Life's a Stitch

When my sister and I were little we’d go through my mother’s McCall’s magazines and play Ummm and Uckkk. We’d look at pictures of food and rate them, one or the other. When my own kids were young we played it, too, with Canadian Living Magazine. Tonight the game resurfaced with a twist. Bryant, more sophisticated at 14, was looking through the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue and invited me to a game of Ummm and Uckkk. That was fun: "The Peaceful Progression Wake Up Clock – Ummmm; the Della Robbia Tabletop Tree – Uckkk. The 3-in-1 Rotating Game Table – Ummmm; the Cordless Lighted Planter Baskets – Uckkk. I’m letting my mind wonder here. The Anny Blatt Honeymoon Mohair – Ummmm, Bernat Fur Out – Uckkk. It’s all a matter of preference.

Not much  progress to report on the kerchief. I’m going down to Bellingham, WA this weekend and will pick out beads for the edge.

Does this ever happen to you: out of the blue a childhood memory surfaces, clear as day. When I was writing the post "Show and Tell" I remembered starting a new school in second grade. I was wondering about when they had show and tell and the teacher informed me that at this school it was called "discussion." La Di Da. Then yesterday, I read a blog that referred to rum and all of a sudden I remembered my father taking me to a tiny family run rum distillery in Puerto Rico. They made the rum in a barn. I googled it and it’s still there. The label is still the same. I hadn’t thought about discussion or Barrilito Rum in years.  I wonder what else is lurking in that brain of mine. Hopefully all good stuff.

Caryl’s Kerchief is progressing. At the end of each row I love to squish the stitches together and enjoy the rainbow that is Koigu. Yes, those are my sheepy jammies in the background.

We have a new expression in our house. It is the equivalent of "Off the record." So, if somebody wants to say something that won’t be posted they start the sentence with "No blog." It’s nothing new. I write a local newspaper column on parenting issues and my kids learned that nothing is sacred, they needed to be careful what they said in case they might be quoted. As in my eldest child’s comment in response to my saying "It used to be that, as your Mom, I knew everything and now that you’re a teen you think I know nothing." Her answer: "I always knew you knew nothing it just took me 14 years to get up the nerve to tell you." Or how about when she was four and she asked me what babies eat. I told her they either have milk from their mother’s breast or they have formula. She then asked how she was fed. I told her that she was breast fed and her reply, "Well, I wanted formula." Spunky kid is now graduating with her BSN.

On to knitting. "I’m knitting with Koigu woooah" (sung to the tune of I’m Walking on Sunshine) and don’t it feel good!! That’s another Caryl’s kerchief, this time for me, in colour P112.

I have just finished winding a particular skein of Koigu FOUR times. I’m pretty adept at using the swift and ball winder, but this skein just wouldn’t cooperate. Fist time it wrapped around the post of the winder and I didn’t catch it until it was too late. Second time I couldn’t find the end and ended up pulling the entire thing out and winding it by hand. Try again. Have you tried using the winder from a hand wound ball of yarn? The darn thing runs around the room like a crazed mouse being chased by a cat. It got caught around the wheels of my chair more than once. That time I wound it from the wrong end, because I couldn’t find the right one, and wanting consistency from skein to skein, wound it once more from the right end. And that’s the end of the story. Thank goodness.

Gracee slept through it all.

My Koigu has come, my Koigu has come! Oh what a simple pleasure; it’s nice to be easily pleased. I just had a check-in call to home and was told I have two knitting related packages waiting for me. I have only ordered one, so my curiosity is roused. Do I go home for lunch in the driving rain or do I savor the anticipation. I will wait.

Home from work, finally:
Driving home, I didn’t remember my Koigu until I turned the corner to my house. I opened the package and let it soak in. Those colours are something else. Darker than I expected and very different from others I had seen of the same colour number, but beautiful just the same. The other package was an exchange of my accidentally purchased duplicate Addi needles.

There are some more Caryl’s Kerchiefs in my life. If you are planning on doing one and would like a Uli style spreadsheet (OK,not as fancy as Uli’s) for keeping track of your stitches, let me know.

In high school we used to keep track of Eddie Haskell points when the boys would make a positive comment to somebody’s mother as in Leave It To Beaver. “My, Mrs. Cleaver, you look lovely today.” On Saturday night we took our daughters and their respective boyfriends out for dinner. Eldest daughter’s new boyfriend says to her “I like that thing your mother is wearing, it looks good on her.” Score two points, Eddie, that thing being my Noro Silk Garden Very Harlot Poncho. Now, if there is such a thing as Eddie Haskell points, there must be a way to earn negative points. Enter DH, Chuck. He is the love of my life, however, when we were talking about my felted hat he comments, “Isn’t it amazing that through dumb luck it fits perfectly.” It was innocent enough I suppose (my kids always told me that when they asked me for something I wasn’t wild about, I would answer, “I suppose”). Now enter youngest child, the 14-yr-old son who can’t give up on the fact that blogging must be for younger folk. He says, “you’re trying to feel all young and everything using computer terms like DH.” I come from a family of anti-Eddies.

Knitting content: A completed GGH Fee scarf.

I saw a sweater in the Ram Wools Catalogue today – the Autumn Silk Cardigan. It is made from Estelle Tussah Silk. I hope it is not a smelly silk. It is tempting me.

I crave comfort and I achieve it in many ways: sensible shoes, warm clothes, soft as silk knitted scarves, good soup recipes… My desk chair at work is the ultimate in my quest for comfort and being a floor model, it was a bargain. Two of my favourite things. My chair has memory foam cushions, keeping my tushy cushy. If I leave this job, I will offer to buy my chair.

And now I have a comfy hat. It fits perfectly, covers the top of my ears and doesn’t mess with my hair. The felting process was a bit nerve racking, as I had never felted Cascade 220 before, and I didn’t want to take risks sizewise. It’s amazing how a knitted sack can become a fitted hat. Important lesson: don’t overstretch a felted item. I decided to try and stretch my hat a bit, thinking it was strong as steel. It isn’t. I now have a tear in my hat. It’s small and nobody will notice except me, that is, unless I keep pointing it out to people! Why so I have to point out little mistakes like dropped stitches and small tears?

This is a link to a free version of the pattern.

I have started my Fleece Artist narrow scarf five times. No matter how I interpret the pattern, it never comes out with the right yarn on the right side. You start with a two colour cast on and end up knitting one row of each colour by sliding the stitches to the other end of the circular needles, every other row, instead of turning your work. I finally gave up and waited until I could hook up with someone else who hade done one. She had the same problem. Either we are both clueless or there is a problem with the pattern. We’ve made an adjustment and it seems to be working. It is gorgeous wool, though.

Our lack of light in the Pacific Northwest makes us a little on the crazy side, so I savor the last days of sunlight. Here is a last gasp of fall. I’ve said it before, I really miss East Coast colours. I bought this tree to add autumn colour to my life. It’s working.

Last weekend’s wall work:

My first and only political comment so far:  I’m glad to be living in Canada.

Thanks to a 50% off Joann coupon, I just received the Boye Hookmaster set – a complete set of crochet hook nestled neatly in their own pouch. I am not yet a crocheter but do use these for edges, ruffles, and picking up dreaded dropped stitches. If I get into crocheting seriously I doubt these will be the hooks I’d want to use. It seems to me that the Boye hooks I had in college were smooth, each a different colour of cast aluminum. The new larger hooks are rough to the touch and the colours are much brighter. I suspect that they make them differently these days – all the same hooks painted to achieve the colour difference. They don’t glide like they used to. If the Needlemaster interchangeable knitting needle set is produced the same way, I’ll steer clear of them. I’m sticking with my not-quite-perfect Denise set, my trusty Addi circulars and bamboo straights.

I was just in WalMart and saw a new Lion Brand yarn – Moonlight Mohair. I couldn’t believe it – it looks so similar to Trendsetter Dune, it’s washable and it’s far more reasonable in price.

Progress on the felted hat: I know it looks similar to Mari’s poncho in the thumbnail, but click on it and see the nicely defined stitches, a big difference between Cascade and fuzzy Divine.

Have a nice weekend.

Yesterday I was reading our liability insurance policy at work. Understandably it now has an exclusion for terrorist activities, but another one tickled my funny bone. I know there are serious health concerns related to this problem, but to see it spelled out put my imagination into overtime. Our most recent exclusion is for funghi. I pictured mushrooms sprouting in people’s offices and employees accidentally ingesting the wrong kind. I must have needed to laugh. A little humour in the workplace never killed anybody. I used to work in an office with a boss who didn’t allow laughter. It was a bizarre situation. Now I’m the boss and consider laughter very healthy. I’m sure at times it might be inappropriate, but I trust people’s good judgment.

I have been making a concerted effort to finish lots of little UFO’s. I know this sounds pessimistic in the knitting world, but every started object is an unfinished object. My list was growing too long. This is the latest, the re-knitting of the Fiesta La Boheme disasterpiece.

Great wall update – this is the delivery of the blocks. The trenches have been dug and the first one should be positioned soon. Not your average do-it-yourself job.