unabashedly sad

I was going to write a longer post about how my brain has been so fried, my thoughts so all over that place that I cannot rein them in on most days. During any given conversation, I will ask a question and as soon as it leaves my mouth, my thoughts wander on to ponder something else. I have to force myself to hear and remember the answer. I think I am getting a glimpse of what it must be like to have ADD? When I talk to my kids, I often hear: Did you just hear a word I said?

I have no idea if this has to do with the thyroid removal. In the beginning, I thought that the anesthesia had something to do with it, but now it is nearly 3 months later. The doctor is still trying to adjust my thyroid meds, because the levels have been too high. I am sincerely hoping that this is now the right dose. I will know at the end of August, when we do more bloodwork.

That was going to be my roundabout way of letting you know why I haven't blogged much. Yes summer has its own pace, and somehow I end up in the position, more than during the schoolyear, of managing everyone's schedules. There seem to be so many more schedules to manage. All the while I am doing my darndest to dye more yarn.

But all this, all of my wandering, unruly, and confused thought processes were put to a sudden halt this week when we found out that a dear friend's daughter had a stillborn little girl. A sweet perfect little one who never got to take one single breath, to borrow her grandmother's words. I am sad through and through. The family is posting on facebook and prayers are pouring in by the dozens. If you have some prayers to share and send, please do. The little angel's name is Eliana.

It seems that such a tragedy can be ameliorated with lots and lots of love...I'm hoping, anyway. Sending love, knitting a prayer shawl, making dinners for the family: somehow it drowns out horrible questions as to WHY? Why did this happen? Why is a little boy who was waiting for his little sister to arrive and make him a big brother, why is a little boy now faced with such unanswerable questions?

Truth be told, I have the questions, and I know at the same time that there are no answers. I don't expect anyone has them. So I just try to hold some of the grief that I know must be so much to bear for the family.

Poking around the yard today with my camera...

  Black eyed Susans are abundant now.

Phlox, too.

The white one has some pink stripes in it...

and the pink is taking on white flecks...that patch of phlox is doing its own cross breeding.

Then I peeked over the fence to see my neighbor's hydrangeas.

I've been doing a whole bunch of yarn dyeing the last couple of weeks, so color is foremost on my mind...glad to see that nature always gets it right. She never runs out of color ~ me, I have to order more online or over the phone.

Like yesterday, when I was supposed to dye more silk / merino blend. I go to my dye powders, only to realize that I had dyed myself into a corner and ran out of a certain color. Hrmpf. Those skeins of Rasbberry Truffle will have to wait...but I promise I will have them as soon as more dye arrives.

How is your summer going?

LYS KAL!

Liz at the Spinning Room in Altamont is hosting a Knit-Along for the Mythos cardigan. Must be a case of Great Minds Think Alike, because I wanted to make that cardi as soon as I saw it!

For anyone who wants to participate and use Periwinkle Sheep yarn, HERE are your options!  Let the shop know by Thursday, July 29 which of the five colors you would like me to dye for you, and I will bring your yarn to the shop in time for the KAL to begin on August 1st.

We are offering a 10% discount on PS yarn used for this KAL.

For those of you who are not local to me, I will post the same yarn (it's watercolors II) on etsy in a week.

what a pair!

There is a wee little girl on the way right now, and I needed to make her some bootees:

Periwinkle Sheep watercolors II sock yarn, "hot pink", size 2 needles.

Though that pattern, which has been made over 8,000 times according to ravelry, gave me fits by the time I made the second shoe. I had to rip out the wee little straps twice. Didn't know what was frontwards and backwards any more. I'd like to blame the heat and the humidity, because surely it can't be my knitting skills.....

If you were hesitating to comment after the last post, I fixed the link to Donna's blog entry. Here it is again to make sure. Sometimes you have to do things twice the get it right.

I'll also try very hard not to toss any more comments into cyberspace.

more Successful Lace!

If it's Thursday morning on July the 15th, 2010 when you see this, I want to direct your attention to here. Donna Drunchunas, author of Successful Lace, is featuring all of the contributors to the book one day at a time.

And as you may already know, I played a small part. :)

ETA: Kathy and AlisonH: I saw your comments and wanted to post them. The disappeared in cyber space. Something about error#503. But I saw them! I read them! Thank you!

sweet!

To see the wonderful surprise I got, look at THIS yummy page.

Periwinkle Sheep cashmere blend  Sock Dream  in the Caramel colorway is on the menu! 

Thank you akcArt!

a tale of two blankets

There is a young woman on my Stash Knit Down forum on ravelry who has three small children which keep her very busy. She is the assistant little league coach on her son's team. She is a fantastic knitter and spinner. She also has a couple of chronic and autotimmune diseases which can get her to the point of having to slow down a LOT.  One day, it was pretty bad. That's when I decided, she needs a blanket of love.

I put the call out, starting a new thread on the forum, called "Stash Knit Down cares!".  People did care, and while I was home recuperating from my surgery, the packages came in, one by one, from all over the world.

They not only had beautiful squares in them, but also get well cards for me,  cards for our Stash Down friend, and goodies for both of us. It was like Christmas in the middle of summer.

There were so many squares, I was able to put together a kid's blanket,

and a big blanket. This one mearures 48x60 inches!

 I sent them out last week, and the recipient is feeling very loved.

Hooray for knitters!!

heat wave, day 4

I'm not usually a complainer, but hoo boy! It's hot. Hazy, hot, humid. I don''t have asthma, but I feel like breathing is becoming harder. There is a cooling station up the road from us at our brandnew public library branch, where they have a community room that is air conditioned and where they will serve people cold water.

My fingers feel sticky just trying to tap on the keyboard. Knitting has become an impossibility. I've been spinning some here and there, because I signed up for the Tour de Fleece at my LYS. With the fan right on me, I can spin a little at a time before the wool gets sticky, too!

Yesterday, I took my daughter and two of her girlfriends up to a local mall for a couple of hours. It wasn't crowded at all; we treated ourselves to lunch, before we headed home to watch Germany lose against Spain in the World Cup semifinals.

If cooking dinner sounds daunting in this weather, here are a couple of very yummy recipes. Thank you, Bonnie!

In other bits'n'pieces news, Kathy from the comments was wondering if I'll have another giveaway when the hearts reach 200. Well I wasn't going to say anything so soon, but yes I have a few more contests up my sleeve for this year. One of them will happen no matter what, simply because it's a personal milestone, and the other....kind of depends on how many more people will buy my yarn. ;)

TTFN! Stay cool, or warm, whatever it is you need, and definitely stay loved.

96 degrees

Fahrenheit. Day two of a heat wave. Hazy, hot, humid.

I am declaring it Too Hot to Knit.

and the winners are:

Using the random number generator on random.org, I came up with the following results:

Colorway POOL SIDE: Margo Lynn!

Colorway RETRO: Sarah!

Colorway SWEET PLUM / suri merino lace: Diane!

If the winners would please email me their addresses to karinmaagtanchakATnycapDOTrrDOTcom, I will mail your yarn out this coming Tuesday. I hope you will enjoy your choices, I surely had fun dyeing the yarn.


Thank you everyone for participating!! I loved reading your comments.  :)

Have a great Independence Day weekend!