Day of the Dead

It’s been a time of passing here. My aunt, then when I was in Chicago I got the news that an old friend and housemate had died suddenly. He was the one I won $5 from in the Japanese Yarn Cocoon demonstration. Then a co-worker whose office was about 3 feet from mine, who died of the same disease at the same age as my mother. I know death is part of life, but still…

I live in an area that has a Mexican tradition, so my husband made some ofrendas for my aunt and my old housemate at a neighborhood site. While looking for photos for the ofrendas, I found this picture of me, at the All Saints Day pageant in kindergarten.

I was Saint Louise de Marillac. I know this because it is written on the back in my mother’s perfect Palmer Method. Note  the edge of the Jack o’Lantern in the lower left. Way to mix those traditions.

We had All Saints Day pageants on a regular basis throughout grammar school. My favorite was the year my friends was St. Lucy. St. Lucy had her eyes put out for refusing to give in to some pagan demand or other.  My friend carried two blue marbles in a saucer to represent the eyes. No wonder we loved the martyr stories!

So Happy Halloween, All Saints, All Souls, Dia de los Muertos to you all. Gather in your memories and your loved ones. Eat lots of Halloween candy. I’ve been knitting my way through the World Series, photos to follow.

MLE

My Pictures May Improve

I have been spending a great deal of time watching the Red Tailed Hawks.  We can spend hours sitting outside being amused by their antics.  Who knew hawks had such a long period of adolescence?  Here’s a picture.

It’s a pretty sorry excuse for nature photography, but there is hope!  Gale-She Shoots Sheep Shots of Shear Spirit,

Mason Dixon Knitting,

Red Scarf Project

etc, etc. is coming to my rescue.  And not mine alone.

Gale is going to be teaching two workshops on how to photograph your fiber and knits.  She’s going to be in town for family events and I begged her to offer a workshop for we photographically challenged fiber folk, and she agreed.  Specifics here on the Yarnery website.  I think it will be fun, and I hereby offer several of my sorrier pictures up for public  criticism!

Hope to see you there.

MLE

One More Reason to get an iPhone

Check out this app -  I tried it out at TNNA and it worked beautifully. 

Now if only I could keep my Verizon service and have an iPhone, I think I’d do it.  My sibs and I are all on Verizon so I can blabber with my sisters all the time for no minutes and no long distance.

MLE

Only to discover there is nothing retrograde — it’s just me.

If I were a twitterer, here’s what my morning tweets would have looked like—I discovered lots of things:

6:45 am Pick up last night’s knitting work only to discover that that the two pieces that are supposed to be the same width are no where near the same. Rip out.

7:15, Having already gotten dressed to go to early meeting where I am expected to look professional, ready to leave the house, only to discover that the top I recently hand washed was still a bit ‘fragrant’ in one underarm. No time to change, which would require ironing. Get Febreeze out and squirt on underarm of blouse.

Hey, it really works. Maybe it will work on clothes right from the hamper, too.  It says “With hints of white floral, green freshness, and rich amber” Certainly better than what I was smelling.

7:25 Spill tea on pants getting into car with cup of tea. At least they are dark tan/taupe and the tea won’t stain.

7:30 Road closure on most direct route to highway.

8:00 Arrive at meeting only to discover that I had forgotten to RSVP.

8:05 Spill half my decaf coffee on the floor, a linoleum floor, anyway.

8:06 –Go to rest room to get paper towels to wipe up coffee, only to discover when I looked in the mirror that I was wearing two different earrings. Should I take one out and pretend I lost the other one? Left both in, no one will notice, anyway.

8:15 – Woman sitting next to me asks if I know I am wearing two different earrings. (Not at total stranger, anyway.) Knit thru dull presentation, only ripping a row or two.

9:30 Arrive back at my office only to discover that the meeting I thought I had next Tuesday was actually today, and they are waiting in the lobby. The receptionist tried to call me, but my phone was turned off. All this in the first few hours.

Sonia Sotomayor is really my kind of gal -  fractures her ankle on the way to her Supreme Court appointment hearing.  I bet she had on matching earrings, though.

Gale asked some good questions in her comment about the razor shell.  I’ll try to post answers and photos for that tomorrow, before I leave for TNNA on Thursday.

MLE

A Good Day to Dry

It was a beautiful weekend, Chris and her mates were drying newly dyed yarn.  I was drying newly washed (and oldly knitted) garments.  I like being able to do this out-of-doors, they seem really fresh that way when I fold them up and put them in the cedar chest.  Of course, I do remove those silver maple helicopters.

White Pine Manor

In the housing biz, we joke that the names of housing developments represent what the bulldozers removed – Willow Ridge, Quail Run, Babbling Brook. In this case, the high density high rise next door truly is a White Pine.

If you click to enlarge, you can see the penthouse a bit. It belongs to a pair of red-tailed hawks, who have recently given birth to a pair of downy fledglings. They are sharing the tree with nests of robins, mourning doves and at least three grackle nests. This causes a great deal of conflict. Noisy conflict, especially early in the morning.

Here is one of the penthouse residents. (Please click to enlarge.  I just figure out how to do that after several years.) Thanks to my neighbor for the great photo. He climbed up on his roof to take it and is waiting to get some shots of the fledglings.

As often happens in high density housing, neighbors don’t always agree, and sometimes there are a few who are loud and obnoxious; ones who make life unpleasant for others.  At White Pine Manor, it’s the grackles.  They are driving me nuts. They squawk unpleasantly and constantly. They pester the red tail mother incessantly, until she flies away in search of food. Or perhaps some peace and quiet.  The robins chase the grackles, the doves just wing whistle around and the goldfinches seem to ignore the whole show.  I’m not sure where they nest.  Sitting outside after dinner is like Wild Kingdom.

The red tails are birds of prey, are they not? –I don’t understand why the hawks don’t just lunch the grackles. If anyone has good ideas related to good riddance to grackles that don’t involve pellet guns, please let me know.

Fleegle recently described the results of sharing lurid fun fur yarn with her bird neighbors. I know it repels many knitters, perhaps there is a variety that would repel the grackles?

Fabulous Prizes

The winner of the Misti Alpaca is Helena at  Just Another Raveller.  She wants to use it to make up for the handknit baby cardigan she had stolen when her daughter was a baby.  Who knew there was a pattern of theft of baby things?

I forgot to mention that I recently won this cute pattern from Reddog Knits.

She has others on her site, so check em out

Plus,  I won a set of stitch markers from Jen at Knitting Interrupted. And, unless you were an only child, you will really love the Mother’s Day Video on her post.  I haven’t received them yet, but if they look as nice as the picture, I’ll be quite pleased.

MLE

Yet Another Blanche Dubois Moment

Reposted because WordPress is being weird.

Like Miss Dubois, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.  In this case, strangers who sent me these:

I made a baby blanket for my newest great-nephew out in San Diego. The yarn, Debbie Bliss Cotton Denim Aran, was a gift from a coworker at the Yarnery staff stash swap. It worked out well and washed up beautifully, quite soft and cozy.

I received a lovely thank-you note from my niece about how perfect it was, and how she was the envy of her new mommy class. A short time later, I  received an email from her. The blanket was so admired by members of the class that someone in the class  STOLE it. Can you imagine?Of course, I promised to make another one, but the yarn has been discontinued and I didn’t have quite enough left. I could have used a different yarn, but I wanted to try to recreate the lost one.   Generous souls on Ravelry shared from their stash, many simply out of the goodness of their hearts. So thanks hockeyme, AimyBamy, joymichelle and Mauri. I finally have enough to make a similar blanket, perhaps a bit bigger to accomodate the growing boy.

I mean, look at this kid, doesn’t he need a blanket?

In order to celebrate the generosity of knitters, I decided to have a little give-away contest. I think my sob-story of the stolen blanket helped me win over the knitters on Ravelry who offered yarn.  So,  I will give away three skeins of Misti Alpaca Chunky in a beautiful dark olive green to someone with a good story.  The color is much prettier when photographed by someone besides me.

Write a comment with your sob story of why you need this yarn and I’ll choose a winner at random. Or maybe the comment that makes me snort the most.

Mud Plus Wool Equals Good

Here’s a testimonial to hand knit wool socks, in case you ever need one.    For those unfamiliar with mud season, and the power of mud to say, suck the boots right off of one’s feet, here’s a cautionary tale.  Don’t be lazy, tighten the laces on your boots.

I was out at the barn, walking in the nearly ankle deep combination of mud and manure in the pasture — not deep at all in mud season terms — when I took a step that left one of my boots behind.  I’m not sure exactly what transpired, or what laws of motion and physics were at play.  (It all happened so fast, doc.) There I was, ankle deep in mud and manure wearing only my hand knit wool socks, my boots several feet apart from one another, and several feet away from me.  I must have shrieked, because some friends came running, then began shrieking themselves, falling on the ground, laughing.  The horses were totally uninterested in my predicament.  I stood for a few moments trying to choose a course of action.  I decided the best thing to do was keep walking in my socks, grab the boots, then get in to the wash stall.  I left the socks on, and hosed my feet off until the water ran clear.  Put my boots back on, and had warm comfortable feet the rest of the afternoon.  Of course, it was about 58 degrees, so hardly freezing, and the boots are insulated.  Nevertheless, this wouldn’t have been as successful with cotton socks, I’m sure.  Testimonials available to those skeptics who say when they see you knitting socks, “You know you can buy them for really cheap at Target.”  And no, the boots do not stink now.  The interior is nice and clean.  Love that wool.

Although I may be a loser in the grace department, I am a still a winner!  Look at the beautiful yarn I won from the fabulous Knititch’s contest.

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It’s organic laceweight singles, enough to make an enormous shawl, from  Garthenor Organic Yarns in Wales.  It came with the spinning oil still on it, and I was anxious to see how it felt, so I immediately washed and wound one of the balls.  Gorgeous, and it still smells a bit of lanolin.

I’ve been burning the midnight oil at work.  No, all government employees don’t disappear at 4:30. I have to tell everyone from the president to the janitor it seems, what we  plan to do with the stimulus funds and no bonuses are involved, rest assured.   Some work involved a trip to Washington DC where I bought this locally dyed yarn by Woolarina at Stitch DC.  I’m thinking Lace Baby Cardigan or Overlap Sweater.  Isn’t that a cute tag?

MLE

Knitting Can Save Your Life

Especially if, like me, you have your clumsy moments.

How can you not want to read an article that opens with the immortal line:

The knitting needle pierced her heart. Then it saved her life.

Photos: Tim Archibald for Newsweek (left); Courtesy of Stanford Hospital Clinic

Maybe everyone else has seen this story, but if not, go read Newsweek and start thinking lucky.

MLE