Catching my breath. A summation.

It has been a long and devastating winter.

Beginning in September, when Suzy died. My beloved aunt who embodied all that was good about my mother's family. When she died we lost our collective center. She was our girlish charm, our incisive wit and our always gracious and pretty, charming  Suzy.
In September I also began a new job. Well the same job but in a new location and with new people. And horrendous commute. The commute has turned nine hour work days into twelve fourteen hour endurance tests and it has worn me out.
In November I got sick and I was not well again until January. I was prescribed inhalers and four different kinds of asthma meds, antibiotics and steroids and had two chest xrays to rule out pneumonia. The PA said that even tho the X-rays were negative for pneumonia, she was treating it like pneumonia and that X-rays were not always the best indicator. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, does the X-ray always say it is a duck?
In January I grew awful hemorrhoids, caused by the constant coughing. I took a few days off to treat them. I got written up at work for absenteeism My silly pride prevented me from telling anyone. I did not go to the doctor because I was afraid. Have you ever experienced hemorrhoid excision? I had. Not something that you want to repeat. Did you know that  50% of the population experience hemorrhoids? Mine were thrombosed, which is a kind of exploded version. and it meant constant pain. A week ago I had another excision which thus far has failed to resolve the problem and I fear I may need more surgery or at least continue to be in pain. Unhappy does not begin to describe the feeling. I fear more pain, I dread more surgery. I will learn more when I visit the doctor later today.  I observe that I have given a big part of this diatribe to the problems in my heini. Well? in truth it has been a constant underlying issue for months. So in the interest of truth and explanation, I expound upon the misfortune of my southernmost port.

In February we learned that my dad had a terminal esophageal cancer and in April we lost him. He declined treatment and chose to die at home and in as much comfort as we could provide. I will be forever grateful to the Hospice organization at Bon Secour. They gave us the ability to help my father die in the midst of his loved ones and there is no better way to be escorted from this existence. 

A  month has passed and it still does not seem real that my north star has been extinguished. I am awash in sadness that pervades  my very core. I am adrift on a becalmed sea. As new life indeed unfolds in the form of my still in-utero grandson, I mourn the loss of my dad. For all of our imperfect and constantly human and inadequate articulation, we did love each other. Of that I am certain and always will be.

And now it is spring. Green shouts from every crevasse and every crack and cranny. Green drips and flies and spurts and dances and sneaks and dangles. I am grabbing onto it and hanging on for dear life. I am at a crossroads. I do not know how or why but I know it  as sure as I live and inhale green-and I am going to err on the side of optimism. wish me luck.

show time

 It is the day of Jen's baby shower. We are having 45+ people in my back yard. Mike and Eugene erected a  tent, to protect from either the suns rays or the clouds drops, and I have asked a talented friend to cater **and we rented chairs. I had not even thought about chairs. I wonder what else I have forgotten.

 Conveniently I am recovering from surgery in a location which makes it painful to either sit or stand and I have been ordered by my ferocious surgeon not . to. lift. a . thing. and to have six 'sitz baths' a day. really. six. 

 so I have quite literally been directing things from a throne of sorts.

 Mike has been an absolute saint and not even cursed me out once. well not loud enough for me to hear anyway. 

 In a few short hours the guests will arrive and libations will be offered and festivities will commence and endure and be recorded and as the world twirls her way around the sun (which is presently unobscured by clouds), we will feast and fête our way through the day. 

Subsequently, gifts gifted, silly games gamed, toasts offered and accepted and food and wine administered, we will, one by one, with fond memories and wishes, and pictures on our camera phones, disperse, each to her own sphere. One gala accomplished. 

And then and only then will I return to my throne, with a book and my omnipresent iPhone and rest.  

Train appliqueing

I suppose it references my addictive aspects. I am now contemplating a train worthy sewing kit. As of now I am using a Manila envelope.

Walter Gray Markham 1/19/1926-4/15/2012

Metaphor for my son

John Holmes

I hope when you're yourself and twice my age
Still you'll rake your heart in unreasonable rage
At the imperfect praise of perfect things,
If in all the weathers of your mind and power
You work to stretch the best of fliers' wings.
I've seen the landsmen tire their legs in an hour.

And I hope you'll have a son a flier who fights
Your old-fashioned praise of earlier heights.
But may his son remember the three of us,
And understand our impatient angry pride.
Let the wind blow in your lifetime long to bless
Good wings, and you be one to see them ride

As I see them soar up the bright streams of air,
Hang, wing away, shine in the shine of bare
Sunlight pouring toward earth in middle day.
You'll see man's power alive in grace; then see
The grounded watchers stare up and turn away.
I say, Curse them. And may you always be

Angry as I am when the tough, the rare, the tall
Fliers with all their wisdom burn and fall.
I hope you'll live to learn to rage at their death
Too young by unnatural causes away from the field.
I want you to measure as I have measured breath
Then, and to keep the deep wells of grief sealed.

This will be hard on you, but high is hard.
I want you to tell our sons I cursed; I cared.
And forget me. Tell them it was not always so
That all men clambered on any climbing thing
To drag it down. You'll tell them, once you know, 
Even once, air running over and under the wing,

Wind trying and shaping the immeasurable air
To a map of the coasts of heaven forever clear.
Fear will be tied around your wrist. But fliers
Before our time have had that weight there, too,
And heard the long wind screaming through the wires,
And have done what they have told themselves to do.

Picture just because

Betula ring.

designed by Carina Spencer, knitted by me , yarn malabrigo bulky in Violetas, one skien. I had to make it a few rows shorter and did not do the stretchy bind off, so it just makes it over my head. I will get two skeins for the next one. Now I need to find the buttons to finish it....

Sky ladder

Blanket progress. The lighting is bad making the picture yellow. But progress is being made.

Breakfast with Hedy.

Things have been quiet

I realize I have not been posting much. Lots going on.
Love this photo of dad and doodle. She thinks she is a lap dog.

wotd feb 4

Word of the day is limbo

Bend low

Bend into a deeper pose

Bend more

Word of the day is red 

Indecision 

Six of one half dozen of the other 

Word of the day is endings

Long and slow

Known or not known

All is not known

In reality. Do not know if it is an end or a new beginning..

heaven or hell 

or limbo

Purgatory or punishment 

Parallel universe?

Is it dogma? Rhetoric?

illusion

Myth or faith or cynicism..

Word of the day is present

Nothing else matters. 

clubz

I have joined a yarn club -the BareNaked Knitspot which will keep me supplied in wooly goodness for the next seven months or so. Last year's club, also hosted by Knitspot's Anne Hansen was how I knitted all of my Christmas gifts. This season the focus is on undyed extremely lovely yarn and the first installment is not a disappointment. So I am off on another knitting adventure.

Isn't it funny how knitters and quilters all love project bags. This one is from Three Bags Full on Etsy and they were made for the club in beautiful neutrals to match our yarn. The wool is the softest merino -from the American West, Mountain Meadow Wool, and it will be for a baby blanket. It has already provided me with knitting delight. My only regret is that I do not want to take it onto the train and get it germified, so I am knitting it exclusively at home.

wooly merino goodness and knitting project bag from Knitspot

The Pleasures of
Beach Bathing
Long Beach Post Office Mural By John Corbino in 1939

My plan was to make toile from the image from the post office mural-a work in progress...click for full picture which I 'stitched' together on my iPhone.

Long Beach Boardwalk on a cloudy day

Reynolds Channel Crossing on a clear winter day from the Railroad

Best cat ever.

Made this in 1967?

Older than most of the people I know. First try at hand stitched button holes. Waaaay in the back of the closet.

Sheep wool!!!!

Will be knitted into a sweet sheep blankie.

   I am planning to knit THIS! I have the pattern and the yarn is being contemplated. Do I knit the wonderful shetland un dyed gorgeous colors as shown? Or do I go crazy colored all over the place. Stay tuned...
   I love to plan projects like some people plan vacations. I pore over the patterns and read them line by line. I print them and highlight and make notes in the margins. I count the long lines of stitches and write the numbers on the charts and put the pages in plastic sleeves to keep them safe. Just in case I do not have the pattern printed, I email it to myself and put it on my iPhone and my iPad. Just. to. be. sure.
   Shopping online for yarn is a great pleasure. It boggles the mind to have the resources that we have on the interwebs. I can order real shetland yarn from Jamieson and Smith in the UK or find a substitute in the US of A. Or I can go to one of many superb yarn stores in NYC- or- if I am very patient, I can wait till one of the yarn and wool festivals within traveling distance in the coming year.
   The J&S shetland supreme 2 ply for this Blanket  is also available here in the states at Yarns International  (They do not charge shipping!) They also carry the J&S dyed shetland in the event that one does want to added a colorful ram or three to above referenced sheep blanket.
   Once it arrives,  I wind the yarn into balls and find the needles and stitch markers and life line supplies if I am knitting lace, and put it all in a zippered bag to be picked up at my leisure. Don't laugh. I have some leisure. Socks and small things I can bring on my commute, but bigger more complicated patterns I leave for home knitting. This will begin at home but it looks like it is also a commutable pattern.
   Quilted projects also have their planning stages. But many times when planning a  quilt project, I let it take its own course. Maybe it is a product of having done it for much longer than I have been knitting, so I have a more relaxed approach. But many is the night when I drift off to sleep counting colors and patterns and not sheep.

Tiny houses from scrap:) I kind of edged into this side ways telling myself that if I finished my other stuff first I would allow myself a few little houses. I have a thing for houses. This is my third house project. My first was a huge denim monster from the days of Georgia Bonesteel and it is truly a monster but I adore it and the second was a wall hanging from the same era, all in blue calicos.
But these! these are just bitable. I have not found my perfect method yet. I have tried paper piecing and strip piecing and just plain old eyeballing..of course this ensures that they will not be uniform: that they will, in fact, be wonky, and I accept this. I have not yet hand pieced any and I am dead certain that this will be the most precise and perfect method-but I am more inclined to allow for imperfection, so as to actually get some done. Jeanekke has all of her pieces lined up in a partitioned box which is very alluring, making me want to go out and find the perfect box and spend hours arranging my sections but then you see I would not have time to sew any together. So I resist, telling myself that if the perfect box exists for me, the universe will present it, in the fullness of time.
I find that I can use very small scraps for these ( the window square is less than an inch) and they will be scrappy and I will not need to buy anything for them and that is the perfect recipe for tiny houses. Be sure to visit Jeanekke's blog for lots of info as this is her project and there are about 800 people worldwide who are doing the "a tiny house a day" project.
It has always been a dream of mine to build an actual tiny house  but this may have to do for now.

Cleaning the sewing room

As usual, not much cleaning got done, but I found a bag of 2.5 inch squares that I was saving.
*updated to add**This pattern was down loaded ten years ago for a website called Aroundoz and it is called Ann's scrappy quilt. Although the website looks the same I did not see the link to this pattern. But I wanted to make sure to give credit where credit is due. Thanks Chrissy! **

Oh my yes

Bluemoonefiberarts-Hotlips!

christmas bird

Do you see what I see???