Life's A Stitch

How I spent my summer vacation

I have nothing to complain about, but my poor husband might. I led cheer as he laid tiles. I did get my chance to participate, scrubbing cement and grout for two days, and I have the bruised knees to prove it.

Have you ever gone to major expense just to hate something for years? We still maintain a US address in the form of an apartment in Washington state. 17 years ago it needed updating on a shoestring and we covered the floor with a pinkish/grayish industrial carpet found on clearance. Made from recycled plastic bottles it was so sturdy that you supposedly could use bleach to clean it. So practical, we thought, since we'd be using it as a vacation rental mortgage helper.

That carpet was a disaster from day one. How to describe the feeling on your bare feet? Dirty, sticky like velcro, and soapy come to mind. Anything, including water, and we have plenty of that being tracked in from our Pac NW cloud cover, left a dark grey stain. How short pile carpet could mat to such an extent is beyond me.

After visiting one of those four million dollars parade of homes houses in Florida, I had a scathingly brilliant idea (always loved that term from the Parent Trap). A quest was born to find indestructible Italian porcelain tiles for the kitchen and hallways, that looked like hardwood, at an affordable price. Sacrificing ideal colour for price we found them on sale for $1.97 a square ft at Seattle's Tiles for Less. Although we're experienced tile setters, we didn't figure into the cost, a full week of 12 hour days of sweat equity in 90 degree weather, all due to a crumbling sub-floor. Once again, thank goodness for the support of good friends.

This is getting to be the kind of woe is me long story that I'm not fond of. Here are some before and after shots, baseboard moulding still to come:

And here are the project mascots, banished to the outside. Blogless Marsha's Riley the Airedale and our Gracee:

The Reluctant Interviewee

I've lifted the idea from Karen and have loved reading other's versions of the spousal interview. So here he is, being questioned last night while cooking dinner:

Me: What is your favorite thing about my knitting?

C: That it makes you happy.

Me: What is your least favorite thing about my knitting?

C:  The line “I just need to finish one more row.”

Me: What is something I have knitted, that you recall as good?

C: Most all of it.

Me: Do you think knitters have an expensive hobby?

C: Tools are cheap, yarn is expensive.

Me: Do you have any hobbies?

C: Wood turning

Me: Do you have a stash of any kind?

C: Yes, but it is generally low in cost.

Me: Have I ever embarrassed you, knitting in public?

C: Why should knitting make any difference? LOL

Me: Do you know my favorite kind of yarn?

C:  I’d recognize them if I heard them- hmmmm- Koigu and those hand painted big skeins – Fleece Artist.

Me: Can you name another knitting blog?

C: Missouri Star (Dorothy, you came in ahead of the Harlot) and the Yarn Harlot

Me: Do you mind my wanting to stop at knit shops wherever we go?

 C: Not usually

Me: Do you understand the importance of a swatch?

C: To get your gauge.

Me: Do you read Life’s a Stitch?

C: Rarely, on occasion

Me: Have you ever left a comment?

C: Not online

Me: Do you think the house would be cleaner if I didn't knit?

C: Yup

Me: Anything you'd like to add?

C: Nope

 

Punishment

This is Print O'the Wave. I'm not sure who is punishing whom, but it is has been exiled to partial smothering in a zip lock bag on a closet shelf until it can behave better. You see, I've knit those last eight rows over so many times that I had to walk away. Eight rows of 20 stitches. For heaven's sake, give me a break.

On the topic of projects, here's what I decided upon for my Carnival shawl. Remember my dilemma - self striping  or solid colour to emphasize the spirals? I elected to go with Noro Silk Garden sock yarn, in cream and beige - the interest of the self striping with the subtlety of a solid:

Bliss

Not the Debbie kind, you knitters, but the extreme happiness variety, a spiritual joy maybe. I gave my niece and her new husband a wedding card, one I picked up on the run, with the improbable message: Love, bliss, forever. Being the practical godmother to this child, I wrote on the inside "Probably not bliss, but love forever." Here's the happy couple:

This sentiment provided good fuel to the discussion fire at several vacation social events this past week. What's your bliss was the opening question.Of course we had to set some ground rules as it became evident that many were drug and sex induced blissful experiences. So, no chemical or sexual pleasure allowed, what was your experience of bliss, your magical moment?

The concept was defined. Perhaps bliss could be felt in the experience of great relief or joy, second chances when none were expected. Some blissful feelings were calm, spiritual or profoundly grounding. Many were related to nature and travel - long afternoons, letting down on a tropical beach drinking red wine accompanied with a chocolate baguette.  Some were childhood experiences - running so fast in new shoes, so special the wearer felt he was the fastest person on earth. Nobody could ever beat him.

Have you come up with something? The one moment you wanted to go on forever? Or are you thinking what were these nutcakes drinking?

Hell hath no fury

You know the saying, often attributed to Shakespeare, but really the creation of William Congreve. The origin is not important, but in Harmony Minnesota there is an excellent illustration of a woman scorned resulting in a fury of purple paint.

Last fall I wrote about Austin's Mohair farm with the proliferation of purple items. Adirondack chairs, fencing and signage. Was is my imagination or was there more since my visit in 2006?

Here's the story: The woman of the farm was so inspired by that poem about being old and wearing red hats and purple pants, that she painted the farm's front fence purple. At the end of the day, her husband came in from the fields, and gave her a hard time about the fence's new color. The woman was incensed by his criticism and vowed to buy a gallon of purple paint each year and little by little. Wonder what he thought when he saw the antique tractor:

 

You know what a marriage counsellor would say about this? It's not about the paint. Whatever it is, the place is fun. Better hide that truck:

 

On the road again

If Print O'the Wave could earn points, it would have a free flight by now. This trip I promise not to pull it out of the knitting bag sans needles at the airport. Maybe my next post will have an FO.

It's off the Minnesota for a family wedding. We've already hit the Yarn Garage. This picture only represents about 5% of the inventory, which went floor to ceiling. It nearly brought on a yarny nervous breakdown, so overwhelmed was I by the massive selection. After two hours of indecision all I wanted was a Diet Coke and a nap. You can see though, that SIL Ellen and I were no worse for the wear:

We were disappointed to have missed the famous Steven, AKA the Glitter Knitter.  I'm on a mission to find yarn for this. That's the crocheted version. Here is the knitted one. I can't decide to go with the multi colours or the solid, where the swirls look swirlier, an optical illusion. Opinions?

Life's soundtrack

What is it about the magic of music that can transport you back in time and plop you right down into vivid scenes of your past (I needed a back in time photo for this post - that's my high school). When I hear Hitch'n a Ride I'm laughing hysterically in the back seat of a '71 Chevy Impala stuffed with five other 15-year-olds and Mr. Polilli, the driver's ed instructor, whizzing past trees in time to the music.

This weekend we saw James Taylor, backwards time transport in full force. You've Got a Friend, the theme song that felt especially good when things were going well with your adolescent guy and gal pals.  Up On the Roof, my teenage coping song, comfort while living in a house packed with both terminal and mental illness.

His "Band od Legends" was aptly named, talent and age-wise. In about 9th grade, in 1903 as JT joked about himself, my friends and I used to do renditions of the Supremes and Aretha. Imagine that? Us white girls (OK, I'm half Puerto Rican, but I don't think that counts as we are the blue eyed variety, but we do have good rhythm), one of us belting out Respect and the rest performing back up and calling ourselves the "Just a Little Bit" girls. We also did a mean Janis Joplin. This relates to the concert, really it does. James Taylor's Just a Little Bit girls, included two guys, the scruffy grey bearded pot bellied one just cracked me up.

Jame Taylor, now 60, performed the hottest, stickiest steamiest rendition of Steamroller ever, inflating the crowd to bursting and leaving us breathless and flattened. What a range he showed, as he gently rock a byed Sweet Baby James, the song he wrote in honour of his nephew's birth. His love for his Vancouver fans openly expressed, even pulling his"Band of Legends" back after the encore to do just one more - "How Sweet it is to be Loved by You." I might have been fooled, maybe he says that to all his crowds, but it seemed oh so right at the time.

This year I've seen Eric Clapton, Judy Collins and James Taylor. All fantastic concerts, but truthfully, JT was the only one, where you could close your eyes, and not be able to detect any difference in his performance as compared to 40 years past. Maybe that's why it was so easy to go back in time. What's on the sound track of your life?

Rebel with a cause

Of course it's about the boy. On his last day of school he stopped by my office announcing that it was time for his yearly summer rebellion. He grabbed a sticky note from my desk and suggested we make a web diagram of his past rebellious behaviour and brainstorm a few more. I told him I thought he needed a larger piece of paper. Here's what we came up with:

 

Rebellion is in the centre, everything else stemmed from this topic. The upper left represents piercings, other than ears - a nipple and underneath his tongue. That was a double rebellion when he was 15. The right was about hair colour times six. Various shades of black, pink and red.

The bottom represents rebellion-to-be. Wait a minute, I ask, you forgot your drunken romp through the woods that ended up with 44 stitches to the leg. "Sheer stupidity,"says he. Who'd have thought a diagrammatic discussion around rebellion could feel so good to a mom?

Back to the future. What's left? Tattoos, of course, and he can't decide between Margaret Wise Brown's Runaway Bunny or f-holes on his back, as in the holes you find on a stringed instrument, only smaller than in the picture.

He's really an OK kid. Typically rebellious, but alas, he has a social conscience. I have nothing to complain about.

A regular summer weekend

So far it's a regular summer weekend here in BC. Woke up to hear Gracee yelp one sharp bark. She was telling a big ol' bear that this was her property, not his. Just like the storm watcher type I was in my Omaha days, I ran for my camera to no avail. The bear wasn't sticking around for a photo shoot.

Next sound was the search and rescue helicopter putt-puttering along side the mountain behind our house. No kidding, there doesn't seem to be a weekend that goes by without hearing that sound, mostly at daybreak when searches for lost hikers resume from the night before.  Many of these situations in our area have tragic endings but were entirely avoidable: kids cliff jumping into calm looking mountain pools with life defying whirlpools waiting just underneath the surface, unprepared hikers, out of bound skiers, tourists precariously perched for the perfect picture and kyakers racing with the river that's temptingly running a bit on the wild side. There is no logical explanation; maybe there are mountain Sirens, cousins to the ones that live in the sea.

Another  BC weekend item - barbequed salmon. Chuck tried a new recipe, slow cooking the fish on the warming rack of the grill, alder chips smouldering below:

 

And of course, it wouldn't be the weekend without lazy morning knitting, bird songs in my right ear and CBC's North by Northwest in my left:

Look carefully

What's missing from this picture? Look carefully, this is our driveway in the middle of the night:

What's missing? Here's the story:

Last night, back pain, tossing and turning watching the clock: midnight, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00. You know how that goes? 3:20 - I hear an engine idling in the driveway. Must be the paper delivery. Wait a minute, the paper guy zooms in, tosses the paper and zooms out. Sounds like a big vehicle in the driveway. I get out of bed and look out the window and what do I see? Our new-to-us since last Thursday little red pickup truck being driven out of the driveway and up the hill.

Called the police, and as we wait for their arrival it hits me. Where is our car that was parked behind the truck? Two cars are missing in that picture above.

Long story short: The car was hiding across the street in the bushes minus its radio. After a visit from the sniff dog and the fingerprint team, we are told that the truck was recovered parked nicely just up the hill, across from another broken into car, but no luck in finding the creeps that did it. They must have spotted me, watching from the window, and fled.

Scary, eh? And da noive of 'em, thinking every car in every driveway is fair game. Eff that.