The BEST Mother's Day Present

Hi Megs,

Wow, Megan. You gave me THE most wonderful Mother's Day present! Now, because of your crocheting - I can keep a baby warm in Afghanistan! As you know, when you told me about it - I got tears in my eyes. Just like I did when you "gave" me the giraffe at the Lincoln Park Zoo - which I still have - helping to feed him.

I love your scarf. Mine is still a "work in progress" but it IS the project I am taking to Brazil with me - and the sock pattern from Lace-Cuff Anklets from my other mother's day gift - the Interweave knit "Favorite Socks" - I have decided these are the only projects I am taking but may find some Brazilian yarn. We are also close to Uraguay and I know they have beautiful yarn there. Well I am also taking some Noro so I can make more little purses if I need to.

So, can't brag much about finishing anything - but the 15 little purses! I also have the shawls finished and stacked up ready for delivery to team members. So - have been productive but only with a very limited collection of items.


Nice to talk to you on Mother's Day. Here are the great big PEI mussels we had for supper - prepared like they did at Hog Island - with "greens". They were terrific but we made to many - we needed about 3 more people to help us finish them.

We had a Yarmouth Craft Guild meeting last night and we got the brochures we had printed "Yarmouth Area Working Studios". It features 12 Crafters (This is the Year of the Crafter - at least in Canada) who would welcome visitors to their studios. I am NUMBER 6! (you can see my lace shawl left, socks and rug, second one down on the back of the brochure.) EVeryone says the picture makes me look 10 years old - but I guess for a 64 year old, that's not bad!




These will be distributed to tourists spots and other places where people might want to see crafts in the Yarmouth area. It is really nice. Lots of great people in it. Proud to be part of it.

So - that is my news. Have to finish my final pack! Next time I post - if I am able - it will be from Brazil!

Love ya, Mom

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

To celebrate, I have a picture of the completed no-longer-secret ripple project: a baby blanket made in your honor for the afghans for Afghans mother's day campaign!


(This gift in addition to Interweave's Favorite Sock Patterns book from Imagiknits whose last copy I nabbed for you during our shopping excursion there last Friday... I am such a good daughter!)

I made the blanket out of 5 skeins of Cascade 220, with 8 rows total for each of the colors used. I alternated 2 single rows of color with one double row, generally moving up and down the color range from blue to yellow to green to purple to orange and back again, with a few tweaks here and there. The stitch is my version of the crochet ripple stitch, cobbled together from a few on-line patterns and blog postings from those using this pattern from the 200 Ripple Stitch pattern book (which I was sadly too lazy to actually purchase for a single stitch pattern), using half-double crochet throughout. I think it turned out pretty well in the end.

With all the leftover bits of yarn I even managed to eke out a little baby hat to match (and I really mean eked out - at one point I contemplated going back to the wastepaper basket to pick out the pieces cut out as I wove in the ends on the blanket if I didn't have enough left to finish up the top - thank goodness it didn't come to that!) The finished size is 15" around and 6" deep, so it should be good (I hope) for a 6 to 12 month old. The brim pattern was inspired by Ada June, a very cute flower petal hat in this month's issue of magknits, while the overall size and head shaping came from the Dale baby hat pattern that I'm going to make for Sarah. I just think it's too cute, and hopefully will make an Afghan child and it's mother happy.

The blanket and hat are now both washed and blocked, waiting to come along with me on Tuesday when I go to help pack this latest shipment to help get it on it's way.


Speaking of afghans for Afghans, we were on TV!!!!!!!! Remember I told you a few weeks ago that we were interviewed by the local ABC7 station? Well it aired on Friday, and now you can watch it too!

I was clearly on a bit of a finishing frenzy here this week with you and Dad back home and Nathan in Chicago, because not only did I get the baby blanket and hat done, but I also completed the final tier on Lady Eleanor while watching Dreamgirls (love the costumes!) with Connie next door:

With 600m of the dark color and 900 of the lighter, I had more than enough yarn to get through 43 tiers so this should be a very snuggly wrap indeed. As you can see the futon is barely long enough to contain it as it blocks! It is definitely taller than me and I have yet to do the fringe (that will be next week's project). I did put the finishing single crochet round along all four sides, not just the short two edges as specified in the pattern, to give it a more overall appearance using the darker colored yarn. The trick for right now is keeping the lady Rushka off of the couch while my Lady Eleanor dries. Let's hope it works.

I have also been making steady progress on my Eveleen - I am really excited to see how she will turn out. I have now completed 5 of the 9 lace repeats on the front and back body panels and it just looks so pretty I had to share:


Finally, here are some of Nathan's shots from our visit to Napa (he did also take pictures of people, but not as many as you did!)

The view from Artesa:

Artesa's courtyard roof:

The grapes and the poppies at Robert Mondavi:

What can I say, it was all too beautiful (and a beautiful day!)

I hope that you are easily getting packed and ready for your trip to Brazil. I can't believe that I am leaving as well for Tokyo & Hong Kong in less than 6 days! I am getting set with gifts to bring, clothes to pack and, most importantly, projects to knit on the plane....

Have a great trip to Brazil - I can't wait to see all your photos and hear about all that you've done.

Megan

We're Home - Great time in San Francisco!

Hi Megs,

We are home but still recovering from the jet lag. After a long flight and our drive to Yarmouth we didn't get home until 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning - and have been busy, busy since then getting ready to go to Brazil.

But here is a short tour of our visit: Meeting at Union Square;


walking up 1000's of stairs to Coit Tower;
parrots on the Embarcadero;









Then meeting Rushka again,









;us at the Palace of Fine Arts, hearing Jazz & Jazz &Over the Golden Gate Bridge to Wine Country

Visiting the wonderful Napa Valley









Then more Dinner at your flat, more Jazz, the view from

Twin Peaks, Gardens at Golden Gate Park and












base ball.
What a great time we had. We did a lot more like Half Moon Bay, shopping for a black dress & skirt, books and CD's, Jazz, going to the knitting shop and buying yarn, tea tasting and tea for lunch, riding the metro, eating in wonderful places - fresh oysters, sushi, Russian, Thai, your great pizza, Tra Vigne, wine, wine and wine, Jazz, cream puffs, SFMOMA, walking, climbing, walking up and down, parks, wine, ice cream, great small hotel and seeing your both and Rushka. I know I have left out so much. We really packed a lot in to those few days.

Now home. It has been run, run trying to get everything organized for the Brazil trip. We take off early morning on the 15th, Wednesday. Think everything is falling into place. Have the shawls done, am working on the last of the 15 little purses (thanks for your contribution - can you pick it out?). I made two on the way home on the plane.



And when we got home your Star magnolia tree greeted us. We could see it glowing in the dark as we pulled into the driveway. It is in almost full bloom.

I will try to stay in touch while in Brazil. I got a my own Blackberry and should have some access to a computer - I hope. We also have our own Rotary Brazil GSE Blog so you can follow along with that as well.

Clay is in a good mood - met a new girl....

Love ya, Thanks for the grand time. Hope Nathan enjoyed Chicago - we missed him those last few days - enjoyed our time with you two. See you in Missouri at the wedding.

Mom

We are on our way

Hi Megs,

Wow - can't believe it too so long for our birthday gifts to get to San Francisco. Almost one month! I did send it slow freight. Happy you liked them - and so did the Lady. Almost all, as you mentioned, are "recycled". They are the best kind. Samantha finds cashmere sweaters at Frenchies and unwinds them, washes and you have beautiful cashmere for almost nothing.

Loved all the things you are doing. Really can't wait to see it all in person and see the flowers. We heard about the melted highway- wow!

I am writing this from the Airport Hilton in Halifax - so it will be short. With all the things I had to get done before I left - mostly Brazil, lobster calendar, income tax, forms because we are almost turning 65, it was a wild last few days. I finished all 5 shawls, washed, blocked, dried and folder ready to go!

I also did my first dyeing. It is a 6 value swatch for the bee hive of the Rug Bees apron for the Spring Fling. I left them in the jars so they would be a little mottled and it worked well.

But - am working away on my little purses for my host families. They are turning out really nice. I am using Noro in various colours. I have made 4 and finished another and almost another on the drive from Yarmouth to Halifax. I have to make 15. Each one is different - really interesting to see how they are turning out.

That is all the time I have - we can blog together when I get there. Loved to read your last post. Gives me a flavour of San Francisco and for the record, Yarmouth has been beautiful, sunny and warm except for the last few days! I planted some flowers in pots beside the door. They are beautiful but hope the frost doesn't get them while we are away.

I can truly say - see your tomorrow! Hope I can knit on the flight. It is a long flight.

Love ya,

Mom

Goodies Galore

Hi Mom,

While I hadn't planned to post again until you got here, I've been inundated with so much good stuff this past week that I had to share. Both gifts that I've bought for myself (it's good to be nice to yourself sometimes) and one's that I've gotten in the mail - from you!

That's right, your package of Easter and Birthday gifts finally arrived - how nice to get to celebrate these holidays again! I love the 'historic/eco' theme to all my birthday gifts - from the
recycled yarn to the vintage knitting needles and 'knitting pins'. Plus the Yarmouth Lighthouse is historic too - how better to honor that than with a candle? (Well, maybe there are better ways, but I'm going with that reasoning for now). The Easter gifts were much appreciated by all as well- I had to stop myself from consuming my entire chocolate bunny within a short 24-hour period, but it's going down fast. And as you can see, the Wizzo was a hit with the lady too:











She hasn't quite figured out that it's not for chewing on yet and there are already a couple of punctures but other than that it's holding up well!

Also in the mail on Friday was a gift for myself that I couldn't resist: A What-Would-Madame-De-farge-Knit t-shirt. That's right, I can proudly proclaim my knit-geekiness to the world, as well as my dedication to the CraftLit podcast where we are now listening to (you guessed it) A Tale of Two Cities. It should be perfect to run in, and maybe to bring a double take or two to the people who stop me for directions. (That's right, people in cars stop me when I'm running to ask for directions -last Friday it was a group of teenagers wanting to know where "Haight & Asby" was. I knew I emitted 'helpful person' vibes normally since people often ask me questions when I'm walking down the street, but I didn't know they transmitted so far as to infect people even when I'm moving at speed!)

My biggest gift/splurge, though, came on Saturday when Nathan & I checked out the SFMoMA Artist's Warehouse sale, and I came away with this:

It's a photograph, Deer, by local artist Nadim Sabella, who did a photo survey of abandoned houses in the West. This acquisition was funded in large part by birthday money given to me by Glenn & Tina. I had been looking for just the right thing to do with it - saving seemed, well, logical but uninspired, but I also didn't want to use it for an everyday purchase. This was perfect! So thank you Glenn & Tina - I can't wait to get it framed!

Since it's better to give than to receive, I have also been working on a gift for Nathan's cousin Alison who gave birth in March to a beautiful baby boy, David Ramon. With the many t-shirt shoulders left over from cutting the fabric for the rug (which only used the torso sections), I was inspired to modify Martha's sock-dog pattern from the Holiday Handmade Gift magazine to use the soft t-shirt fabric. It took a bit of fiddling and reconstructing to get this all together (even though I had more seperate pieces, I ended up sewing the body together pretty much as one) but I think the end product is pretty cute! Here he is once the pieces were all assembled:


And again now that he is all stuffed and ready to go to his new home. As you can see, he's gotten pretty comfortable here hanging out with Rushka, but I'm sure he'll like it with David too!


On the knitting front, all of my projects are humming along - I'm trying to get a certain amount done on each every day (the one exception being the water bottle cover, which is relegated to public transit knitting mostly right now) and I'm making quite a bit a progress as I go. My Lady E is now on tier 31 which mean only 6 tiers to go! (since I need to end on an odd row to make the ends match up) Once I get to row 36 I think I'll measure out all the yarn I need for the fringe (which is quite a bit - it's complex) and if I have enough left I'll take it on to 43 tiers total. Since I still have another unused skein of the lighter pink wool, I think I'll be safe. 43 = Nathan + Me, so it's my favorite knitting number!

Of course, coming to the end of this stole (and my ripple mystery project, also in the home stretch) I'm already thinking of what to do next. Thursday I met a friend for tea and we took a quick trip to Imagiknit where I picked up all of the leaf green Baby Ull that they had on the shelves for knitted gifts for Sarah. (I'm planning to combine two pattern sets from Dale Book 164.) If airport rules allow, I think that her baby knits will be the bulk of my travel knitting in Asia - the yarn is light for the heat and the blanket should be good 'mindless' knitting while in the air. Plus I need to push through if I'm going to get it all done for mid-June!

Loading this green in my 'upcoming projects' basket at home, I found the yellow Fleece Artists merino sock yarn that has been waiting to be cast on since I bought it at Doris' in December. (It was wound up this spring to show Glenn how the winder & swift worked together - he was intrigued by the mathematical construction of the swift). Then I looked over at the two skeins of hot pink Tess' silky wool sitting in my 'waiting for a project' yarn basket and thought: Project Spectrum colors for April/May! So here is my photo for this color triad. I think the silky wool may become a Hanami stole from Pink Lemon twist, although it will probably be more of a scarf (that's the size I got out of my last two skeins of silky wool, a beautiful smoky grey that became a bird-nest's scarf based on the shawl pattern in Folk Knits). It's the right pink, and the concept behind the pattern is great, so we'll see if that idea holds.

It seems that right now my to-do project pile is quickly exceeding my ability to knit fast, since I also picked up the latest issue of Rowan Magazine and am now trying to decide which sweater to cast-on once I get done with Eveleen. We'll not mention the fact that I'm only into repeat 4 of the 9 lace scallops on the body of Eveleen and have yet to even contemplate the intarsia panel on the chest! I'm already thinking out yarn options and colors for either one of these two as the next project: Joy (which is crochet, and I'm always on the lookout for good crochet patterns) or Ophelia (with or without the sleeves, I'm still not sure)














I don't know if it's the spring flowers in the photos, the ice-cream colors of the yarns, or just the general warm feelings from having so many inspiring ideas and goodies to play with, but I went out to buy some flowers and actually found lilacs (rare here in San Francisco). The sight & smell of them brought me right back to the end of the school year in Ottawa when we all picked lilacs for our teachers in elementary school, wrapping the stems in wet paper towels secured with aluminum foil to keep the fresh on the way. Now every time I walk into the kitchen I am transported back. Too bad we don't have the warm sunny weather here right now to match!


Maybe you can bring some sunny Yarmouth weather with you when you come tomorrow? We could use it - we are supposed to have lots of fog and rain over the next few days. So sad!

One thing I am glad about, though, is that I will be picking you up at SFO and not in Oakland, since I do not want anything to do with the massive traffic nightmare over in the East Bay that is the melted freeway. Today all public transit in the area is free to try to lure people out of their cars, since cars won't really have anywhere to go on the other side of the bridge anyways. What they will do for the next 6 months it will take to get the interchange back together, I don't know.....

Until your arrival, I will leave you with another photo in my flowers of San Francisco series. These are huge flowering masses that rise up out of bushes and eventually topple from their own weight. While the ones in Buena Vista park are mostly purple, these ones that I photographed in the Marina were more blue. All are lovely!

I'll see you tomorrow at the airport,

Megan

Barely one week to go...

...until you & Dad get in to San Francisco! I can't believe it is so soon. Aside from all of Dad's plans, is there anything that you want to do? (Besides visit yarn stores, I mean. I am sure a visit to Imagiknit will be in the cards, along with a stop at Samovar so that Dad can relax over tea)

I had also wondered whether you knew Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, given how small the Maritimes are. Everyone in Yarmouth who was close to her must be in shock. Here the pro-gun advocates are already on the soapbox claiming that looser gun restrictions would have prevented this from happening and that guns should be allowed in schools so that people can defend themselves. (?!) The logic is mind-boggling. It seems we are a long way away on this side of the border from actually confronting the violence in society effectively. Not to mention the family who tried to hide their son and do everything to pretend the problem wasn't there so as to avoid bringing shame to themselves in the Korean-American community, isolating them all in the process and leading to tragedy in the long run.

But I am glad to hear that the sun has finally come to Yarmouth - it must be great to feel the outside waking up again. Nathan and I spent some time this weekend visiting the 'wilds' of downtown San Francisco this weekend, snapping pictures in between the rain bursts. Here are some of my favorites - which seem all the more urban contrasted with your riding mower with the laundry in the background!




Our excuse for heading out was member's day at SFMoMA, where we checked out the photography collection, the SECA Award winners (we came away with our own packet of Victory Garden seeds) and the Brice Marden exhibit, very inspiring for his use of color and texture. We also picked up a very cute and inspiring book, Food Play, a perfect antidote for someone taking his job in the food industry too seriously! (Check out the 'surprise me' pages for some peeks at the fun) But we did wait to see the current big ticket show, Picasso and American Art, until you get here. Somehow that seemed like something that might be right up your alley.

I am also glad to hear that your marathon of shawls (and Doris' marathon of spinning) are coming to a close - it will feel good to have some other knitting in your hands. And I'm sure the little purses are a much needed quick-fix breather in the meantime. They look really cute and I know you'll breeze through them. I'm sure you'll have a great time in Brazil as well, it has always been on my to-visit list. My ideal would be to go for New Year's in Rio for the Festa de lemanja, joining all the revelers dressed in white diving into the ocean at the stroke of midnight under the fireworks. (I know someone who did this for the millennium and I've been jealous ever since). Some day...

For the meatime, though, I guess I'm just going to have to content myself with finally getting to visit Asia. After talking about it off and on since February, tickets are tentatively booked for me to fly out to Tokyo at the end of May to visit Dana, then head over to Hong Kong to spend time with Nathan's sister Racheal and help her set up her new apartment. I can't believe it's really going to happen. I'll get to see Dana (who sent me a fabulous birthday package with the cutest little bag, picture frame and matching cellphone and card holder set - love the cherries!) and finally meet her three babies (plus the two on the way). And then I'll get to spend time with Rachael on her turf and get her to show me all her favorite sites that up to now I've only been able to see in the photos of everyone else who's visited her so far. Hopefully we'll get the chance to do some hiking around the island too, in addition to visiting all the city shops and finding all the things to make her new apartment a cozy home. That is, if the monsoons don't wash us away...

Nathan and I are also heading out to Anne's wedding in June, but I'm going to stay longer with Sarah so that I can go to her shower (planned for the next weekend) and hopefully help her get ready for her baby to be. Plus that will give me some time to visit with Mamer too, which is overdue. All that plus your visit and Meredith, Susan and Ellen visiting in July will make it a busy three months, but it should all be great.

As for my knitting, I am making steady progress on both my Lady E (up to tier 24, only 12 to go!) and on my Eveleen, now almost 3 repeats in to the body. Somehow in the midst of all of this I managed to finish the first long side of the water bottle cover too. I know you don't understand this project but everyone here in SF who I've shown it to understood immediately! Must be the combination of damp foggy weather and a lack of indoor central heating that makes the idea of a hot water bottle warming up the bed all that more appealing. My secret crochet project is rippling along well too - the crochet is a nice break, and the colors are flowing nicely. Here's another peek for you - I just think it's really cute!

And I was thinking today that if your dye sink is a success, I just might have a custom order for you. The yarn that I got from Afghans for Afghans back in November still needs to be overdyed, and I'm worried about making a hash out of so much yardage. It's almost enough to make a sweater of if I can get it all to turn out! So maybe this is a project you'd like to try out for me? You can take a look when you get here...

And speaking of A4A, someday sometime there is the chance the group might get its 15 minutes (or more likely 120 seconds!) of fame. Last week a group of us were interviewed by the local ABC7 news crew for a Friday feature segment highlighting the organization. I have no idea when it will run, but there will be an internet link when it does. There should be photos from that day up on the A4A site soon too - I'll keep you posted!

In the meantime, have a great week - and travel safe! We'll see you here soon,

Megan