Life's a Stitch

As I fessed up in the previous post, my yarn fast has been broken. No way will I stand in line for hours to get 15% off at a not so local yarn shop, when I can wait a few weeks and average 30% off at my very local, walking distance yarn store. I stuck to my promise of not buying anything at full price and I'll stay true to my vow of no new major projects. Honest.

This is the first two drawers of my stash, laceweight drawer through sock and sportweight yarn, sale items included. Except for the the box of Koigu-esque yarn for my Babette in progress shoved under my favourite chair, and the two plastic drawers that contain my Alan Dart yarn. Oh yeah, the way too much Plymouth Encore purchased for my first crochet project, nowhere near finished. Did I mention…

I felt immense relief the other day when I ran into a fellow Raveler at our local Canadian Tire (you know who you are). Those of you familiar with Canuck shopping know that Canadian Tire's inventory is only 5% tires. It's like our London Drugs chain, a "drug" store that sells clothes, computers, toys and food. She had just bought a gift for her stash – five of those wonderful seven drawer plastic chests. This was in addition to the ones she already owns.

I always feel funny sharing the goods on the blog, but some have
commented that to talk about it without illustration isn't fair either.
This is not done in the spirit of showing off.

Thank you for your words of parental encouragement. Mari arrived safely in Sydney, the dresser made it home, and the adventures continue.

While I'm transferring yarn to the stress purchase of my last post, Chuck shakes his head. "It's not going to do it, is it?" Telling the truth, I admit it. One drawer each for laceweight, sportweight, DK and worsted is not enough. I have more than enough gifts in waiting, notions, needle sets and pattens to stuff the shelves.

Fessing up's not a bad thing, though. I seem to remember that from my Catholic upbringing. It clears the conscience, let's you start afresh, giving you perspective on your behaviour. Let me share some of my enlightenment:

1. Although I have only knit two pairs of socks I have enough yarn for 18. Good thing I use sock yarn for other items.

2. My laceweight drawerful is my favourite, followed by the sportweight. Lots of handpainted goodness.

3. Looking at some of my yarn I wonder what possessed me. Even at 75% off, it's not a bargain if you don't like it.

4. To the contrary, there are yarns, no longer available, that should have been purchased in larger quantities. I have enough for only three complete sweaters, but dozens of scarves.

5. A rigid heddle loom can turn ugly yarn into a thing of beauty. Phew.

6. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There's yarn in my collection bought for chemo turbans and preemie hats that isn't doing anyone any good. I see a positive penance happening here.

7. In clearing space from my bookcase to make room for knitting books, I realize I have more than I could ever read in this lifetime. I have a hard time doing two things at once and generally, I can only accomplish eight pages or so while eating lunch or on the treadmill. My singular focus time is reserved for knitting. A box is packed to go to the florist who sells used books as a fund raiser for her church. Her shop is located on the same block as a good yarn shop Uh-oh.

My current project, not yet complete, but progressing:

I guess that would be compulsive Li obsessing, something I do when I want to push a worry out of my brain. I find something else to obsess about, thereby masking the true level of concern ruminating in my mind. What do you want first, the worry or the obsession? OK, I'll flip a coin – heads, you get the worry first.

It's child related, go figure. My middle one, a girl age 23, is going off backpacking for six months in Australia and Thailand. Six months all by herself. She is my capable woman child, I keep reminding myself. Lots of kids from our neck of the woods do this successfully, but this one's mine.

The obsession: last weekend, after successfully hitting the sale at my LYS, I went to our nearby Home Sense. I'm not sure of the American equivalent, but it's similar to TJ Maxx with odd bits of furniture. There it was, the grand wood dresser I had seen for two weeks prior, marked down 75% from its original price. Four large drawers, two small ones plus two curved doors on the sides, each hiding three good sized shelves. The perfect container for my yarn stash. It could magically turn my knitting room back into a bedroom. 

Twice before I saw this chest of drawers, unable to justify its price, but now it was meant to be. Two weeks of self deliberating, should I… should I not buy it,  squeezed out the fact that my daughter was really going through with her trek. As the trip grew imminent so was my justification of the purchase. I did it. What the heck we have a truck now, this store doesn't deliver, something to be excited about, what a bargain. Dread balanced with happy anticipation.

Tonight I dragged ambivalent Chuck in his truck for the pick up at his 'favourite'  Home Nonsense store. Ha! What was I thinking? The look on his face was plain as day. He respectfully stifled his laughter when the store manager inquired as to the location of my professional movers. That arrogant manager spoke very loudly telling me that people who buy in their store ALWAYS bring their movers for their deliveries, that store staff are not even responsible for moving furniture one inch from its spot on the floor.

Really wanting to tell the man to eff off, I stated clearly that I had no mover, but I did have a receipt that said I had 10 days to pick up my item and I would be back, better prepared. Who would have thought that that dresser weighed 400 pounds! Apparently I hadn't obsessed enough about the details.And why would I buy something 75% off at a clearance store if I could afford movers? I'd be shopping at a real furniture gallery with expensive and convenient delivery arrangements.

Back to the other matter, at 23 it's less about "letting" her go and more about wishing her Godspeed. But I have heard the comments , "How can you let her…, I would never let my daughter…."  There are others more reassuring, who travelled alone, packing along similar parental worries.

I have raised her, she is an adult woman who will hopefully make good decisions, and that's about all you can do. So next time you hear from me, my girl child hopefully will be safely in Oz, and I will be transferring my yarn stash from plastic drawers to the concrete (at least it weighs that much) manifestation of my motherly concern.

Time for a change. After four years the look is changing. It's about time, did you notice? I think it's subtle, but too subtle? So far a new banner and a cleaned up look. I know it adds to the busy-ness, but I cannot bring myself to ditch the Gracee picture, so there she'll stay, my mascot.

Have you been here? It's a post about knitting blog Class of 2005. Kathryn, of Knittsings, spent 20 hours analyzing activity on blogs that have been around since 2005. The left side of my brain found it interesting.

Progress:

Loving this pattern. Although it's garter stitch and very simple (you can do it, Jane, not the Quiddity one, but my sister, Jane), it goes really quickly and the colour changes of hand painted or variegated yarn keep it interesting.

I've made myself a promise – no more new projects until major ones are finished – except for a purse project – something portable, light and chartless. This one takes 1200 yards of yarn, but weighs only 90 grams when finished. It's the Free and Easy Pie Wedge Shawl and I'm using Fleece Artist Baby Curls from my stash. Light as a cloud colourful as a rainbow, it reminds me of a story.

A recently circulated, Snopes verified, office e-mail contained a photo of a fire rainbow. "The rarest of all naturally occurring phenomena," it said. Well once upon a time, long ago  (about 1981) and far away (Waubonsie State Park Iowa), there was day in January where the temperature hit 60 degrees (that's15 in Canadian, sort of like the dollar). C and I thought it the perfect opportunity to go camping. It really was the good old days. Arriving at out campsite mid afternoon, we put out a fruit bowl and a bottle of wine and a tape was playing from the car. Judy Collins was singing the Rainbow Connection.The sky was perfectly blue, but just as that song came on, I kid you not, we saw a rainbow hitching a ride on a wisp of cloud. Here we are, 28 years later, living in Canada, and there was an explanation. It was a fire rainbow, not just some figment of our romantic imagination. 

The rest of the story: that night it seemed to get colder and colder. The colder it got, the closer I stayed to the campfire. We heard it went down to 20. Nothing was helping, I just couldn't get warm. The next day after C had dropped me off at home I realized I was sick and took my temperature – 104 degrees.It was one of those bad flus of the early 80's.

The story's not over yet. I was off sick for an entire week. The next Monday at work, I realized my wavy soled shoes (remember Famolare's?) felt wavier. They felt like large choppy waves. It turned out that I had melted the soles of my shoes trying to stay warm at Waubonsie. And that's the end of the story.

Wait, it's not the end. I finished this post with the exception of the picture and put it to bed for the night. I, too, went to sleep, radio on by my bedside, listening to my favourite – CBC Radio One. In my sleep I heard the song, the Rainbow Connection, one I've previously only heard twice on the radio sung by Kermit the Frog and Judy Collins. Was I dreaming? A voice announced this version was by Jane Monheit. How could I dream up a name like that?

The real ending: confirmed by CBC's playlist. It was indeed a new version of the song. I wasn't dreaming, the Rainbow Connection strikes again. What are the chances?

She's a knitter, a foodie, a writer and she loves dogs. No, not me, this one's a famous writer. Kate Jacobs read from her sequel to the Friday Night Knitting Club at the CBC Radio Studio One Book Club:

Amazing! At 35 she's sold over a million copies of her first book, was on the New York Times best seller list and sold the story to Universal Pictures for a movie starring Julia Roberts. Originally from tiny Hope, British Columbia, this is a case of small town girl makes good. She very sweetly credited her grade eight English teacher as her inspiration.

And you know what? I wasn't even a fan of the first book, but meeting her, and hearing her story, although the book is not exactly my style, she won me over. She's a seriously nice person:

Ever have that feeling about a project? This one's been around – started in Toronto, almost finished in Honduras, finally completed at home in Vancouver when I should have been doing the taxes. Avoidance behaviour at its best:

The wrap-up:

A Mitred Square baby blanket variation made from eight skeins of Needful Yarns Cotton Joy (100% cotton) in the Rainbow colourway.Edges are single crocheted twice all around.It's a little wavy on the sides but I don't want to block the sproinginess out of it. Know what I mean?

Thirty plus years in the field of mental health/social services has influenced the way I spend by time off. I love my job, but as much as possible, I leave work at work. My family knows that I don't watch movies with social service-y plots – no addiction, child abuse, depressing themes, no loud family dysfunction thinly veiled as comedy. Examples of my kind of quirky movie include Elizabethtown (thank you, Sandy), the British film Room to Rent and Woody (on Prozac) Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. Contrary to usual practice this weekend we watched Thomas McCarthy's the Visitor. Although immigration issues are the central theme, it includes an uplifting story of friendship.

My other exception was a mild deviation from my New Year's resolution to give up table salt. Three weeks past my cold turkey abandonment of my favourite flavour on earth, it's been unexpectedly easy. I splurged, though, with a salty snack:

How do you eat your Chex Mix? I exhibit my best OCD behaviour, saving the best for last, segregating the wheat Chex until the end.

WARNING: this is a post about a feminine hygiene product. Not the obvious one.

You read it right, can't have too many innocuously titled posts in a row, sometimes you need an attention grabber. There is a story behind the title, so here goes. A few years back I was at a conference talking to a woman, a board member of a nationwide health related charity. She was turning 70. When asked what she wanted for her birthday she explained that she had everything she needed in terms of earthly belongings. What she wanted was totally practical – the ability to pee like a man. Well, little did she know.

Keeping this in mind, my equally practical middle child came up with the ultimate sensible Christmas gift for her middle aged mother, who recently has travelled to toilet challenged climes. She offered me the same ability as described above in the form of pink plastic plumbing in a pouch. There are several devises on the market, developed for climbers, kyakers and those engaged in other sanitarily challenging pursuits. Read on only if you want too much  further information. You may already know of such things and are regarding me much the way my son does – as a behind-the-times maternasaurus.

There are several choices including the Shewee, Frechette or the Magic Cone. Selling points include:

• the motto "Stand up and take control"
• disposability vs being dishwasher safe – eewww.
• a "hydration special" including a water bottle (to drink from), the device, plus an extension tube (for use on a boat or when wearing "lots of clothing"). Interesting combination.
• protection against unsanitary rest rooms, wind, snow, rain, uneven ground, insects, thorns and poison ivy.

Next thing you know, a forthcoming Knitty patten will include a Shewee cozy. I warned you.

UPDATE: After further research, my daughter decided upon the Whiz Easy, not listed above. We've been told it is the product of choice due to its flexibilty. I'm not sure about the others, but it was surprisingly easy to use.She also purchased a pack of P-Mates, disposable devices, but I can't attest to their ease of use,

And how do you illustrate such as post? With a distraction. Gracee with bad bedbeard: