A Good Cause...A Not so Good Yarn

First...the good cause



I am often inspired by the wide range of knitting-related charities that are supported by passionate and energetic knitters. It encourages me that every contribution, no matter how small, is of use to somebody in our world. Knitters are a kind lot. Even I can break out of my own selfishness every now and again to help. I recently sent a large box of yarn off to a group of women that knits donated yarn into warm clothing for people in Northern BC. I tucked a small knitted hat into the box. Today, I sent a knitted bag off to a charity that supports AIDS relief work in Africa. I have materials on hand to make a red scarf for the Red Scarf Project. I have donated some of my finished work to our church's annual silent auction. The money raised at the auction supports a team of teens to go lead a week of fun summer activities for the children of a native community called Kyoquit. Our relationship with this community has been a blessing both to them and to us.

When I was at Urban Yarns on Wednesday, the owner of the store told me about a local cause that I am very keen to support: The Sheltering Stitch 2006 Knit for the Homeless Project.

Vancouver is a beautiful place to live, but we have received lower marks lately because of our growing homeless problem. This is an issue that strikes close to my heart. When I was a young teen, my own sister hit the streets, lived a short brutal life there, and took her own life. The Sheltering Stitch collects hand-knit goods for Vancouver's most vulnerable citizens. And I want to help. Urban Yarns is sponsoring the charity by collecting the goods and passing them on to be sorted and distributed to homeless outreach programs.

I knit so much for myself, but I don't use nearly all of what I knit. Now I have somewhere to send my hand-knits that will help people in my own city. If you would like more information about The Sheltering Stitch, visit www.shelteringstitch.com

On a lighter note...a not-so-good yarn:

My family teases me a lot about the knitting thing. They don't get it. I just knit and ignore it. They sure don't mind when they get new hats and scarves and socks though. This yarn was my family's idea of a gag-gift. I had a good laugh and gave them high marks for giving my passion for knitting a nod on my birthday.

They call this The-Ugliest-Ball-of-Yarn-at- Wal-Mart



I thought it had too much personality to be the Ugliest-Ball...surely not. But on closer inspection, it is pretty awful. It's Bernat. I could stop right there. It's thick and thin to the point of absurdity. I wonder if one could knit this stuff even if one were so inclined. I'm not. It's mostly acrylic with a small amount of wool, so felting is out. The colours are weak and watery, and the binder thread is falling apart in some places and too loose to do much good in the long run. I see the finished item disintegrating with one wash. I think I can do better than this, especially if it's going to charity. So...we all had a laugh, but the fugly ball is going back from whence it came.

This, on the other hand is a better use of yarn money. Not that I'm advertising for Webs, cuz I'm not. But it is a deal, if you like this kind of thing.



This is a skein of Valley Yarns Charisma, pure New Zealand wool. You get 200 grams / 385 yards of this stuff for 10.00 at Webs. You have to click on Grandpa's Garage Sale and scroll down. This is the only colourway they have left, but their paltry photo does it no justice. I think they have about 20 skeins left. It's a sturdy, substantial yarn. Heavy worsted/aran weight at 16 stitches to four inches. It is on the scratchier side, good for heavy socks, slippers and outerwear. Perfect for felting.



I managed to get three of the colourways before they disappeared. This remaining one has a host of autumn rusts, khaki greens and a pretty light teal to perk it up.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I got birthday money from my dear-in-laws, bless their hearts. Went off to Urban Yarns yesterday and bought:

Cheeky t-shirt




New yarn to go with Debbie Bliss Patterns. It is Gedifra English Tweed, an aran-weight merino and angora blend.



And new needles, Lantern Moons, no less. They are amaaaaazing. A dear Elann-chat buddy sent me a delightful surprise, a gift certificate so that I could go out and buy some LM's. I've been coveting a set. The 5mmm ones are from her, and of course they are already in use. The 6mm's are from my in-laws.

Winning the Big Prize

This a true story about a friend's mother. Some names have been changed for the usual reasons. Others...well you'll get the idea.

Evelyn is a classy lady in her late sixties. An attractive, genteel woman who moves and speaks with grace and dignity, she is not a person who eats at McDonalds. Despite age, experience, and several teen-aged grandchildren, she has managed to navigate through life without exposure to certain well-known elements of popular culture.

A few years ago, the local grocery chain ran a contest: every time a shopper used their SAVE-ON MORE card, they were automatically entered to win These Fabulous Prizes. Evelyn, oblivious to the contest, was surprised one day to receive a phone call from an excited Save-On employee. He informed her that she had won THE GRAND PRIZE.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Falk,” the voice enthused, “You have won…Yoda!”

Evelyn was nonplussed. She had not adjusted to the news that she had entered a contest, let alone won the grand prize. Moreover, she had no idea what she had won. She was too polite to ask. When she cautiously announced her news to family members, they were pleased for her, but their responses did not give her any new information. “That’s so cool, Grandma!” her grandson told her over the phone, but Evelyn still did not know what she had won. She wanted very badly to inquire as to what a “yoda” was and how it would improve her life, but she was reluctant to give up her newly granted cache. Besides, she figured, all would be resolved when she received her mystery treasure.

Later that week, several family members accompanied Evelyn to the store to claim her prize. She had been told that the item was rather large and heavy, and that she might need some help getting it home. Evelyn approached the customer service desk with a sense of nervous anticipation. She wondered just how valuable the prize was.

It did not take long to find out.

The manager of Save-On greeted Evelyn warmly. He introduced her to her win: a life-sized resinite statue of Yoda, posed in full Jedi regalia, ready for enshrinement at the local sci-fi emporium. Actually, it was a larger than life-sized statue since the diminutive Jedi master mounted a two-foot tall podium. Next, the manager introduced the reporter, on hand to photograph Evelyn’s moment of triumph. The family members scattered. Except for her grandson. He graciously agreed to share the glory of posing with Evelyn and Yoda.

Evelyn’s family helped her transport Yoda home where she promptly installed him in her garage. And there he has stood these last four years, covered in a large garbage bag since, as Evelyn says, he frightens her.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Remember this morning with the 5:00 am rude awakening, the no coffee, the spilled orange juice?

Well, I never did get my coffee, but managed to get a bunch of things done around the house. I'm doing a huge computer files reorganization so that I can get my work together for the writing contest. I tend to stash files in my computer the way some people stash yarn around their house. The hard drive was a huge mess with about four years worth of everything from off the top of my head free-writing exercises to highly polished and finished work, some from courses I've taken. My yarn was in way better shape than my computer, but both are looking good now.

This afternoon, I finally made it outside for a walk and on the way home remembered to pick up coffee for tomorrow. I ordered two bags and stood around waiting for it to be ground for my french press. I anticipated a nice afternoon cuppa when I got home. Something to go along with the cannoli I bought at the Italian deli. To my surprise, it was free-drink-with-coffee-purchase-day. Even better. How about a nice pumpkin pie flavored latte? When my coffee beans were ready, I went to collect my drink and had to laugh out loud. It came in a size that I never order. Doug calls it Venti and gets it all the time. I call it Piggy.

I have coffee now!

BTW Trish (BCG) asked where to get that Blue Sky Alpaca pattern for the cropped cardi. I buy all sorts of wonderful patterns, including Blue Sky patterns, at KPixie. The link is on the side-bar. No trouble getting their stuff in Canada, and they have a great selection of Karabella and Blue Sky patterns, among others. They also have beautiful yarn. I keep an eye on their sales.

You Know You're Having a Bad Day When...

Your 13-year-old son wakes you up at five o-clock in the morning because he's had a disturbing dream. So you let him stay for a while and have a cozy chat about this and that until, oh, 5:30 in the morning. And then try to grab another hour of sleep.

When you do manage to drag your ass out of bed about an hour later, you discover there is no coffee. None. All gone. The siren song of the mermaid from you-know-where seems haunting and far away.

Your 9-year-old daughter rolls out at 8:00, mad at you because you did not wake her up ten minutes earlier. You sit hunched in a miserable coffee-less stupor while she chatters on and on about this and that. Didn't I already have this chat at 5:30, you ask yourself. A monastery seems appealing. Trying to get through the time between now and when she leaves for school (so you can go OUT for coffee), you knit a few rows on a scarf until SPLASH. A whole cup of orange juice all over the floor. All over the table. All over the kitchen. Even now after much cleaning, you still find sticky bits on the floor that you must have missed.

On the other hand, it is a beautiful day out, and this is finished.



I used eight balls of Elann's Baby Cashmere and knitted double stranded. I used 6 1/2mm needles and followed the pattern for medium in order to get small (because my guage did not quite match). A few people pointed out to me that I was in error when I said that Baby Cashmere is sport weight. It is fingering weight. I tend to get a bit muddled when things thin out like that. But it does make sense. For fingering, you get quite a nice fabric with it doubled though. I think Baby Cashmere has become my favorite of all of Elann's house yarns.



The ribbed sections on the body and sleeves give the fabric a nice spongy texture. This yarn is delightful on bare skin. I really can't keep my hands off it. I think I might just carry this little sweater around like Linus with his security blanket.

Bathroom shot so you could see it on. Sorry about Headless-Fred, but my fashion photographer is out on location.



I really liked working with this Blue Sky pattern. I made my first top exactly to specs, but I have plans to play around with variations on a theme.

What else is going on? I'm working on a funky scarf in two kinds of Noro. The main green is Cash Iroha. That is one fun yarn. It manages to be rustic and luxurious at the same time. The yarn feels felted. It goes thick and thin, sometimes dramatically, and it feels lovely in the hands. I found a ball of Kureyon that goes with, so working out a fibonacci sequence at either end, with softer Cash Iroha in the middle for my neck.

Mmm...looks like that scarf has found a friend.



I'm also working on my Mondial Kross Merino jacket. For all you merino fans, this Kross is lovely. A soft thick rope of merino, knitting up bulky (12/13 to four inches on 7mm). Love the pattern, but the model with her Botox lips scares me. Don't try that at home, girls.



Feeling better about my day already. Time to go outside.

A Poem to Soothe the Soul

Knitting
(by Jayne Schmidt)

When anxiety
(that howling dog)
Snaps at my heels
Impatience gnaws and growls in my belly
And the voices in my head bark and whine and whimper
I chase the tail of hopes and doubts
Until I exhaust myself

Then I take up sticks and string
And knit tiny loops
Forming one after another
Small circles in neat rows
Row after row
They grow
Slowly longer as I
Grow still

Back and forth the rhythmic needles
Click and count the meter
Measure out the work
Of my moving hands

The angry dog lies down and goes to sleep

I feed the flowing yarn across my palm
Over my fingers and
Onto the fabric
Two hands joined in the middle
Two needles
A circle complete

Hands busy
My mind is free to wander
Across the peace as
Loop after loop
The work becomes a garment
Soft and warm against my skin
When I go outside to walk.

I'd Better get Moving

I've got three things to finish by the end of October, and this sweater is not one of them.



So...which thing do you think I'll do first? Well, I'll finish the top of course. I've got my priorities in order.

Three things I must finish by the end of October:

Item 1: HUGe

What the hell is that, you might ask. If you are an Elannite, you probably already know. I forget what it stands for. Heaving Unknown Gifts Eastward? Something like that. It's a gift exchange that a bunch of us signed up to do. It works on the same principle as a Christmas cookie exchange. I make ten things; nine other people make ten things; we all get one of each thing. Hopefully, we get things we can give out as gifts to assorted people in our lives. Or we get ten things to keep for ourselves. I signed up to do two batches of ten things, so I have to make twenty things. Crazy ol' me. I'd better get moving.

Item 2: Science Experiment

This is a euphemism, of course. I'm sure I wasn't fooling anyone with that when I mentioned it a few weeks ago. It has to do with a certain yarny contest that I'd like to enter. I used to have two months to get ready for it. Now I only have one. I'd better get moving.

Item 3: CBC Literary Contest

Okay, this one's got me all jazzed up. I joined a writing group this fall. I've been in writing groups before. I've been a words-girl all my life. I was the one at school who could come up with a whole new set of lyrics to the tune of Gilligan's Island that described the salient features of the French Revolution. I re-wrote the Christmas Carol "Good King Wenceslas" to discuss Good Chef Senseless-Les, and his turkey that turned into poultry-flavored jerky. I wrote a series of television commercials on the theme of Hamlet. My favorite was for a product called Chef Boy-R-Dee Mini Mac-a-Rosencrantz.

I was the kid that tutored my classmates in essay writing and in how to read a poem. I was the kid who actually enjoyed public speaking. I was the kid who read things I had written out over the public address system in elementary school. I was the person in my family who could be counted on to come up with a speech or a poem or some other congratulatory address at important events and milestone anniversaries.

All my life I have wanted to be a writer, but never really believed I could be one...well not officially at least. Whatever that means. I have friends who call themselves artists, professionally, and they are. But I have a hard time with the word. When I took a writing course in grad school a few years ago, I was mentored by a gifted professor as well as by a student who had been active in the world of editing and publishing. They made it very clear that my work was of publishable quality. I didn't believe them. Now the people in my writing group, also highly qualified, are telling me the same thing. I'm ready to go professional.

This sounds very exciting, and of course I am thrilled to hear it. I guess I can now call myself a writer-person. But the real work is not in the writing. As difficult and insane as writing is, or can be, the real work -- the grunt work -- is in flogging the finished product. I have to find a market for the kind of writing that I do. And then I have to brace myself for a great deal of hurry up and wait, and...oh yeah...rejection. I am not as intimidated by the rejection part as I am by all the office work that is required. Creativity flows. Administration does not. Never mind. My new writing friends say they are going to keep booting me in the backside until I've sent out my work.

The first boot came by email yesterday. CBC Radio is hosting its annual literary contest, and I have a month to get ready. I need to cull out around 1,000 words or so of poetry from among the hoard I have stored in my journals and on my computer. I also need to get a few creative non-fiction pieces chosen and polished. I can do this. And once that is out of the way, I'm going to start sending stuff off to a few magazines that I think might be receptive. And it will go from there.

I'd better get moving.

Baby Cashmere Bliss

I bought this Blue Sky Alpaca pattern at the same time as the pattern for the Bulky Baby Hat. I love the look of this sweater that is not quite a shrug, not quite a cardigan. Blue Sky calls it "Cropped Cardigan." It is meant to be knit with two strands of Blue Sky Sportweight held together. I was surprised to see that the pattern calls for the two strands of sportweight to be knit on 8mm needles. Clearly we are aiming for a looser airier fabric.


Much as I love Blue Sky's sportweight, I was hoping to make the top in Elann's Baby Cashmere. For one thing, the cost of the Baby Cashmere is less than half of what I would pay for BSA yarn, but I also wanted to try something fun in the Baby Cash, having never knitted with it before. I wondered if the pattern would work with Baby Cash.

The lilac yarn in the picture above is Blue Sky Sportweight. The teal coloured yarn is Elann Baby Cashmere in Peacock. I only have a few skeins of the lilac, but I bought eight of the Peacock to make the top. The two yarns are both very soft, sportweight yarns, but BSA is heavier than the Baby Cash. You get the same yardage at twice the weight. When I swatched two strands of Baby Cash on 8mm needles, the fabric was too loose and hung long and skinny. I tried tripling the strands, but the fabric was too thick, even though the guage was about right. Then I tried swatching two strands of Baby Cash on 6 1/2mm needles. That got me a comparable fabric to two strands of Blue Sky, and a closer guage. I decided to go up one pattern size and attempt the sweater in the Baby Cash.


It appears to be working. The pattern is easy and straightforward. You knit top down and make increases to create the raglan sleeves. I put the sleeve stitches on strings and tried on what I have so far, and the fit feels good. Because of the looser guage and the light yarn, this will be a very light garment, but I think the drape will be good. I like the colour a lot, and Baby Cash is dreamy. I stop often just to pet the finished fabric.


This is the front. I have just started the long section of ribbing that runs from under the arm to the bottom edge of the cropped cardi. The large section of body ribbing is what gives the sweater its interesting shape. The sweater never really comes together at the front. It hangs open and pulls back towards the bottom edge in a cutaway style. The fabric looks thicker and springier in the ribbed sections of the body and the sleeves.

I suspect that the Blue Sky yarn would give the top a denser, more textured fabric. The Baby Cashmere fabric is going to have a lighter, smoother look to it. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

In other knitting news...the black Katrina sweater went out to dinner last night and looked very cute over an apple green t-shirt. It's such a comfortable sweater.

All There in Black and White

I've finished my black Katrina v-neck sweater. This one seemed to take a long time to finish, despite how lovely Patons Katrina is to knit. I kept cheating on it with other projects. Finally I decided just to finish it, but it felt like the thing that wouldn't leave. Now it is done and I am delighted! It fits; it's comfortable, and it's stretchy and silky.



The pattern is from a Patons booklet called: Patons Classics Endless Summer. It's a small collection of patterns designed for Patons Fresco. Fresco and Katrina knit up at the same guage: 18 stitches on a 5.5mm needle.

I made the white sweater in Fresco, and it turned out great too. It was my second finished sweater, and I still wear it. The pattern is a straightforward classic v-neck style that a beginner could easily tackle. There is only one error in the pattern. When shaping the armhole for the front, it forgets to tell you to cast off under the arm on the purl side to match the other side. I made the small size in the white but the extra small in the black because of the stretch factor in Katrina.



My favorite feature of this sweater is the neckband. The first time around I knitted it flat, the second time on a circular. What I like is that it is thin and sits so nicely. It is not knitted in ribs to give it a bulky look. Instead you pick up knit stitches all the way around, then purl one row, then cast off in purl on the right side. I use that method for lots of other patterns now too. It also makes the v-neck round out a little.

The other modification I always make with sweaters is to lengthen the sleeves. I like extra long sleeves.




My one frustration with this sweater was how long it seemed to hang around. It is a somewhat boring knit after all. I was on the last sleeve, and burning my way up to the finish line when I noticed an extra pair of bamboo needles sitting on the stool in front of me. Where did those come from, I wondered. I picked them up and was horrified to discover that I had not switched from the smaller needles to the larger ones after completing the cuff ribbing. Ack! The thing that wouldn't leave!!

Okay, I should explain that reference. Doug and I picked it up from some friends of ours way back at the beginning of our marriage. It is what we say about certain house guests who stay longer than we would like them to. Our friends had a brother in the family that never knew when it was time to go home. Finally they would put on their pajamas and go to bed so that he would leave.



The black sweater has found a home...

KooL

This came in the mail yesterday. I have been accused of yarn enabling lately, so I will mumble out of the side of my mouth that Knit Happens (see yarny hangouts in sidebar) has a small selection of Blue Sky Alpaca products on sale right now. Most of them have sold out, but you can still get sportweight in Royal Purple for 5.50 a skein. And they have Bulky hand-dyed for eight-something, and two-toned bulky hand dyed for ten-something, and worsted weight in several nice colours for twelve-something, instead of eighteen-something. Okay, you didn't hear any of that cuz I was mumbling.

In any case, this came in the mail yesterday. This is not what I wanted, but apparently this is what I ordered. I'm sure it's a nice colour, but it's not my colour.

And the problem is, I ordered it along with this:



See my problem?



So I ran to the cupboard for two packages of strawberry Kool-Aid, and ten minutes later, I had this! Not bad eh?


Made for each other. H says she actually likes my skein better than BS's skein. This IS a day.



Not so KooL...

While I was at it, I decided to try the kool-aid treatment on a skein of Handpainted merino I ordered several months ago. The colour is called Butter BM. Hmmm...

It is the one Handpainted Yarn product I have not been happy with, but I guess that's not their fault. It is the usual dreamy merino, but I thought I was getting something creamy or off-white. I ordered one skein to see of my monitor was close. It's...nice...if you like urine-yellow. BM might be the wrong function for this colour, but it is an accurate assessment of my opinion of it. Anyhoo...more packages of kool-aid later, and it got uglier. After a trip to Safeway for yet more kool-aid, it got uglier still. It takes a lot for me to throw out yarn. But that stuff is gone.



If you think I'm bad for yarn enabling, CatBookMom takes the prize. She posted yesterday about some sale at a place called Little Knits. I went to have a peek and ended up getting sucked down into a vortex of whole bags of Debbie Bliss merino chunky and dk for less than thirty dollars a bag. If she buys up all the BSA purple sportweight, then my revenge will be sweet.

All Wound Up

My love affair with Handpainted Yarn began a year ago with Malabrigo. I heard about it from someone's blog, ordered a few skeins from Webs, and went gaga over the stuff from the day it arrived. It is so soft, so saturated with colour, so natural, and so merino. A few months ago, I was chatting at Elann and discovered that Malabrigo is just a fancy market name for Handpainted Yarn. I promptly went to their eBay store and made a pig of myself. I bought that "Shocking Pink" for my cabled sweater. I also bought some funky stuff for a shawl later on, and I bought some lace weight merino.

On eBay or on Handpainted Yarn's website, you can get their beautiful soft merino yarn in just two weights: six-ply bulky, and one-ply laceweight. The photo above is of one 100g skein of lace weight in a colour called "Stone Blue." There are over 950 yards of yarn in that one skein. eBay sent me a package of three of those for twenty-two dollars US.

Now, you need to know that I do not own a swift or a mama bear, or a papa bear, or whatever the device is called that you use to wind skeins into balls. The only fancy apparatus I have for winding skeins into balls are the two hands that I was born with. I wound one skein into a ball and cast on for a shawl. About ten rows later, I gave up. No way. I recently calculated that I have knit over 15,000 metres of yarn into this and that over the last calendar year. It was a rough calculation. I was a bit scared to find out the actual figure. Nevertheless, I was not up for knitting three kilometres of lace-weight merino. Not this year anyway. So I chucked the ball and the two skeins into stash and let them cure there for a few months.

After I finished knitting my pink cabled sweater, I got to thinking. That bulky pink stuff was six strands. I have three skeins of that laceweight. I wonder what guage I'd get from three strands knitted together.


I began winding up the other two skeins into balls.


There they are...three kilometres of yarn, all wound by hand.


I put each ball into its own bowl so that they would not get tangled as I wound them together into one ball.


Now I have one 300 gram ball of 950 yards of unbroken DK weight Handpainted merino. Not bad for 22.00 US. I swatched, and yes indeed, I get 22 stitches to four inches on 4mm needles. I would guess that two strands would get sport weight and four would get worsted.

Oh...and just when I was feeling really impressed with myself, I discovered that kPixie sells a skein of Shetland lace yarn that yields 1200 yards in just 25grams. I am so not ordering that stuff.

Playing with Paint

I took a watercolour painting class about a year and a half ago. It was a six-week class to learn the basics. I liked the instructor. She was very kind and encouraging. I signed up with a friend and we had a lot of fun dabbling with paint. I made this painting from a photograph of one of my favorite spots on earth: Chesterman Beach at Tofino on Vancouver Island.

When the instructor announced that she was giving an all-day workshop on the basics of abstract painting in acrylics, I decided to give that a try too.


This started out as a copy of a photograph and then went far away from the photograph. I discovered that I paint in layers, changing things each time, until I get a sense that it is finished. Then I stop.

What I like about this one is that it changes when you turn it in different directions.



Most of my paintings don't have titles. They usually come out of things I've seen that catch me a certain way.



Or from sketches that I've made



Or from moods that I am in



I call the above painting "Knocking on Heaven's Door." There is a much darker muddier version from when I was in a different mood.


The idea for this one came from a sermon I heard a friend of mine preach. He was talking about the passage where the sick woman reaches out to touch Jesus' robe as he was passing by. This image came into my head, and I quickly sketched it out. I do not consider myself talented at depicting realistic things very well, and this was my first attempt to capture something specific.


I sketched this at a time of genuine despair. It is done in coloured chalk on a large sketch pad. It says exactly what I was feeling.


But when I translated it into a painting, it ended up saying something quite different than I was expecting. When I look at this, I see the woman who had been in despair, now turning her face up toward the light. That too said exactly what I was feeling. I know that this one is not really finished, but I don't know where to go with it, so I've stopped for now.

I love to paint, but I am not always in the mood. It comes and goes. I have a few paintings going on inside me these days, so I'll probably be getting set up to do another one. I've noticed that I tend to knit either in colours that I like to wear or in colours that I like to paint. The last painting was the back-drop for those two skeins of Fleece Artist I posted about (Bright Lights Big Knitty).

I had no idea that I even liked to paint until I took that course, and I am very surprised at what has happened since. If this makes you think that you'd like to try it too, then I say: Go for it! You just never know what's in you until you let it out.

Mail Call

I received three kinds of interesting mail this week.

First, was an email from my mother. What do I tell you about my mother? How long have you got? I was the third girl of four in my family. I know that my mom was very depressed during my early years. A lot of important people in her life had died during the two years before I was born. She already had two small children. Lynn was three, and Cathy was four when I was born. Motherhood was a huge challenge for her, and those two were never what you could call "easy" children. And...she was married to my dad. I know that my dad was hitting those two pre-schoolers, hitting and yelling and cursing and spanking beyond anything one could call reasonable correction. Cathy had the unfortunate nick-name "Tupe." I called her that for years until I discovered it was her baby way of saying "Stupid," something my dad called her often. And my mom...shy, lonely, disconnected, but sweet in her own way, was a deserter. She tended to disappear when dad was on a rage. Later she would show up and tell us that we shouldn't have...or if we had only...or if we hadn't...

In other words, it was our fault.

She would urge us to apologize to him, make it better for Him. And for his part, he did the same. How could you do this to your mother, he would scream as he lost control of the paddle he used to spank us. We were supposed to take care of her, not burden her with our problems. Hers were certainly more important than ours.

I have written a piece about my parents' marriage. Maybe I'll post it here at some point. In it, I try to come to grips with the fact that they had some very fine qualities alongside some devastating failures and lacks in the parenting department. It has been a tough job to work through a lot of that stuff. But I'm getting there.

Four years ago, I learned that even a lifetime of taking care of my parents' emotional needs, of listening to them, affirming them, helping them feel like good people when everything in their family was falling apart -- a lifetime of mediating between them and my other sisters -- a lifetime of reassuring them that my sister's suicide at age 18, her mental illness, and my other sister's difficulties were not their fault -- a lifetime of being the parent for my youngest sister -- a lifetime of keeping the secrets and holding the line -- could not protect me from their rage when I suddenly had to take care of myself for a change.

I had no choice. I was so sick that even the thought of talking to them on the phone could send me into a paralyzing anxiety attack. I had to learn to break every rule my upbringing had ingrained into me. I had to endure the worst phone calls, the worst letters, the worst second-hand conversations, the worst rumours, and finally the worst. My dad scared my son and hit him when he was visiting them, and they pulled out all the same old bullshit I had grown up with. The way that fell out caused me to cut all ties with them for over a year and a half. It did not stop my mother from sending me a rather damning letter on my 40th birthday.

Believe it or not, I am slowly re-establishing some contact with my parents. I started a year ago last June by asking my mom if she would like to have coffee. We get together once in a while. We email each other once in a while. We do not talk on the phone, and I have phone security to prevent that in any case. She seems to be willing to work within my boundaries, and because of that, I have enjoyed our visits.

But I am not going back to the old family dynamic. I received an email from my mom inviting us to Thanksgiving. Ugh. Thanksgiving has to be the most painful holiday my family celebrates, if the word celebrate can be used. It's all wrapped up in my birthday, my dead sister's birthday, my parents' birthday, and...well...Thanksgiving. No thanks. Even Christmas is easier, though not much. The year I turned 40, one of my sisters told me I was going to be invited to Thanksgiving, and instead I received the letter from hell. This from a woman who left me out of her Christmas newsletter for three years in a row. The first time because she didn't know what to do with me. The second time because, as she told my sister, I had done nothing worthwhile that year. And the third because...well...that was the black hole year.

I used to be my mother's best friend and closest companion. When I finally grew up (four years ago) I realized that what I had needed was a mother. My mother had needed one too, and somehow our roles got switched. I can't be her parent anymore, and I won't be. But once in a while, for an hour or two, I can be her terribly confusing and rebellious daughter.

Just not at Thanksgiving.

The second mail was a letter from the local arts center telling me that I was registered for a creative writing workshop. It's a thirteen week program, and I went for the first session yesterday morning. It turned out to be a group of women who have been meeting this way for years and years. A friend of mine joined last year, and she got me to sign up for this year. These women are really doing it. They're writing and working with each others' writing, and many of them are publishing. One of them just finished a book tour. I am pretty excited about working with them. Maybe I'll finally get off my ass and send some of my work out there to get rejected.

The third kind of mail was the best of all. Parcel post from KPixie, Handpainted Yarns, and Elann.


I got three more skeins of that bulky Blue Sky Alpaca to make more cozy hats and a scarf for me. It's a good deal at 25.00 for the three. I got three skeins of BS Cotton and a pattern (another good deal kit for 25.). And the blue stuff is a worsted weight blend of 60% wool and 40% recycled silk. Generous 100g/160m skeins, and KPixie was clearing them out for five bucks a skein!! Yesterday, they still had some pink, so hurry up and buy it before I change my mind.


This is the orange top kit. Love that pattern, and the orange, and BS Cotton is sooooooo soft.


A close-up of the wool-silk blend.It's a very dark teal. Lookie-see all the pretty colours from the silk. This stuff makes me think of Noro products. Bargain Noro.


Okay...Handpainted Yarns and I are having a lover's fling these days. I can't help myself. I love everything they make. They came out with hand spun and dyed Himilayan cotton in worsted and fingering weights last week, and I had to get some worsted. It is nice stuff. Hmmm...there's that orange again...


Handpainted's lace-weight Merino. You get a billion yards for 100g. I think it's 975 or something like that. I was thinking of two-stranding it, maybe even blending it with another colour.


And finally...a little white box from Elann with just four balls of fuzzy soft Cuzco. I had to see what everyone else was raving about. It is very nice. 100% baby alpaca, soft, light, lofty. Just the thing for a hat/scarf combo. Comfort yarn.

Did all this stop me from ordering some Baby Cashmere at Elann yesterday? It did not. Knitting nurtures me. I didn't get a lot of mothering...so Knit On!!