Happy Birthday Laurie

Laurie dressed as "your favorite disease" - Mad Cow

Yesterday was a tough day. I hit a few blogs and it seemed like everyone was having a birthday to celebrate. Wendy's Mom had her birthday yesterday - Stephanie's daughter celebrated yesterday. I had a birthday yesterday too. Laurie, my best friend since 4th grade, had a birthday yesterday. Only - she's not here anymore.

Laurie was someone everybody wanted as a friend. She had MS but you'd never know it. She would use all her energy to do for other people and then go home and be too tired to do for herself. She raised two incredible boys to manhood on her own the last 10 years. They are respectful, fun to be with, intelligent and each has bits of Laurie shine through. Our last vacation together was a couple days at the Black Hills. It was cut short because her ex-father-in-law died while we were out there and we had to drive home early. I have great memories of that all-too-short trip. I have great memories of all the times we spent together from discovering what we could do on our 3-speed black bikes to our final times together discussing "The West Wing". In between we took synchronized swimming classes, went to England together, made bizarre costumes for parties, took Stain Glass classes. The day we made Nativity scenes she was a bit shaky from the MS and Joseph ended up with a bit too much solder and was anatomically correct (OOPS!) Anyway -

Happy Birthday Laurie! I miss you - I always will.

A Tale of Three Yarn Shops

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Actually it was an extra day off. I finally finished a huge project so I took an extra day off this weekend. I decided I'd hit a few yarn shops that are out of my normal travel area. The idea was good but the follow thru - not so good.

I started by calling Mom to see if she'd like to ride along. Kind of - kill two birds with one stone. Give Mom some time out because she loves to ride in the car and I'd get a chance to check out a few new places. Mom didn't answer her phone so she didn't get to go long. Hopefully, she'll answer the phone at 4:30 so we can go out to supper together.

I rode part way to the yarn shops and stopped for lunch. Mapped out the best route to the 3 shops I was going to and headed out. I'm not going to say the name of two of the shops I was at because the problems I had today were probably one time things and it's not fair to judge a shop by one bad experience.

Shop #1 - I got to the first shop about noon after going 25 miles from home and found a note on the door - Closed early due to illness. DRAT! Okay there's still 2 other shops I want to go see so - off to number 2.

Shop #2 - I got to the shopping center and discovered it wasn't where it used to be. Fortunately, I figured out it moved down to the other side of the mall. I went in the shop and was all alone. They didn't have an "early warning signal" of any kind so whoever was in the shop didn't know I came in. I looked around for a while and fondled some yarn. The shop seemed out of order. It wasn't the normal yarn shop clutter it was disorder. Some shelves were mostly empty, things were "tossed" around the shop and samples looked old. When no one showed up to greet me, I left. Well, there's always the third shop - off again.

Shop #3 - I will name this shop. I got to it - walked in and was greeted by very cheerful people. Glad to see me there and glad to talk knitting. I haven't been to the Coldwater Collaborative in Excelsior before but I will be back even though it’s a LONG way from home. I grazed through the fields of yarn for a while and came to the front clutching a skein of rayon/cotton blend. Carri and I struck up a conversation about a couple patterns I was working on and planning to write up.

OOH! Pretty!

Before I show you the patterns I have to say something about the 3 shops. I know things happen but the welcome I got at Coldwater Collaborative was what I expect from a shop. The other 2 shops - not so much. I know people get sick and you can't help that but the second shop had an easy fix available to them. Get a bell on the front door and stick your head out to say "Hi" to the person walking in the door when someone comes in. I will very likely not be back to shop #2 but will give #1 another try some day.

Now to the patterns- One is what I've called my Junk Yarn Top. It definitely needs a better name when you're using rayon and other beautiful yarns. It was developed as an answer to the single skeins and hanks that tend to appear in the stash. I told her I'd be writing it up and let her know when I got done.

It starts at the neck and increases at the sleeve seam, front and back middles. Once you get down to the arm pit you split it up to body and sleeves. One of these days soon I'll get it written up.
The other pattern is the Slipknot Ascot. This one is from back in the 80s when I worked at a shop owned by a friend of the family. I'm about half way through writing this one up and testing it. I'll send Carrie a copy when I'm done. I have some friend starting to learn to knit so it's time to rewrite my garter stitch patterns and give them something nice but easy to knit.

I didn't have anyone around the house today (Chief and Bert refuse to wear it to model) so- the lamp is modeling the scarf. It's a great scarf for looking good and staying warm.

It's great to have friends

Friday night was friend night. The green Sockotta socks got to go out on the town.
My group of friends from school (we've been together for 40 yrs) all got together to enjoy the fire pit and some of the gang decided they needed beer and cigars.
Neither excited me but the chance to spend the evening with friends - count me in. My godson and out friend's daughter from college were there. Godson is turning 25 in a few months and College girl is 19. She had a crush on him her whole life and still gets excited when he's around. Maybe……

Saturday was a quiet day. I didn't go out of town this weekend so decided to truck across the cities to go to Sheepy Yarn Shoppe in White Bear Lake.
I bought some yarn there last week to teach my friend how to knit and decided I should play with the yarn - just to be sure it was okay for her. (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Well, I decided on a shawl and 1 skein doesn't to it. So - I went back the 25 miles to the shop to get some more yarn.
Well, the shawl is further along. It will be nice to have a few shawls in the living room for company to be nice a cozy warm.

The last couple nights I got some knitting done. I'm getting some dishrags made for presents.
Here's another bias square for Greensburg. I decided to try creating a blended look by doing 2 rows of color 2 then 2 of color 1 before switching to the color 2 section. It makes the color change a little smoother.

I got the first Sock of the month done. It's Sockotta.
I didn't like the patterns heel connection so instead of sl1 every row I decided to do a 1 st garter st at the beginning of each row of the heel flap. I like the look.
Chief thinks this is a great weekend for taking it easy!

Meanwhile - Bert is hiding out under the bed and doesn't want his picture taken today.

Bert likes Knitting

Mom's busy knitting so I get to do the post today. She was looking at some other blogs and saw one about Mayhem. It said Mayhem likes to sit in the bathroom sink. I don't think that's so wrong. Sinks are purr-fect. They're nice and round to lay in. If they're the right size you can rest your chin on the side. I love it!

You know what else I like? Knitting. It's great when Mom knits cause I get a new toy to play with. After she goes to work in the morning I get to carry her knitting into a different room and snuggle up with it for a nap. What even better is when she leaves me a ball of yarn to play with. One day Chief and I had the whole ball of yarn all over the house. It was great! We started in the living room, then rolled it around a few chairs and table before we headed to the bedroom. It fit around the bed real good so we tried the basement. Boy, you should have seen it roll down the stairs. That was so cool we tried it again. Chief carried it up the stairs and let me roll it around a few more chair legs before we tried the stairs again. Before we were done we rolled it around the basement for a while but finally - we decided to take a nap. I don't know why Mom was so upset when she got home. I think it looked real pretty!

Well, Mom says it's time to go to bed so I have to quit talking to you know.

Hi Lucy! Chief says "Hi!" too.

Hi Meyhem! Like your legs.

Hi Guinifer! Hope you survived the storm okay!

When the boys were babies

I didn't get any pictures taken or any knitting done today so - you get pictures of the boys when they were young.

Chief's "Gizmo" look

Who couldn't love a face like this!

Chief with Mr. Sock who has survived 4 cats and counting (his face is hiding on the back side)

Chief playing Cat and Mouse

Bert's Gizmo look

The first meal together as brothers.

Right now the boys are a little closer together in size but not much. Chief is 18 lb. while Bert weighs in at a very sturdy 9 lb. Just don't tell him he's half Chief's size. He won't believe you!

Summer Reading List

Here’s a list of “light reading” books I’ve enjoyed that are great for the summer. All have a fiber craft theme.

1. Earlene Fowler – Bennie Harper mystery series. Bennie lives in Central California and is the curator of a folk art museum. All 12 books have quilt block names: Fool’s Puzzle, Irish Chain, Kansas Troubles, etc. It’s amazing how many murders can happen in a small town but – they do and Bennie helps solve them.

2. Monica Ferris – Betsy Davenport mystery series. Betsy comes to Excelsior, Minnesota to see her sister and ends up having to solve her sister’s murder. She inherits the “Crewel World” needlecraft shop from her sister and all the characters that come to visit. It’s fun to read about local sites and streets.

3. Jennifer Chiaverni – Elm Creek Quilters series. She writes about a group of ladies that start a quilt camp in an old mansion. No murders just good people stories.

4. Maggie Sefton – Knitting murder series. Her first book in this series was “Knit One, Kill Two”. Kelly Flynn goes to her aunt’s house after she was murdered to settle the estate. In the process she learns how to knit, meets new knitting friends at the shop next to the house and figures out how her aunt died. There’s a lot of good knitting group action in this series, seems Kelly has to run over for a quick yarn fix and cup of coffee a lot!

5. Anne Bartlett – “Knitting: A Novel”. This book is about 2 women with issues. They live in Australia. One lost her husband recently. One lost herself a while ago. They both end up helping each other through setting up a knitting show. The big mystery is – what’s in the 3 bags Martha hauls around everywhere?
There’s other books I may share later but I thought a list of knitting / fiber arts books would be a nice start.

Obsessive Compulsive Knitters

A strange thing happened today. When I find a new knitting blog I’m interested in I like to go back to the first days of the blog and get to know the person better. Guinifer left a comment last week (and today) so naturally I had to go visit her. Was I in the wrong place? This first post sounded strangely familiar! She’s a Minnesota knitter about my age and says:
"I am rather obsessive compulsive about my hobbies. I have lists. Booklists, knitting lists, scrapbook lists, although I must say, the scrapbooking is on furlough right now. I tend to hobby hop. Anyway. Lists. At the beginning of the year I set a goal for myself to read a book a week. That is 52 books in 52 weeks. Did I mention I have lists? I have 19 books to go."

Wait – I am compulsive about my hobbies. Oh no. I make lists – lots of lists. Even a list of what lists I have. I read a book a week last year (and made a list of them all). Did she say she tends to hobby hop. Can’t be. I just pulled out of a quilt phase from a stained glass phase and now I’ve returned to my hand knitting phase (not to be confused with the machine knitting phase). Will this never end!?!?!

It just goes to show you knitters are a breed of their own and if you look long enough you’ll find people out there that are much like you – an obsessive compulsive knitter. Maybe I better start a list of all these people…….

We're the best thing on the bookcase!