Not what we hoped for

Well, that did not go well.  They couldn’t take any of the egg-sized tumor out.  It had sent out tendrils in and around and intertwined with some major blood vessels and arteries in her abdomen.  They opened her up, looked around, and closed her back up again.  They might have removed her spleen, but it’s blurry now.

 

Did I mention I hate cancer?  This sucks.  Big time. 

 

They say she probably has about 3 months.  A teensy bit longer if she does chemo and/or radiation, but I think she really really doesn’t want to do that.  She’s a firm believer in quality of life as opposed to quantity. 

 

I hope they’re wrong about the timeline though.

Friday’s the big day

We made it down to FL.  This is going to be quick because it’s very late and I’m typing in the dark on hubby’s computer trying not to wake up the boys. 

 

Tomorrow, well, actually today now, is the big day.  Steve’s mom goes in for her surgery at about 10 am.  Anyone who prays is welcome and encouraged to send a few or several her way.  Pre-op is at 10, surgery’s at noon, and she’s thinking we can come in and see her maybe around 7.  Fl time.

 

Thanks in advance.  Not much knitting got done on the way down.  I did though, almost finish crocheting a ginourmous granny square blanket for one niece.

Cookie Baking and Decorating 101

Or should I say 303, since there’s 3 of them?  Please ignore the background clutter and focus on the cuties.

On the far left there are the chocolate mint drops.  I made real chocolate frosting, yummy, and Russell put the little peppermint things on top.  Towards the middle are regular old sugar cookies, my mom’s ancient family recipe, in mitten shapes for Russell’s preschool.  His birthday is the 26th, and today was his turn to bring in treats, and they’re doing M words this week.  So, mittens it was.

Here’s one more FO for my family in IL.  Slippers for sister’s hubby.

Wow, that’s a dark picture.  The slippers are cute though.  Very cool pattern from Bernat.  I’m trying to find a link to it, but I can’t.

Lots to do today, but at least the IL knitting is done.  I also just found out when we go to FL, we’ll be staying not at Grandma’s house, but at my hubby’s brother’s house!  He’s the one with the 2 little girls.  Oh what fun.  I’m going to show them how to decorate cookies.  I wonder if they have Barbies yet.  Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve played Barbies?

What did I do before?

We’ve only been meeting up for a little over a year now, but I don’t know what I did before this.  My knitting ladies have become my oasis in the storm of life.  I almost didn’t go last night, partly because I was fighting off a migraine (second one in a week, that’s never happened before), and partly because hubby was running late.  I’m so glad I went though.  We have spread out from 3 or 4 of us gathered around 1 little round table at Panera’s, to having them push together 2 round tables for the 5 or 6 of us, to last night where there were 8.  And now we’re even getting more crocheters.  I got to meet one lady who I missed last week during our double dipping because she came on Friday and I came on Saturday.  And while we were sitting there, a lady who had been dining there with her husband came over and asked if we were a knitting group.  We invited her to join us and told her we were there most Friday nights, and turns out she used to work for Leisure Arts!  Woo-hoo!

And I finished some more things…

Hopefully, here’s a better picture of the fuzzy vest for my sister; I took the other picture in the dark.

Can you see the dropped stitches in the bottom half?  It is a very cool pattern.

Here’s the toilet paper for my dad.

I’ll have to put in a note explaining that it’s not a lap blanket.  And we voted last night whether or not to put on a face.  Most everyone wanted one, but I think that’s just crossing the line.  So sorry Brew Chicks with Sticks, it’s going faceless.

And one more, well, two actually.  A pair of beer sweaters, also for Dad.

All together now, Awwwwwwwww.

OK now, all that’s left are sister’s husband’s slippers out of some cool camo bulky yarn a good friend gave me and then to wrapping I will go!  And baking cookies.  And packing up for the FL trip.  Oh my, so much to do and so little time to do it.  Do I really need to sleep?

A couple more FO’s to show

Here’s my sister’s new Fluffy Vest.  Pattern link is to Ravelry.  Fantastic pattern, very easy to knit.  I would say to anyone wanting one to not choose a fluffy yarn like Symphony as it was an absolute bear to ladder down those dropped stitches.  Otherwise, very easy yarn to work with.

This is a potholder for my dad.  Free pattern from Knitpicks, also linked to Ravelry.   Using the leftover SWS from my Caliometry, I had exactly enough.  I started from the middle instead, so I could keep going until I ran out of yarn.  I ran it through 2, maybe 3 cycles in the wash, then the rinse cycle, then I laid it on the register to dry.

Felting on purpose is fun.

Not much to report here

I’m frantically trying to finish things in time to get them mailed off to IL. Our car has something seriously wrong with it that we don’t have the money to fix right now. We just got 2 new tires for it and it was $250. Wow. I’m trying to maintain a cheerful front for the kids when we just found out hubby’s mom is ill.

Seriously ill.

As in pancreatic cancer ill. She goes in for some pre-op thing on the 16th, to make sure she’s ok for surgery, I guess. Then on the 19th they’ll put her under and try to cut out everything they can. She’ll be in the hospital for a week, they say, then home. They say she’ll get chemo after that.

Hubby’s trying to find a not-too-expensive plane ticket to fly down there before the surgery to be there for his dad during, then the boys and I would probably drive down. I don’t know. Everything’s up in the air right now.

I hate cancer.

Woo-Hoo

That worked a lot better.  The Armando Hat, in Dark Fantasy Horse acrylic and a stripe of the leftover Patons SWS in Natural Slate.  That finally used it all up.   That cute little Noro Hat that was going to be for Patrick is going in the box for church. Nothing wrong with the pattern, I just estimated too small.  Dang it.

Aren’t those the cutest things?  They look like little purses, but they’re actually slippers!  This is one of the  projects for Steve’s sisters out in Denver and surrounding areas.  This sister has pretty much the same size feet as I do, so it was pretty easy to check the fit.  The yarn is very nice Plymouth Encore, and David has already claimed the remainder.  I’ll be putting these in the mail along with her silk/merino Fern Lace Hat.

In other knitting news, I’ve started on some knitted toilet paper for my dad, as a joke, although knowing him, he’ll think it’s a lap blanket.  There’s a story there.  Wanna hear it?  OK.  A few years ago, actually, quite a few years ago, my sister and I were gifted with the stash of a woman who passed away.  Her son and our dad are friends, and the son was talking to our dad and asking if he knew anyone who crocheted because his mom had all this yarn and he sure didn’t want to just throw it away.  He wanted to  make sure the yarn would go to someone who’d use it.  My dad, bless his heart, said that his daughters crocheted, so why not give it to them.  Luckily, I happened to be visiting from Florida that week, and Dad came over to my sister’s house with a pick-up truck bed full of garbage bags full of yarn.  My sister and I unloaded them and put them in the basement and proceeded to have more fun than I can remember in a long time sorting through as many of those bags as we could before I had to get back home.

We started with colors.  She’d get all the purples, I’d get all the greens, and the rest we’d sort of take little by little.  Then we came across yarn whose popularity was, shall we say, from a decade long ago.  Not the pretty fallish colors you see nowadays.  We’re talking 1970’s rust, avocado green, and that pukey gold/orange/whatever color.  We thought we’d better separate those from the rest of the pile, and took a handy dandy tomato box and put it in the corner and dubbed it the Fugly Pile.

Dad came over at some point to check on our progress, saw that pile, and exclaimed with joy, “Oh, these are nice!”  We tried to convince him, but he woudn’t budge.  Those were the best ones.  We decided that if he liked them that much, maybe we should make something for him.  We thought the only thing those colors really were good for would be to be stepped on.  I triple stranded and crocheted him a rug.  It was a pretty shell pattern, and I made it rather long, imagining that the rug would be for his kitchen along the side where his stove and sink are.  I sort of eyeballed the length and made the width about 2 feet or so.

Turns out Dad loved it.  He didn’t realize it was a rug, and was using it as a lap blanket.  Said it was too pretty to put on the floor.  Later on, I made him a smaller rug, one that he wouldn’t be able to use as a blanket.  And a cushion for his wooden chair.  And I still have some of the fugly yarn left over.

But this toilet paper is very cute.  I’m thinking of putting a note in there though…”This is not a lap blanket.”

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The kids and I are putting up the tree today. Knitting content to be included later. There is hot cocoa to be drunk, cookies to make, and ornaments to unwrap and hang.

Excuse me, Bing is calling…

Notes on the Amanda hat

Isn’t that pretty?  I’m trying to ignore the irony.  My brother’s had 2 serious girlfriends in his life.  The first was Amanda.  We all loved her.  She was so adorable.  Thought for sure they’d get married.  They grew apart, and are actually still friends.  Never could figure that one out.  His next girlfriend is Kristen.  I didn’t think that it was possible, but we love her even more.  They’re engaged.  Yippee!  He proposed last fall, and they waited to tell my dad about it until the day that would have been my parent’s anniversary.  Awwww.  Seriously.  So, I’m trying to ignore the odd-ness here that I’m giving Kristen a hat that happens to be named the same name as her fiance’s ex-girlfriend.  Knowing her though, she’d think it’s a hoot.

Notes though…Patons SWS  in Natural Geranium, a little bit of Natural Slate on the brim.  Turns out I would have had enough of the geranium, but this way her hat and Kyle’s hat are sort of coordinating without being to the point of throwing up.  Size 9 needles, but I did the decreasing on size 8 dpns, since I don’t have any 9 dpn.  I did 4 garter stitch ridges, 4 pattern repeats, 2 garter ridges (4 rows total), 3 1/2 more pattern repeats (I didn’t want to do the full 4 more, the hat was looking really tall), 2 more garter ridges, and then the decreases.  Pattern is the Amanda hat, here on this blog.

Hate to tempt fate here, but I’m doing pretty well on this Christmas knitting stuff here…

UPDATE!!!  I wrote all that last night, and guess what?  I tempted fate.  Crap.  I had Patrick try this hat on, thinking that since I have a few skeins of the SWS still to use, and thinking that I didn’t even use up a whole one on these hats, I thought that after Christmas I’d make some of these for the boys.  This hat almost fits him.  It’s just a little big.  Then I looked at the hat I made for him.  That hat is way smaller.  I thought, “Now wait a minute.  The pink hat is for a grown up.  Granted, she’s rather petite, and I still think it’ll fit her, but the pink hat fits my 6 year old.  And the hat I made him is much much smaller than the pink hat.  Crap.  I don’t think that the hat I made him is gonna fit him.”

I didnt’ want him to try it on since that would sort of give away the surprise.  So, last night in the dark, I had Russell try it on.  He couldn’t see that it was orange, so he wouldn’t announce loudly that that hat was Patrick’s favorite color and did I make that for him?  I just told him it was a hat and when he asked for who, I said I didn’t know yet.  I wasn’t really lying, since if didn’t fit him then I didn’t know who I was going to give it too.  Guess what?  It barely went on his head.  Too small.  And, if it’s too small for Russell, who’s 4, I’m fairly certain that it’ll be too small for Patrick.  Crap.

Guess who started a new hat last night using the other half of the orange skein?  I’m just hoping I can get a whole hat out of it without having to frog this one.  I think it’s going into the box for the church.  Somewhere there’s a toddler who’ll love this.

PS…extra points to anyone who can figure out what the theme of the blanket is underneath the hats.  You can look back on the previous posts too, I’ve been taking pictures the past few days all in the same place.

Think all the way back to September

That’s when I made these.  Realized today that I never put up pictures, I don’t think, of the socks I made for Kristen for that Cascade part of the State Fair.  I thought I better put these up before I wrap and mail them off!

Know what?  Since these didn’t win, the pattern is mine!  If anyone’s interested, I’ll be happy to post the pattern later on this week.  Might just do it anyway.

Here’s that very cool oven mitt.  This yarn was going to be the 3rd entry in that same Cascade thing, but I ran out of time.  My brother’s favorite color is yellow.  So, since it’s the regular Cascade 220, I thought, hey, this felts.  My friend had made one and she told me how wonderful it turned out, so I was inspired to try it as well.  She did some needle felting on the top, which I’m not going to do.  I’m happy with it as is.  I had thought about trying to do a smiley face on it with black, but I wasn’t sure about the shrinkage, and I didn’t want a distorted squatty smiley face.  Then I thought about actually back-stitching it on, but the felted fabric seems pretty thick.  Then I thought about trying to needle felt it, and then I thought, hey, it’s nice the way it is.  Just leave it alone.  I just hope my brother’s hand is not much bigger than mine.  I ran it through 3 cycles, and I should have stopped at about 2 1/2.  It was pretty tight.  I stretched it out as best I could, but next time, stop it early.

Christmas Knitting – I have you!  That is, if I can sew up that fuzzy vest thing I’m making for my sister.  I may cave in and just crochet the thing together.  Good thing there’s only 4 seams, 2 up either side, and 2 on top of the shoulders.  Seaming with fuzzy yarn is really not at all fun.