Life's a Stitch

…a child's pronunciation of the very appropriate book series. I know, I know, it appears I've been ignoring my blog. It's just that I've been wracking my computer abilities trying to compose an animated GIF in honour of C's 60th big birthday, to no avail. Wanted to let you know we're still here. Three days of too much birthday party starting with:

 

The next day a Puerto Rican celebration:

Artichokes, pernil (pork roast), rice and beans. The diet starts tomorrow.

Sounds so restful, that engineering term. The angle of repose: is the minimum angle made by an inclined plane with a horizontal surface such that the body lying on the inclined plane is just at the verge of sliding down along the inclined plane. So relaxed is that body, it's teetering on slippage. Just so long as it doesn't drop any stitches along the way:

 

I learned that concept while sailing through the Panama Canal. Never gave the canal much thought, just accepting its benefit in permitting ships the ability to avoid an eight day sail around South America. But it is really fascinating, not as you might imagine – a skinny concrete sea level passage from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific. It's actually a series of locks at each end of a mountain range with a fresh water man made lake in the middle. It's 50 miles of sailing, 8-10 hours, with deep steamy jungle on either side. The toll for our ship was about $300,000, a considerable savings over the alternative roundabout route. 
 

Entering the Panama Canal at sunrise:

 

In the locks, a foot of clearance on either side:

 

Beautiful scenery on Gatun Lake:

  

A neighbouring ship enters the end set of locks:

 

Pacific sunset:

 
 

 
  
 
 

…and one much needed one for me, too. See you in three weeks. Knit lots!

Whomp rattle rattle. If you've been to my house you'll recognize that noise. Even the neighbours have commented. It's the front door closing. You had to whomp it to get it to close and then the single pane sidelights on either side would rattle like glasses in the cupboard during an earthquake. The rattle part was worsened after the barbeque rolled through one of the sidelights in a windstorm.

Look closely: the two didn't even match, a patch job to get us by. A shame for one who used to work in the glass business. Such is life for the shoemaker's children, sporting sole worn boots. Don't mind the lack of drywall, actually plaster over plywood, the demolition was in progress so I quickly grabbed my camera lest history be quickly forgotten:

 

A few hours and a home renovation tax credit later:

 

It still needs staining – my job, but now it closes with a solid woosh, so sealed it is, that the pressure nearly makes my ears pop.

 

Hardly a red meat eating household anymore, one day we decided to satiate our occasional meaty needs. C went to SaveOn Foods (for you non-Canadians, it's a division of Overwaitea Foods, an unusual name for a grocery distributor if you ask me) and bought some steak, Mmmmm, Mmmmm, Mmmmm. He threw the grocery bags into the back of the truck and this is what arrived home:

Still packed in the plastic grocery bag with handles neatly tied together, all we can figure is that an eagle or a crow dived bombed the bag and got what was at the very top. Very clean job, don't you think?

Thank you for the suggestions regarding adaptive knitting. With the help of some topical anti-inflammatory gel, I'm able to knit a half dozen shawl or baby blankie rows at a time – enough to satisfy the urge. Strange though, one of the side effects of a cream applied to the thumb, is an upset stomach. The body is a funny thing.

Not for the usual medical reason where you are advised against grapefruit juice for its potentiating tendencies when combined with certain drugs. My doctor has ordered me away from my pink grapefruit Citron in progress:

In fact, any knitting does not mix with the current state of my thumb. How is it one little appendage can cause so much misery? And the ugly names to go with it – Trigger Thumb, French Washer Woman's Syndrome, de Quervain's Tenosynovitis. Not whining, but needing a portable activity for C's big birthday trip coming up. No thumb action allowed. Suggestions appreciated, good books, adaptive knitting…..?

What's more joyful than a child skipping down the sidewalk? One of my co-workers told me about when she and her son left a recent parent teacher conference and he broke into spontaneous skipping. You could tell he was one happy little camper.

Adults don't skip down the street unless they're acting in a Viag*a commercial. What's the grownup version of skipping? Whistling? And why don't we skip? When did we stop? What would it take to get you to skip? New knees? A lottery win? A wee bit of wine? Someone's got to think about these things.

For $29. Never thought I could do cashmere at that price, but the combination of Hand Maiden 2-ply (supposedly 273 meters/300 yards worth – seemed like more) and this pattern, produced a 70" scarf that's oh so soft.

 
Pattern: Lacy Kerchief Scarf (Interweave Press), way easier than it looks.

Yarn and needles: Hand Maiden 2-ply Cashmere with US#4 needles

Modifications: Increased every eight rows rather than every six, and
omitted y/o’s that were supposed to produce an eyelet in the garter
stitch section.

Thoughts: This pattern does really well in a semi-solid yarn, and I've seen it in a self-striping yarn that works nicely, too. I like my scarves a bit shorter so, if I plan on making the increases every 8 rows (it makes it easier than every 6 rows in an 8 row repeat), I'd decrease the number of repeats on each end to two or three rather than five. Apologies to you non or beginner knitters, I know that must sound ridiculous. 

So, what to do with the second skein I bought?

I don't know how long you've been reading this blog, but I've had a couple of posts called "Where are the children?" It's about stuff my kids got into that I don't hear about until the filter of time has done its job. In other words, enough time has passed that they won't suffer natural and logical consequences for their actions.

Tonight we're sitting around the dinner table, this threesome of empty nesters, Chuck, me and the spouse of Raveler Zoebis, who stays with us when he works in the Lower Mainland, leaving Ms Zoebis to languish in yarn and spinny goodness, but that's another story. We start talking about what we did as kids that might have fit that kind of childhood statute of limitations. It all centered around electricity.

In Doug's case it had to do with his boy siblings, go figure, all aware of a household phenomenon, where if they touched a certain shower head in one particular bathroom, due to a combination of water and poor wiring, they'd receive an electrical shock. Of course they all had to try that shower with a variety of, thankfully, non-life threatening results. Then he told us the time they touched nine volt batteries to their braces. My mother would have said at the time, "Boys will be boys."

We girls got into our own mischief. Reminded me when I was little, a little too little for this kind of thing. Really little. My grandparent's kitchen had a pink sparkly countertop with one of those grooved chrome edges that would now be classified as a mid-century relic. If you opened the fridge with one hand, and touched the chrome edge with the other, voila, the current would run right through you. My cousins and I (those of us with a long enough reach, several girls and a boy) saw this as the perfect dare opportunity and we all survived, most with eventual graduate degrees. Hmmm.

Come on, we all have these stories. Time to fess up.

And because this is a knitting blog here's a boy gift, another Bob Blankie, in its beginning stages: