpha had yarn I had never seen before and that is always a treat. It was self striping heaven with two yarns other than Noro, both beautifully soft and in amazing colours. One is Granbia (the label says it has "fascinating gradation") and the other is Fantasia:

Alpha’s display is awkward at first, the entire stock is packaged in plastic bags. Looking more closely you’ll find a sample box of a particular type of yarn, covered in clear plastic, which contains a ball of each colour available for fondling, whiffing or whatever habit you have when shopping for yarn. The sales person was very helpful pointing out knitted samples of each yarn displayed throughout the store.  Ellen bought yarn that looks exactly like Gracee’s fur when knitted. I finally broke down and bought three balls of each fascinatingly gradated yarn.

Due to the number of requests I get, I’ve decided to list on my sidebar sources of the patterns I’ve made. They’re not all there yet, but I’m working on it. There are some good free ones as well as links to mail order sources.

I have a sick boy at home and three meetings tomorrow so I’ll be back on Friday.

What’s wrong with this picture?This is Ellen’s stash. It is about the size of mine and I’ve been knitting for 40 years more or less. She developed good taste in yarn rather quickly.

I wanted to take the s-i-l’s sight seeing despite the grey British Columbian day. So, off to Fort Langley  we went  (the birthplace of BC) via the Albion Car Ferry. Ft. Langley, by the way, has a yarn shop. We waited 40 minutes in the line up for a seven minute ferry ride. Enough time to knit a fair bit on the Colinette Mercury scarf. Enough time to annoy the husband who would rather be in constant motion driving on the highway than sitting a ferry line up. Enough time for me to feel a bit "sea sick." I have very sensitive inner ears I guess.

No sooner had we parked the car when Ellen asked how far the yarn shop was. I’ve created a monster. Boy it’s fun being friends with a monster with a common interest. By the size of the sale the knitting shop lady couldn’t believe Ellen had only been knitting for twelve hours.  All I can say  is that it’s a good thing for our bankbooks that we don’t liver closer than 1700 miles. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t buy a thing.

Some of you might remember those lyrics. What were the words immediately preceding "Must be the season of the witch?" Give up?

"You’ve got to pick up every stitch."

Very appropriate for last night’s s-i-l knitting party. Since we live 1700 miles apart, nights like this are to be appreciated. From 5:00 to 1:00a.m. we stitched, bitched, drank a fair bit of wine, laughed and sang ourselves silly:

That would be Ellen, after purchasing a hundred and some dollars of yarn (I am a very bad influence) and needles, without ever having knit, holding up her first effort. And Karen getting in on the act attempting to rewind Colinette Mercury, appropriately named because no matter how you try to wind it, it melts into a pool of fabric. Don’t get taken in by its beauty, it is nearly impossible to knit anything other than basic garter stitch.

This weekend we also took advantage of a Dine Out Vancouver special, a three course meal at a nice restaurant for $25. The math on the bill worked out OK but I don’t want to do the math on the calories. Way too much good food. They always have this in January, just in time to bust those New Year’s resolutions. I should be using my yarn scale for its intended dietary purpose. More tomorrow.

What is with this Typepad wanting to underline and change my formatting this morning? Excuse the mess.

We’ve received the end of year statements from our variety of small retirement accounts. Each year we get closer we panic that there won’t be enough. I hear Chuck say "We could always bump off the kids." Shocked at this crass comment, I respond with disbelief. He repeats,"We can always bum off the kids." We’re not that close to retirement but our hearing is. I asked him if he tasted the pears I bought and he says "I didn’t know we had carrots." I’ve read that women lose the lower range of their hearing and men lose the higher making it difficult for the two to hear each other in their senior years. We’re doomed.

Progress on the mistaken rib Iceland scarf. I found a German website that had this yarn for half the price I paid for it. I’m looking forward to our trip there this summer. I also heard the Addi needles are $6 US! The angle of that picture makes me want to turn my head sideways:

I’m spending this weekend with two of my s-i-l’s who are here from Minnesota. What a great way to spend the last weekend in January, the weekend after my job’s yearly week from hell with multiple grant deadlines. One of them has asked me to teach her to knit; definitely a dream weekend.

I was discussing with my children the value of the parental advice they have been given over the years. I asked them what pearls of wisdom have stuck with them. My father always said "buy for quality rather than quantity," and these words have helped make certain important decisions easier. My daughter told me the most useful message passed on to her from her wise parents was "timing is everything." I initiated the conversation because I wanted to teach them one of my mother’s quotes: "Think before you speak." I was at a recent meeting where someone didn’t do that and suffered a fair bit of embarrassment.

I should have taken my mother’s advice today. A group of us were talking at work about things we have done in life that weren’t exactly ordinary. One of our agency volunteer told us when she was 19 she took flight training because she just knew she looked so good in her white leather flight jacket. Another said she took a knitting course which was out of character for her and beyond her abilities. I told the story how I took a stained glass course and married the teacher. We went on to talk about my daughter who would like us to pay for a glass blowing course as a graduation gift form college.  I said to them I told her unlike her mom who took the class and took the teacher she was allowed to blow the glass but not ______(there was a pause while I tried to fill in the words acceptably) marry, yes, marry the teacher."During my pause everyone else had filled in the blank on their own. You might have had to have been there. We were giggling like third grade girls imagining my mommy advice to her to blow the glass and not the teacher.

Onto knitting, I haven’t been working on my autumn silk cardigan, having been seduced by the new additions to my stash. I took a picture of my Manos scarf progress but when I placed it in my post it was out of focus. Now my batteries are low, so, here’s the start of my Iceland scarf. The yarn is soft, light, fluffy and warm. Back on Friday.

Chicks on Hormones, no, not the name of my monthly S&B group, although we would qualify for that description. We’re Chicks With Sticks. Chicks on hormones came up in conversation with whom else other than the resident 14 year old boy. He had seen a recipe for quail and thought they were neat, dubbing them personal chickens. I told him about Rock Cornish Game Hens, he was interested, and that’s what I’m cooking tonight. He wondered if they were oversized chicks treated with hormones or full grown mini-hens. The correct answer: hens.

The last time I had game hen produces a vivid memory of my first job out of graduate school – in a methadone and public health clinic (believe me, I have plenty of stories from that six year stint; the very young Catholic white chick gets a job in the only methadone clinic between Kansas City and Canada, and Denver and DesMoines). One year for our Christmas party we collected ten crock pots and cooked 20 game hens for dinner. What a sight that was – ten crock pots distributed through out the boss’s house. It smelled heavenly. Looking back, though, that job was a positive experience – many life lessons learned early, a close knit staff, and stories to last a lifetime. I knit my first sweater while working there. It was a long sweater jacket made from burgundy coloured variegated Wintuck. It lasted forever and I wish I still had it. If it’s in a landfill somewhere I’m sure it hasn’t yet begun to biodegrade. And that is the total knitting content of this post.

The multidirectional scarf is finished. It blocked beautifully, all traces of bumps at the joins disappeared. Due to its silk content, it drapes nicely. The variegated yarn looks nice but I think the multidirectional effect might look better with self striping yarn. Besides Noro and Sirdar Magic does anyone have any self striping non-sock yarn to recommend?

Hooked on this pattern I decided to start another one using the Manos in my stash.  Most of my scarves are narrow because they are worn indoors. This one will be a little wider for my daughter who will be using is an "outside" scarf in Edmonton, where the snow flies often. She saw the Manos in my stash and declared it her own. The colours are perfect for her darker colouring. It’s also a good excuse to shop for some replacement Manos.

Speaking of Edmonton, I just found out that I’ll be attending a course in Banff in March and will be able to tack on a weekend visit to my daughter. What a great birthday present that will be for me! Also a chance to check out Edmonton’s four knit shops and one nearby where the inventory is piled to the ceiling and it’s like getting to search though a treasure chest of yarn.

I need to get out of this climate for a break. There’s been so much rain I think I’m growing gills. However, I’m not offering to trade places with any of you who have to shovel your precipitation! Shovelling, hopefully, is a thing of my past.