Category: Uncategorized

I have knitter’s angst, ennui, the blahs, whatever you want to call it. I feel at a loss without something to work on, but nothing I have appeals to me. It’s too hot to work on the Norwegian sweaters (or at least I use that excuse). I have started and abandoned several projects as either too boring, too ugly or too complicated. I guess I want something that is sort of mindless, but not boring. That doesn’t necessarily rule out complicated lace or Aran patterns if they are logical and can be memorized. The Pacific Northwest Shawl didn’t fall in that category – I had to keep the chart nearby and mark off each row with a highlighter as I went along.

The problem is that if I have the yarn I don’t have the pattern, but if I have the pattern, I don’t have the yarn. I do have enough cream Cascade 220 to do a cardigan that I’ve really been wanting to do. But when I pulled out the pattern (a Celtic cardigan) I discovered to my dismay that it is not charted and I just refuse to do anything that’s not charted. I’m contemplating Janet Szabo’s Son of Aran cardigan. It’s knitted top down and seems quite intriguing. There is some thinking involved, as she doesn’t give exact numbers and you have to gauge, measure and then knit to your measurements. But once the actual knitting begins it’s a nice, rich Aran with predictable twists and turns in the cableing.

What I really want to do is Alice Starmore’s Fulmar, but even using Knit Picks less expensive yarn, it will cost about $100 and I just can’t justify that expense right now, not after a trip to England and a husband who’s now retired. You know the old joke – twice as much husband and half as much money. But enough whining! We have plenty of money to meet our bills and I have sweaters started I could work on and a small stash that I can choose from. I need to accept that I just can’t run out and buy whatever I want whenever I want anymore. I need to learn patience and saving up for what I want. I think one other blogger said it well, though – “Instant gratification isn’t fast enough”. Kind of funny isn’t it, coming from someone who often does projects that take years instead of months? But when I want to start something, I have no patience at all.

I wasn’t going to post a picture today, but remembered that I promised a picture of all of Izzy’s things that I made for her:

That helps my mood a little bit, to realize that I’ve been pretty productive over the past year!

I think what I’ll do after church today is maybe tidy up my sewing room (what a mess – again!!), start winding my cream Cascade 220 and let it speak to me. Then I’ll peruse Alice Starmore’s Fisherman Knit book and see if something there also speaks to me and then will see if I can get gauge (always a challenge with Starmore patterns – man, does that woman knit TIGHT!). If that doesn’t work, I will seriously give the Son of Aran cardigan some consideration. No guage to “meet” on that one – you do a swatch with yarn and needles you like and then adapt the pattern to your gauge. That’s certainly intriguing. For anyone valiant enough to make it through this entire, whiney post, I will keep you informed!

So . . . would anyone like to hazard a guess on how long it takes to go from this:

To this?

Not as long as you might think – about half an hour. It never amazes me at how much less time it takes to frog something than to knit it in the first place. I decided last night that this wasn’t coming out as lovely as I hoped. Certainly not enough to justify the terminally boring knit. I’ve never been reluctant to cut my losses in knitting, so out it came. And I’ve ordered the pattern for this. I’ve heard good reports on the Fiddlesticks patterns, and this looks intriguing. Of course, it has bobbles – in this case “nupps” – so I may be kicking myself down the road, but isn’t it pretty?

However, until the pattern comes it leaves me wondering what to do. I may need to start a small lace scarf to preserve my sanity. It’s way too hot to knit on the two Norwegian sweaters. Yesterday Seattle set a record high of 87 degrees. It was probably cooler here, but not by much! That may not seem hot to those in other climates (especially with our lack of humidity), but we Pacific Northwesterners are real heat wimps! We can take any kind of wet the weather sends our way – clouds, drizzle, rain, sleet, hail, snow – but we melt in the heat. In our defense, although most businesses are air conditioned, few homes are. The saving grace is that it cools off in the evening. And no matter how hot, our bedroom seems to stay relatively cool.

Hester is glad she got rid of most of her winter coat before this heat wave. We were warned that Corgis shed, but I don’t think anything could have prepared us for this:

We were getting as least twice that much every day! I’m surprised she’s not bald. I was a little alarmed when we came back from England – she looked so skinny – but realized it was mostly the lack of her heavy coat. At least she likes being brushed. When she sees us pick up the brush or shedding comb, she comes running over and plops down on the floor and closes her eyes in bliss. In fact, it’s funny to watch the two dogs try to push their way in front of each other to get brushed. Sure makes grooming easy! Well, it’s 5:45 a.m and I’ve been up for almost an hour. I still can’t manage to sleep any later in the morning. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems as if jet lag gets harder to adjust to as you get older. Just don’t call me at 7:00 p.m. tonight – I’ll probably be in bed!

I’m baaack! Seriously jet-lagged, but back. According to my body, it’s now 1:00 in the morning and I should be sleeping, but I’m trying to hold out for at least another three hours. Tomorrow it’s back to work.

We had a wonderful visit with our son and daughter-in-law in England and what can I say about Isobel? She is perfect!!! The only thing that could compare with holding my granddaughter for the first time was when I held her father for the first time. So without further ado – here are pictures!

In the first picture she’s lying on the quilt that I made for her and wearing a little sweater set that I made for her father thirty years ago! In the second she’s reclining on her heart afghan and wearing the set I made especially for her. Is she not the most beautiful baby ever? For those who just cannot get enough, I’m going to try and post a photo album in the sidebar. That is if my foggy brain can wrap around the task. And, just to prove that I did indeed get in a little knitting, here’s a picture of me working on my lace shawl on the train.

That sparkly expression of interest is a ruse. This is really proving to be a pretty boring pattern although I think it will be quite lovely. But it’s not the most interesting knit in the world.

Now I suppose I have to start addressing all those tasks that I kept saying I would do “after I get back from England.” I’m really itching to start a new project, but I know if I do some of the things I’ve been putting off (like starting the sleeves on Kongsberg) just won’t get done. But, as Scarlett says – “Tomorrow Is another day.” But for now think I’ll take a little nap (just a wee one you understand).

The last of the hand knit items for transport is done. The Baby Wallaby:

I always advise beginning knitters NOT to point out the shortcomings in their projects. But just know that if anyone should ever come up to Izzy and ask her, “What a charming handknitted sweater. May I look at the underarm seam?”, Baby Isobel will be instructed to answer, “My Nana says, ‘NO!'” Just thought you ought to know. And yes, I do know that it will not fit her for quite a long time, but in case they are still in England then, I don’t want to have to pay to ship it.

I put all of Izzy’s hand made things on the bed and took a picture – will post when I get back because some of it is a surprise. But suffice it to say that with what I’m taking and what other people have given us to take, this kid needs her own suitcase on this trip! I either need to do a lot of souvenir buying over there or we’ll be coming back with one empty suitcase! If anyone knows of a good yarn shop within public transportation distance of St. Alban’s, let me know. I didn’t have much luck last time.

And here is an example of why I like living in the Pacific Northwest:

Rhododendrons as big as a house! The shrub on the left is a rhody, but hasn’t bloomed yet. Strange, since they usually bloom together. Before I moved out here I thought rhododendrons were these shrimpy little shrubs. I have seen some here that are bigger than my house!

Must go and pack! Was it the Yarn Harlot who said that you know you’re a knitter when it takes longer to decide what knitting to pack than clothes? That’s me! Heaven forbid I should be stranded in an airport or on the plane without something to take my mind off the insanity of hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles an hour in a skinny metal tube. I WILL NOT think about it. Valium anyone?

Introducing Isobel Ling (aka Izzy):

Is she not the most beautiful baby ever? And this from a totally unbiased source! I still don’t think either I or her grandpa have come down to earth yet. I think we’re going to like this grandparent business. And it’s brought out such interesting facets in my husband. He visited his mother in the group home to give her the news and she gave him some money to buy Izzy a present. I volunteered to go shopping on my day off, but he insisted he wanted to do it. All of us at work had a good chuckle visualizing him in the little pink lacey baby aisle sorting through stuff. And he did a great job:

I am SO ready to leave on vacation. You can tell how bad it is when I start looking forward to the 10 hour plane ride because I can just sit, read, knit and do nothing (I HATE to fly!). But I am so stressed out at work. I love my co-workers and boss, but the weight of responsibility I’m carrying right now is pretty heavy, plus trying to make sure as many loose ends are tied up as possible are combining to give me a lot of headaches and shoulder pain. I should get back to doing some yoga to relax. I need to keep reminding myself that the dental field doesn’t produce many life and death emergencies – at least ones that I’m responsible for and that the crew will carry on nicely during my absence. I told them the goal is to screw up just enough that I know I’m needed, but not so badly that it can’t be fixed. They assured me they are up to that challenge.

No knitting pictures, because I’m just finishing up odds and ends before I go, but I will leave with a sneak peek at Izzy’s quilt. This is the label I made for it:

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture, but after about 10 tries, that’s the best I could get. I should be able to post while I’m gone – the blessings of visiting technologically advanced children. So stay tuned for more pictures of Izzy. I’m sure I will bore you to tears with news and pictures of her, as I have all of my friends, acquaintances and total strangers on the street!

IT’S A GIRL! No details yet – my son was instant messaging on his cell phone from the hospital and had to get off before they caught him and kicked him out (no cell phones allowed in the hospital). As soon as he can get to a phone where he can make an overseas call he’ll let us know the rest. But she’s healthy and mom is tired, but doing fine after about 15 hours of labor. Thanks for all of your comments and emails with good wishes. We are flying’ high!

Well, no baby yet. We’re having to practice a great deal of patience waiting for this first grandchild. However, there should be news by midweek. The doctor has promised a baby by then, one way or another. Wednesday is Bill’s birthday, so we figure as long as we’ve waited this long, that sounds like a good day. But . . . babies have their own agenda.

My knitting has been the beneficiary of all this grandmotherly anxiety. I finished the Baby Wallaby and just have to darn in ends and graft the underarms. I was trying to decide what my next major project would be and spent a whole evening gazing fondly through books and magazines. I have always wanted to make Fulmar (from Starmore’s Fisherman Knits book) and gave it some serious thought until I calculated how much the yarn would cost me. Almost $100 using KnitPicks yarn and twice that using Starmore. Yikes! I was getting a little discouraged when I realized that I already had two major projects that had been languishing for quite a long time. I had spent about that much on yarn for each of them and decided they really deserved my attention. I’m glad I did! I had put Kongsberg away because I was stymied by the neckline. The pattern instructs you to bind off the middle neck stitches and then start working back and forth. Of course, we all know this is bogus because working back and forth in color pattern is, well , just wrong! But the pattern has you binding off a certain amount of stitches at the beginning and end of each row for about 20 rows. I couldn’t figure out how to do this with a neck steek. Thank goodness, Chery came to the rescue! I emailed her for advice and here’s what she suggested: Instead of binding off the stitches, just purl them. When you come around again, just incorporate the stitches above the purl into your steek. When I stitch before cutting, I will just follow the line of purl stitches and then after stitching will cut about 2 stitches above them, leaving a small seam allowance. Ingenious! Thanks Chery! Since this started making my steek pretty large, I decreased occasionally as I went along, making for a pretty odd looking steek, but it will mostly cut away. So without further ado, Kongsberg’s front:

And back:

I really love the back detail on this. And once I resolved the problem on the neck, I found myself getting very excited about it again. I guess you just have to give old projects a second chance. Also on the needles is Ingeborg. I started it as a knit along, but I think everyone else finished about 6 months ago. So it’s on to Kongsberg’s sleeves.

And for once, it’s a different model posing with my knitting. Don’t let this sweet little face fool you. Did you know that Corgis shed? A LOT!!! Actually, we were prepared for this. The breeder warned us, but also asssured us that it only happens twice a year. It’s manageable if we vacuum at least every day or so, and we even taken to vacuuming her. She doesn’t really seem to mind. It’s a good thing it’s spring and I’ve put my black away. But a little dog hair in the soup is a small price to pay for such a sweet friend.

And the lace goes on:

I felt at a loss not having a lace project going, so I cast on for a new shawl. This is the yarn and pattern that I received as a gift at Camp Knitaway this year. We all bring a gift and they are totally random, so you don’t know what your wrapped gift contains when you pick it. But the lady that brought this said she thought of me as she was wrapping it. She was right on! Both the project and yarn are perfect for me. As you can see from the second picture, I have my usual model hogging the picture. It’s not that he actually likes having his picture taken – he just likes lying down on knitting, or quilting, or anything handmade. What can I say? The dog has taste!

At first I felt a little guilty casting on for yet another shawl. I mean, how many lace shawls does one person need? But then I read “Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much” and my guilt went away. If you haven’t read this book yet, you must!! I laughed out loud while reading it and was constantly telling my husband, “Put the tv on you hold – you gotta hear this!” He was quite patient with me and laughed in all the appropriate places.

I did finish knitting on the little Baby Wallaby – just need to darn in ends and graft the underarms. I’m not completely satisfied with the grafting on the hood, but I had to remind myself – this is a knitted sweatshirt for a toddler. How perfect does it have to be?

No baby news yet. But my son has an hour and a half phone interview for a new job on Wednesday, so I figure that sounds about the right time for baby to arrive – don’t you think? I have visions of him interviewing and taking occasional pauses to yell, “Push, Abby, push!” So please send positive thoughts and prayers toward England this week.

And . . . I did a little housekeeping on the blog today. I started a new photo album (check the sidebar) of finished projects. I still have more to add, but this is a good start. If nothing else, I need it to remind myself that I don’t just start projects – I DO finish them!

This week I have been blown away by the thoughtfulness and generosity of my co-workers. A little background first: for the past 19 years I have been the office manager for a children’s dental practice. This can be a difficult position at times – being supervisor to an office full of women. It’s hard to be “friends” and at times it seems that I’m kind of alone. This Wednesday we were supposed to have a staff meeting. I spent most of the morning working on the agenda. We had run a little late with the last patients and I was still finishing up at the computer when the ladies started walking in with all kinds of hot dishes. I was a little surprised – sometimes we have a potluck for staff meeting, but this wasn’t one of those times. I asked, “Are we having a potluck? I didn’t bring anything.” At this they all started laughing and the doctor walked in with a big bouquet of flowers. He said, “We all want you to know how much we love you. This is a “Grandma’s Baby Shower!” To say I was astonished is an understatement!! It took me a half an hour to stop crying. And it was all the more special because I never had a baby shower. When my son was born we had just moved to Alaska and didn’t know anyone. So this was my first baby shower ever.

And what a shower it was! The gifts were actually for me, not the baby. All of the ladies had gotten together over the last few months and made a scrapbook for me. This is not just any old scrapbook either. It was coordinated by our head dental assistant’s daughter, who does this professionally. But everyone made their own pages with their own personalities reflected in them. One page has the subject “TGIF” (This Grandma is Terrific). There is a set of two pages with a beautiful green background overlaid with vellum with the word “grandmother” in many different languages, and a matching page with “grandfather”. There is a page dedicated to the relationship between babies and dogs (you know I love dogs and so do my son and daughter-in-law), another about bathtime and one entitled “Families are Knit Together With Love” with a tiny little garter stitch swatch knit with fingering yarn and toothpicks! I could go on and on. All I have to do is supply the pictures! I have often thought about making a scrapbook, but have wondered where I would find the time. I am still in a state of shock and can’t think about it without puddling up again. I don’t think I will ever feel unappreciated at work again. And despite the fact that this is not the most flattering picture in the world, here I am, tears and all:

And here is Gracie (our head dental assistant’s granddaughter) in the sweater that I made for her. She is a little confused. First of all, she couldn’t understand why being happy made “Grandma Dorothy” cry, and secondly she thinks I am having the baby!

And lest you think that all this emotional upheaval has made me completely useless, I have my double pointed needles and have made progress on the Wonderful Wallaby:

More to come later – new lace and the Yarn Harlot’s book. I can’t put it down. Must go read more!

In the five minutes it was actually not raining this week I managed to get down to City Beach and get some nice spring pictures. This is what it looks like in my neck of the woods (between torrential rainstorms):

I’m really taken aback on a regular basis at what a beautiful place I get to live in.

Not much knitting accomplished this week because I’ve been working on Izzy’s quilt. I put the last stitches in today! All that’s left is to design and stitch on a label. I’ll get the basic design drafted out on the computer, but will wait until the baby’s born to put the final information on and print it out. You’re going to have to wait for a picture, though. Ben and Abby are regular readers of my blog and since I’ve published photos of all my knitting projects, I decided I wanted the quilt to be a surprise.

What little knitting I have done has been on the little Wonderful Wallaby sweater. I’m almost up to the armholes:

It’s not really as grey as it looks in the picture. It’s actually a very pretty heathery blue with purple flecks in it. This is Plymouth Encore and I think I’ve mentioned before how much I like this yarn. It’s a perfect choice for something that’s going to worn a lot (especially by a child) and thrown in the washer. It’s got just enough wool in it so that it doesn’t feel like plastic in your hands.

Once again, however, I find myself stymied by the lack of needles: #7 double points for the sleeves. And once again my LYS has failed me by not having them in stock. At least this time I had the common sense to call before driving down there. But my sister has come to the rescue – she will get them at her LYS and my husband will pick them up when he sees her this week. He’s driving down to do some work for her company.

And I finished my class on Child Abuse – with an “A”. One class closer to my degree. Between finishing that and the quilt, I’ve completed everything that had a deadline before leaving for England. Anything else done is gravy! So glad to have the pressure off!!