All Good Things

Happiness is...a warm nest on a cool day



Isn't it organic...(hum dance music in head)

This is O-Wool from the Vermont Organic Fiber Co. I got it from Webs. It says it's spun from luxurious 100% certified organic merino. I love the colour, and the yardage is good too -- 100g/200 yds. I did have to pay for the organic part though...

Am I ecstatic?? Sort of...not yet. It's not quite as soft as I had hoped. It is a beautifully spun, robust wool. It certainly does feel "wholesome," the word used to describe this yarn in all the promotional material. I think it is a lovely woolly yarn that is begging to be knit in a nice pattern stitch or cables. It seems just a bit uptight to me. I think a nice Lavalan bath will help it relax.



This was the dark horse in my box from Webs. Not sure what I was expecting when I ordered a few balls of Frog Tree alpaca worsted/aran weight on spec. Goodness...this stuff is next-to-the-skin soft. It is truly luxurious alpaca, spun in a single ply with a soft halo. You would never actually have to knit this yarn; it is perfectly content to be squeezed and cuddled as is. I might have to go back to the trough for more of this.



My Pamir experiment. I started with a back. I'm kind of making it up as I go along. I like the way the colours work together, but I've decided there are some things I don't like about my design. The back is too wide, and I don't like the seed stitch edge. While I was knitting, I added stripes and then frogged back. Tried different stripes, liked them, but frogged back. Not happy, I put it aside for a day. The next day I was out walking and suddenly I saw a picture in my head of the sweater I want to make. It is not this sweater. Same colours, new flavour. Stay tuned.



You would think I would be happy to play with my new O-Wool, or my Frog-Tree alpaca. I should be content to start working up the new sweater design for Pamir that is still orbiting around in my imagination. Or I could continue on with the nicely progressing side-to-side cardi. If I was feeling altruistic, I would root around for an orphaned project and get that launched in life.

But no...my husband is away. I miss him. I have a restless attention span. Michaels is having a big yarn sale. I found an old yarn love of mine in that sale (like running into an old high-school crush). And now I've...

"Cast on This Great SHRUG!"



What can I say? I like instant-gratification-knitting. LB Wool-Ease Thick 'n Quick is a comfort food of mine. For me it's the yarny equivalent of eating a big bag of Chee-to's. And it was on saaaaaale. I knitted the back this afternoon while watching Star Trek reruns. It's a cool construction, but I don't like the instructions. I figure, I'm a big girl; I can do better with this. So I've come up with a few changes. I don't want to be swimming in my sleeves, for one thing.

I did a good deed yesterday. Still feeling happy about it.

You know how you hear about older people with alzheimers or the like wandering off for hours until someone finds them? Well, yesterday I was out on a walk at the inlet with my dear friend R. We were off on a gab, laughing and catching up when a very frail older lady staggered up to us and asked us to help her. She was covered with mud. She had obviously slipped and fallen into a muddy patch of trail, and she was upset. We helped her to a bench, sat her down and helped her to clean her hands and to calm down. She was charming and delightful. She told us her name was Ivy. We waited for her to catch her breath and gently asked questions to help us figure out how to get her home. She remembered that she liked to come and see the birds at the park. She remembered that she had grown up in a small town in the Fraser Valley. She remembered the taste of fresh corn and strawberries, but...she had no idea where she was or where she had come from.

She had gone out for a walk with no jacket on a cool day. All she had with her was a little make-up kit with her toothbrush and a few personal items. She had a hospital tag in the pouch that told us her name and birthdate, but little else. She was 79 years old.

Ivy was cold, so R took off her warm fleece jacket, and I helped Ivy into it. I noticed a medic-alert bracelet, turned it over and bingo! The bracelet told us that she had memory loss and to call the police. R pulled out her cell-phone, and very shortly we saw two police cars driving down the gravel path toward us. Ivy had wandered away from a hospice more than two miles away and had been missing for over two hours. By this time we had quite a little party happening at the shoreline trail. R and I had been with Ivy for about half an hour. A group of three other older ladies had joined us and helped out with paper towels and water. And now we had two rather good-looking police officers, one in uniform and one in plain clothes. The plain-clothes cop looked like Patrick Swayze (in Ghost). I leaned over and whispered to Ivy that she had the best-looking police to help her out. She threw her head back and howled with laughter. R got her fleece back, and the uniformed cop tucked our new friend up into his big warm police fleece. I felt a little pang when we said good-bye to Ivy. She was such a lovely lady.

2Truths Update and Round Five:

Rosie has two point now. I've never had a tonsillectomy. Colin was born by C-section, and I had a navel hernia operation when I was a year old.

New Round: Things I have done in Hawaii

1. I swam with big sea turtles
2. I swam in a waterfall
3. I swam with no clothes on