Missing Dad

My father died earlier this year.  A good and brave man, he faced his illnesses and life in general with the same courage he faced battle in WWII and with the honesty and integrity that had marked his life.

I got the word of his final illness while I was at work and left to be with him and my mother as quickly as I could.  I had to return briefly, and he slipped into the next world before I could get back.

The next weeks were a blur, as we moved through all the things you have to face when a loved one dies.  So many of my friends and my family were wonderful in their support of my mother, brothers and sister as well as me and the love and support was truly welcome in that time when the pain was at its most raw.

But a strange thing happened.  My co-workers, people I've known and worked with for years, ignored it. As if it had not happened.  I came back to work, and we had lavish baby and bridal showers.  But nothing was said to me.  With time, and with people asking about my "vacation" I began to learn that really, no one was told of the death of my daddy.

I was hurt; I still am.  You see, I was told that when one of the people who did know asked if they were going to send a card, they were told it really was none of the company's business.  A wedding is the company's business, it seems, as is a having a baby (a very intimate act, I would have thought) but not a death in the family of an employee.

I bless and thank those of my coworkers that found out and sent me their personal notes.  I've told the ones who learned late and were upset that it was not their fault.  I hope in time to forget.  But this night, as I approach my first Christmas without him, I'm having a little trouble letting go of my anger.

My loss is not as tragic as some of the things I have seen in the news: while you never are ready for the death of a loved one my father lived a full life and was much loved.  So I ask you to remember all who are grieving and keep them in your prayers, and I wish you all remain, in this season, surrounded by those you love and who love you.

Merrily we steek along

I love stranded knitting.  Or any other charted knitting, for that matter (lace, cables...)

So over the past few months I've been working in a sweater for me. I started with this pattern:



Kauni Rainbow Cardigan, per pattern

...but of course I can't knit anything normally, so I tweaked it.  On the fly.  While I was knitting it.

I added a picot cast-on, converted it to V-neck, and inset the sleeves more.

Then I realized that I didn't know what the heck I was doing

The V-neck started too high, so I ripped it and put it to one side.  My cat claimed it as her bed for a few days. 

I wrestled it back from the cat and finished the body.

Do you know how much fun it is to freak out your coworkers?  Just pick up a pair of scissors and cut apart your knitting.  There were a few anguished NO!s, until I explained that I was supposed to cut it open.

I picked up the stitches for the sleeves and the button band:





And finally I completed the sweater:


I may go back and add toggles, but for now I like pinning it.

 

NaNoWriMo

Okay, I've been absent.  I've been working on a stranded sweater in Kauni, of my own desing, that I finished this week.  Picture to follow tomorrow night.  But tonight, after a month of effort with a week off for Thanksgiving I did this.   And I'm pretty pleased with myself.  Now I can cast on the standed mittens for my mother!

Work - the curse of the knitting class

It's early in the morning.  The house is filled with the sounds of a household preparing for the day's work.  My tea is beside me and my cat is on my lap.  I have a quick shawl on the needles beside me and a complex stranded sweater opinion my knitting bag.

I really don't feel like working after the day I had yesterday.  Some days are like that,  I know, but dealing with a few irrational folks have me wanting to just hunker down with a fire in my wood stove and knit until I'm serene (or as close as I ever am to serene) again.

Why wasn't I born a Astor?  Never mind, I wouldn't have had the parents I had or the childhood I largely enjoyed.

Off to figure out what to wear for work.

Why I don't have as many finished projects as I would like

I have pest - I mean pets.  I love them all.  Jesse pesters me to get exercise (after all, a dog needs a walk).   

Orlando reviews my work: 

Which may explain all the spelling errors.

It's DaeDae that is my real problem.  In her eyes any knitted object has to be intended as a cat bed.

 And if not, why not?

Mittens

I lost my father this summer: he died as he had lived, with courage and stoicism.  One of the many things we did to help mother was to begin the task of sorting his clothes and uniforms and taking them to charity.  Dad, as retired Navy and a retired practicing attorney, had many lovely suits, shirts and ties.

Summer had transitioned into fall, so we went through his coats, hats and gloves .  And I found the mittens.  In the teeth of a hurricane my mother and father had traveled to Virginia Beach to attend my sister in law's father's funeral.

Dad, who was frail, got out of the car in a downpour to ask directions.  He lost his balance on wet grass and rocks, landing on his hands.  The rocks were sharp and damaged his hands badly.  Surgery couldn't fully correct them, and he could not wear his gloves that year.

He complained that when he went outside he was always very cold; he had no way to and keep his hands warm.

So I went to Webs and bought some heathered navy worsted weight yarn.  I  Found a simple pattern and knit that yarn on needles meant for sock weight and presented him with gloves so thick they may as well have been felted. There they were, obviously well used, in his favorite coat's pockets.

I cleaned them up a little and sent them in with the coat.  I hope they get a chance to keep someone else's hands warm

Rhinebeck (a/k/a theNew York State Sheep & Wool Festival) 2012.  Mecca for the fiber arts.

My sister and I hadn't been for a few years so this fine sunny with patches of fog Saturday morning we loaded the car and took off.  As it had been some time since we had gone I looked up the address and loaded it into my cell phone. 18 Nevis Road, Tivoli NY.  Plugged it into Googlr maps on my IPhone and we went bravely off where thousands of people were already heading.

We had to recalculate, as my sister had left her phone at her office, but we tooled along the Barkhampstead reservoir to 44 west to 199 north to Mountain Ross Road...sort of.  They don't do road names in NewYork or New England:  if you don't know where you are you shouldn't be here.  After 4 retracings we finally arbitrarily decided that the winding barely paved road had to be it, as the little red ball on my google map was right over it, and turned.  Up the hill and through numerous twists we went, coming to a T intersection which I didn't recall seeing on the map.  Checked the phone again and all was blank.  No cell reception.

Tapping the phone, shaking it, and cursing did not restore it, do we took our chances, knowing we needed to head North and West, and took the westward fork of the T, which suddenly turned profoundly South East about 2 miles later.  I checked the phone and Bingo! We had a signal: I asked it to calculate for 18 Nevis Road from the current location while my sister kept her eyes on the road.  Directions appeared and, just as I started to tell her where to turn, well, all went blank again.

"What do I do?"

"I don't know, the reception is gone..."

Rinse and repeat 8 or 9 times , but we did make it to Nevis Road.

And discovered this was not where the festival was.  We had been puzzled by Tivoli, NY but figured the show grounds had crossed the boarder.

Sis, thoroughly disgusted by the phone and probably me, stopped at a Citgo and got correct instructions.  We arrived about an hour later than we planned.  Once we got into the swing of things we had a blast: perfect fall weather, lovely projects, games for children to keep them happy, llamas, alpacas, cormu and Corriedale sheep, sheepdog demonstrations...and the best French fries on the planet.  We even bumped into two of our favorite spinners!  And on the way home we fell into a state of Silly Amusement picturing what would have happened if we had rung the bell at 18 Nevis and asked where the vendors were...

Pictures of my haul will follow later but there are 2 footnotes to this tale: we also got lead astray on the way home (one of the signs for a turn on 44 was missing) and I did locate the listing that put the NY SS&WF at 18 Nevis Road.  I showed it to my sister and we laughed like fools.  Next year, we remember The Dutchess County Fair Grounds and bring a back up, low tech, map!  

Helpful? Whassat?

I am starting a special stranded sweater for my mother. I wanted the neat edge a tubular cast on gives, but the information I had was for 1x1 ribbing. I was fairly sure it could be done, and willing to wing it, but this is going to be a gift and I wanted it perfect. So I went to a knitting social site and asked if anyone had done this in the past. One reply. The writer said yes, and that she used the method in Davy Jones' Useful Knitting Trivia (not the real name). The person did get someone to hit the "love" button. I don't have that book. Excerpts aren't available on line. My library has never heard of it. I think she meant well. Truly I did. At any event, after work I wen ahead with a google search. I found a designer who has blogged a number of easy to follow tubular cast ons, with either video or clear directions. I adapted one to fit my needs. So a HUGE and heartfelt thanks to Ysolda original patterns (www.Ysolda.com)!! I'll be prowling through her patterns too!

Meeting people in yarn stores

I seem to have an ability to attract new knitters.  Maybe it's the yarn fumes coming off my clothes.  Maybe it's my hair color.  Maybe it's the way I am usually holding multiple hanks of yarn while I make up my mind.  Or maybe my aura reaches out and grabs them (there is a precedent: many years ago at a mall in Philadelphia my "aura" reached out and grabbed a passing psychic: she told me it had done so and she had something she had to share with me...I apologized and told her I thought it was better trained than that). 

Anyway, I am often minding my own business, trying to pick up inexpensive yarn for a quick washable project and they will come.  The conversation always begins with one of two phrases.  The one I don't care for is "you look like you knit a lot" (unless I'm wearing a home made item). The other is "are you a knitter?"

Of course I answer yet, and then the conversation begins.  Today a lovely woman at a store wanted my advice on needles and yarn for a baby project and whether the store's beginner classes were any good.  We had a lovely chat.  I hope she gets hooked and that I run into her again, so she can show me what she made for her niece or nephew.  There is something magical about the first piece of knitting, even if it is a little off square or the tension isn't as consistent as it will be in a few months.  It means someone liked the craft enough (or loved the recipient enough) to keep at it until it's done.  

When someone "gets" homemade it's a beautiful thing

One of my co-workers mentioned in passing that his wife was due, almost immediately, with their first child.  I love making baby things for co-workers, but this was cutting it a bit fine.  So I thought it through, went to one of the largest yarn stores in the US and picked up some Lorna's Lace sock yarn in a berry color way.   I whipped out my crochet hooks, figured that a size E was closest to the right size and began designing my own sweater.    I started on a yoked cardigan with raglan sleeves and determined that I really wasn't loving the pooling.  So I dragged my color expert (also known as my sister) to another Local Yarn shop and we poured over the yarns.  I finally found a cantaloupe color that picked up one of the shades in the variegated.  One of the store clerks found the perfect buttons and 4 days later it was done. 

 I gave it to my co-worker on Friday.  He's a guy.  I figured he'd say thanks, but his wife might like it.  15 minutes later he was at my desk, hugging me, asking about the sweater, thanking me.  I had to smile. 

I really had to smile at lunch time.  Just about everyone in the office told me how much Ben (not his real name) had loved the sweater, how he'd shown it to everyone, and how he couldn't understand why I felt I had to explain it was crocheted and not knitted (I was explaining the texture.

I've made dozens of crocheted baby sweaters.   I've largely designed them all myself.  Three times stand out.  The time the pregnant woman on the train cried (she'd lost her grandmother and was not expecting a hand made sweater),  The co-worker whose wife was expecting twins.  He thanked me nicely, then came in the following Monday with roses from his wife, because she didn't think he thanked me enough ("do you know what hand made sweaters like these would cost at Filene's) and this time.  I loved giving a gift to someone who appreciated the work that went into it. 

His daughter will be blessed.  He really will love the plaster casts of her hand, the clay pots and the refrigerator art.  And he made my day. 

Musings

I've been monitoring a board on cooking and knitting and I noticed that the moderator was looking for some help. I volunteered, since three things I love are knitting, cooking and eating.  We're looking for creative things to bring people onto the board.  More shared recipes.  More shared patterns.  That sort of thing.

The mod suggested food themed knit-alongs and I thought we could do something like dinner and a movie: you know, dinner and a hand knit potholder, dinner and a dish cloth, dinner and an apron.

I have one burning question: how do I keep the food from getting all over the cashmere? Oh, and can we call tomato stains dyeing with natural pigments?

This may go someplace: I never could get the berry stains out of my white jeans...would yarn treated with, say, a combination of raspberry juice and blueberry juice sell, or would I need to have it as part of a high fiber diet? cooked a la pasta?

Perhaps a more profitable line of thought would be food based amigurumi: knit eggplants, carrots, asparagus...

I'll stop now before I make a bigger fool of myself.

the things knitters carry in their knitting bags

Like most yarnies I know, on any given day I'm carrying at least one project.   Also like a number of my brethren and sisteren (see, Peter, Terry and Dan, I mentioned you) I have a number of bags of differing sizes. 

I like colorful bags.   Most of them are Vera Bradley bags I got used (some barely used) and a couple are by Laurel Burch.  Because every knitter needs a kit, I have a little make up case I move from project to project.  In that I have:
- at least 3 cable needles (in my case size 3 or 5 dpns
- at least 2 different sized crochet hooks
- a tape measure
- a pad and pen
- more stitch markers than I care to admit to
- a power bar
- blue scissors shaped like a cat (bryspun)  http://www.brysonknits.com/Bryson%20Dist/Scissor-Display-Cat.jpg
- a nautilus shaped needle sizer http://carolinahomespun.com/miva/graphics/00000001/DGneedlegaugeMetric.jpeg
- tons of chibi needles
- the occasional earring I took off because it hurt my ear
That's the basic list.  But sometimes I find the most unusual things in my knitting bag. This one greeted me the other day!    

Vera Wang.  Wearing Vera Bradley.  And I had no idea she was there until I reached in to get my cabled cape.  Doesn't she look smug?

A good day for a knitter

A little less than 2 years ago I saw a pattern on interweave knits. A stranded Cardigan knit back and forth. Now, lurking in color work, while doable, is boring so I decided, even though I wasn't using a pure animal fiber, that I'd knit it in the round, steek it, and take it fom there. I calculated the adjustments I needed to make and whipped up my steeled cloisonné Hackett. And forgot about it. I was not looking forward to today, so decided to wear some hand knit comfort. The morning started with an elegant co worker raving, she loved the colors and wondered where I had found it. Another person told her I'd made it. Throughout the day, people I barely knew stopped to admire it while the ones who knew me well kept checking the inside to see how I'd finished it. They all oohed and aaahed over the Czech glass button. You have to understand: the day was still difficult, but this made it bearable. It feels great to actually have you work admired. No one asked how much I'd spent on the yarn or suggested there were other ways to "waste my time".

String therapy

You often hear knitters claim that knitting is like yoga. Or less expensive than therapy. Or keeps them from killing people. I admit it is a stress reliever, rhythmic and soothing. My sister would argu I'm full of baloney; she's heard me cursing as I drop down 20 rows to reknit a cable or when a pattern instruction is less than helpful. Or when I find out there's errata available after having frogged and reknit a section more than once. She's probably right, but with the day I've had a little string therapy would be nice about now.

How I got here

There was a wonderful woman named Nellie Mann who lived with my Great Aunt Ilsa in Vermont. I was less than five years old when I first saw her making beautiful things with "string" (well, that's what it looked like to me) and a hook. She called it something that sounded like Crow Shay to my ears. She showed me how she did it, but at that age gnats have longer attention spans than I did so of course I forgot most of it. Our moving to Hawaii, far from my friend didn't help much, but I did remember what the "chain looked like and pestered my mother until she bought some string ( which she called yarn) in the garrish colors a child loves. And I chained happily away. We moved back to the mainland three years later, and I met Nellie Mann ( whose name, in my mind, had morphed into Nelli Knit) again. My attention span had improved, and with her help I started to crochet in earnest. Unfortunately, my skill was lacking so my flat crocheted pieces were wonvdfully three dimensionally warped. Over time I improved, increased my tool to yarn ratio from 1:1 to 2:1 and have been knitting and crocheting(and wet felting and weaving) ever since. But it was Nellie Knit who handed me my first hook and Hank of yarn: this is dedicated to her memory, with thanks and loving memories.