Life's a Stitch

My son asked if the opposite of masterpiece was disasterpiece. I liked that. I’ve knit a few of those. I have a chenille sweater I almost finished a few years back when I first started back in knitting. I was just about done when Ms.Gracee May chewed up the top of the back. I stuffed it into a bag and recently took a look at it. It’s fixable but that Chenille is so UGLY. I tried frogging it but the chenille comes out as a naked string.

How can you stay mad at a face like this:

I’m in the midst of re-knitting my lengthwise scarf disasterpiece. And I’m liking it a whole lot better.

The product of my weekend efforts, a finished Rippling Waters scarf:

I have been demoted to the shortest person in my family. I used to be second tallest and now I am last. Trying to think positively here – when I make a sweater for myself it will the most reasonable one in the family since I don’t need as much yarn. My scarves can be the shortest, too.

Right now we have another family member, who also happens to be taller than me. She is a French-speaking student from Switzerland who will be with us until Christmas. We have hosted more than 50 students and I consider myself a good communicator, so how come it took three weeks to figure out that her mother works in a knit shop? Marielle, herself, is very creative, having studied jewellery design. She wears a beautiful sweater, done in the tiniest of cables that she knitted – one of her first efforts. Such talent.

We learn a lot from the experience of hosting students. Last night at the dinner table my son trapped a spider underneath an overturned glass. She said at home, they do this with a bee when they eat outside. The bee sends vibes (she pronounced it “veebs”) to the others indicating danger and the others stay away. Have to try it with the wolf spiders here in BC. If you know about spiders in the Pacific NW, they are huge, hairy and scary looking. They are not particularly dangerous and more people get hurt running away from them than from the spider itself.

It’s Canadian Thanksgiving. We are lucky, we celebrate Thanksgiving twice. I buy an extra large turkey and save half the breast for US Thanksgiving, which is invariably on a work day for us. I remember when we moved to Canada twenty years ago and we couldn’t afford a turkey at the then very expensive Cdn prices. I bought hamburger and a turkey cookie cutter and we had “turkey” burgers. There were a few tears shed that night. We were really homesick.

Every year we go around the table and announce one thing for which we are thankful. For year I was thankful for my job in an area with high unemployment. My eldest daughter used to say “I’m thankful for our nice wum (warm) house.” This year, besides the many obvious things I could mention, I am thankful for our jetted bath tub. It was a stretch at the time, and is not very fancy, but now, in middle age I am so appreciative.

Look, what else did I do today? I smell possum blocking:

Gracee had a taste for knitting as well:

It’s Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. I had a difficult time in the beginning celebrating Thanksgiving before Halloween, but now I’m used to it. Canadian Thanksgiving is officially on a Monday, but people generally pick one day of the long weekend for the turkey dinner. You could actually manage three days of feasting if you juggled invitations.

We’ve established a tradition involving a visit from our friends from Seattle. Marsha and I hit the yarn shops and Talbots, a treat for her in Canadian dollars. Dave and Chuck work on a project, this time preparing for the new Allan Brick retaining wall. I can picture those guys stacking those bricks like giant fifty pound Legos. Marsha and Dave own Riley the Airedale. Another cutie with a big nose, he looks just like a stuffed animal:

Ok, I confess. When I see a cute dog on my screen, I’ve been known to pat its head with my cursor.

I spent the entire day in emergency. It was a heck of a way to get a day or two off. If you’ve read my “About Me” you know I have an annoying arrhythmia. It’s been under control for six years with a drug called Rhythmol. Clever name. Yesterday, I had an episode of tachycardia for 40 minutes. I drove to a clinic and was reamed out by the dr for not having gone directly to emerg. Despite all the complaints about socialized medicine, I rec’d super treatment. Looks like another type of rhythm problem, not life threatening if controlled. The most frustrating part – the oxygen monitor on my finger kept me from knitting. As soon as they took it off I had needles in hand and was very productive. The dr commented that I was the second patient he saw knitting that day. I made it to knit night, too. I couldn’t think of anything less stressful.

So, we’re talking at knit night about unique yarns. I was knitting with my Cherry Tree Hill Possum yarn, others talked about scarves they had seen made from sheared beaver and the woman they had seen at a fibre arts festival who had something she made with hair from her dog. Now I love my dog, but not enough to wear her. Besides in this climate, with all the rain, wet dog smells like something even a mother couldn’t love. So we talk about how they get the hair from the animals. Something I remember reading said that possum is a politically correct fur. So what do they do? Comb the possums? We imagined crossing the border into the States, being asked our profession, and stating it as possum comber. We decided, however, it sounds better than beaver shearer.

I never thought about when I block my possum. I wonder what it will smell like? “Like dead, wet roadkill,” says the son. Congratulations, Mrs. Boesen, it’s a boy!

Stash enhancement – Trendsetter Dune in the everglades colour. The name of the colour appealed to me. When it arrived I realized how much other yarn I have in the same colouway – greeny, purplish, bluey combinations. Mail order gets expensive when you start the exchange/return habit. So it’s here to stay, seven skeins of everglades:

Yup, that’s Gracee’s name. She came to us at six months old, a piece of returned merchandise, a used dog. The breeder told me that her owners couldn’t house train her and she was vicious when tucked into bed. If you know Scotties, you know a bed tucking would be most embarrassing for such a distinguished creature.

I’m always up for a challenge when it comes to vulnerable creatures. Indeed, Ms. Grace couldn’t be house trained because she has inflammatory bowel disease. No gross details, but there are plenty. At the worst, she was down to 15lbs instead of her healthy 22 and was ready to be dealt with in the most humane way possible, if you know what I mean. The vet said, “let’s try one last thing” and put her on prednisone. In 48 hours she had an amazing turnaround. For all you purists who believe in the BARF doggy diet and no meds, this was the best thing for her. She is still on a minimal dose, but after two years is a typical dog. Typical for a Scottie means a dog who knows she’s better than you and reminds you of that every day. OK, Gracee’s is typical except for one thing. She has OCD, which my husband thinks is a side effect of the prednisone. She constantly licks carpet and sucks her leash. WARNING – this is gross: poor puppy throws up a carpet fibre sausage about twice a month. I warned you. That is a small price to pay for life with Gracee May, we love her just the same.

Her official adoption picture:

As for knitting I finally picked up where I left off on my Rippling Waters scarf. I started the end bit three times and kept ending up with a mistake in the same spot. After a break I took a deep breath and patiently worked through the numbers. Guess what? I had made a note on the chart resulting in being one stitch off. I figured that puppy out, I did it! I have a whole new outlook. This is progress:

Are these the cutest things you ever did see:

Last year the pres of my board of directors and I started knitting these. I did a total of three; she did at least three dozen. She sold them at a craft fair for $12 Cdn, a totally too reasonable price. I wanted to buy a pair of hers to use as a gift, but she insisted on giving them to me. She is a very nice person and I love working with her. Her colours are the cutest. Mine were pastels. I do have a pair of white ones on the needles for a Baptism gift.

Speaking of babies, I bought mine his first official piece of men’s clothing. It’s a corduroy jacket from Old Navy, which just opened near us. There are times in a child’s life where costs rise significantly. When they turn two and can no longer fly for free, when they advance from the children’s menu to the adult one, when they move into adult clothes, and of course, when they enter college. I have two there right now, complete with room and board.
A friend of mine told me of family friends who have four kids in college. Whew!

I was determined to finish this project, as I have several others being ignored and it feels so-o-o good to finish something. It was really fun to knit – fun colours, fun stripes, and the ruffle was fun, too. I get bored knitting solid colours or plain patterns. Toward the bottom I decided to knit from two balls of silk garden to thicken the stripes, otherwise the top would have been striped and the bottom just single row of colour. Knitting note: I used a US size 11 needle and exactly five balls of yarn. Love this Noro, have to get more, need a sale!

I need projects like this – quick, fun and complete, in between the ones that are very difficult or tedious. But I also have to be careful not to ignore those UFO’s completely. I do have a few of those – slippers 75% done, baby hat 90% done… I sometimes have to take the time to consider what’s holding me up and either re-commit myself or frog the darn thing. Uh-oh, I hear the sound of “ribit” calling me from my knitting closet.

I grew up just outside of New York City. We saw wild animals from time to time – squirrels, chipmunks, bunnies and the occasional raccoon. Stories of people getting eaten up by wild things were reserved for fairy tales. You heard stories of alligators coming up through the toilet, but did that really happen? Now I live just outside of Vancouver, BC, about the same distance from downtown as I lived in New York. I generally hate stereotypes (all Americans own guns and Canada is a vast, cold wilderness far from civilization), but I feel like I’m living in one. Over the past two months, in our driveway, we’ve had a cougar, a skunk, a fox, a coyote and a bear.

On to knitting: Noro Silk Garden – wonderful to knit with despite the gigundous slubs and a knot in each skein. There definitely is more Noro in my future.

My in-house wild animals: Gracee and Mari

$1000 worth of damage on my car, after being kicked in by a teenage boy with a problem. My son was laughing with a friend at MacDonald’s because his friend had ice cream all over his face. A swarm of kids outside of MacD’s saw them through the window and thought they were the target of the laughter. My guys leave MacD’s and were swarmed by the outside guys. Luckily DH drove up and the boys bolted for the car. The swarm followed and kicked in the rear quarter panel. DH chased them all the way home! Of course nobody would answer the door, so DH called the police. Nobody would answer the door for the police. Go figure. DH was mad the police didn’t shout “POLICE!” like on TV. Cop ended up leaving saying that he’s going on days off but maybe he’d pursue it when he got back as he recollects the police have been to that house repeatedly. IN BC you don’t have the option of pressing charges. It all goes to Crown for a decision. Plus young offenders have a multitude of rights that victims don’t. This is a minor infraction compared to what they can get away with. I will leave you with this abbreviated rant.

This is when I need a variation From Nemo:
You know what you gotta do when life gets you down?
Just keep knitting, just keep knitting,
Just keep knitting, knitting, knitting
What do we do we knit, knit, knit
OH HO HO How I love to knit…

The colours are a bit brighter than they really are, but here is my poncho in progress.

I learned how to crochet ruffles at knit night and will ruffle the bottom instead of fringe. Stay tuned.