Singapore!

Just got back from Singapore, the Lion City. It's a lovely place, and the people are marvelous. Didn't plan to go there, but had to fly out when my husband ended up having emergency surgery on his way back from India--instead of making his connecting flight, he had an ambulance ride and his life saved! I flew over to be with him, and after two and a half weeks, we've just arrived back home.

I have learned so much about things like the love and help of my family and neighbors, getting a passport renewal in a hurry, the stellar medical care in Singapore (better than stateside, I believe), and my own feelings about death. Yep, death. Not scared of it for myself at all, but suddenly I understand that if I get a deadly disease, it'll be scary for those who love me. So scary, in fact, that it's worth fighting to stay alive... for them, not for me. Being on the wife-end of it has radically changed my perspective on my own demise. How could I have missed this? Well, I know it now, and my husband is going to be just fine.

Whew. Now we both need to sleep a lot... at night... which is not happening for me at the moment, this post being written at 2:00 am.

Magic Wand

The Blog Week question for today is... well, I'm not using it, so here's the wildcard question: Do you have a particular knitting/crochet tool that you love to use?



Here is my crochet answer: I love to use this big, old wooden crochet hook. It belonged to my grandmother, and it was hand-carved by someone with a purpose. It’s not pretty or artistic or even ergonomic. It’s just a big, old hook that has seen many, many years of use... sort of a magic wand handed down from mother to daughter to daughter (me).

It measures out to be about a size M hook, and I use it for making items with plarn (made from cut-up plastic ), like The Ultimate Recycled Market Bag. I have also used it to make cat beds (a hugely modified kitty pi), using 2 strands of bulky yarn held together.

My grandmother had a doll-repair business, and I remember helping her, using this hook to reach into the doll bodies for re-stringing the arms and legs. Can you see that there’s dried paint on the end? Apparently she stirred some paint with it too.

If you want to see more posts from other bloggers participating in Blog Week, click here to find links:
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(Blog Week Wildcard tag: knitcroblowc)

A Legacy Passed from Mother to Daughter

The Blog Week question for today is: How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting?

I actually don’t remember learning to knit and crochet... I was so young when my mother taught me. She was an awesome knitter, and there were wonderful hand-knitted garments in our house. She had a cherry-red cabled cardigan that she knitted for herself in the 1950’s, and my father had hand-knit-by-her socks and an incredible tweedy cardigan, which I wore quite a bit in high school. I wore the cabled sweater when I was in college--it was to die for!


The houndstooth swatch pictured above was knitted by her, with itty bitty stitches. She was a much better knitter than I will ever be.

Funny thing, though, when the time came for our Girl Scout troop to do the needlework badge, some of the mothers taught us various skills like knitting, crochet, embroidery, etc., every week for about a month. My patrol (small group) went to the home of a mother from Germany, and a different patrol went to my house to learn from my mother. Well, not only did I already know how to do all the needleworking things we were learning, but the German mom was surprised that I used the German technique of holding my crochet hook. Oddly, I had changed my grip-style as a child to suit my own preference so I ended up crocheting like that instead of like my mother and grandmother. Go figure.

As for knitting style, I did my own thing, too. My mother showed me how to knit, and I couldn’t do the wrap-around-your-finger thing, so I just grabbed the working yarn and threw it over instead for each stitch. To this day, I still knit that way, and so does my daughter! I find that it goes fast, I can control the tension just fine, and I don’t have any problems with my wrists.

So when my daughter came home from college in her first semester and she wanted to learn to knit, I happily showed her how. I’m quite sure my mother learned from her mother too.

If you want to see more posts from other bloggers participating in Blog Week, click here to find links:
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(Blog Week Day 1 tag: knitcroblo1)

A Great Lady Has Passed This Way

Today I learned that a wonderful woman left this life last night. She loved nature, flowers, her family. I'm sure she took comfort in the knowledge that she raised fine children, all good people. And her grandchildren are growing up to carry the clan forward.

My own mother fought cancer for 10 years before she left the body at age 55. It took 6 years for me to actually come to terms with her death. My conclusion was, and still is, that it was not the unfair taking of her life away from her and my brother and me, but it was the release that she needed. She was freed from a body that just couldn't go on, freed from the trials of her life, and she was finally able to go to whatever was waiting for her.

The full Moon is shining through the trees outside my window. The mist that surrounded her has vanished, and she is high and bright now.