It Just Keeps Getting Better

26 years ago Skip and I had come out of failed relationships, cried in our respective beers, and realized our friendship had blossomed into much more. We sold our houses and joined forces, moving closer to work and into the house in which we still live. 23 years ago we were married in our back yard. The echinaceas were tall, 

Photos by Marilyn Girndt

our neighbour's trees provided lots of shade for the ceremony and 22 of us gathered for the event. 

Initially we were just going to go to City Hall and have a JP marry us. We were both too pooped from the end of the school year to plan anything big. But when I told some of my friends we were going to tie the knot, they eagerly asked, "Can we come?". I borrowed my friend, Shelley's wedding dress found perfectly matching shoes and hosiery. ordered food from a caterer, rented a reverend, and we had a very intimate, casual wedding ceremony in our back yard. 

During the ceremony, I remember trying to soak it all in - that at age 44, I had finally found someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I remember that during the ceremony, I could hear the other neighbour's wind chimes tinkling softly in the breeze. It was the first Monday of our summer vacation and one of the hottest days we'd had so far, 33C (92F). 

Sue, Francey, Lorna, Marilyn, Wendy, and Geri

As there was a small gathering of our friends and Skip's parents, we wore nametags and I introduced everyone after the ceremony. Then we scampered inside to enjoy the food, cutting of the cake (baked by one of the talented Gr 9 Family Studies students from our school), and air conditioning.

Some of our guests toured our neighbour's lovely yard and garden where we had some of our pictures taken. That neighbour still lives next door.

Photos by Marilyn Girndt

And here we are 23 years later - still enjoying that back yard. We've made some great memories in this house and out there in the world together. We've been through a lot of challenges and always seem to find our way through - growing even closer. 

We know we are so fortunate to have each other. Relationships and marriage are such a crap shoot - as the future is so uncertain. It's hard to know if the two individuals will continue to grow in the same direction. Luckily most of our growing up was done and we looked forward to the same things - raising Scooter, retirement from teaching, puttering around the house, travelling as much as finances and health would allow. During this pandemic we were grateful to muddle along, safe at home together. It's been such a good run.

Happy Anniversary, Skip! Thank you for the best 26 years of my life. 

And 2 More

I cut the fabrics out last night and ironed on the interfacing in preparation for sewing them together today. I'm a pretty slow sewist so all told, each bag takes me a couple of hours.

I made one like this before and gave it as a Christmas gift. I now have made another one for me. I really like the lining fabric.

and the paisley pattern.

This fabric has been in my stash for years.

I certainly have enough UFOs and projects I want to start for Christmas in July to fill these bags.

I did a bit more stitching on my Starburst Flag of Canada piece. If you like doing eyelets, you'll love this piece. And it's available for instant download. The threads and fabric were all from my stash. 

July 1 is only 5 days away. I need to get my Christmas in July projects ready. 

I don't have anything big planned to stitch but these ornaments caught my eye.

From the August 2019 JCS issue:

Silvery Lace Snowflake by Arlene Cohen of WorksByABC:

And from the 2020 Christmas Ornament issue:

'O Christmas Tree by Lisa LeAnn Designs: (Yes! More eyelets, and smyrnas, and scotch stitches.)

and Poinsettia by Evdokia Nikolaeva.

In place of some of the beads I will affix 'jewels' with my HotFix tool.

In July, I also plan to peruse back issues of stitching magazines and Christmas charts. I also have a bunch of the hardbound Leisure Arts books from the 90s that I haven't looked through in ages.

My heart is very heavy with the knowledge that so many children were hurt, became ill, and died during Canada's cultural genocide program of residential 'schools'. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like to have been taken from your home and family, had your treasured hair cut, and put in an environment where everything you knew to that point was figuratively and literally beaten out of you. Then to be beaten to death or become ill with tuberculosis and die without loving people around you, only to be buried, possibly in a grave another child was ordered to dig. In some of these places of torture over 50% of the children died of TB. Their families never knew what became of their children.

Generations of Indigenous children were not raised with their loving parents and families. In many cases they were abused physically and sexually by the religionists, sanctioned by our Governments, who thought they knew better and enacting their 'solution to the Indian problem'.

We know better now. We need to teach these truths in schools so we can have a greater understanding of what our First Nations People endured at the hands of the Europeans who settled here and prospered at their expense. We need to honour the dead and their family members. 

This  Canada Day, I will most definitely not be celebrating our nation's 154th birthday. Not his year.

2 For Me

Since I had the dining room set up for sewing again (aka Geri's Sweatshop) and inspired by the 4 bags I made for Jeanette, I thought I'd make myself a couple of them, too. 

I have tons of fabrics in my stash for the outside of the bags but always struggle to find the appropriate fabric for the lining.

I bought this fat quarter last week at Fabricland and modified my pattern to work with it. It just means the bag is a little shorter. I could make a bigger vinyl window to compensate for the shorter fabric.

I have several different Peanuts patterns and snapped up the nifty lining fabric  - enough to line at least 4 bags.

A lot of folks are making project bags with vinyl for the entire front. 

I prefer mine because the bottom can expand a bit with all the stitching items and because of the vinyl window, I can see what is in there. But that's just me.

I'm going to have a look at my Pinterest saves and see what other fun things I can sew.

I don't think I'll get my Starburst Canadian Flag project done in time for Canada Day because I keep doing other crafty things. A couple of us are going to do Christmas in July. I have set aside a couple of Christmassy patterns that I'd like to stitch next month. 

In the meantime, I keep rotating among my various UFOs and enjoy the journey.

Sewing and Stitching

Jeanette commissioned me to make her some project bags. Over the past few days I got them finished up.

My pattern calls for 23" of fabric so a fat quarter is just a little bit shy of that and only works on non-directional fabric because I have to turn the fabric 90º to make it work. The patterned fabric was a little shorter so I just pieced a bit of the lining fabric to make it work.

I made the vinyl window bigger on this one so it came out almost square - perfect for up to a 12" hoop or QSnap.

The last two were my standard size when finished. I liked all the European stamps, postmarks, and writing on this one.

This fabric was beautiful and I was able to centre the motifs with a minimum of 'fussy cutting'.

The photos don't do the fabric justice. There's gold paint highlighting the 'roses'.

That should help contain all the projects she has on the go.

I've not been stitching all the much these days but I have made some progress on my Starburst Flag of Canada project.

The two reds are clearly distinct from one another but under indoor lighting, the two whites (Blanc and B5200) don't really contrast. 

However, under natural light (outdoors) the Blanc looks like Ecru compared to the bright white of the B5200. Can you see the difference?

I'm not sure I'll get this finished in time for Canada Day but if I put a push on over the next week, I might just make it.

I've also been knitting little blankets with some white DK acrylic yarn in my stash for Mt. Sinai Hospital. I'm almost finished the 2nd one - one more evening in front of the TV ought to do it. At Michaels last week I bought a ball of soft acrylic baby DK weight to make some more.

Skip and I will be going into The Big City in a month so I could drop of any blankets off that I have completed by then. It's only about 3 blocks from where we'll go for Skip's checkup. We think we'll take the GO Train if the Delta variant isn't rampaging through the city. We both have Presto cards that we haven't used since December 2019 - the last time we took the GO into the city. 

On our drive home from his checkup on Friday, rather than crawl along the DVP with everyone else leaving the city on a summer, Friday afternoon, we decided to stay on Bloor and take the Danforth over to Kingston Rd. We had the most delightful drive, hitting almost all green lights en route. When we got home, it was only 10 minutes longer than had we taken the DVP and 401. 

Next week Skip and I will be 2 weeks out from our 2nd Pfizer shots and at the vaccine's maximum efficacy. We might celebrate by dining outdoors somewhere. 

We have been so fortunate to have had an extra month of summer weather this year. I'm quite enjoying doing my morning puzzle out on the deck while I sip on a coffee.

A New Start

I started the Starburst Flag of Canada project yesterday. I found some 32ct grey Belfast linen in my stash and had 3 of the 4 colours of thread. I did substitute B5200 for the white called-for floss. I'll pick up the last colour today at Michaels if the lineup isn't too long.

Since I had both called-for reds, I started in the centre with the maple leaf. The centremost big star kicked my butt for quite a while until I printed both pages and taped them together. Much better. The big starbursts take a lot of thread so I will purchase extra so I won't run out for sure.

I have run out of project bags so have been keeping my threads on this design board that I made myself. Lori Holt has a video on how to make them. The foam core is covered by batting. The floss sticks to it. 

I completed the SAL week 24. I had never heard of this flower - astrantia. 

I did use someone else's suggested colours and substituted a darker green for the pistils.

On the Facebook group, I mused that I wanted to do a Charleston-esque wrought iron fence around my garden. Someone kindly posted a chart she had designed and it was exactly what I was thinking of.

I did have to modify it a bit so the corners would work and graphed it out on my stitching software - an ancient (in tech terms) version of Cross-Stitch Design Studio which I paid $9.95 for over 20 years ago.

The gate on the top one will be centred on the top. The lower gate will be on each side and along the bottom. Even though my garden outlines are done with 2 strands of 310, I'll do the wrought iron fence with only one strand.

I've been doing some charity knitting with some of my stash yarn - little blankets for parents of babies who didn't survive birth. The baby will be wrapped in the blanket at some point and then the parents can take the little blankie home with them as a keepsake. Apparently they are very much cherished. While at the big box store, I'll check out some baby yarn. I find I don't do a lot of stitching at night while watching TV. I don't have to look at my knitting a lot when I'm doing easy stuff like helix socks or garter stitch blankets so I get quite a bit of that knitting done (I watch a LOT of TV at night).

My second COVID Pfizer shot went well last Thursday. They actually called me to go in early. I didn't even have a sore arm and had no other side-effects either. It feels great to be fully vaccinated now and Skip and I are planning a visit to an outdoor dining establishment after a couple of weeks and we have the full protection of the two shots.

His incision/graft is healing nicely. The nurses are still coming in daily to dress the site and will continue, I guess, until they don't feel he needs that care. We have a follow-up appointment on Friday marking the 6th week post op. It shouldn't take long. Then we'll start the trek home on the busiest highway in Canada on a 'cottage country' mid-afternoon. I do so despise driving in heavy traffic but on the positive side, when it's so busy and we're crawling along, there is lots of reaction time.

Week 23

I just finished this week's (23) blackwork stitchalong pattern - Ranunculus  (top right) I used variegated DMC 48. The centre pattern was last week's Irish bells that I put in a different place than called for.

I just thought the left side needed a splash of green.

I'm really enjoying doing this stitchalong. It's going to take us into December to finish. I'm not sure how I will display it, if I decide to. But it's been fun waiting for each new installment to come out every Friday. All the charts are available for free on the Steady Thread Blackwork SAL group on Facebook. Look in the 'Files' section at the top and it's all there.

I haven't done much on Strawberry Thief but I have a Zoom chat this afternoon with my stitcherly friends so will continue to plug away on it.

I'm looking forward to the flag of Canada star stitchery pattern which is making its way to me in the mail. 

I hope it doesn't take over 3 weeks like my watchband did.

Skip had a checkup in The Big City on Thursday and the healing after the surgery a month ago is going well. We go back in 2 weeks for another followup visit. Homecare nurses are coming daily to take care of his post surgical needs.

Totally by luck I checked our health unit's COVID vaccination page and found out they're giving the 2nd vaccine to anyone who got their first shot before April 19. My first shot was April 6 so and Skip's was in March so I got right on there and signed Skip up for next Wednesday before I remembered that I had 2 things going on at the same time. I didn't reschedule his appointment so he'll have to manage on his own. My appointment is for Thursday night. It's going to be so nice to have a bit more freedom once fully vaccinated. One protocol Ontarians have been told to observe after the 2nd shot is to observe two out of the following 3 things: be outdoors, wear a mask, and social distance. So if I'm outside and wear a mask, I can hug people (if they're OK with that) and are also masked. I'm very happy our restrictions are being slowly lifted. Our region is having good results with the latest lockdown. We just can't open up too fast until a much higher percentage of us are vaccinated with the second shot.

A Pair of Helical Socks

I finished the second heel last night and got the pair photographed this morning.

I love the that the randomness of colours balance with the order of the striping, cuffs, heels and toes. 

Skip and I are going into The Big City today for Skip's checkup. I plan to start another pair of these addictive, easy to knit socks.

I've also packed two stitching projects and a Sunday NY Times Crossword book to entertain myself while I wait. I don't expect the checkup will take long but I'm prepared for whatever length of waiting time that I'll have.

 

Afterthought Heel

I finished the second helix sock 'tube' today and, inspired by Arne and Carlos' video on the subject, started the afterthought heel. 

I did mine a little differently because I didn't knit waste yarn at the spot where I wanted the heel to start. Instead, I just measured up from the toe to where I started the same type of heel on another sock and ran needles through the stitches on either side of the row I was going to remove. In this case it is the turquoise row. I then snipped the centre of a turquoise stitch in that row and unravelled the yarn ends to each side.

With the turquoise yarn pulled out stitch by stitch, the black stitches are left freed up on each side of my Magic loop cable.

I then join the yarn I will use for the heel and knit one row, weaving*in the turquoise yarn ends as I go. Then do decreases like I would for the toe: K1, ssk, knit to three from the end of that needle, k2tog, k1, turn and do the same on the other side. Alternate this with a knit round until you have about 1/3 of the stitches on one side left in the middle of the heel. Graft these stitches closed and your afterthought heel is complete. I noticed Arne doesn't do an ssk (left-leaning decrease) on the right side of the heel. I guess he doesn't care how the decreases lean.

This type of heel is great for any sock where you don't want to interrupt the striping pattern on the instep.

Here are the two helix tubes I knit. 

And this is where the afterthought heel is positioned. It really is like knitting a toe where the heel goes.

The heel rounds out when you put on the sock. I guess if you wanted to reinforce the heel you could add an extra strand of that nylon yarn or do an 'eye of partridge' stitch on the bottom of the heel. 

I just did regular knitting. Any little holes at the corner can be darned closed.

It looks and feels great on.

I've started the heel on the second sock and only have a few more rows before I finish it. I may start another pair of these helix socks, this time with a ribbed leg.

I could have used some waste yarn like Arne did but I didn't want to decide where I wanted the heel to start until I had finished knitting the whole tube.

The key to a very cool helix pattern is high contrast. I used a very bright yarn and contrasted with a much darker. Whenever the two colours got too similar, I just pulled the darker yarn until I got a good contrast again. Truth be told, I ran out of the Poems yarn and found a ball of Fame Trend yarn with the same dark tones. One can't really tell where I started the other dark yarn.

This is a great pattern for using up partial balls of yarn or even scraps of yarn. They were fun and easy to knit. I love trying out new techniques and they don't have to be challenging to be fun.

* I learned a different way to weave in yarn ends as I knit the new colour from this Stephen West video. He calls it "Weavin' Stephen".