Checking In

I haven't been around here much - or anywhere on the internet. Mom is home since Friday the 17th and I've been staying with her. I have a computer there, but no internet connection, so I'm "sneaker-netting" emails back & forth to answer and transcribing genealogy files. I'm also reading a lot & knitting. I just brought the reading list in the sidebar sort of up to date, but still need to update the FO list. Mainly, I've been working on making hat & scarf sets that will go to the Homeless Veterans' Shelter in Detroit at Christmas. Some kind soul donated four or five large boxes of machine knitting weight (sport & fingering) spooled yarn to the Sr. Center through the LYS. It's too thin to do anything with as is, but four strands makes a heavy worsted weight. I've been mixing & matching colors to make tweedy "guy" type shades and I have 12 sets complete and I'm almost done with the 13th. I also made a couple more of the fun fur hats using the aqua fun fur matched with Fair Skies Rainbow Dreams that Sallee kindly sent me when she didn't like the way it worked up in a Clapotis. I have one more skein of cream fun fur that I'll match with Maritime for two more hats before Barn Days in October. I hope that the hats sell well as we can use the money to buy more yarn for practical projects. Anyway, that's what I've been up to since the 16th. I haven't touched the Palette yarn yet and I've only briefly scanned Ravelry as my invitation arrived only a few days before Mom came home.

Goodies

I finally had a chance this evening to open the Knit Picks order that came while I was staying with Mom at the hospital, so lots of photos in this one although with the flash, I had a tough time matching photos with the actual yarn. These are all Palette heathers - new colors this fall. Palette is a fingering weight yarn so don't ask me what I'm going to do with it yet - I just fell in love with the colors {g}.. I have two skeins of each - enough for a pair or socks or I may mix them all together in a vest.



Calypso



Clematis



Merlot



Tidepool



Verdant



Marine



Bluenote



Brindle



Rainforest

And the books:

Progress Report

Mom is still at the nursing center. We'd hoped to get her home midweek, but - probably because she's putting pressure on it to compensate for the fracture in the left pelvis - her right hip is hurting more and she came close to falling during a transfer on Sunday. So it seems that she'll have to stay a little longer & do more PT before she can come home. The last thing we want to happen is for her to fall again and break something else.

On the knitting front, I received my invitation to Ravelry and have been adding some of my finished projects to my "notebook" there. I finished these two small rag-tag afghans over the last month, but just got around to photographing them.





The pink one is about 30x36" and the grey one is slightly larger.

I don't have photos yet, but the LYS, Heritage Spinning & Weaving, donated five large boxes of acrylic machine knitting yarn cones to our K4 group. The strands are too thin (mostly fingering weight) to work on their own, but four strands together creates slightly heavier than worsted weight yarn. Right now, I'm using cones in black, dark grey, brown & a beige with sections of those other colors together to knit hats (size 13 needles) & crochet scarves (size P hook) that will go to the Shelter for Homeless Veterans in Detroit at Xmas time. I think last year, our K4 group sent about 50 hat & scarf sets so maybe we can top that this year.

Weeks That I Wish Weren't

It's been a while hasn't it? On July 17th, I went over to my Mother's around 1:30 in the afternoon to take her mail in and check on her. I found her on the floor in a lot of pain and called 911. In emergency, we were told that she had broken her elbow and fractured her pelvis in two places. Between the pain and her memory problems, she panicked that night after we left and tried to get out of the bed and pull out the IVs. When I came in the next morning, they had her uninjured arm tied down and she was in a full blown anxiety attack. So, I basically moved into the hospital and spent the next week sleeping in a recliner near her bed so I could reassure her when she woke up and didn't know where she was. On the following Wednesday, she was moved to a nursing center that fortunately is just three minutes from our house and has been there since. Hopefully, as the bones heal a little and she gains strength and recovers from the memory problems caused by anesthesia from the surgery on her elbow, I'll be able to get her home and take care of her there where she'll be more comfortable, but right now we're in a holding pattern where I spend a good part of the day at the nursing center.

At least, when I was at the hospital, I was able to knit.



These are like the fun fur hat that I posted earlier this month. I was working with the other skein of cream fun fur and from the comments I was getting from nurses, aides and other women working on the floor, these should be good sellers at Barn Days in October.



A couple more fun fur hats with Rainbow Dreams in Rosy Forecast for the crowns along with three hats in white with Rainbow Dreams Jetstream colorway that I made when I ran out of fun fur in my bag. I also have one afghan that I need to photograph done and another just a few rows from completion.

Once Mom is released from the nursing center, I'll move over to her house to take care of her. I'm hoping to be able to get a DSL connection over there so I'm not cut off from the internet and all my friends, but until that happens, I'll be posting sporadically.