Blithering Knitiot

Happy Fourth of July!

May you all have a wonderful weekend,
and keep in your hearts those who are far from home.

Red Skelton recites

The Pledge of Allegiance.

Enjoy!

Monday

Today was the last day for students in the high school.  They now have Standardized Regents testing for the next 8 days or so.  So, the school year is almost over.  The elementary school still has kids till the bitter end, and then graduation for the high school is the 28th.  It's the longest two weeks of the year...

I called my Mom tonight to let her know I had replaced a valve or something-or-other in my kitchen sink faucet to stop it from dripping.  It's been dripping for a long time.  Years, actually.  Since I may have company staying here for graduation weekend, I thought it might be nice if the faucet didn't drip.  And now it doesn't.  My Dad would have been so amazed and pleased that I did that all by myself (which I thought would give my Mom a chuckle).

My Mom isn't living at her home at the moment.  She's living at the home of her friend Wilson.  Mom has known Wilson for many decades.  She knew Wilson before she met my Dad and married him.  They were friends, but never dated.  After my Mom married my Dad, she and Wilson grew apart.  Mom and Dad raised their family, we all grew up and moved away to acheive whatever it was we were searching for.  Then Dad had his stroke and after three and a half years of hospital beds and nursing homes, passed away.

I'm not sure exactly when Mom and Wilson rekindled their friendship, but it was a very good thing for both of them.  Wilson's kids had moved away also, and he and Mom would do things like pick black berries and Mom would make pies.  They would shop together and go out for breakfast and just be wonderful companions for each other.  I might add at this point that Mom is 77 and Wilson is 96.  And, unfortunately, Wilson has Cancer and is dying.  Mom is staying with him till the end to help care for him (He did have live-in help until very recently, which is another story all together) and to see that his banking and house is taken care of.  And that he is taken care of.  (There are a couple of women from her apartment building that come in to give her a little break to get out and run her errands, so she's not doing this totally by herself.  But she is living there.)  She makes sure he eats something, although in the past several days, that has become almost nothing.  His mobility has become very limited in the past week or so.  He doesn't want to take his pain medication - he's a stubborn guy, that one.  Mom thinks that his final days are close at hand.

Hospice has been called to come in and help.

I'm not quite sure why I am sharing this, other than to say how proud I am of Mom's deep loyalty and devotion to her friends.  And how much I love her.  She amazes me with her strength of character.  She's an amazing human being.

Update: Wilson passed Wednesday morning at 3:13am.  Mom, and Wilson's minister were present, each one holding his hands.  Thank you for your kind words and prayers for Wilson and Mom.  The suffering is over, and Wilson is at rest.

The Spin In

Some pictures from today's Spin In held at a local winery.  Everyone was all too willing to share their thoughts and philosophies about spinning, or what to spin, or on what to spin it.  It was a very educational afternoon, and I think looking for a wheel is not as daunting a task as it once was.  Besides spinning, there was some knitting going on, as well as some very cool needle felting. 

Shawls from Homespun:

Homespun yarn:

Needle felting:

More Homespun:

So, lots of watching and talking and learning.  All very inspiring.  Now, to get out the drop spindle and get to work...

A Package from Abroad

It's been such a hectic couple of weeks.  Kindergarten Programs, concerts, performances, awards ceremonies...  And some really hot and humid weather thrown in.  Needless to say, not a lot of knitting has gone on, although the red mohair shawl I've been working on only needs to be bound off, and I did knit a chevron bookmark for the Words & Bookmark Swap.  I do have pictures of what I sent to my swap partner, Jackie, in the UK, but until I know she's gotten it, you'll just have to wait a little bit...

BUT, I did get my package from her today, so I'll give you a couple of pictures of what she sent.  The guidelines of the swap basically were to knit or sew a bookmark and send it with a pre-1960's written book that somewhere mentions knitting.  Jackie sent a lovely crocheted bookmark, "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens, Jackson's of Picadilly Pure White Chinese Silvertip Tea (which sounds REALLY yummy!), Bronnley English Fern Luxury Soap, Green & Black's Organic Chocolate Collection, and the most lovely blue Jitterbug Yarn by Collinette:

Tomorrow I'm going to a Spin In and Fiber Fair at the Black Bear Winery near Binghamton.  I'm hoping to get to meet some local spinners and maybe get to try a wheel or two.  I've been wanting to try a wheel since coming home from the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat.  I'll take the camera and get some pics!

I also bought an iMac last week, so I have to say that at the moment, I'm a pretty happy guy.  I hope all is well with you, and have a great weekend!

For Ted

I met Ted a couple of weeks ago at the Men's Knitting Retreat.  Ted is an amazing knitter of lace, and more importantly, a wonderful human being.  And because Ted tagged me for this meme, I'll play along.  So, here goes...

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.  Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
    Ten years ago I was given the opportunity to teach high school music along with my elementary duties where I work.  It was an exciting time of trying new things, and working with an age group I had never really worked with before.  The cool thing about it was that I had been teaching in my district long enough that the kids I was teaching in high school I had taught when they were in first and second grades, so now I was getting another chance to work with them as teenagers.  They had grown up quite a bit and had developed personalities as young adults.  And they were so willing to take what I had to give them as a teacher.  It was an awesome time.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
    Meet with my trainer and some other people from the YMCA after school for a beer or two.
    Get a package ready to mail for a swap
    Walk Lizzie
    Starch and iron a shirt for school tomorrow
    Call Molly (A dear friend who retired from teaching four years ago)

3. Snacks I enjoy:
    Please.  What snacks DON'T I enjoy???  LOL!

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
    Spread some of the wealth to friends and family who could use some help.
    Build a little log home.  With a seperate wing for Mom to have.  I don't get to spend as much time with her as I'd like, and I do like spending time with her.  And since she's probably the world's most loyal Phillies fan, she needs a little place all to herself to watch her games on tv.
    Buy a Steinway Grand piano.
    Hire someone to clean, a trainer to work with me, and a cook.  I'm not fond of cooking, so that would be a BIG luxury.
    Travel
    And of course, knit more and try new things.  Like hang gliding...

5. Places I have lived:
    Tunkhannock, Pa.
    Mansfield, Pa.
    Norwich, NY.
    Hubbardsville, NY

6. Peeps I want to know more about:
    Kate
    Guido
    Knittingbrow

There you go!  A meme.

Project Linus

Last February my high school chorus sponsored a Project Linus "Make a Blanket Day", and since I promised quite a while ago that I would share some pics of the blankets that were made, here you are.  These blankets were knitted and crocheted by a local knitter's group.  This sweet bunch of women meets every Tuesday morning at a local library, and when I contacted them to see if they would be interesting in making a couple of blankets, they heartily agreed.  What I ended up with was 35 blankets of all sizes, including one spectacular quilt!  These women went above and beyond the call of duty, and they were so proud of the things they made - and they should be!  I think the photos speak for themselves.











And one of my favorites - little piggie heads and tails:



These are just the blankets from the knitter's group.  The kids made lots of fleece blankets - you know, the ones with the tied edges - there are about 60 of them.  So, almost 100 blankets to donate to one of the local Project Linus Chapters!  More pics of the blankets here.

As I was taking pictures this evening, Lizzie thought it a good idea to stay out of the way, so she went to her favorite place to be in the warmer weather - the roof of the front porch.  There's a railing around it, so she's claimed it for her own:



I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Time with the Boys

The place: Easton Mountain
The time: This past weekend
The event: Men's Spring Knitting Retreat organized by Joe and Ted.
Thirty two men gathered from across the country and Canada to knit, spin, teach and share knitting and spinning.  We also shared much laughter, excellent food and stories of our lives.  It's really difficult to express how special and almost magical this past weekend was.  So, I'll give you some photos to share some wonderful memories from some men who knit.

The Guest House at Easton Mountain:

Joe, Scott and Sean knitting during Show & Tell:

More knitting:

One of Ted's shawls.  Ted is a master lace knitter, and I was fortunate to attend a lace knitting workshop run by him.  Maybe someday I, too, can knit something this spectacular:

A beautiful Saturday evening sky:

My favorite pictures from the weekend show exactly what the weekend was about - men getting together and sharing and helping and enjoying the process of knitting.  Sunday morning my friend Van was getting some help from Ted with his very first sweater:

Is that a look of concentration, or what??

The weekend was a very special moment in time, and I think we all walked away with some very wonderful memories, and a sense of community that will always hold an important place in our hearts.

Now, I have some lace knitting to practice.  Have a great night.

Lately...

Life has been it's usual busy, get things done and meet some deadlines and have some more performance kinda thing. 

Drama Club at school presented "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde a couple of weekends ago.  I was the Prop Master for the show, so tea cups and silver tea services, journals and LOTS of cucumber sandwiches were taking up my time.  These kids ate through almost the entire show!  They were awesome and had quite an excellent theatre adjuducation from the New York state Theatre Association!

Some of my high school singers attended a New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) solo festival this past weekend.  They did pretty well overall, and two of them received a perfect score on the pieces they performed. 

This weekend I'll be attended an all male knitting retreat just north of Albany.  I'm very excited!  I'm taking a laceknitting class, a spinning class, double knitting and a class on binding off techniques.  I think there are about 35 men going, so it should be quite a hoot!  My friend Van, who I met through menwhoknit.com will be going, so he and I can do some catching up, as well as meet lots of new people.  I know of a few guys who are going, but I'll take lots of pics and let you know who they are next week.

Yesterday I drove to Pa. to take Mom out to dinner for Mother's Day.  It was a very nice day.  It's not often we get to have time with just the two of us, so it was a nice treat.

I've started a little lace bookmark for a swap, and a mohair shawl is on the needles for some mindless knitting.  That's it for knitting at the moment. 

I hope you all are having a great start to your week!

It's been a little hectic...

Well hello there!  I can't believe it's been a month since my last post.  And what have I been up to?  No knitting.  Well, not much, but we'll get around to that...

So my kids had their high school production of "She Loves Me".  It was awesome, if I do say so myself.  In a nutshell, it was the right play for this group of kids.  I had options for casting, which was all put to rights during auditions, and it really did become the little Valentine of a musical that it was intended to be.  We also had an adjudication from the Theatre Association of New York State (TANYS), which was a great learning experience for us all.  An adjudication basically is a critique by a trained adjudicator, which looks at ALL the aspects of the production, from the printed program to the lighting, set design, props, costumes, music and acting.  We were given two roving adjudicator awards, one for our lead actor for his performance, and the second award was for the printed program (Since the plot involved annonymous letters to "Dear Friend", the program was written as a letter and was even in a matching pink envelope!).  So, the adjudicator liked that little detail a lot.  The scripts have since sent back, the costumes and props and sets were put away, and another musical came to an end.

We also had another Project Linus event in February.  We have over 100 blankets to donate to the cause this year, and the kids and a local knitters group did an outstanding job!  I'll post some pics this coming week.  One of my favorite blankets this year is a crocheted baby blanket with little blocks of pig faces alternating with blocks of pig tails!  It's just too adorable!

The kids and I spent a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago cleaning out the costume room at school.  actually, we started to clean it out - there's so much to do that it's going to take several days to get it finished.  We threw out 8 garbage bags of old clothing that was falling apart or unusable.  It made quite a nice dent in what needs to be accomplished.

Today was our annual Spring Concert.  The kids did an outstanding job.  I've had bigger choruses than this one, but the sound these kids have is really special and well blended.  The sang the spiritual "Every Time I Fell the Spirit", "The Road Not Taken" by Randall Thompson, and "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by PDQ Bach.  We also recognize our seniors at this concert, which usually involves a little gift and a speech of some sort.  The speech went very well, and then the seniors take over and give a gift to their director.  Well, one of my little "off color" saying that the kids find amusing is when I talk about discipline and say something like "use a brick, don't hurt your hand".  Their first gift to me was a brick that they all had signed.  And the second gift, since I had been knitting at musical rehearsals this year (and I can't believe how it helped me to concentrate on what they were doing onstage - very interesting), they got me the book "Stitch & Bitch" by Debbie Stoller.  The funny thing was that they really couldn't say the title of the book on front of hundreds of people - they can be shy at times.  Not very often, but it does happen on ocaission.  So, I have a brick, a new knitting book, and I've been outed as a knitter to the community by my kids.  The Board of Ed. members at the concert were very amused - and very congratulatory about the kids work.  It was a good day.

Oh, and the mohair shawl?  After doing a little ripping out, I decided to put it away for a little bit.  Ripping out mohair is not a pleasant task, and I think that will have to happen in small amounts.  But I did start another one in reds, rusts and oranges.  I'll be a little more careful this time....

I hope you all are doing well.  It looks like spring might actually be paying us a visit.  Enjoy your Monday!

Crap.

So I'm still working on this mohair shawl, and I have three rows left to do.  I lay it out to get a good look at it, and (you know what's coming!) I see this hole about 20 rows back.  Yep.  I dropped a stitch.  I don't remember the last time I ever did that.  So, I guess I'm gonna do some frogging tonight after rehearsal.  And since it's mohiar, you know how much fun that's gonna be....  Crap. 

A woman I work with told me frogging could be kinda Zen-like.  Yeah, whatever....