Life's a Stitch

I felt like I was being watched. Way way up in the trees in the corner of our lot, something caught my eye:

Zooming in we see the culprit:

The dilemma:

Twice before, our electricity has gone out because the raccoons nest near the power lines for warmth. Somehow they chew through the wires without electrocuting themselves. The electric company very nicely rewired the connection to our house, but have given us a stern warning: Three times you're out!. Next time we pay for the repair. 

Suggestions? Not reall thrilled about cutting down the trees.

 

Indulge me…I'm the grandmother. Besides, there's knitting content:

Here we are the day before, in a nearby national park, doing some Canadian winter walking to encourage my daughter's labour to start:

I think that baby's dropped:

It worked! Next day we were off to the hospital, and dear baby Rye Christian made his debut 11 mintues late. 12:11 a.m. March 10, 2011, 8 lbs 5 oz, 21" long:

And today's my birthday and I can't think of a better way of spending it, than with the new happy family. What a gift they are.

He's very cute and it's not just Mor-Mor (Danish for mother's mother, which would be me) talking. You see we had this conversation in the hospital just before we left. Rye's dad broached the subject. 

"Do you think he's really cute or do we think he's cute just because he belongs to us?" 

Hmmmm. We pondered the implications of his query. Are we braggy family members? Was this a design of nature, a special magnetism put in place to assure we take care of him?

Just then the nurse arrived to do the required carseat check. When she finished she said," Good luck to you. He's really cute….and I don't say that to all the parents." 

I had occasion to call my adult children recently. We had been away quite a bit this fall and there were many comings and goings of said children and acquaintances in our house during our absence. Finally tackling the laundry basket of clean linens that had lived at the foot of our bed for months, something on the floor caught my eye, black…lacy…panties. As if they had fallen from our bed at some point onto the floor, definitely not mine.

I call my children and my husband, just in case.

"Nobody is in trouble….yet." I explain the un-Nancy Drewlike caper of the wayward panties. "I don't need to know names. I don't want the dirty details. I just want someone to tell me that there is a plausible explanation.

My son cracks up, didn't need a phone to hear his peals of laughter from five miles away. Hmmmm nervous laughter? "Better ask the sisters," says he, "definitely did not sleep in your room while you were gone." 

"Right" says the husband, "I had a woman  in our bedroom while you were away dealing with your mother's death, impressing her with the laundry that hasn't been put away in months." I really didn't think it was him and his words were reassuring,

Middle daughter matter of factly said "I slept in your bed. Alone."

"They're mine," claimed the most unusual suspect of our family, the least likely member of the crew. Eldest child, then seven months pregnant, the cinderella of the lost panties, related the truthful tale. Her wedding photographer from six years past offers free baby bump photos to former clients. The instructions included the wearing of fancy foundations. After the long drive there and back, my daughter took a leisurely bath in our soaker tub, undressing at the foot of the bed. 

Phew. Only in our house.

That was then and now we're on babywatch. Exciting times ahead.

It was something I was saving for retirement, one of the items on my very long list, but I got spooked hearing of your many tales of data loss woe. Three full weekends, four old hard drives, and 14,000 pictures later, the task is nearly finished. Backed up in duplicate on DVD's stored offsite, and on a backup drive, I can now breathe a sigh of relief.

So that accounts for the lack of knitting production, but there's some progress there, too:

So far, so good for a project that contains not one plain knit stitch nor purl rows for relief.

Cursed by the same affliction, my daughter and I. Just as a product fits comfortably into our life, be it hand cream or breakfast cereal, poof (!) it's no longer available. It first happened many years ago for me, with Chap-ans, a chapstick product for hands. Best hand cream ever. Shortly after its demise, there was a magazine ad for clearance tubes for $1 each. I bought a case of 12. (UPDATE: I've found a very similar hand cream – Avon Moisture Therapy – only the one in the blue and white tube, not the bottle).

My recent experience was with Head On, the product with the obnoxious commercial. Regardless, it worked for me. Last night I found it is no longer available. Rushing over to e-bay, a singe tube was over $20. Last year they could be found for $1.50.

Chocolate Bran Bits, Mission Falls 1824 yarn, my best Conair hairdryer ever, with three speeds and four heat settings, and a particular style of my most comfortable Olga bra.

Is it just us?

 

Dear Blog, with a twinge of guilt this week I admit to cheating on you, sort of. Embarking on an adventure, one they tell you not to do, C and I with other friends, have bought into a condo unit near Palm Springs. Sight unseen. I've seen it now, but the actual purchase was an act of blind faith. How many rules did we break? We purchased recreational property, with friends, sight unseen. And I've used another blog to post the photographic proof. Forgive me. Knitting did happen. How else was I supposed to cope with all that tension?

As if Wollmesie wasn't enough.

 

I'll fess up. I first saw this merino/slk in Denmark, however the price was too high even for souvenir yarn, about $32 for 100 gms. Regretting my decision, after returning home I found it online for half the price. Hmmmm, I thought, must be the difference without the VAT. It arrived eight days later. Notice the label – 540 m. The other side says 100 gms. 

Happily knitting, this yarn is like a laceweight version of Silky Wool. Working on Chart B of the Flared Lace Smoke Ring:

Something is not right. I hate that feeling, well into a project. I weigh the blue skein in its entirety. 50 gms! A knitting oh s**t moment. Consulted the website, did I miss the fine print? Yes I did, the price stated is for 50 gms. I honestly don't remember seeing that bit of information.  And why does the label say 100 gms? Lost in translation?

The good news, farther into the project, with the aid of a scale, as it's a lacey pattern I'll have enough to finish. The bad news is that I'll have to change my pattern plans for the blue skein. Not so bad.

 

Ahhhh Venice. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. Not the traditional tourist spots, suffocatingly crowded, where even the pigeons posed for pictures.

I preferred streets less travelled. The hidden piazzas and the glimpses of daily life:

  

…in an unusual city where everything is boat dependent. Order some yarn and UPS delivers:

Click on that picture, it's a UPS boat. Where life relies on boats: police, taxis, ambulances, getting the dogs to the vet:

Even a body's last ride. Look carefully at the background in this one:

A beautiful city.

Someday I hope to return.

 

It's not often you get to continue a good dream. Once you awaken, it's back to the cold hard slap of reality. Let me take you back to dreaming about the feast of colour and comfort.

Driving south from northern Germany we discuss the meaning of the name Wollmeise. The literal translation is wool bird, as in small bird with a name that means something else, as in a titmouse. After all there is a bird on the Wollmeise's label. Our host explains that Wollmeise sounds suspiciously like a German word that means seriously mentally ill and maybe it's a euphemism for "crazy about wool." Who knows? I seriously doubt, as I've heard on occasion, a meaning related to the words pronounced "wool meister."

My travelling companions, non-knitters, generously permitted me an hour an a half of drool time. I, a knitter, permitted myself a generous 150 euro of freedom. Easily overwhelmed with indecision in such a candy shop I made some quick decisions. I wasn't leaving without a skein of laceweight plus their popular sockweight in a denim blue and a skein of two that were different from my usual suspects. 1.5 hours + 150 euro = 8 skeins of sockweight yarn plus one of laceweight.

The review: what is it about this stuff that overtakes people to the point of spending $38 and up on ebay? I've seen skeins go for $100. That is serious wool craziness. My, as they say, humble opinion:

• The skeins of sockweight contain a generous amount of yarn. Forget those brands that say you can knit a pair of socks from under 350 yards. These have 575. The laceweight has a whopping 1140 yards.
• The sockweight appears to be so tightly wound that you'd think you are knitting with string. The finished product, however, comes out softer than expected.
• Many of the laceweight skeins, all seconds, looked like they had pilling potential. The one I bought didn't, but had a label that said there were "rote punkte," intermittent red dots of dye throughout. Haven't found one but haven't looked closely:
• All their seconds clearly define the flaws on their label. Numbers of knots, red dots etc… I've seen reviews that state yarn bought on e-bay at exorbitant prices contain an unreasonable amount of knots. I view these as the possibility of someone selling seconds to over-trusting buyers. 

What's the verdict? If you can get Wollmeise directly from the source, definitely more reasonable than e-bay pricing, despite the unreasonable process of timing scheduled inventory releases and constant screen refreshing to beat others to the goods, go in with a friend, split the shipping and treat yourself to a skein or two. It seems to me that some sort of lottery system would work better than their current procedure. 

And what did my travelling companions do while I was otherwise engaged? The town had plenty to keep them occupied:

This one's long enough. I promise to post about my first Wollmeise FO in the near future.