... And it's only Monday

My youngest son broke his ankle yesterday at his basketball game. I didn't realize the extent of the injury until he kept me up all night Sunday. First thing this morning we headed over to the ER, they took one quick look at his xray


and stuck a cast on him.

The Show Must Go On..
It's his 12th birthday today and what worse way to spend your birthday than at the ER, getting a cast put on and missing the entire pre basketball season with your new AAU team?? I felt so sorry for him that I took him shopping right after he tried out his crutches. He was so surprised that I didn't take him straight home to bed.

Meanwhile, I'm emotionally and physcially spent. Try helping a 140 pound 12 year old hop here and there after having stayed up half the night trying to get him comfortable? I think, at some point, my mind began playing tricks on me. I started to see knitting themes in shop windows where there should not have been any. I must have stood in front of J. Crew's window quite a while because, there's a crutch in the photo - they were trying to get me to snap out of it.

As we started to move along, I saw this in the Gap window. I was paralyzed with a quiet and private delight -
The children tried to pull me away but who could voluntarily pull away from gawking at that??

Now for dinner and Birthday Cake

I was near collapse but mother's ain't suppose to get tired right? Fortunately, the birthday boy began fading fast. We sang happy birthday, opened presents, cut the cake and decided that the day didn't turn out so bad afterall.

International Scarf Exchange Swap - Finished!

I finished the scarf, I stopped at 65 inches and it stretched to 70 after blocking. I used Cascade 220, doubled stranded. It took two skeins. The pattern is from one of my favorite books, Oddball Knitting by Barbara Albright. Ever see it?


I'll show you the different 'finishing' phases after the knitting was all done.

The pattern stitch, a diamond motif, is bordered by 4 garter stitches on each side. It still curled.




I used to use expensive wool washes then I read in the Morehouse Farms book an interesting article about washing wool, the whole science of it. Regular dishwashing liquid, is all you need according to them.


I don't have a blocking board. I just lay out old towels and pin my wet projects to the floor and hope it'll dry before one of the children trips over it.

I'm not going to show you the completed scarf. I don't want to totally ruin the surprise for the recipient. You can check with the ISE blog for more on the scarf's travels.

Melancholic notions

I go to house sales on occasion. I look for vintage stuff mostly, things that the dealers don't have a use for - craft notions. I go as a form of therapy too. To try to see what perhaps awaits me on the other side of my crafting compulsions - too many unfinished projects that turn into vintgage unfinished objects and could end up one day in a house sale after I'm gone.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to one such sale. Up in what looked like a spare room were so many craft projects. There was lace crochet, knitted hand towels, and lots of quilting scraps. I looked at all the unfinished projects that the deceased never got to finish and I imagined what her reasons were: failing eyesight, failing health, failing interest, failing family... There was an entire plastic garbage bag filled with 70+ year old quilting squares that were all hand sewn! I dragged the bag from the austere bedroom that didn't reflect at all this person's brilliance with all things beautiful. I hauled it down the stairs to the lady handling the sales. She peered into the bag and looked up at me and instantly it seemed, she decided right then and there what she hadn't decided when she went through the house pricing everything - she could not to sell the scraps afterall.

"OMAGOD, aren't these vintage?" She asked another liquidator.
"I dunno, don't sell 'em if they are." Said another women in charge of jewelry.
"I'll take $10 a square." She blurted to me.

I knew that they were worth a whole lot more than that, in sentimental value that is. The grown children who evidently didn't have any sentimentality in their bodies (there were also vintage picture albums of relatives, there was one vacation album of a family touring Berlin - before the war- that I couldn't resist buying for $2.00). There I was with a garbage bag filled with someone's mother's or grandmother's life's work of domestic artistry. These are the ironies of life I find hard to escape. Are home crafts art? Or, are they examples of domestic drudgeries that women tried to elevate to art only to gleefully leave it all behind when they passed on?

I didn't buy the bag of scraps. I took with me though the photo album of prewar Berlin and a box of rusted pins and needles, dusty old needlepoint wool and these -



A strange assortment of ivory notions - crochet hook, needles and stitch markers. I became even more melancholic thinking about poaching...

Fruits of labor

Tried to do a little bit of everything over the weekend. Wound wool for my International Tote Exchange bag - hey, don't roll your eyes at me, I can get it done in time, just not super early like some of you folks.



I peeled a lot of apples and made some pies - one was gone as soon as I took it out of the oven!



Finished my cat facecloth with the dishcloth KAL, sorry the picture doesn't show the outline of the cat that well. The images our host puts up are so clever!



Purged my stash of most of the acrylic yarn (I've kept some of my favorite colors - I'm not a total yarn snob). "If you start a child off with synthetics you will have no one to thank but yourself if it has to pass its days in cheerless plastic-yarn sweaters..." I didn't say that Elizabeth Zimmermann did.


... and worked on my International Scarf Exchange scarf. I was tempted to frog it and do something different but I resisted. Blogger is giving me a fit so I'll have to post my progress on the scarf later.

International Scarf Exchange vs. apples

This is the newest version of the scarf I'm making for the International Scarf Exchange. Don't ask me why but I keep changing my mind with the design. In my previous post, I featured it as a lengthwise scarf that I was just starting. I frogged it after about 5 inches. I think I'm liking this design so perhaps this will be my choice.

Oh, and what's up with the apple?




I've got three more of these bushels to peel for some pies and preserves I have to finish before Monday. Knitting while peeling apples is usually a messy affair so I'll have to choose which task I'll complete before Monday. Decisions, decisions....

good scarves, bad scarves

The Good...

Here's a peek at my International Scarf Exchange project. I just got started... again. I couldn't decide on the wool, the color nor the stitch. My scarf is going someplace cold so I wanted it to be warm. I have to have it done by the end of the month so I have time to do a little more experimenting.

I've finally finished that silk boucle that I was confused about. I think I've made 3 scarves with it and frogged it twice. This is my own version of Scarf Style's Ruffles scarf. I made it up and, dumb me, didn't write it down.

The Bad...

Remember I told you about the Stashalong I joined a while back? Well, like many of you I have too many odd skeins that I didn't know what to do with. I decided to make this shawl but it turned out to be a disaster really. Firstly, it was too long, like 170 inches too long. Next thing, it just looks odd and finally, I think it is even too ugly to become a magic ball!

To the frog heap she goes!

Swapcess

These are pictures from my swap-bot "have you any wool" swap. I don't know who sent it because my secret pal hasn't revealed herself to me yet!






She has sent me an anonymous note telling me that she made the stitch markers. Aren't they sweet! I've got to tell you, secret pal, these were my first ever fancy stitch markers!

What's up with Blogger??

Is anyone else out there having their blogs throw up on them?? I've been out all day at meeting after meeting and when I checked my blog, yuck. I didn't do anything. These weird things seem to happen every so often. Once I lost my entire sidebar!

I subscribe to the Dishcloth Fun KAL, gosh, that loooked weird too. Judith, do you know what's going on with your site??

Field Trip - Princeton, part 2

Aren't these gourds amazing? After I got off the highway toward Princeton, there was a nice farm stand that I couldn't resist. I bought about 5 mums and a few of these gourds.

I have to tell you about this amazing ice cream parlor called The Bent Spoon. They make their own ice cream using fruits, vegetables and spices that are in season. It took me a while to find it but here she is.



There was quite a line inside and everyone spoke about their personal favorites. You won't believe what I had. Bourbon and carmel. It was the creamiest and the most flavorful ice cream I've ever had outside of Spain. It took every ounce of will power to stop at a half pint of this heavenly stuff.

Field Trip - Princeton

I took my brand new rental car for a spin to Princeton today. It's a one and a half hour trip south from where I live. I started out after 3 pm which meant that it was going to be too late to see the two known yarn stores there, so I decided to see what I could.

It was the most gorgeous day to take a road trip. As you approach Princeton's city limits and before you arrive at the campus proper, you have to drive over a stone bridge -

It was too beautiful not to stop so I parked on the side of the road, just over the bridge and took some more pictures.

The lake was filled with Princeton's crew teams and a few recreational boaters. I wanted to be young again, just for that moment there on the bridge...

I got back in the car and drove onward toward the campus but it was dusk now and I had lost the day's light. I'll have to come back another time for campus shots and of course, the yarn shops.

I continued driving toward town. There were book stores, pizzerias and ice cream parlors to sample. Everyone knows that college towns have the best book stores, ice cream and pizza. Immediately I saw a book store, Micawber Books.



I stood out side for a while looking over this rack of books and dreamed of a skill where I could somehow absorb the knowledge stacked before me.

Inside there were more beautiful books - delicate antique books from a time when words were as important as their meaning.

A nice woman asked,
"Is there something in particular you are interested in?"
It must have been my camera that gave my tourist self away.
"No, thank you, I'm just... Actually, there would be something but I doubt..."
I don't know why I hesitated to ask, but whenever I do ask about craft books in such places I get a sort of confused dog stare, you know the look. I don't get those stares somehow when I'm wearing one of my shawls.
I asked,
"Do you have any knitting books?"
She gave me the stare but immediately recovered and said,
"Perhaps over here in this corner."
And with that she walked toward a quiet little alcove where there are just a half dozen books on crafts. She pulled this one down, and asked me if it would do.

Yeah, I know, you're jealous!

A day well spent

It's 2am here in Jersey and I'm still not sleeping, so I thought I'd fill you in on a bad day gone good.

I took my van in to my local dealership for servicing. The breaks are totally shot. In addition to that, I get a note from the department of motor vehicles telling me that after 30 years of driving, they have finally discovered that I never changed my name with the social security administration after I got married (nearly 20 years ago). I wasn't sure how that made me feel. "Cool, it took them 20-30 years but they finally got their computers to communicate with one another." or "Dayum, now I'll have to spend the next 3 months trying to prove my identity with the DMV." Now I'm worried how will the IRS interpret this? Will the INS be far behind? Then DYFS, and a bunch of other alphabets will be demanding I implant some chip in my.... Excuse me, where was I... Oh right, my van.

I wasn't always negligent with cars. Several years ago my husband was going through some phase and bought a Range Rover - the big one - 5 miles to the gallon. Geez, I remember thinking, "I could put 1 kid through college on one of those car payments." But you know men, when they go through some phase they buy big ticket items, we woman, we buy yarn or shoes. Anyways, one sunshiny day, one of my boys was goofin off in the back seat with his brothers in the lovely family Range Rover when it occurred to him that he should want to know what else could be achieved with Yoohoo. I vaguely remember the question from the 9 year old to the 7 year old, "just because it's in a bottle doesn't mean it will explode like soda." A declarative statement actually, but while I was contemplating that there was the issue with the road, the pot holes, other cars, traffic signs and the doctor's appointment that we were close to being late for - when yoohoo exploded all over the white interior - roof, bucket seats, carpet, stereo, toddler in car seat... you get the picture.

I had one chance to get this right - kill the kid or get rid of the "i wanna be young and single and back in New York' SUV. That's when we visited our friendly neighborhood Chrysler dealership and bought a van. Now, the kids can throw up in the gd thing, I don't care - we just run everybody through the car wash and voila, all clean!

Another thing I love about my friendly neighborhood car dealership is they don't judge. "So, how did your rims crack, again? I'd get at Paul Miller's You Wanna Look Rich Car dealership in Parsippany. My constant refrain sounded something like, "Because you bozos insist on using plastic and not titanium for rims, with all the pot holes in our unmaintained highways that my high New Jersey taxes are supposed to be taking care, I get plastic/fiberglas rims on a 70,000 dollar car and you wanna know why they keep cracking??!! I know why, so that I can keep paying $1500 dollars every time I go in for an oil change! It seemed that whenever I brought that gd Range Rover in for service, they tried to sell me some more crap or make me feel guilty because I let my children 'ride in the car'. Why they even tried to sell me clothes! What person in they right mind would walk around with a range rover logo on they blouse?? What they think I was, some rapper's wife??? Do you know how much yarn I could have bought?? But I digress...

The point of all of this is how totally calm I am now when visiting my local car dealership for service even though I am totally screwed because the family bus is out of service. So today, I reluctantly dropped my van off and tried to figure out how was I going to get the children to this practice and that game and this event and that meeting.... But the nice people at Wykoff Chrysler called a rental car company who came and delivered me a rental car! Duh. They do have those in suburbia too. Suburban life is still a bit of a challenge for me.

Tonight I get this nice message from my LYS that someone they knew spotted me in the car dealership and noticed that I was a friendly, happy person. (Kids, your mamma was right, it is always good to be on your best behavior!) That absolutely made my day!!

Busy as a bee

I had a busy weekend of garden work - watching only, no bending yet. Every gardener should take time to just watch their garden. Seeing how the wind blows let's you know which trees need to be thinned. Watching the light will give you an idea of where to plant sun lovers and shade lovers. Pests can be observed at their devilish games. My favorite show in the garden are the workers - birds and bees, butterflies and bugs.




So, do you remember that silk/wool boucle yarn I bought? This is what it looked like after I deviated 'slightly' from the suggested pattern.

The yarn store I bought it from said to do it in a simple garter stitch but I decided to knit it on large needles 17 (the zen master knitter suggested 10 1/2). I added a crochet border. It didn't look too nice. I frogged it.

I've been trying many different ideas some lace stitches too but the boucle is so busy I'm wondering if I should just do a simple stockinette stitch on the 17 needles and leave it at that. Anyways, this is a drop stitch I tried. This was suggested by Kristine at Modern Yarn when I visited there last week. What do you think?


Still wondering...

The truth is, boucle and I don't really get along. I keep buying it because I love the way it looks just so but I've never really been happy with it finished. I always end up frogging it and everyone knows you can't frog boucle too easily...

Quickie...

I was supposed to be answering emails when I began wandering around the net and found this hysterically funny story on this most gorgeous blog...

Violets are Blue.

Ok, back to work for me...

Have you any wool?

Cassandra, my buddy for this swap emailed me to say she received her package.

This is what I sent her -



I put it in a bowl for a "yarn tasting" idea.

It was a one time exchange and she seemed happy with her surprise. Don't ask me why we do these swaps. I think for me as a new blogger, it sounded like a great idea to learn about the knitting blogging community.

Have a great weekend!

The Last Knit

I saw this video over at Heather Bailey's, site.

Does anyone know what yarn girlfriend is using??

Field Trip - Montclair

Yesterday I went on a field trip to Modern Yarn in Montclair, NJ. I wanted to get something different for my Have You Any Wool swap partner. I found out about Modern Yarn quite by accident. Some months ago, my family went on a random drive one Sunday and we decided to stop in Montclair. As we were walking around enjoying the shops - restaurants, book stores (yes, plural), novelty shops, antique shops, YARN STORE!! I couldn't believe my good luck. I sent the others along and I went inside. They carry a full line of Morehouse Farm wool and I bought a kit to make a felted tam - I haven't started that project yet :o

This visit was very much intentional. After going inside, I meet Kristine -


who was knitting and helping some customers. After we all exchanged oohs and ahhs about our various finished projects we were wearing or working on, I noticed that one of the women is from my town! That was funny. We knitters get around! As more shoppers arrived, I decided to meander and shop myself -





I couldn't help but to overhear another customer talking about her new line of stitch markers. She even pulled down Vogue's Knit 1 magazine where they feature some of her stuff! Her name is Debra Richlin, go to her web site and check out her stuff! Aren't these clever!
After a while, everyone clears out and Kristine and I began talking about socks. There was a beautiful colorway called Passion Fruit by Claudia's Hand Painted Yarns that I decide to try as my first foray back into sock knitting. Kristine finds me some size 2 needles. After she winds my skeins, we sit down where she kindly demonstrates her starting methods. Whew, look at her hands go!


I had a nice afternoon at Modern Yarn and I've met yet another kindly knitter!