And Yet More Furniture Comes to Live With Me

Before I could even read, I loved books.  The colorful pictures, text crawling so orderly across the bottom of the page, and the way my golden books looked lined up neatly on my little house bookcase.   Every time I got a new book I would take it to the shelf and judge the size finding the perfect position on my shelf.  My brother would come in and knock the books off the shelves destroying my system.  As soon as he was gone I would start all over again putting everything back in order.

I learned to read, I got bigger books, and outgrew my little house bookcase and it disappeared.  As my mother releases furniture old friends keep showing up.  My little house bookcase is back and I am once again lining up my knitting books by size to live on its shelves. Of course my cat, Seven, is disagreeing with me on what should be placed on the those shelves.  His vote is fluffy blankets or a stash of catnip, not boring old books.

Puzzle Furniture

My mom has started to think about downsizing and has been letting go of some of her favorite pieces of furniture.  When she asked if I wanted her antique oak knockdown wardrobe, I said let me make room.

I was excited, I have loved this wardrobe since we brought it home in pieces when I was ten.  It went to live in our garage for many years to be a home for motorcycle helmets and several generation of spiders.  In the late eighties my mom evicted the spiders and  had it refinished (I know that ruins the value, but it looks so much better and it got to move into the house). 

A few weeks ago all twenty-seven pieces came to live with me.  Of course it came knocked down in all of its separate pieces.  My wife, bless her occasionally cranky heart, with some effort put all the pieces together into one whole wardrobe.  I am fascinated how all the pieces slide together and like magic make an impressive piece of furniture.

I have all this potential storage space.  I imagine putting all my yarn in it, books, quilts, or even, heaven forbid, clothes.  I am giddy with all the things I just might store in the wardrobe.  My cat, Seven, has ideas of his own.  He thinks with a few rugs, he just might get his own room.  I think he is wrong.

I Miss My Dad

I miss my dad, I know that is not a surprise for anyone who has been around me of late.  Today it is particularly hard, today he would have been his 69th birthday.  My dad hated his birthday, he hated getting older, and he really hated us reminding him of it.  On his 40th birthday the neighbor lady helped me make him a blackberry cobbler and I made a big sign and put it up over the door so everyone would know it was his special day.  I waited impatiently to surprise him with dinner and cobbler.  He drove up in his big tool truck and got out looking up at the sign.  I saw the look on his face and knew I had made a terrible mistake.  The extra large 40, mortified him.  I saw him swallow his humiliation and eat my horrid dinner followed by the cobbler, my only success that night.  I never made birthday signs or cobbler again.

I think the birthday sign truly does epitomize the relationship my dad and I had.  We just never really understood each other.  I thought he would love the fuss over him, because I do.  Dad never wanted to be at the center of the party, he wanted to stand on the porch and drink his beer.  Me I love to be in thick of it, laughing the loudest.  My dad and I were just so radically different from one another.  I don't think my dad ever really had a clue what I did for a paycheck.  He also never understood why I would grow up to be a lesbian.  But like the sign he would notice the difference and then choose to ignore it.  He loved me and that is what mattered to him.

We worked at finding that middle ground and avoiding those moments of oppositions.  When we first found out he was sick all we could say to one another was how much we loved each other.  I made sure to tell him what a good dad he had been and how lucky I was to have had him in my life.  He looked at me with tears in his and eyes and I knew for once we understood each other nothing more needed to be said.

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Today I am sad, trying to accept my loss.  My life goes on, I  pay bills, go to work, knit, and participate in a world that continues to revolve ignoring my petty struggles.  I just keep looking for a place on that common ground, a place where my dad and I found peace.

Again I say Think Pink Flamingo

Lately, I have not been up to blogging.  I could rant about the injustices and cruelty of the world, blah, blah, blah.  But I don't even want to listen to that so instead I want to talk about my flamingos.  Cause I have a lot of them.

 

I especially like my skeleton flamingos, so much so, I have two pairs of these ghastly babies.  I look at them and think, black is the new pink.  My only complaint about the skeleton flamingos is that they don' t glow in the dark. Darnnit!

This large lovely is one of my newest flamingos, I call him Triplett, after my three friends that gave him to me.  Triplett rode around in the back of car for over a month just because it made me smile.  So today rather than moan about the bad stuff in my life I am going to look at my flock of pink flamingos and hope for days when I am more in the pink. Pink is the new black.

Renfaire with wife good, but a kilt would've been cooler.

Cindersocks, or Why Gauge Matters.

As I have documented before, I am not a sock knitter.  I try, really try, but you know I just have not found the sock love thing going on for me.  But does this stop me from buying sock yarn?  No, in fact with each sock yarn purchase I say to myself, maybe with yarn I will find my sock knitting grove.  And so far that has fallen into the dream on category.  But I solider on.

Last summer when I was in Florida I bought some Lorna's Laces Shepherd yarn in rainbow and a pattern, Lacy Summer Socks, to knit a pair of anklets.  The pattern looked fairly simple and well not a commitment to a time eating project off knee length socks.  I cast on and well let the project sit in a cute little bag for months.  Recently, I knuckled down to finish the damn socks with the idea that I would give them to my mother for mother's day.  Let's just say that would have worked out if my mother had bound her feet at the age of 3.

The pattern said the socks would fit a size 7 to 9, in their dreams, even with the gauge issue they would have never fit a 9 and only a 7 with some extra repeats of the pattern.  Frustrated with the tiny socks, I decided to try again with my friend Rachel's Dyeabolical Yarn.  She gave me a test color, Flamingo on a Croquet Lawn, in a sock weight yarn.  I nixed the size 1 needles and moved up to size 2s and than added a few extra rows to get my size 11 canoes covered.

And low and behold a sock was knitted that I actually liked the!  And there is even a little baby lace going on the top.  I can't wait to knit the second one so I can wear them around and say, "Look, lace!"  while pointing to my pretty socks.  I just can't get over the difference needle and yarn size make. These two socks were knit with the same pattern (except for 5 extra rows at the toe) and look at the difference of about 6 sizes. 

So now I must match my small pair of socks to a worthy pair of very tiny feet.

Noticed my piggy bank was a little heavy last night found out today she was $85,O6 HEAVY!