Category: Friends & Family

More Rogue, Again

But first, the baby! John’s grandson Huck was finally born Friday night. Here’s a just-born photo:

Even though he’s a respectable 9lbs, 2 ozs, the Jolly Green Sweater won’t fit him for awhile. I made his mom promise to get a picture of him in it eventually. He’s of course perfect, which makes four perfect grandchildren in a row for John. We’re all glad he’s finally here!

Here’s where I am on Rogue:

If that looks suspiciously like where I was a week ago, look again:

One sleeve down, one more to go. I had forgotten just how much fun this pattern is. I knit a row, and think, well, I really need to get up and do something else. Then I look at the cable chart, and think, well, really, I’ll just knit another row and see how it looks. This, despite the fact that I know how it is going to look, because I’ve done these very same cables on the body already. I’m easily entertained.

Here’s my newest knitting spot:

We have more or less finished this phase of the remodeling project, and have most of it straightened up. That used to be the kitchen, where there was a traditional kitchen table and chairs. As we have a dining room table about ten steps from here, we decided to do away with the kitchen furniture and put in comfortable chairs for people to sit in. Everyone always ends up in the kitchen standing around and talking, so we decided to go with this. It’s a lovely place to sit with a cup of tea and the newspaper, or a glass of bourbon and my knitting, depending on the time of day. We have a new sofa for the living room on order (to replace the one that is ancient and cat-trashed), and I’ll show pictures of that room in its finished state when it’s here. We’re pleased with the whole thing, though my spouse has that look again, so I’m thinking that if I hold him off on more projects until next spring, I’ll be lucky.

A month or so ago I mentioned knitting while getting my hair colored. Someone dared me to post pictures, so here they are, Laurie.

Yes, that’s glop on my eyebrows, too. Here’s what it looks like done:

Yes I know, I forgot to smile. And yes, it’s redder than it used to be. If I choose to believe that this is the color I was born with, so be it. My husband hasn’t quite decided if he wants to be married to a redhead or not.

And last but not least, my favorite Bush-bashing photo of the week. What can I say, he’s so easy to poke sticks at.

Not Much Knitting

I still don’t have much knitting to report. It has been so NORma! hot here that I really don’t feel like knitting. For those of you in the rest of the country, in the Pacific NW we get a little uncomfortable when we’ve had too many sunny days in a row. I just want to go hang out in the hammock with a fan and a glass of iced tea, or maybe a gin & tonic.

I did make a field trip north to see the Harlot today. She was at Third Place Books in Shoreline this afternoon, and also at Weaving Works in Seattle tonight. I went to the afternoon show signing.She is most definitely one of the funniest women I’ve ever met. She talked, showed off the latest sock, and signed books.

There were probably fifty or more people there, maybe more.(I’m not so hot at math.) It was a hoot to turn around and look at the room full of women knitting away madly while she was talking. Yes, there were a few men there. I didn’t see any of them actually knitting; they looked like they were with wives. Or maybe they were just trying to pick up knitters.

I got to meet Dorothy from Missouri Star. She is my new hero. Not only was she wearing a lovely shawl she had made (the Mediterranean Lace Shawl from A Gathering Of Lace), but she was knitting lace in public, while listening to Stephanie. And she didn’t have a pattern in front of her, but apparently was just making it up as she went along.

Here is where I am with my current projects:

I’m doing the toe decreases, in case you can’t tell from that lovely photo.

If you were thinking that this looks suspiciously like the last photo that I posted of this, you are correct. It’s not because I haven’t been working on it however. It’s just that a lot of it has been knitted and reknitted, and much of the progress has been in reverse. One of these days I may learn how to count. This is a bit more challenging than the Birch shawl. The pattern repeat is 24 rows, so it’s harder to memorize, and it has decreases and yarnovers on the wrong side rows as well as the public side. It’s really not difficult, it just requires that you pay attention.

The home remodeling is coming along. The furniture got moved back in this week, though we are planning to replace some pieces that have seen their better days. I’ve spent the past several days getting stuff out of boxes and back into closets and shelves. We’ve discovered in this process that we have way more crap than what any two people really need, so a lot of the junk is staying in boxes in the garage, and we’re planning a big neighborhood garage sale. (Don’t panic, none of the yarn is going on the block.) The carpet upstairs is mostly installed, though they ran out and left one stair to be finished when the next shipment comes in. I still don’t have doors on any of my bathrooms, or blinds on any windows. The doors get put back up tomorrow when the painters come back to touch up, and who knows about the blinds. My only consolation is that I’ve gotten to the point in life where there really aren’t many people hanging out peeking in my windows while I’m showering.

I’m off to find someplace cool to sleep. Maybe that hammock.

Fargo, Not the Movie

No, I didn’t drop off the end of the earth in North Dakota. I had a great time with my sisters; two biological, and one cousin who is an honorary sister. We partied as hard as can be done in Fargo, which is growing into a surprisingly sophisticated little city. If it wasn’t for the weather, I could see living there. It’s that sub-zero winter weather that would very seriously deter me from moving to ND. Snow I don’t mind as much, though it was a bit absurd that it snowed while we were there. Yes, in mid-May.

We ate, drank, shopped, laughed, and visited my mother’s only living sibling (out of nine of them). And played cards. Is it only in North Dakota that people do this when they get together? Whenever we’re in a family bunch, inevitably the cards come out.  Hours can be spent around the kitchen table playing card games, gossiping, and eating munchies (and drinking bourbon). There were a couple of nights that we were up until 2 AM playing “hand and foot”, a canasta-like game that got rather wildly competitive.

I did manage to get one yarn-shopping experience in. Moorhead is just over the river into Minnesota, and the Knitty Gritty Cafe is there. It is a lovely place; if you ever get in the vicinity, check it out. Here are a couple of photos:

That first one is my sister Diane pretending to be interested in yarn. Neither of my sisters knits; they try to be good sports when I drag them to a yarn shop. This place has mostly yarn from higher-end companies, including Southwest Trading Company, Colinette, Mango Moon, and Anny Blatt. I bought this:

It’s a little hard to tell from that picture, but there are six skeins, enough for a little summer top.

I did manage to knit on the plane. Here is the evidence:

As is usual for me, I arrived at the airport in Seattle with about an hour to spare. I get quite anxious about flying and missing planes, and drive my spouse crazy by making him get us there way ahead of time. I worked on the Birch shawl while waiting for my plane to arrive. I have been putting in a floss lifeline every other repeat, and am still using markers as well. I had decided that I wasn’t going to use the lifeline any more, as I hadn’t made any mistakes up until now. “Up until now” is the operative phrase in that sentence. Fortunately I hadn’t taken out the last lifeline, as I screwed it up the second row into the pattern repeat. The more I tried to fix it, the more messed up it got. So out it came. This stuff is not fun to rip out; I only had a row and a half to take out, and I think if it had been more, I’d have just cut it off. Here’s a picture of me getting the stitches back on the needles.

One word of advice. When you are threading a lifeline through the stitches on your needle, make sure you get ALL of them on the lifeline. I missed one towards the end of the row, and just managed by dumb luck to notice it as it was attempting to unravel down the shawl.

One last photo that gives just a little hint of the good time that we had:

I Passed!

My tendons passed, that is. Thursday I had the tendons tested, which was a hell of an excitement, let me tell you. I actually had a dream about it the night before. In my dream I had taken my splint off to show somebody how it worked, then couldn’t get it back on correctly. I showed up at my “test” and Amy was none too happy with me. Any of you who have been through “higher education” would probably recognize this as a variant of the dream where you realize that the final is today and you forgot to go to class all semester.

The actual test took about ten seconds, then I was on my way to doing active exercises. This has been a rather distressing few days. I’ve lost a lot more power and range of motion in my hand and wrist than I would have thought possible in a month. I need to keep reminding myself that I’m not supposed to be at full strength for another two months.

The real surprise was that my splint was revised yet again. Amy replaced the tape that straps it to my wrist with velcro straps so I can TAKE IT OFF to do exercises, and to wash my hand to get the gunk off. Hooray! In case you think this less than thrilling, let me just say that a lot of gunk builds up when you can’t wash your hand for a month. I’m exfoliating the skin off my whole hand and leaving my DNA all over the house. Guess I can’t commit any crimes for awhile; Gil on CSI would identify me in a minute.

I got a great surprise package in the mail this week from Kristen. Check out her blog here. Here is a picture.

Though I can’t knit, she figured I could manage Kool-Aid dyeing. There is a ball of Patons wool, which she skeined and tied for me so it’s ready to go. She included the Kool-Aid as well as gloves; a regular one for my regular hand, and a plastic bag to go over the splint. There are treats as well: chocolate for me, a knit catnip mouse for the cats, and a cookie for Riley. Here’s Willie’s verdict. He’s been trying to kill that mouse ever since he got it.

And Riley’s thoughts on the matter:

The chocolate is long gone, so no pictures. Thanks Kristen!

One more tip for any of you who unexpectedly find yourself unable to wash your own hair for three months. I got a little tired of looking like Phyllis Diller after the first week and went to my salon for a shampoo and style. It was wonderful, but a little spendy to do very often. John called his barber to see what they charge. The barber that owns the shop is a woman, and she charges $8 for a wash and dry. So I’m splurging and going every week.

I Deserve Only The Best

I received this little doctored-up photo from our good friends with whom we are supposed to be on vacation in Spain. If you don’t get the significance, read the last few posts. Yes, they both have a sick sense of humor, which is probably why we love them.

And yes, it was one of our Riedel wine glasses, just to add insult to injury. To answer another question from the comments, the wine was a nice sauvignon blanc from South Africa.

My next post will be a discussion of the positive implications of my hand injury. It’s taking me a while to come up with the list…

Grandpa Tony

I’ve gotten several comments on my chair photo from yesterday. I never had the opportunity to meet my grandfather, as he died a few years before I was born. He was from all accounts quite a character, however. My mother gave me that chair one time when I was home visiting after I had gotten out of school and finally had a home of my own. We had an old Subaru station wagon at the time, and the thing barely wedged into the back end, but we drove across a couple of states with it to get it home. I have a framed photo of my Grandpa Tony; this was when he was quite young, probably early 20’s, if that.

Doesn’t he look like he owns the world?

He emigrated from Poland just before the turn of the century (the last one, not this one!), when he was barely 13. His older sister, Agnes, had been the first to arrive in the US, two years  before my grandfather. She came over at age 22 to be a housekeeper in North Dakota for someone that somebody in the family knew. She worked and saved money, and eventually brought the rest of the family over (and married the man!). Grandpa settled first in South Dakota for a short time, which is where this photo was taken. He was a bachelor at the time, and eventually married my grandmother and homesteaded land in North Dakota, where he farmed and raised 8 children. My parents moved back to the farm when my grandfather was dying so my mom could help take care of him, and just stayed on.

Here is a photo of Great-Aunt Agnes in her heyday.

I covet that hat more than I can say. Apparently she had quite a collection of hats, but unfortunately nobody thought to save them when she died.

One of my favorite songs is Emigrant Eyes, by Dolores Keane. It never fails to make me cry. In it, she sings about her “father’s own father” emigrating to the US from Ireland at the turn of the century, arriving at Ellis Island in a swarm of other Europeans, “decked out in the colors of Europe…turn of the century pilgrims… bound by the dream that they shared”.

“Through this sprawling tower of Babel, came a young man confused and alone. Determined and bound for America; carrying everything that he owned. Sometimes when I look in my grandfather’s emigrant eyes, I see that day reflected; I can’t hold my feelings inside. I see starting with nothing, and working hard all of his life. So don’t take it for granted, say Grandfather’s emigrant eyes.”

This is on her Solid Ground album. Give it a listen if you’ve never heard of her. I keep Grandpa Tony’s photo on my wall to remind me where I came from, and not to take any of it for granted.

Solstice Party

The light is coming back!  Even though I can’t actually detect a difference, I KNOW that the days are getting longer from here on out.  To celebrate the event, we had a neighborhood Solstice party at our house last night.  It was a sit down dinner for a dozen good friends, and if the number of empty wine bottles on the counter this morning is any indication, a good time was had by all.

We had to rearrange our dining room a little to accommodate everybody.  Here is the table before we sat down.  John and I went to Pier One earlier this week and bought every red, green, and white candle they had.  And yes, we had the fire extinguisher handy last night just in case.

We had a cheese and pate selection for before-dinner munchies, along with champagne and numerous bottles of wine.  Dinner was a huge standing rib roast.  It wouldn’t fit into my oven, so we cut it into two pieces and roasted it in two ovens.  We had a wintery root crop side dish as well as a red beet/white beet combo.  Mashed potatoes with gravy and steamed green beans completed the dinner.

For dessert we had a trifle:

And a few more pictures from after dinner:

Here’s Riley saying goodbye to everyone:

We put all the food away and stuffed the dishwasher full of as many dishes as would fit before we went to bed.  Here is what the scene still looks like this morning:

Clearly the kitchen gnome forgot to stop here during the night.  I’m hiding in the basement until somebody cleans that mess up.

For those who love dessert, here is my trifle recipe.  I had never written this down before this morning, so the amounts are flexible.  You might want to overestimate a bit, in case I underestimated!

Lorette’s English Trifle

1 large clear glass bowl

Sara Lee frozen pound cake, 2 of them.  I actually only used about half of the second cake.

Whipped cream, I used about a quart of whipping cream, whipped with a bit of sugar and vanilla.

Vanilla pudding…NOT INSTANT, it will separate out in the trifle unless you eat it right away. I used 2 large packages of Jello brand pudding.  Make this the day before so it can chill.

Fruit.  I used frozen fruit in big bags that our local market carries. Thaw it out, and spread out on paper towels on cookie sheets to absorb some of the moisture.  In season you can use fresh fruit. Peaches, blueberries, raspberries went into this one, along with kiwis for decoration.  A big trifle like this one used a dozen or so kiwis, peeled and thinly sliced.  I probably used 3 or four cups of sliced peaches, roughly the same amounts of the berries.  Use more or less as you prefer.

Seedless raspberry jam.  I used about a quarter to a third of an 8 oz. jar.

Sherry.  Doesn’t have to be really expensive, but make sure it is not cooking sherry, use something you would actually drink.

Slice cake into about half inch slices, then cut these in half or thirds and line the bottom of the bowl.  Spread a thin layer of jam on the cake pieces.  After trying various utensils to do this, I decided that just using my fingers to spread it around works best.
Sprinkle with a bit of sherry…I used about 2-3 tablespoons per cake layer, maybe more, maybe less.
Stand your kiwi slices on end around the side of the bowl.  See picture.

The idea is that you see the layers of kiwi slices through the glass, so you have to be a little fussy about placement.  Putting the kiwi in place before you plop on the other layers keeps it all neater.
Layer fruit next, then a layer of pudding, then a layer of whipped cream.
Now do another repeat of the same layers…cake, sherry, jam, kiwi, fruit, pudding, whipped cream.  Depending on the size of your bowl you might get a third repeat, but my bowl holds 2 sets.

On top of the last layer of whipped cream, arrange fruit slices in a decorative pattern.

Chill for at least 2 hours, then serve.  You can make this earlier in the day as well.  If you make it the day before, things get a little soggy, and the whipped cream doesn’t hold up as well.

You can vary this by using different fruit, different jam, flavor your cream, etc. I’ve seen variations that use chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, etc.  If you’re not feeding the whole neighborhood, obviously you can cut this back and do it in a smaller bowl.  The leftovers are great for breakfast, though, and people will eat more of this than you think.  Even after devouring about twelve pounds of prime rib, we ate two-thirds of this bowl last night.

If you were Martha, you would make your pudding from scratch instead of a mix, and would make real pound cake yourself instead of buying it.  It’s good even with the shortcuts, though. There were grown people standing around the bowl just digging in with spoons by the end of the party.