Turtles and Green Tee

Watching Things We Lost in the Fire, Halle Berry trying not to scream at the end of her marriage, husband sudddenly murdered, everything in her life different. 

 

Today I was thinking about all the “different” I’m looking at right now.  For months my financial relationships have been screwy.  Banks that I’ve known for fifteen years are answering their phones more slowly.  They greet you at the door but the smile is false and the coffee machine doesn’t work.  They give you conflicting messages-credit limit slashed on one card, doubled on another.  Mortgage guys saying “we can help” and then “what?  no way!”

 

The Lane Bryant catalog, provider of clothing for fat women for my lifetime (my mom used to be a regular user), is having a liquidation sale.  75% off, get it now, nonreturnable, going out of business for good. 

 

I didn’t think preparing to move, cleaning out the house, would be hard.  I have sad moments.  This house was more than a temporary stop in the country.  Things happened here that made me learn and grow.  My children left from here, started new home-away-from-home lives.  Here was my first knitting home, the house given over to yarn.  I feel strongly that I need a simpler, cheaper living space, and I haven’t questioned the need to move, but it’s still hard.  A friend’s offer to help with packing, in a very specific way, was so welcome yesterday.

 

Also welcome and much appreciated:  last night’s birthday celebration with my in-laws.  They asked what I wanted, and then took it to a whole ‘nother level.  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at their home, with a couple hours of laughing and silly-acting as only grandparents can do with their grandchild.  Dayna, finally better from food poisoning, enjoyed it as much as I did.  Interestingly, she ruled the table, directing conversation and making each of us report recent news to the others.  Always thoughtful, my mom-in-law had spent time searching for just the right card, one that opened to a hilarious song in pipsqueak voices, a guaranteed laugh for me on any bad day.  Hmmm.  Gotta learn that song so I can sing it to my friends. 

 

I’ve been promising photos.  The green cotton tee, knit from Colinette Wigwam, is finished.  I am extremely proud of it.  I will have it posted in my store after I make a few more detail photos of the front lace. 

 

And the back: 

 

The other thing I’ve been talking about is the turtle project.  Here is what 60 turtles look like before they get their pearl feet.    The turtles are stacked, hence the appearance of two-, three- and four-headed turtles.  They are not mutants.  I’ll show some footed ones when I’m done stitching on the pearl beads.  Sticking with what I know, people.

 

Peace.

Karabella Breeze Lace Scarf

Oops.  Two days ago when I began writing about the chocolate silk/cashmere scarf, I mistakenly called the yarn Cashsilk.  Cashsilk is a lovely, soft cashmere and silk blend from Laines Du Nord, but it is not the yarn I was using.  I ordered a few balls of Karabella Breeze from Flying Fingers more than a month ago, and when I opened them I was delighted.  THAT’S the stuff that you see in my scarf photos.  I went back through two posts and corrected the name of the yarn.  I hope I haven’t misled anyone in an irreversible way.  The two yarns have two of the same components, but they are blended in very different ways.  Breeze is a thinner, more tightly spun yarn that immediately says “lace” to me.  Cashsilk has that fluffy bounce of an animal fiber, and indeed it has 50% merino, with only 25% cashmere and 25% silk.  Breeze, on the other hand, has 40% cashmere, 60% silk. 

 

Any long way…I have finished the scarf and it will be sprayed and blocked tomorrow.  Can’t wait to see the stretched version. 

 

Meanwhile, I’ll be finishing the sweater-vest I’m knitting from South West Trading Company’s Saphire.  I was thrilled to find this single-ply, chunky, superwash merino.  The colours are variegated with fairly abrupt colour changes.  The green/brown has the dappled appearance of a young tree, but strung out into varying width stripes.  My camera is upstairs with the boarding cousin, but I’ll have some photos tomorrow. 

 

Can’t get through this day without a mention of our acute economitis-you know, my reaction to the economic breakdown.  I felt my stomach drop into my feet today when I read online headlines saying the bailout bill hadn’t passed in the House.  I hope someone in that crowd is acting wisely and showing leadership. 

 

The lupus walk to raise money for the Alliance for Lupus Research is happening in Chattanooga next weekend.  If someone asks you to donate, please say “yes”.   

 

Peace.

Thinking and Speaking and Economitis

Have I really not blogged in a week?  What was I thinking?! 

That’s an easy question.  I was thinking about my back.  It has hurt so bad and so persistently that for several days I gave up on walking further than 10 yards or standing longer than a few minutes.  It hurt so bad that I remembered I had lidocaine patches to anesthetize the area, but also found that they were not very helpful with the more intense pain.  The pain was so bad that I bought another cane while I was out of town, because I left mine at home.  Finally, the pain plagued me so much that I didn’t want to answer when people asked how I felt, for fear I would really tell them.  And finally, I woke up today, and the pain wasn’t there. 

 

But that’s not all.  I was thinking about my daughter, and enjoying visiting her in the apartment she rents with a good friend from school.  We had a ton of laughs, I played school chauffeur like when she was a little girl, we didn’t shop (surprise!), and we had vegetarian burritos from Barberitos.  It was a wonderful visit.

 

But wait, there’s more.  I began serious thinking about my next housing move.  I scanned real estate websites, talked to my realtor, and made a loose inventory of what I must do before my house can be shown.  I’ve had in mind for a couple of years that this move was coming.  I knew it was time to downsize, and I definitely want to be closer to the hub of the city.  (No, that does not mean moving into the neighborhood of the new Volkswagen plant.)  I don’t want a floor that I can’t get to every day.  I don’t want any extra bedrooms.  I want a house I can clean all by myself.  And I want to save money.  A major drawing-in of tentacles, that’s what I want. 

 

And ladies and gentlemen, here’s the ginsu knives of the thinking thing:  I’ve been thinking about the economy so much that I have economitis.  Not having won the lottery recently, it concerns me that Wall Street and the whole banking/investing/insurance industry mess is so huge.  I’ve been watching television every day, waiting for the third shoe to drop.  Or is it the fifth or eleventh shoe?  David Letterman is on right now, talking about making a deal with a guy in the audience who has $13.20.  I’m beginning to feel like that.  Drop a nickel in the slot, please.  This is a for-profit blog.  Seriously, I’m gonna have to get out my “Will Knit for Food” sign.

 

Speaking of knitting (yeah, I was just waiting for that) I photographed some caps today and got back on schedule with posting new stuff in the store.  I seem to be stuck on cables.  No, I don’t need help.  I mean I’m obsessed with them.  They are pretty and curvey and they make extra texture and the cable part sticks out.  I’m in love with them.  Everything I’m making lately wants to have cables.  I hope there’s an antidote for whenever I get tired of this obsession, but for now it’s working for me.  If I hadn’t cut my hair off in the spring, I think I would be imitating cables in my braided hairdos. 

 

Speaking of hairdos, I went through the famous coffee drive-through today.  The guy on the microphone was a free-range talker, willing to keep up aimless but friendly chatter with the customers.  When I saw him I had to admire his tousled hairdo.  I tried to imitate it by pulling up on my front hair and bunching it up.  My cousin was in the car with me and she said it didn’t really look like his.  Oh well. 

 

No more “speaking of”.  I must have a good David Letterman, go to sleep, and prepare for my Saturday knitting adventures.  Oh heck, one more thing.  I put my Obama ’08 sticker on my back bumper today.  I am so ready.

 

Peace!