The Quickie

Disclaimer: It's not that kind of post. Besides, I've talked enough about the fire down below this week.

This post is about quick knits.


Besides the fact that these are all meant to decorate the neck, what do these three items have in common?

They're done, of course.

I mean with the exception of weaving in ends, adding buttons and a little felting action (Lord, help me...it took forever to knit that Kidsilk Haze scarf). And those hazelnuts? What pray tell will Rudee do with the nuts? Besides the grocery check out clerk's frustration when she couldn't find acorns on the price list, thereby giving me the best chuckle of the day, these are not going to be consumed.

Here are those nuts all tied up with itty-bitty hair ties. After a run through the hot soapy water and about 3 minutes of agitation, it felted beautifully by the way, it's now drying. It lost more width than length, but I think the weight of the nuts helps maintain length. When it's completely dry, I'll liberate the nuts and in their place will be a three dimensional scarf with 22 tiny bubbles that maintain their shape.

Top to bottom neck warmers:

1. Buttoned Muffler. Pattern by Sally Melville from the book, Mother -Daughter Knits, Sally Melville & Caddy Melville Ledbetter. Yarn: Less than 1 skein Araucania Yarns, Coliumo Solid, Color # 3 (a pretty pale greenish blue). Soft as a baby's behind and about a 3 hour knit. Hint: it's entirely possible that 2 skeins would make 3 neckwarmers.
   
2. Button Up Neck Warmer. Pattern by Mavis Adam from the Summer 2009 issue of Spin-Off Magazine, p70. Yarn: Rudee's Creamsicle Handspun (merino and silk). This easy to memorize pattern knit up in about 2 days. Most of you don't spin, but you may be able to find this magazine in a library. If you lack a pretty handspun, try a commercial worsted weight yarn. It's a very showy pattern for hand painted or space dyed yarn, too. Because it's a simple slip stitch pattern, it appears woven. It was the best woven effect I could achieve without a loom. Are you hearing me Santa?
3. Angel Puff Scarf. Pattern by Nicky Epstein, from the book Knitting Never Felt Better, The Definitive Guide to Fabulous Felting by Nicky Epstein. Yarn: 1 Skein Rowan Kidsilk Haze in a hand painted one of a kind colorway (sorry). Pattern notes: 225 yards of RKH in a stockinette pattern takes FOREVER and a day but took less than 5 minutes to felt. I used only 22 nuts, but the pattern called for 48. That was too many bubbles for me. It looks awesome hanging over my lamp to dry. Can't wait to see how those bubbles turn out.
   

Hello there beautiful! What do you want to be when you're all knit up? Look how nice and plump you are...that means no matter how you end up, you're going to be a fast knit. Though I much prefer finer weight yarns, it's this time of year when I embrace the phat stuff.

And so it goes. Once again, after all I said about not doing this to myself, I've been sucked into holiday knitting. In addition to the above, I knit one other Sally Melville neck warmer, one double knit Michigan hat (hello? that's two hats in one) that the recipient is already using and have an additional plain Michigan hat in the works. I've completed one of two socks that are going (as a set) to a reader. I know, I know, I'm slow, but the holidays kind of snuck up on me. What can I say? Soon, my friend.

How Not to Vacation

When I move next spring, I'm considering selling my 80 year old dining room set. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful and since the day I found it at an estate sale, I've babied the thing. It's a bit old fashioned, and I know, I know, that's its charm. Truth be told, I don't mind dated and old fashioned. The issue is it's heavy. Solid. And on Saturday, wanting to finish my holiday decorating, I shoved some dish cloths under the legs of the buffet and slid it from one room to another across the hard wood floors. Duh. Sometimes I just have to have immediate gratification. Who cares about lumbar disc herniation? I was unwilling to wait for the men folk to get home from work to help me with the heavy stuff.

I'm a little sore today.


But wait. I'm not done highlighting my growing list of vacation medical maladies. When I woke up yesterday morning, it was with an acute awareness that all was not well with my bladder. It's been so long since I've had a urinary tract infection that I'd forgotten what they felt like. My bladder is, as long as it's not acting up, something I tend to take for granted. I bet you do, too. Well, by mid-afternoon, I was convinced that the urgency, frequency, burning and spasms were an issue of mind over matter and the first thing I should do is drown the little germs and get on with my vacation by making a great meal (I finally saw Julie & Julia). Let's just say that grocery shopping + excessive hydration + a UTI make food gathering a complicated expedition. I made two pit stops to the restroom while at the store. Lines were long at the market and it seemed to take forever to find the fixings for beef stew, but I finally made it home, made the stew and continued denying what was happening in my nether-regions.

By evening, I began to get chills. Now it could have been the damp weather, but with my oven on, this wasn't possible. My house felt like a junkie's--hot, hot, hot. It was me. It was my body telling me to get my ass, or more specifically, my bladder to an urgent care center. Being a bit dramatic (yes, I am), I had visions of sepsis setting in, complicated by complete overreaction of my immune system and the triggering of the cascade of events that lead to shock and multi-organ failure. By 8 PM, I was convinced if I didn't get help, I'd be on life support by midnight (it appears that I'm also prone to exaggeration).

I pulled the not quite done stew from the oven and drove the 10 miles to the clinic where the clerk commented how much she liked my perfume and then wanted to discuss the merits of about 10 different brands of perfume all with fresh, crisp notes (I couldn't make that up if I tried). All the while my bladder, irritated and near to bursting was getting annoyed. I finally told her, "look, if I don't get to a bathroom soon, this visit is going to get very messy and no amount of perfume will cover that up." It was discovered, no surprise, that I did indeed have something other than urine in my specimen cup. After the quickest ever after hours clinic visit (I was their only patient), I made it to the 24 hour drug store where I found salvation in the form of antibiotic and antispasmodic pills.

My pee may be bright orange and glow in the dark, but I feel much better today.

Friendships

When I began to blog, I inexplicably started to develop attachments to my invisible friends (that would be all of you). I spent a lot of time nourishing relationships with my new pals around the world by reading and commenting. I've even grown to care what happens to my new friends(and their pets) that, but for their blogs, I don't really know. In a lot of ways, I communicate more through my blog and all of yours, than I do with visits and phone calls to my not so invisible friends. In short, the internet has blessed me with a brand new way to broaden my horizons and make new relationships.

But it bothers me a bit when people stop blogging all of a sudden. There have been times when I've wanted to, but just can't. It would seem I always have something to say. Sometimes, people still blog but don't visit me anymore. In those situations, I wonder what I've done to offend. I don't dwell on it, but I think about it.

When Flydragon fell off the radar over the summer, I thought she was caught up in her gardening and was taking a little hiatus. She stopped commenting and blogging altogether. Still, even though I thought about her now and then, I didn't think too much of her being off the grid so to speak. I thought maybe she caught the Facebook bug that was going around. Or she was tweeting her little heart out, and not at the birds she loved to blog about. But that was not the case.

The woman who made me aspirate my coffee when she gave me the Full of Hot Air award, is leaving us for good. Her daughter is making intermittent posts to update us on Flydragon's condition. She is giving her mom sentiments and well wishes we'd like to share.

Don't miss your opportunity to share your thoughts. You can do so here.

The Spirit Moved Me

I kind of liked the bird ornaments today.

When I got home from spinning this afternoon, I had an overwhelming desire to spruce up the house a bit--holiday style. Now this was a challenge since I've left most of my decorations with Rachel and Sara and I decorated Rachie's place last weekend.

My Charlie Brown Itty-Bitty Tree.

My house is small, which was my second challenge, but strolling past the available trees at the tree lot, I found a 3 1/2 foot Douglas fir. In my mind, I was convinced it was perfect. It had a few bare spots I thought would fill in once the tree thawed out and the branches relaxed a bit, but that hasn't happened. I think I must have felt a wee bit sorry for the tree and momentarily channeled Charlie Brown.

Oh my. An owl. What would the Aunt Honeys say? Ah...who cares about old wives tales and Arabic curses? I officially have a raptor in my house.

The third challenge was the size of the ornaments. Most of what I salvaged from Rachel's house, won't work on such an itty-bitty tree. This was going to necessitate a visit to the local Target--not a great place to visit 2 weeks before Christmas and on a Saturday, too. But it wasn't bad. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I highly recommend doing like I did and wearing my rose colored glasses to shop on the weekend.

And a peacock--in honor of the peacock shawl that is presently being ignored.

I picked up some great ornaments, a new pair of slippers for spinning and quite a bit of stuff I didn't know I needed until I saw it in my basket in the checkout lane. Do the offerings at Target just jump into the basket?

I feel so much more holidayish tonight. There's one more thing I want to get tomorrow. Have you seen the Christmas tree shaped rosemary plants at Trader Joe's? I hope they aren't sold out. I'm imagining two things from that including unlimited rosemary and heavenly scents.

The Whole Truth

About 2 seconds ago, I silenced the alarm on my work phone. It's there to remind me to call the time system and clock in for the day. As of right this minute, I'm officially on vacation until next Wednesday, and not a moment too soon.

I want to talk about a few things here, because I'm losing the courage to do my work.

I love this specialty, I truly do. I feel I make a difference. Even during that kerfuffle last month, I may not have made a difference to the family who verbally abused me, but I saw to the needs of the struggling patient. I made a difference to him and was able to ease his suffering. Over the summer, I had an incident where the family told me they never wanted me to darken their doorstep again. That was until the next time they called and needed help at 10 PM. Recently, they sent a letter to my employer thanking the staff that helped them and though at one point they'd expressed dislike for me, in the end, they singled me out to express gratitude. I was surprised and appreciative of the recognition.

Truth be told, I feel like a RN (real nurse) doing this job. Unlike my day shift counterparts who carry a heavy workload, I usually don't. I have time, hours to spend if needed, to provide emotional and skilled support. I often get phone calls where someone has but a question and not a need for a visit, but if I sense any distress at all, I make a visit. I've kept vigils with families who are distraught or afraid to be alone. If I'm there for awhile, I'll pull out my knitting and we while away time talking with the soothing sound of needles clicking away.

In short, I love my work, but sometimes, I question what I'm doing.

Last night, as I pulled up to a home in a very dicey neighborhood (not a unique situation), I was aware of a man lurking in the shrubs and trees 2 doors down (definitely not the norm). It was late, dark and bitterly cold. I called the caregiver of the patient and told her I was there, but couldn't safely exit my car. I could see the man looking my way in my rearview mirror--you know, the mirror that says, "objects in mirror may be closer than they appear?" The caregiver came out to get me. As she opened her front door, and I stepped out of my car, two men emerged from the trees and approached me. With my heart in my throat, I started to climb the porch steps, lost my footing and fell. The men, seeing the woman on the porch, stopped, turned around and left, but believe me, both I, and this woman, had no doubt that they weren't there to help.

I was scared out of my mind. Truly. The entire time I was in that house, my heart was not in my work because I was too worried about leaving and running the gauntlet back to my car.

I'm beginning to question the sanity of what I do. Is it worth my well-being to continue? My work area includes, with the exception of two zip codes, all of the metropolitan Detroit area (around 3,900 square miles). Last night, I've never been so afraid for myself in my life. While I do earn a little more money than I did working in a hospital, it's never been about the money. It's always been because I've felt called to do this--to honor and care for the souls leaving our world. I know that may sound silly and trite to some, but there is a need for people like me. I want to be able to do it, but I can't do it well if I feel unsafe.

Obviously, more than the usual pressures of the holidays will be on my mind during this week off. I have to find a solution to this conundrum.

Dashing Through the Snow

Your intrepid hospice nurse pulled another double shift last night. I think it's the pleading tones of the supervisor that get to me. She sounds so reasonable and needy that I find I can't say no. To add to that, she prefaced by saying, "I know you're having a quiet night," at which point, I should have screamed the word NO! NO! NO! She had invoked the curse of nurses everywhere by saying the word, quiet.

Bye-bye Japanese car (I'm going to miss you). Hello made in Kansas Ford Escape.

The weather was, in a word, wretched, with already 2 inches of heavy wet snow and more mixed precipitation expected. Emboldened by my new sleigh, I accepted the mission of working 16 hours. Fool. Big dummy head. That's me. Weak, weak, weak.

The phone didn't ring again until just shy of midnight and I had to drive 25 miles to see a patient. Even with four wheel drive and my snappy V6 engine, it still took close to an hour to get there because the slush was so deep on the freeway. I got home at 3 AM and fell asleep. Deep in slumber, and probably paralyzed during REM sleep, I didn't hear my beeper go off at 6:45 and missed calling a family back promptly to answer a question. I felt awful, when I finally awoke at 8 AM to see the page.

That's it. No more doubles. I don't care how sweet she sounds or how nicely she begs, the next time the supervisor calls me, I'm going to let her go to voicemail so I have time to practice saying no.

In an attempt to find humor today, I came upon this holiday video. That Ozzy is a naughty boy:

Sleight of Hand

A few weeks ago, I paid $40 to take my first knitting class--the Fair Isle Hat Class. I attended only one of the two days because by the time I'd finished the first class, I had grasped the concept of Fair Isle knitting and finished the project that same night. By the time the second class came around, I had finished my second hat. Instead of taking the second half of the class, I stayed home and napped that day. I vowed that unless it was something I felt the internet couldn't teach me, I was not going to take another class. $40 buys a lot of yarn.

Can you find my mistake? I may let it stand...

When I saw the Michigan double knit hat at the yarn store, I wanted the pattern, but didn't want to take the class to get the pattern. I talked the young lady, Ann Marie, who created the pattern, into selling it to me without taking the class. Of course, I had no clue how to do double knitting, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. After paying for the pattern, I went home and googled, double knitting. I found a video on KnittingHelp.com (I love that site and owe all of my initial skill to their videos), and a great article on Knitty.com, another fabulous site for skill building, not to mention free patterns. Following Ann Marie's pattern, I cast on for the 2 colored hat and I haven't looked back.

Double knitting is nothing short of magical. Magical. Essentially, I'm knitting two hats at once--a tube within a tube-- that are connected only at the cast on edge, and again at the M. The connection occurs when the knitter swaps the position of the two yarns. In this case, I knit the M in blue on the yellow side and in yellow on the blue side. Ingenious! I will say, this is not a technique you'll embrace if you hate to purl. Though it's clear that this is a stockinette pattern, and knit in the round, and we know that every stitch is knit to get that effect, to create a mirror image, one color is knit and the second color is purled. Fixing mistakes? Oy. Now that's a challenge. I have 2 errors that I missed, but I'll fix those in the end by embroidering over them with yarn (gotta love duplicate stitching!). Then again, I may let the mistakes stand.

Mirror image made by alternating colors and the knit/purl stitch. The yellow stitches are knit and the blue purled. To make the M, I knit the blue and purled the yellow.

There are several applications for this technique, one of which I'll try after the first of the year: two socks at a time knit one inside the other.

Be still my little knitter's heart.