Miss Stella July 23, 1993 - Nov 3, 2007

Goodbye sweet Stella. Thank you for a little over 14 years of love. You'll be missed.

An old dog

For the knitting part of this post I'll say that there is a pattern in "More Sensational Socks" (page 23, heel flap for a 70 stitch sock) that I can't for the life of me get to turn correctly. I honestly think that there's a mistake in the book, I've never had such a time turning a heel. I ripped the sock back and I just can't work up the mojo (so to speak) to cast on another sock at the moment.

I made the call this morning. Miss Stella will go and see the vet for the last time on Saturday morning. She would not come downstairs this morning and left a puddle on carpet at the top of the stairs. She wouldn't stand up and walk and I finally had Robert help me to carry her downstairs where I fed her (being a golden retriever I figured that she'd lose the ability to walk before she lost the will to eat, tho lately she's not been the best eater in the world either). We got her settled and she finally got up and staggered/fell into the den and in front of the chair she likes to lay in, so Robert helped her up into it. She stayed there for four hours, before climbing out. She has a hard time on our wood floors lately and today she's not been able to navigate them at all. Robert helped me get her out to the front yard where she'd walk a step and fall, I'd help her up and we'd repeat the process. At one point she decided she was going to play and in trying to run (hard when you can't even stand) she spun and fell. We let her rest for a bit then carried her back into the house. She just staggered from her bed by the front door (when we hauled her downstairs we put her bed at the bottom of the stairs, next to the living room rug) and is asleep at my feet under the desk. Her quality of life has deteriorated to pretty much nothing and I think that it's time. I can't bear to think of not having her around, but I can't bear to think that she'd have to give up what is left of her dignity if I were to keep her here. She's been the best dog a person could ask for for the past 14 years. Pets, they brighten up your life, but they also break your heart.

Socks for girl child

Girl child loves hand knit socks, but sadly fitting her has been pretty hit and miss. I knit her up some lacy socks a while back and the lace was not stretchy (as lace should be), she likes those socks but it's hard for her to put them on. These are nice and stretchy and fit her quite well, should be no problems with putting them on! The 17 year old is asking for me to knit him some socks, methinks he should learn to knit. Besides I just knit him an earflap hat!

Busy days around here lately with parent teacher conferences, a jury summons, doctors appointments, optometrists appointment, karate lessons. It's been a while since I've looked at the calendar and told the kids "gosh we have nothing going on for a few days"!

Fires

My oldest son lives with his grandmother (his father's mom) in Pasadena. He's lived out in California with his father for the past little over 5 years. Every now and again he talks about moving back in with us, but I think that he likes the hustle and bustle of Southern California. I never grew to like the hustle and bustle growing up in California, and would rarely venture south of Santa Barbara, nor would I often go north of Paso Robles (actually my comfort range was fairly limited). But Colin has thrived living out there.

I talked to him this morning about how close the fires are to where he is. He assured me that the smoke isn't too bad and that the fires are still a ways away. He said that they're probably half an hour's drive from home (which given the tendencies of uncontrolled fires is far too close for his concerned mom). He promised that he would call me if they have to evacuate. I'm sure that his grandmother has places she can go to, and Colin's father lives in San Diego hopefully not in the path of the fire, tho Colin said that his dad's fiancee's school (she's a teacher) had classes cancelled due to the fire. But he knows that my family is to the North out of the reach of the fire and they are watching the fire and worrying too.

He mentioned when we were on evacuation alert during the Hayman fire here. How weird it felt to box up photographs and to try to figure out what we'd take. My mom was here visiting during that time and was terribly upset because I refused to hire a moving van and empty my house. We didn't have to evacuate so we still have out house and our belongings. I learned alot when Chris and I were first married and there was a terrible fire in Santa Barbara (1989ish). Chris was in Korea on business with his boss and called me because his boss had been unable to reach his wife. He gave me the address of his bosses house and I had to inform him that every house on that street had burned to the ground. His boss's wife had taken some relatives to the airport and could not get back to their house. They lost everything, their house, their horses, dogs, cats. Everything. So, had we had to evacuate during the Hayman fire, we still would have been blessed.

I am sure that my son will be safe. Hopefully soon the fires will be out.

The Cross Hatch lace sock and my favorite model

Here is my dear Stella holding Girl child's "Cross Hatch Lace" sock. I've just cast on the second sock and perhaps when I get it done I'll have girl child model both of them for me. Amelia mentioned my darling footrest and I thought perhaps I'd tell a little bit about my model/footrest. This picture (minus the sock) is pretty much what I see when I am sitting at the computer and look down. Miss Stella. Miss Stella was a gift from my husband a little more than 14 years ago after my first miscarriage (I've had 4). When she came to live with us she was a 6 week old ball of fluff. She's dried many a tear, and shared much much laughter and many many good times. Now she's 14 (she turned 14 in June), nearly blind, nearly deaf and quite stiff...tho she still plays and is just as sweet as can be. Because she is so calm and patient it is easy for me to toss my knitted goods on her and have her "hold" them for me to photograph. She never complains and will hold perfectly still for hours on end (sometimes prompting us to hold a mirror under her nose). She is in the twilight of her life and I simply can't bear to think of her no longer here to put up with my warming my feet on her, or perching my knitting goods on her. Jenny (the sawed off hound) just isn't the same.

It snowed last night and I need to shovel off the back deck. Old Stella can't navigate the stairs especially in the snow, so she has "deck potty privileges" when she was a young thing she got in trouble for pottying on the deck, but with age comes privileges. She's earned them. So perhaps I'll go and shovel off the deck for my dear little old lady, and then settle in with the mate to that sock.

Where did I learn to count?

So, I finished my mom's first sock. You know, I mentioned my mothers ridiculously small feet....she wears a woman's 4.5 (childrens 2) and I wear oh, say a 7.5 (or an 8 depending upon the shoe). I measured the sock as I knitted along. I put the sock on my 9 year old son's foot (since he wears a children's size 4 shoe, I figured that it should be in the right size ballpark, as I decreased the toe. I finished up that bad boy and looked at the lovely lovely sock..........

Lookie there, I think that my mom's lovely sock will fit my sister perfectly....think she'd like a pair of lovely blue socks for Christmas? I swear the toe must have added a foot in length to these. Because that foot in the picture is mine...my size 7.5 foot. Perhaps it's Karma, I kept saying that mom wouldn't like them, but I was going to knit her socks anyway because she keeps dropping hints. Methinks that the fact that these came out much much too large is a sign (of course it could be a sign that I should keep them and not gift them to my sister, but really if I do know one thing, I know that my sister loves her hand knit socks...especially if she doesn't have to knit them).

Another Friday

I'm sitting here balancing the checkbook, no...really I am toiling away at balancing the checkbook. Of course I do find balancing the check book to be less than thrilling so I do have to have a break to check ravelry (because I obviously have time to knit all of the projects I find. and it's fun to look at other people's projects), oh and perhaps a break to open and close the door a thousand times for the dog who feels it is her duty to go in and out like a yoyo (that will change when it snows, then I'll have to throw her out). Yep, I'm balancing the checkbook so that I can knit when I'm done...oh! Look! A cloud in the sky. Okay....focus (and finish my cup of coffee that should help with my focusing powers).

Okay, checkbook is balanced. Some of my yarn is photo graphed. Middle son just shook his head as I'm photographing sock yarn (he said I should dump out the garbage bag full of yarn our neighbor gifted to me and show that, but I'm not quite ready to do that. I told him to get back to school....he goes to online high school).

The only project I have on needles at the moment (for some reason I'm not one to have multiple projects going, sometimes I'll have a sweater AND socks, or a sweater AND a hat, but rarely do I have 5 or 6 things going at a time) is a pair of socks for my mom for Christmas. Since she wears a children's sized 2 shoe I'm anticipating a quick knit. The yarn is some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock I bought a ton of from ebay last year, the pattern is Twin rib from Charlene Schurch's "Sensational Sock" book. I hope that mom likes her socks since once they're done they won't fit anyone else in the family. The only person with feet smaller than my mom's is my 6 year old daughter. So if mom doesn't like the socks instead of strangling her with them we'll give them to girl child.

And now, enough with the rambling, I have things to do and some knitting to get done (and housework, always housework) before our Friday night racketball-a-thon.

Later gators!

I'm in!!

Got my invite into Ravelry yesterday and started looking around. I'm not terribly computer savvy so we'll see what I can do there, I know it shouldn't be hard but I don't spend all that much time on the computer (tho some days it feels like I never leave the computer).

In knitting news I am now the proud owner of both of Charlene Schurch's books "Sensational Socks" and "More Sensational Socks". Those socks in the picture aren't from either book, but are pretty much my basic sock with a gull stitch down the side. I knit them up in Colonette something wild (I have no idea what happened to the ball band, those things seem to disappear the moment I wind the hank of yarn, I think the kids take them). I had about 6 yards of yarn left when I finished the socks which amazed me because my feet are pretty much standard issue size (7.5 ish). Now that I've finished those socks I do have a pair from "Sensational Socks" in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock (a score from E-bay) for my mother for Christmas. She has exceptionally small feet (Children's size 2) so it will be a quick knit!

I need to get with the program

I finished girl child's sweater and cast on for a pair of socks (Colinette, some wild color, my own design as far as socks go). I obviously forgot how to knit socks and had to rip the first sock out twice before I got it right...and for some reason I can't muck up a sock until I reach the instep. I can't mess up on the ribbing, no I have to wait until the thing is half done before I decide that it won't fit the way I expect it to. Pictures perhaps soon. For my upcoming birthday I ordered (both) Sensational Socks and More Sensational Socks by Charlene Schurch. I expect them to arrive next week and am knitting madly on the second sock of the pair mentioned a moment ago, so that when the books arrive I'm ready to cast on another sock. Oh, maybe I'll go and dig through the sock yarn stash and wind some into a tidy ball so that when the books arrive I don't even have to pause to wind yarn......

My Design.....

Isn't she just too cute, oh yea and the sweater isn't too bad either. Girl child has asked and asked for a blue sweater shirt. I'd seen cute sweater top in an ad and thought that it would be a fairly quick knit if I knit it up in Cotton-ease. Not the greatest yarn, but hey it's machine washable and we're talking about a kid here who is hard on her clothes (that said the hand knit ones seem to hold up forever). So I cast on with the idea that it would be v-neck-ish and immediately decided that perhaps a nice tie would work for the neck (and keep in on her little shoulders). So I knit and knit and decided that perhaps a little textural interest would be nice across the front and around the bottom (which I have now ripped out because the princess asked me to make the sweater longer, this is the reason that I knit from the top down) As I picked up the stitches for the sleeves I decided that ties on the sleeves might add a bit of fun and interest too.

So, here we have the sweater....before the frogging of the hem in order to add an inch or three in length.

Pattern: In my empty head (pretty much a basic top down, custom fit to my skinny child)
Yarn: Cotton ease because there's no yarn store nearby and no matter how fast shipping is there's not a company who could get me the yarn with the speed with which girl child wished. Besides, I was lazy and cheap. That and at Michaels she could touch and feel the yarn.
Needles: Size 8 for the sweater size 7 for the "hem"

Knitters and Muggles

Koigu footies. I've decided that I rather like footies, especially for summertime wear. That and they're a great way to use up odd skeins of sock yarn. I'm sure that I'll have some in much wilder color patterns as I use up ends of skeins. My one rule is that if it is 100% sock wool I won't mix it with a blend (unless the blend is for the heels and toes giving extra wear, not that I'm hard on my socks because I'm quite the opposite).

I read knitting blogs. Not a lot of them, but a few. It's fun to read other peoples ideas and I've found more than one pattern by reading blogs. There is one that I enjoy very very much. The woman has been a knitter for years and years and she's really quite funny and her blog is fun. She has named those who do not knit, or who are not knowledgeable about knitting as "Muggles". Muggles I know are from "Harry Potter" and are people who are innocent to witchcraft and wizardry and, I tend to agree with another blogger that I enjoy in that I find that giving people who do not knit a name feels like a "us and them" sort of thing. Now I'm not criticizing either of these women, their blogs, their points of view or whatever they had for lunch today. I'm just throwing out random thoughts tonight. I've been knitting forever and have never thought about being a knitter, or a non knitter or whatever. I knit when it wasn't cool.....I wasn't a knitter.....I was a nerd. I guess I've never really thought of people not being "in the know" as far as knitting is concerned because knitting is just a part of who I am, like the fact that I can sew, or quilt, or I'm right handed and I have brown eyes. Not long ago a friend and I dropped her and my kids off at Water World and we had the whole day to goof off. We headed over to Boulder and stopped into a yarn shop. My friend is not a knitter but she found many many things to amuse her while we were there. It was nice to have the company knitter or not. I say let the people stare, let them ask questions or think of you as a granny or perhaps they think that you're really really cool. I hear that knitting is back in again. One of our high schools (probably more than just one, but the one that I've had kids attend) actually has a knitting group....how cool is that?! Back in the 70's these kids would have been laughed at, and now they're the cool ones.

It's late and I'm not sure that my ramblings all make sense, but for now.....good knit and knit on!

Prayers

A friend has been going through a lot with one of her daughters. Her daughter has been diagnosed with a form of neuropathy. My mother in law suffered from neuropathy, but hers didn't begin until she was an adult, my friends daughter is still a child. I've never met this friend in "real life", but she's sent care packages to my youngest son when he had to have his tonsils out, and when he's had a rough time in school. If you could look up kindness and beauty in the dictionary I am sure that you would see Aleta's picture there. This shawl was a learning experience for me. I know that Aleta and her dear husband are going through a far more painful learning experience and I wish I could make it easier for them. Each stitch of this shawl is a prayer, and I sent it off to her with hopes that she can feel my love for her family.

Yellow

I knit hats for the hospital that my last two babies were born in. When I brought them home they were wearing a hand knitted hat knit by a volunteer and I thought that when my babies got old enough that I could knit again (for so long it seemed like I had a choice, I could knit while they were asleep or I could sleep. Sleep often won). So I've been knitting hats for a few years now. As word has gotten out that I knit hats for the hospital I get donations of yarn. Which is really really nice and helpful (only sometimes does the hospital seem to have yarn to use). My very own mother has been one of the bigger contributors of yarn. The hospital volunteer ladies post that the preferred colors for the baby hats are blue or pink (or white. Or the varigated baby colors). So naturally my mom has drowned me in yellow yarn. So to disguise this yarn I knit lacy baby hats and basket weave hats with a touch of blue. Really in the winter it doesn't matter the color of the hat because when the baby leaves the hospital all you see is a pile of baby blankets covering a car seat carrier.

This is what the hospital is getting when I next drop off the hats:

















My sister sent me some of the tofutsies yarn and I knit a pair of socks and a pair of footies from the yarn:

I have another picture to post, but it is a gift for a friend and I don't want to mention it here until I know the gift has arrived safely at it's destination. But one hint. It's not yellow.

Girlchild's shrug

My own design knit in that cheap Bernat cotton stuff (cotton-ease). Size 6ish.

More words later as I have an impatient teenager wanting to leave....

Pictures

This blog is probably read only by me especially since lately I can't seem to figure out how to manage a camera. I'm sure there's more images in the camera, but it's resisting my putting them where I know how to use them. but anyhow
it's not been a crazy busy knitting bit around here as is evidenced by the lack of blogging. Let's see pictures. There's a entrelac hat up there made for a mother from girlchild's kindergarten class who had a baby girl a couple of months ago. Then there's my old lady Stella, graciously modeling the thistle lace stole before I got it blocked, and later there's a picture of it on my porch swing (cleaner than the old dog) all washed and blocked and beautiful. And it's not a shadow, I got both pieces of the stole knit and went to weave them together and one side is considerable lighter than the other side! (I bought the yarn on ebay as seconds, and so it is. In real life it looks as tho I planned it that way). The socks are a pair I knit for my sister, who now asks for handknit socks for every gift giving occaision. There's a couple of other baby things I've knitted, but they seem to be lost in the land of the pictures that loaded up in a program I haven't learned yet (I can see them, but am not sure how to move them and actually I can't even find the ones I was looking for....of course I didn't look very hard because it is late and I'm tired).

The husband is travelling this week so I'm alone with the kids and a steady stream of questions, most of which I think they ask just to irritate me. No matter how many times they ask dad will be back on Friday, and asking a thousand times an hour will not make Friday come any faster. Oy! So the house is quiet and the husband is gone, I think I'll hoist the old dog up the stairs and go have some tea and knit.

Yarn Harlot and a few pictures

I feel like I've been away for forever and a day. We've been having "teenage" issues which seem to eat all of my time and energy. I keep telling myself that I will survive, but I'm not so sure about my sanity (I've got one almost done with the teen age years, one that's giving me a thousand gray hairs a second and two who won't be teenagers for several more years).

I did get to take a (much needed) break from the teenaged "stuff" and go to see the Yarn Harlot speak. Oh what fun I had! It was great to laugh and laugh and to be able to bring my knitting and not have people look at me like I was some sort of alien. I even got my book signed and gave her some stitch markers that girlchild made for her.

I have other miscellanous knitting pictures that I'll upload later. My computer time is fairly stunted since it seems that going through high school wasn't enough back in the 70's when I was of high school age. No, it seems that my son can't manage to get himself to school on a regular basis (like enough to actually pass high school) so today after I dropped off my younger ones at school I headed over to the high school to sit in class with my middle boy. As soon as I left to pick his sister up, he left too and didn't return to class. So I guess now I'll drop off the younger ones at school, go sit in his classes with him, fetch the youngest from kindergarten and take her to the high school with me to sit in the rest of his class with him (the boy only has 2 two and a half hour classes a day, one would think that he could manage to show up). The only plus to this is that 1: There's only a month left of this school year (and there's a fair chance that he'll be going to a boarding school next year and 2: Because there's no phones for me to answer, or laundry or toilets for me to clean at the school I got 2 uninterrupted hours of knitting done in class today (I feel that I've already done high school so I'm not taking notes or answering questions). But this high school stuff really bites into every other aspect of my life (like laundry, housekeeping, shopping and such)

Yarn Harlot and more pictures coming soon!!

I promise!! Pictures and my tale of getting to listen to the Yarn Harlot speak coming soon.......

Still knitting

And I've actually done more than just a pair of socks and a baby hat, but this is all I've taken photos of (okay, it's all that is photo ready and at that I took the sock picture a few weeks ago and the hat picture last week). It seems that everyone (but not me thankfully) is expecting. A co-worker of the husband's, the gym teacher at the elementary school, the office lady at the elementary school, another parent in kindergarten and a parent in my son's second grade class. Plus, there are birthdays to knit for and a shawl for moi knit out of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock (thanks to the great shopping store known as ebay).

I really need more hours in my day. Me thinks if I quit shopping at the great online garage sale known as ebay I might find at least some minutes in my day (and besides I believe that I have enough yarn, supersock anyway, to keep me busy and off the streets for a while)

RIP Sammy boy

Not long ago Sammy posed for this picture. This was kind of in the middle of his decline. When he adopted me 17 years ago he was a mangy, sad little cat. The house where he technically lived had a bunch of big dogs and the cat was left pretty much on his own. I would leave the back door open so that my oldest son could go out and play in the back yard (I was pregnant with my middle son) and often as soon as I opened the door the cat would appear begging for food and attention (and he loved kids). When we moved to Colorado I'd invested quite a bit of time fattening up this guy, so I took him into the vet had him neutered and got his shots and took him with me. He filled out to a nice 16 to 18 pound cat (his top weight was 18 pounds, the vet whined that he should "lose a few"). He thought he was a dog and if I went outside to visit the neighbors here he'd come to visit too. He was a chatty fellow and enjoyed always getting the last word in in any conversation. This past year his health started to slip. Not a lot, but he lost a little weight and just slowed down a bit as old cats do. In the past couple of months he became a shadow of himself and I questioned how well he could see/hear/smell and he got a little thinner. Day before yesterday my daughter dropped her pillow off the couch and it landed on Sam's tail and he yowled because he was not strong enough to pull his tail out from underneath the pillow (folks this was not a big or heavy pillow). I'd been portioning out his food for quite a while, but in the last couple of weeks he was only able to eat a tablespoon or so of wet food (I kept dry food out all the time for him and he'd nibble at that), but then he'd throw it up.

Yesterday I called the vet and took Sammy in and held him while he went to kitty heaven. I decided that to keep him alive would be cruel to him and he deserved to leave this earth with what little dignity he still had. My dear 18 pound cat weighed 8.5 pounds. The house is sure quiet without him. He had an opinion about everything and like I said, he always got in the last word. There will be no more cats for me. I've had a cat all of my life, but this is the first time in my life that nearly everyone I know is allergic to them. And living where I do cats have to be indoors or they become wild animal food. I was always amazed that Sam lived as long as he did. about 9 years ago something did get him and I found him lying in my flower bed all chewed up, after that I didn't have to fight with him to get him to come in at night. The last few years of his life he only wandered away from the house if I was visiting with the neighbors, then he'd come and sit at my feet like a dog otherwise he liked to go out and sun himself on the deck.

I sure miss him.

I am still here

I finished up a pair of socks. I even took a picture of them but have been too lazy to load said picture onto the computer, crop and post it (at the moment I'm not even sure where the camera is and I'm not looking for it).

My father in law has been in and out of the hospital like a yoyo. Poor guy has had pneumonia in his one lung and is fighting heart issues. My mother in law has only been gone since Thanksgiving and I'm sure that it's an adjustment after 60 years of marriage to be alone. I am truly looking forward to seeing him this summer. I wish he lived closer (or we lived closer).

I've lost all contact with my brother, except when his wife finds my blogs and decides to leave little nastygrams. I miss him, shoot, I even miss my sister in law, but I miss the them before all of the drug problems and money "borrowing" and crap. That was causing much much heartache, but I'm dealing with it and while the heartache will always be there, I'm learning to let go of the stress part of it.

And knitting. Pictures soon. Not much knitting as far as new and exciting projects. I finished a pair of socks. This seems to be a ......fertile....time of year (Good Lord, NOT me!! I am too old), the attendance clerk at our elementary school is expecting her first, the gym teacher at the schools wife is expecting his first, and a co-worker of my husband's is expecting their first. So, I'm knitting hats and booties. I really need to knit up a few baby things and put up just for these events so that I don't feel like the old lady who lives in a shoe when it comes to knitting baby things. Very very soon I am going to knit up some grown up sized things again because..... birthdays are coming up and socks are always the perfect gift.

Later!