Life's a Stitch

I've just returned from vacation to face the trip you never want to take. Most of us get two such sad opportunities in life, the death of each parent. The first for me occurred when I was 16 and my sister, 12. Our father had a long death from debilitating heart disease. Now, 40 years later, it's our mother's turn. In late September she had routine back surgery, but due to infections leading to sepsis, she has never left the hospital. Three days ago after steady improvement, she refused to continue with treatment unbearable to her, but necessary to help her breath, leading the medical team to recommend hospice care. So here we are helping our mom through her unexpected and difficult journey.

What's the past tense of knit? Knit? Knitted? As in "When I knit my Emerald sweater from Iceland yarn…" 

I'll start over. When I knit my Emerald sweater from Iceland yarn, my chidlhood friend, Rosie, requested a scarf from mint green yarn with the same kind of snowballs. Right, I thought. That's a yarn reqest from a non-knitter. Rosie doesn't knit because she's diagnosed herself with "a hole in her concept imagery," which is an amazingly accurate description of a learning disability. Rosie may not knit, but her intuition was correct, there was a yarn matching her description. She had to travel all the way to the UK via e-bay to find it, but voila!

The yarn required an open pattern to achieve a scarf with some drape. This one was inspired by the scarf Rosie was wearing in our photo circa 1975. And since she loves all things sparkly, as do I, I added Swarovsky crystals to the bottom border.

First grade. Halloween. Dressed as a gypsy, we lived in an apartment complex, four units per floor. Trick or treating was a breeze. I still remember the song we learned in school:

"Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate, the first one said, Oh my it's getting late. The second one said, There are witches in the air. The third one said, But I don't care. The fourth one said, Let's run and run and run. The fifth one said, I'm ready for some fun. Then ooooh when the wind and OUT went the light and the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight."

How do I remember that and not where I put the keys?

Don't get me started on lyrics. I'm really good at that. Commercials, pop songs, music class in every grade. I even remember one from preschool that my cousin and I used to sing when we pulled all nighters as four-year-olds in the basement. "In my kiddie car, in my kiddie car, going up and down the street where all the children are, I don't go very far, in my kiddie car, and every time I pass my house I wave to dear ma ma." Cracks me up. We didn't even know what a kiddie car was, still don't, we just liked to sing. 

Gracee turns ten on Halloween. I remember a made for TV movie in the 70's called "Devil Dog, Hound of Hell" Sometimes we refer to Grace as our devil dog, but only sometimes. Her issues stem from her rescue history, but we love her a lot, our Gracee girl:

Seven years of blogging, but who's counting. On September 4th I started my adventure. That's a long time and a lot of knitting ago. More precisely, according to the stats, that would include about 800 posts and 7050 comments. Thanks to you all for your participation, encouragement and support.

No longer a surprise, this Crescent Moon has travelled across the ocean and found its home in Denmark. The colour reminds me of Denmark's Blue Willi's clothing line.

Pattern: Cresent Moon from Easy Crochet, Complete in Three Days.

Yarn: Lana Grossa Salina, a bamboo and cotton ribbon yarn. 

Shawl Pin: One of Chuck's, made from a 60 year old lilac branch.

Hooks: Scarf – 4.0mm Edging: 3.5mm

Modifications: None. Now that's a first.

Thoughts: The fringe makes it and looks even better once those little shamrocks are subjected to steaming. 

Do you remember Sandy's Saturday Sky? It was two or three iterations ago of her knitting blog. She made Saturdays an easy blog day with a simple request that we post a picture of our local sky. Easy enough for most of the world, but for a large portion of the year, while many of you showed glorious blue skies over sparkly white snow, or billows of fluffy cottonball clouds on a cerulean background, we Pacific Northwesterners could only post solid shades of grey. Last Saturday, my grey sky cooperated with unusual texture and depth. 

It gave me a chance to try out new compact camera #2. The Nikon S9100 was a lemon and went back to Costco under its liberal return policy. This time I opted for the equivalent model Sony DSC-HX9V. In ten years this will be my fourth compact digital camera, for a total of three Sonys and one Canon. This one, like my first Sony, has adjustments to override presets which result in oversaturated or overexposed flash pictures.

The next step will be to try it out on some yarny goodness. Can't post about two of my current projects as they are surprise gifts. Tell you what, I made an exception to my recent yarn diet and ordered some laceweight yarn for gifts-to-be, which will be arriving soon. Stay tuned. 

The title has given you due warning.

I lead a weekly meeting. That week I started:

"I'm having a personal crisis and I need someone to tell me what to do."

Silence in the meeting room, not usually so, considering the active participation of these three intelligent women.

I continue, "It all started a earlier in the summer."

"Girl," says one, "you know how to get our attention."

I continue. "I bought a sack of Trader Joe's whole grain white flour and upon opening it found a webby mess of worms"

"Ohhhhh yukkk." 

"Yes, yukk, I immediately put it into the garbage under my sink. Big mistake as it sat there for two days."

I explain how shortly thereafter I noticed a mothy infestation. Initially worried about my yarn, it didn't seem to be a problem. The moths were staying clear of my stash and hovering closer to the kitchen. 

FACT: The moths you see in your house are eating one of two things depending upon their variety – wool or food. They are also laying eggs in their dining areas. The eggs then hatch into wormy larvae.

I was witnessing the life cycle of the pantry moth. In my rice, flour and oatmeal; in the plastic Costco Orville R. popcorn container, despite the threaded lid. 

FACT: Pantry moths don't just fly randomly into your house. They hitch a ride in your groceries, usually the dry goods. Flour and those dried chili pepper flakes that you shake on your pizza are some of their favourite foods. Once grown,they leave their eggs on everything they touch. 

Now my cupboards look like a Tupperware/Lock 'N Lock commercial:

We threw out everything and started over. Before stuff finds its way to its cozy plastic container, it spends a few days in the freezer. I am not going through this again.

I don't deal well with bugs. Don't ask me about the time two of my dear children came home from Brownies "Hat Night" with head lice. Twenty years later I can't even think about that without feeling itchy. 

I usually delete bad photos, but not this one, a precious memory taken by my son-in-law. That's me, my eldest and C in a moving truck, in our first serious attempt at clearing out our house in anticipation of downsizing. They thankfully took their bedroom set, the piano, plus 20 boxes of stuff belonging to her and her sister. It's unfortunate that my new camera decided to bite the dust at the precise moment my son-in-law held it up and said…

"Say Elina's pregnant!"

If that darned lemon of a camera had let him snap again, E says it would have recorded that my head nearly banged into the ceiling of the truck while I was jumping up and down. I never thought that would have been my reaction, but it was truly a joyful moment.

Oh yes, they took the baby furniture, too. And, no, despite the bunny hats of my last post, it's a spring (early March) baby, but not twins. And the camera is going back. I need something more reliable.

Whoo-hoo! Moving on to the next stage of life… how did it happen so quickly? And I am no spring chickie, being of mature age when I had that child, my first, and now she's following suit. Funny thing about life.