A decade

Just FYI: there's no actually knitting in this post. So maybe come back in a couple of days, if that's more your cup of tea.

Ten years ago today, I was sitting in a waiting room in a Boston hospital, waiting for my mother to come out of surgery. A few weeks before, she'd called me at my aunt's house in DC to tell me that her GP had found a lump in her breast, and she'd been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. I was in the midst of finishing my dissertation, and it felt like someone had just pulled the rug out from under my feet. Thankfully, my thesis was mostly written, and I submitted it and flew to Boston the day before my mom had a lumpectomy and further biopsies to see if her lymph nodes were involved.

Thankfully, the cancer was localized, the lumpectomy was successful, my mother took Tamoxifen for five years and has been cancer free ever since. Seven days after her surgery, she and my father were in the audience for my dissertation defense. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever had the privilege to witness.

My mother's cancer was my first experience with my parents' mortality. Since that time, I've moved across the country, gotten married, had two children of my own, and then moved across an ocean. My mother has retired, moved from the city to mostly rural Maine, and jumped in to grandmother-hood with her full enthusiasm. She gave my Dad a puppy for his birthday this year, and he arrived a few weeks ago. She has more strength and love and determination then almost anyone I think I've ever met. And I am so grateful to her doctor for seeing what was there on her mammogram, and recognizing it for what it was. I am grateful to her for getting the mammogram in the first place. And I am so grateful that my daughters have the opportunity to experience what a fabulous person their grandmother is.

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This post was inspired by the people who should be here this spring, and aren't. You are so very much missed.

FO: Cool beans

As previously mentioned, I am "participating" in Sock Madness IV (if by participating, you mean lurking on the forums, oooing and aaahing over everyone's socks and occasionally knitting one of the patterns). While the true contestents are now at the beginning of Sock #4 (ribbed and cabled knee highs!), I've finally finished Sock #2.

Pattern: Cool Beans by Heatherly Walker, Round 2 of Sock Madness IV
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential in Bare and Pumpkin (overdyed brown), approximately one 50 gr ball of each
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm and US 1/2.25 mm
Start/finish: 29 March - 27 April 2010 (clearly I will not be making it to the later rounds of the next Sock Madness, so I'd better submit another sock design so I can get all the patterns!)
Comments/mods: This was a really fun, and surprisingly quick pattern to knit. For the first sock, I only did four beans on the leg instead of the required six beans - I was a bit worried about having enough yarn to finish both. I also got completely confused by the directions for the colors on the heel turn, so I just kept the stripes in pattern (which ended up being the right thing to do). The first sock used 21 gr of each color.

For sock 2, I decided that, while sock #1 fit me just fine, I wasn't very happy with the fabric. It seemed too loose to wear well, so I went down one whole needle size for the second sock, and used US 1/2.25 mm needles. Same number of beans and everything, and I liked the fabric much better, but the second sock was a bit small for my gargantuan tootsies.

You can see the stitches straining on the right sock - poor things!

So my dilemma is this: at least one sock will have to be frogged and reknit, so do I a) frog the big one, knit it again on US 1 needles, and hope I can find some coffee lover with feet the right size or 2) frog them both, and use US 1.5/2.5 mm needles in the hopes that I'll get a sock that is just right for meeeeee! I do love the coffee, but I know a number of smaller footed coffee lovers as well. Hmmmm...I might even be able to knit the correct number of beans on the leg if I do the smaller size.

Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the wrong side of a heel flap to look at.

Looks kind of cool, doesn't it?

Sewing FO: Devil's cupcake skort

After a massive shopping expedition to the fabric store with the girls, I came back and promptly cut out the pieces for this skirt. Which then sat for most of a week before they actually got put together.

Pattern: Simplicity 5531
Fabric: ??? Some cotton with cupcakes that Herself fell in love with. I bought 0.8 m of fabric, and had plenty left over.

This pattern was super easy. Two back pieces, two front pieces, one skirt flap. Sew together, hem, put in some elastic and you're good to go. There's supposed to be a button on the front, at the top of the skirt panel, but I couldn't find my button jar, and Dev was quite insistent that she put it on Right. Now. So...no button, but all is well.

I made the size 6, and there's plenty of room in there, both length and width-wise. If I'm really lucky, she can maybe wear this next summer too. Provided it isn't too devastated that is. And after such a quick and easy project, I got inspired to do this:

Cutting the pieces is always the toughest part of sewing for me - it takes so damn long! But after three hours hard work yesterday morning, I now have all the pieces cut out for their dresses. Expect more sewing FOs in the next little while!

Wiktory!

I know the standard is "pix or it didn't happen", but it's almost midnight and pictures will have to wait until tomorrow. But let the record show that at 11:32 pm GMT on 24 April, 2010, I finished spinning a veritable marathon of purple singles. Hooray!

In a week or so, I'll start the UltraMarathon of 2 stage plying. But for the moment, I think I'll celebrate by spinning something completely different.

Or maybe I'll knit something...

Almost there!

Here's the progression of my spinning week:

Monday night,

By Thursday night,

As of right now (6:00 pm GMT on Friday):

This is all that's left.

I am ahead of schedule, and I'm finishing tomorrow if it kills me.

ETA: I forgot to put in this picture of where I was spinning today: