Life's a Stitch

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.

 

 

 

Pattern: Bunny Beanie by Noe Knit It's a free pattern.

Yarn: Red Heart Soft Touch, by far my favourite baby yarn. It's soft, has great stitch definition, comes in tasteful colours and best of all, is machine washable.

Needles: Two sets of circular US six 8's. Knit on one until the third decrease round, then divided stitches between the two sets.

Modifications: There's always the "M" word when I knit. First, forget knitting the picot cast on for the brim, it rolls and doesn't show, so why go through the effort? I cast on 64 stitches for a newborn size. Finally, I tacked the two ears together at the bottom to get more of a stand up effect.

Thoughts: The ears make it a bit top heavy, but for a newborn it will work just fine. I'm adding this pattern to my list for baby gifts. 

 

I keep a stash of baby hats for shower gifts. My favourite one:

Can't tell you how many of those I've churned out. But my daughter had a point. There's a new crop of springtime babies developing, all awaiting gifts, and this hat seems a bit autumnal. Time to refocus.

Introducing the bunny hat in progress, with two sets of ears on standby in anticipation, one dusty rose, one aqua. It's very cute once the ears are sewn on. 

The first boss of my career pegged me a creature of habit. It wasn't a bad thing, he was referring to my daily breakfast ritual. My shift at the public health clinic was 7:00a.m to 5:00p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesdays were an entirely different day of ritual that included the $1 matinee at the mall. 

About that breakfast. Back then it was a time when even the monstrous food chains could go beyond the policy book for the sake of customer service. Not one for traditional brekkie, I'd walk in at 6:30 on my way to work and they'd have my cheeseburger and coffee ready for me, with another coffee to go at 6:55. Couldn't do that today. 

Now I've added a lunchtime ritual to my habit. On days that I don't cover Gracee's lunchtime "out," my routine includes a walk to a nearby park along Vancouver's working waterfront. 

Twenty minutes to walk there, twenty to eat, knit and/or read, and twenty minutes back. Yes, I am a creature of habit. On this particular day I happened to have my camera. About two minutes into the knitting I heard the snort of a harbour seal. Grabbed the camera, shot in the general direction of the bowling ball head, and look what I found:

Two bowling balls, ten pin and five pin, mom and babe. I wonder what thier routine involves? Catching fish? Swimming by the beach to watch humans?