Life's a Stitch

What I did this week:

I stared a Ravelry group: Scottie Dogs – a group for Scottie loving stitchers. How much fun is this? Knitters from the US, Finland (six Finnish Scotties), Russia, Argentina, Estonia, and Canada. All Scottie lovers, I'm especially envious of those moms of multiples. I've learned some interesting bits of Scottie tid:

• There are some lovely distinguished Scot names: Percival, Duncan, Tristan, Agnes, Mac, Bonnie, Molly, Morag, Heather, Fiona and Angus, to name a few.  
• True to their breeding they are accomplished hunters: mice, moles, turtles, squirrels, lizards,snakes, river rats, a bunny, and one has even jumped and caught low flying birds, not a minor feat for a beast formed so close to the ground.
• Scotties and knitting are a good mix: one member knit an adorable shark coat for her scottie- body, complete with fin.

Take a look Ravellers, you are invited to join even if you are a Scottish Terrier fan only by association. And if your are not amongst the Ravelling, consider joining. 340,580 knitters and crocheters can't be wrong. It's free – ask for your invitation here. Thank you from the resident Scot, Ms.Gracee May. That's Grace and I posing for a new "Ravatar."

Yesterday we had a close encounter of the partially Scottish kind, a visit from a ten week old Labradale. Yup, a Labrador Airedale mix, and he's looking for a name. The family's parents want to name him Dudley or Dexter, but daughter thinks maybe bloggers can do better. What do you think?

No, no, no, not that one, which I feared without reason. After 23 years of desktop home computing we are changing from this:

To this:

Can't afford to do both the laptop and the desktop, but most of my blogging is desktop based. I am loving the idea of cable free computing, but I fear compatibility issues. I guess life is like that.

Someone please reassure me.

Since my yarn buying will be severely curtailed with the above purchase, I am especially appreciative of the prize I won in Kristen's (Audioknits) blog contest. Nine skeins of Scarabeo – an Italian ribbon yarn. Destined to be a shawl or scarves, which she realized are not her forte, she so generously gave them away.Thank you (again!), Kristen.

Gracee was whimpering for brekkie She's sitting in front of me, stomping her front paws one at a time and licking her chops. "Oh Grace, just one more square," I beg back.

"Forget that, Gracee," commiserates Chuck," it used to be just one more row and now just one more shawl is more like it."

Progress on very addicting Lady Eleanor the 2nd, which was going to be May vacation knitting, but might make vacation wardrobe:

Perfect for cool Alaska spring weather.

(Hey, Barbara, I haven't heard from you. Your Typepad profile doesn't not include a way for me to send you the pattern. Please send me your e-mail address and you'll have it ASAP).

I don't anger easily.

Edward Chuck Scissorhands was at it again.Chuck Chainsaw-hands was more like it.

I came home from work to find my forsythia the victim of a chainsaw massacre, most of it right to the ground. He said it needed a good cutting back, and his day off combined with mild weather was his incentive – just as it was blooming. I was really mad. Don't get mad that often, but this was the real deal. Can you imagine pruning a shrub with a chainsaw?

There was poetic justice; an outcome where  virtue triumphs over vice. A neighbour walking by sympathizes, "It will grow back."  Googling "how to prune forsythia" assures me that imprudent cutting back will result in growth with a vengeance in the following year.

File this one under therapeutic blogging 😉

Note to Barb, who requested my pattern in the post below: please leave an e-mail address and I'd be happy to sent it right away,

Readers, meet Becky's Herringbone Rib Scarf. Scarf, meet the readers. 

How best to explain the progression of our acquaintance? I'll try point form:

• June, my coworker, heard about my Herringbone Rib Scarf pattern, published in Knitting for Good.
  
• For Christmas, June, a non-knitter, gave the book to her knitting buddy Becky.
• Becky knit several of the scarves, giving one to June for her recent BIG birthday. She used Manos del Uruguay silk blend in colourway 113, which produced a lightweight version of the original, perfect for spring.
• June brought the scarf into work for a quick photo shoot on an office chair.

I love knitting contagion. A pattern, a book, some yarn, a friend, a blog, a knitting epidemic. 

I googled my first name and got this reply: Did you mean: lice? That's not the first time that mistake's been made. In my teens, my NY State boat operator's license read the same way.

My parents made up  my name, a combination of my grandmother's name, Lillian and my Mom's name, Elsa. Lillian+Elsa=Lilice, rhymes with Denise. We did the same thing to our daughter, combining a whole bunch of names, the three basic ones from the grandmothers and me. Also in there is my sister's middle name, my SIL's name as well as my first cousin. So the formula is (Elsa+Ellenx2+Elena)+Lilice+Naomi= Elina.

I'll complicate the story. When I was little I was called Lili, but when I went to school it was shortened to Lee. It all changed after Kennedy's assassination. My parents instructed me to change the spelling of my name to Li so as not to be associated with Lee Harvey Oswald. I have been told many times that my name has confused those expecting to meet someone of Asian background, rather than the Poli-Rican (Polish Puerto Rican) person that I am.

There are only seven of me in the entire USA. One is in NY and one Nebraska, both states in which I've lived. Try it with your name. My parents thought twice when my sister arrived, giving her the name Jane. A popular name can come with its own confusion, though. Ask the Sara's in my office.

How am I going to tie knitting to a name? Meet Eleanor the 2nd, as in Lady Eleanor of Scarf Style fame. This is the link to my first one.

Eleanor is as fun as she was the first time. Maybe even better as there were no false starts. And I've learned a new skill – backwards knitting instead of purling.

It's done and I'm happy with it. It's different making a comfort/prayer blanket for someone you don't know, as it was a request from a special acquaintance. I did know this – it was made for a young man who experienced similar losses to my own at similar ages. So I did the best I could, knitting into it reflections on loss, resilience and good hopes for his future.

Soon it will join the Free and Easy Pie Wedge Shawl that I made for his sister.

The details:

Pattern: the Bob Blankie by Mags Kandis

Yarn: James C. Brett Marble Chunky two skeins each of two colourways.

Finished size: 45×58 excluding the fringe.

If I were to make one again I'd do the braids as I go. I didn't do that in the first half and encountered some unravelled frustration. I reflected on that, too 😉

Still on the needles – the Bob Blankie for Craig:

In the same colourway – Riley, Blogless Marsha's Airedale:

Isn't he sweet?

That's how I spent my weekend.

I've written a lot about the differences between now and then. How the way we do things has changed, much if it at a much higher cost. Take veterinary care. Old Dr. Burt just retired. At Gracee's last annual check, which was performed for the cost of the shots, he discovered a little cyst on her eyelid. He had Chuck hold her while he snipped it off. She didn't even flinch.

New school vet, annual check-up, wants to do bloodwork and a urine test as part of the routine, She sees another little cyst and informs us it will cost $1000 to remove including the additional bloodwork and the general anesthesia. And by the way, if she's not comfortable with her skills once in progress, she may refer us to a doggie eye specialist. We've found another pet hospital where they were confident it could be accomplished for less than half the price.

Really, I'm not a bad dog mom, but I'm suffering from sticker shock. You see, this past weekend, poor Gracee got really sick. Her digestive tract shut down and she went in for some emergency IV rehydration and a series of barium x-rays. Silly dog is now fully recovered from her licking up potting soil on the deck escapade. $875 bill. We are fortunate in the fact that we still have a small canine health insurance policy that I had been considering cancelling.Who would've thought it would come to this? Much like human health care I have a feeling that hard decisions are made that are difficult to afford.

So here's Gracee, hiding amongst the furniture legs so I can't catch her, not thrilled with having 3cc's of chalky white stuff being squirted down her throat three times a day. She doesn't look too bad from the front end, but the other end didn't fare so well. Does anyone know how to get barium out of dog hair?

I took out my stress in heavy duty knitting. Too heavy, as a matter of fact. The last time I had knitting tendinitis like this was when C was in the hospital for his heart attack.

You know how kids slip stuff into the shopping cart when you're not looking? They never outgrow it. I took three 18 yr olds down to WA with me a few weeks back. We always stop at the local Fred Meyer for the weekend's groceries. You DON'T want to get caught at the border with anything uncooked, but that's a story for another time.

At the checkout I discover I've paid for Fruity Pebbles, a six pack of Pabst and frozen White Castle hamburgers. Yesterday B saw these:

Grapples, that would be grape flavoured apples. Grape flavoured apples at a buck a piece. I had heard about interesting fruit crosses and this one intrigued me so I gave in. I should have read the label. They are nothing more than mere apples infused with artificial flavouring. They weren't too bad, like eating apples and washing them down with grape drink.

Much older and presumably wiser, C slipped this in today at our local Italian grocery store. Ah, Bosa Foods, but that, too, is another story:

His weakness. Not a battle I'm choosing to fight this time. It was only 35 grams of bad.

I slipped something into my cart this week, too. My e-bay cart. A bag of Noro Silk Garden in one of the lighter colourways, perfect for a springy Lady Eleanor the Second. I'll show you a picture when it gets here. We all need to cheat with a treat now and then.