Coping and More Family Loss

Regardless of the turmoil in my heart surrounding my great aunt’s passing, I didn’t have much of a chance to grieve.

My brother-in law and sister-in-law were traveling to California from Missouri and they were to stay with us for the weekend. It was very nice to see them. We rarely get to see each other, since my husband refuses to travel in that direction of the country. As my brother-in-law now is retired, they now have a chance to visit family at their leisure. How lucky they are! Sigh! They were able to see all of three sons and the grandchildren too.
I think they enjoyed being here. We are a very quiet family and after visiting relatives with young children, I think they needed some quiet to rest and relax.

I was so thrilled to see my sister-in-law loves to crochet afghans. She asked my help to start a new pattern. Her afghan has inspired me to start one too. I looked through different patterns until I came across the Catherine’s wheel. It is a very intriguing pattern one can make solid or change colors in patterns anyway you want. I was intrigued and looked through my stash until I found some worsted colors that would go together perfectly. I am using a 3-ply variegated cotton and blue, grey and maroon color of Caron’s Simply Soft. I am making a twin size coverlet. So far it looks great…..take a look…..

When I get bored, I challenged myself to try to make a jester hat from an article in the Magazine “Knit It 2002”. The hat was designed by Linda Cyr called ZigZag Accessories. Of course, I tried looking it up in Ravelry first to see if anyone else had attempted it. There were very few and one made a comment that the directions were not very understandable . Her outcome was not the best.

Nevertheless, despite the warning I tried to made sense of the pattern. I doubled the worsted yarn since I didn’t have bulky in a color I liked. I restarted twice but finally did the top piece. I started the side and realized Linda left out an important part of the pattern. I even tried to look up errata from the publisher to no avail. I became so frustrated and impatient I quit. I realized that there had to be a better way to make this. Her directions called for sewing the bottom half of the diamond to the side of the hat, but I’m sure that doing this part in “intarsia “ would probably be much easier and perhaps better constructed. I gave up for now. Perhaps, I’ll come back to it when I’m feeling more experimental and patient.

I finally knit a furry hat instead with Patons Cha Cha that I had hanging around. I am being so good in trying to use my stash. I even gave some away to my sister –in-law. Isn't that great?! Now I have someone with whom I can unload my unused stash.

I guess the respite from overwhelming emotion was not to last. I just had some more bad news. My niece’s husband passed away very suddenly at age 44 from a pulmonary embolism. This indeed is tragic. He was just a good father, husband and all around good Christian person. I know the Lord has His reasons, but it is still a hard pill to swallow.

Tragic Circumstances

Twenty plus days have gone by and I have not blogged. I think I’m stuck, caught up in the mundane disappointments of life trying to understand how people can treat others they don’t know with unkindness and disrespect. How quickly people make bad judgments and almost certainly(I hope), if one has a conscience, regret the actions, when one takes time to think how an evil slanderous tongue can destroy much.

I mentioned a shadow hanging over our celebration in the previous entry. My mother’s 87 yr old aunt was invited to attend the celebration. She was not at the prearranged site to bring her to our celebration. She was a widow living with another person whom she rented a room in her home. She did not return our calls, and we worried. It was unlike her to forget an engagement, especially a family celebration. Later that week, we were informed she was in the hospital in a coma, having fallen down the stairs two days before the birthday dinner. It was worse than we thought. She had broken her neck at C2 spine and had been on life support for over a week without notification, and the doctor’s were considering termination of life support.

When a family grieves, one goes through the stages of grieving: shock, blaming, anger, bargaining, and finally acceptance. Things could have gone more smoothly and peacefully, but emotions cause some family to want to find blame for what happened. Many accusations, misspent anger and non-communication, failure to be objective and lack of level headedness has caused such pain all around.

I pray for peace and forgiveness all around. She was allowed to pass on Sunday, Oct 5, and we have yet to find closure in a funeral. There is to be an autopsy, although I see this as a worthless endeavor. Some are searching for the magic bullet, the piece that could validate supposed accusations of a relationship that none really understood and were not privy too.

I only see disappointment in unwise elders, who intend to think the worse of an accident they had no control over. I see the revelation and damage done from a wicked heart that is evidenced by a unrepenting slanderous tongue.

I pray for peace and forgivenss in my extended family.

Holidays and Lace Reading

Have you started your Holiday Knitting yet? Some may think that if you haven’t started yet, it might be too late. Perhaps…..soo….I have some to catch up. The problem with holiday knitting is the idea of starting new projects and putting aside the ones you’re in love with. It takes a lot of self control to tear oneself away from those project to focus on other people, but nevertheless, necessary to your sanity, especially if your set on knitting gifts.

So, what am I going to do for the holidays? Who am I going to knit for this year? I tend to be a realist and KNOW that I cannot knit for every member of my family. The most immediately circle of family who gathers together for most family events amounts to 15 people plus a new baby.
My fingers are still itching to spin more. I just spun up about 500 yards of superwash roving in a sock weight yarn. I still need to decide how to dye these skeins to make a nice pair of socks for someone.
I had spun up some mohair not too long ago. It came out so soft and I wondered what I could make out of it. Since I was thinking about the holidays, I ran across last years Holiday Issue of Interweave Knits and rediscovered a beautiful pattern for Sugarplum shrug. This would be perfect with the mohair. I tried to start this pattern before and failed. At that time, I had barely tried lace patterns and this one did not have a chart. So through much frustration and several restarts, I quit and ripped it out.

Now, having had some lacework behind my belt experiencewise, I decided to do it right and swatch first. I used a smooth sport wt yarn to learn the patterns and was eventually successful after some experimenting with my style of knitting. If I could not get this to work with smooth yarn, I knew not to attempt it with the mohair, especially because ripping it out would be disasterous. All the fine fuzzy hairs would tangle and felt to no end. What I need was some confidence with the lace pattern! I learned to read my knitting. Read Knitting? What’s that, you might be asking? It is being so familiar with the directions of the decreases and knowing and predicting where a yarn overs should go, to get the outcome or pattern you want. This is a predictable diamond pattern, which makes it much easier than I expected. Of course, a chart would have been very helpful, but I think I have it in my head now. The swatch came out great. However, I think the lace border may still need some work. Luckily, it is made separately and sewn on afterwards. I decided to start the body with the lace pattern and it is coming out beautifully.

On the family front, we celebrated by Mom's 80th birthday this weekend. We had a lovely dinner. My brother gave her a beautiful rose corsage. It was a wonderful day with just a minor shadow hanging over it. More about that later........

Does she look 80?????Never!!!! Always young at heart too.

No Idle Hands

I’ve been sick with a cold all week. Felt it coming on slowly since Monday. I was out from work Wed and Thurs. Back to work on Friday, although not 100%. Today, it’s now it my chest. It’s the pits! Thursday was my 32nd wedding anniversary and I was sick! How the Lord tests me! Hopefully, we’ll celebrate this weekend.

Being home gave me a chance to knit and spin, I’ve spun a lot of skeins of mohair trying to make a dent in the fleece I have. It came out soft and lovely but it seems I’m spinning the never-ending fleece. I still have lots to spin.

I finally got tired of mohair and switched to some left over Romney wool. After spinning Mohair, I felt the Romney was too scratchy, so I plied it with some gold tencel roving. It softened it up a bit.

I’ve been working on a variety of knit projects: the fuzzy feet slippers, the Hey Teach! Sweater, dug out my pink striped socks and tried to fix them-still a work in progress. I’ve been knitting the 2nd sleeve for the Babies and Bears sweater. And when I grew bored or tired, I gazed lovingly at my Gerber daisies which are blooming wonderfully and lift my spirits.

I’ve been reading the “No Idle Hands:the Social History of American Knitting” by Anne L. Macdonald. It is so great to hear the hidden history of the Revolutionary War and the courage of the women who used their cunning and skills to gather women together to knit and sew clothing and wool socks for George Washingtons troups at Valley Forge . They passe through blockades in the middle of war, in the cold of winter, to get these desperately needed items to them. They found the troops, by following the bloody footprints in the snow of soldiers who had no socks and shoes to wear. Women worked to spin and knit 24 hours a day to meet the needs of the soldiers and those of their families, which in that time was quite large. Talk about labor intensive!!!

Happy Color!

My babies, my Gerber daisies, are doing great! I am relieved that they have made it through the hottest part of the summer. The reds and pinks are blooming like crazy. The yellows have made a slow start but I am seeing some small buds starting to spring up and I’m sure they will bloom in a few days. It seems my “brown thumb” is fading. The plants look very healthy. I am wondering how long their season is? It would be nice if I can keep they blooming all year. They are so beautiful.

I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been too busy working, knitting and spinning. I have two new projects on my needles. I’ve started to make some Christmas presents, again knitting some fuzzy feet for special people. This time, however, I tried adapting the pattern to do “toe-up”, which means I won’t have to finish the toe. Kitchener stitch is not a favorite, and toe-up means no kitchener. Yea! So far they are coming out OK, I tried to make them a little bigger as to fit a large male foot. It’s not easy to know for sure if they will shrink enough in the felting process, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I started organizing my paper patterns in binders……yes, bindersssssss! I had no idea how many I had. I created a database to inventory all my patterns and search where they are located. What a chore! I had no idea I had so many. Too many to actually make them. Still they inspire me.

The other project I started was a sweater I found on Knitty.com called Hey Teach! It looks like it would look great on any body shape. I found some stash cotton I had and cast on. This time I started with the sleeve to determine if it was doable before I knitted several skeins worth of stockinette. It ended up very easy and I can’t wait to get to the pattern again.

Approaching Fall

I was going to write that I don’t have much to share this week. On second thoughts, perhaps I do.

I’ve had a busy week at work, conducting Health Trainings for teachers, trying to plan for the start of school this week. It has been a week of tragedy for me and one of my co-workers. She got news that a close family member was very ill and had to leave the country to be with family. I received news that my Godmother passed away. She was 82. She had Alzheimer’s. I’m just thankful, my mother, who was one of her best friends since childhood, and I had a chance to see her in January. We drove down to San Diego where she was living in an assisted living center. It still confounds me how her daughters could send her so far away from friends and family in Los Angeles County. At that time, she remembered us and was happy to see us. The memorial service was very nice, much nicer than I expected.

On the crafting front, I’ve been knitting baby booties and spinning mohair. I haven’t felt like doing much else. I’ve been too tired.

Now that Fall is about to start, I am going to have to start thinking about making Christmas gifts. I want to try to make things from my stash. Can I do it? It’s a mighty thing to consider. Neverthless, I really need to make an effort to use my stash or I will be forced to give it away.

Ravelympics Closing Ceremonies

Ravelympics close

Out of the 4 projects I planned to complete from my Event WIP (Work in Progress) Wrestling for the Ravelympics 08, I finished 3. So I have earned “3” Gold Medals and posted my Bobicus Avatar on my blog. Bob is the Ravelry dog and Mascot. Isn’t he cute?

The main one was the Cotton Sampler Vest. It came out beautifully. It is somewhat big but for me this is what I like. I think I was meant to finish it at this time. When I began it several years ago, I weighed less and it would have been like a balloon and I would have tossed it then. Having gain 10 or so pounds over the years, this Vest now fits me better. The different stitch patterns were very interesting to do. It was a mix of easy, such as the Box lace pattern to a Medium difficulty of Feather and Fan, and to the more difficult Arrowhead lace pattern. Unfortunately, it does not progress in the order of difficulty. The expertise level of the pattern was “Intermediate” and I think this was correct. I would not recommend this pattern to a beginner.

My second project was the Pinwheel Baby Blanket I was making for my new grandson, who was born Aug 19. It was a lot of stockinette with yarn over increases to increase the circular blanket. I was trying to estimate how big to make it. It ended up being over 500 stitch and about 4 ft diameter. I added an easy crochet lattice border which came out quite nice and helped the edges from curling. I wet blocked it, but it probably need a little steam blocking to relax the curl more. I love the light green color.

The third project was finished the Baby Kimono from Mason Dixon Knitting. I made it with Sugar and Cream Cotton that I had handpainted with green and pink Procion MX dyes. This knitted up fast, but I’m not a big finisher and put off sewing it up until now. I think next time I would make it in a sport weight cotton rather than worsted weight. It seems thick to me for a baby.

Introducing the newest member of our family B.A. H. Weighed 8 lb 10 oz. 22 inches long, just

like his dad, my eldest son.

He has a lot of hair, but this tends to run in my family. Mom and baby are doing very well and his sister is happy too.