Knitting Feeds

We haven’t met yet – but as we speak you are far away across the country, wrapped in a symbol of my tremendous affection for your wee self – your baby blanket. I know you’re very, very young and quite new around here and you don’t know much about knitting, but but let me tell you a thing or two about having a baby blanket. They take a long time to make. Many, many hours, days and weeks go into making a knitted thing for someone, and that means that whomsoever made the knitted thing for you thought of you for all of those hours and days and weeks, and thought that you were deserving of having that much of their life and time dedicated to you. You’re that important, wee Jack.

In your case, I also think particularly well of your Mum and Dad. Me and Joe (you’ll learn about him later, he’s very fun and loyal and rather hairy, sort of like a very big, very clever dog- You’ll learn about dogs later too) met your parents when they’d only recently come to Canada, and they were so young and nice and their own parents were far away, so we took an interest. We know we weren’t going to be a huge help because Joe and Lucy (you might have heard those names, that’s what we call your mummy and daddy) were still quite far from us too. We were at least in the same country though, and we thought that might be something. Turns out that really you’ve lucked out in the parent department, and they’ve got on perfectly. We drove across the country for their wedding and gosh, what a day. I know you probably have other things on your mind, but know that if you grow up to be as kind, funny, loving and constant as your father, you’ll do just fine – and if you turn out like your loving, thoughtful, sincere and charming mother that wouldn’t be a crime either. They are just the best sort of people -Anyway, on to the blanket, eh tot?

I have made many baby blankets Jack, and each and every one of them is unique. I think long and hard about how you got to be here, the things I think will represent your special story and things that will (when you are bigger, I understand that symbolism is lost on most people who are only days old) help you build a sense of the family you were born into, and the person you will become.

I start with the centre Jack, and yours is a field of leaves – meant to invoke the out-of-doors your parents love to be in, no matter where they roam in the world. Everywhere they are- in Norfolk or Banff, Queensland or Ontario, all places of the world I know they will share with you as you get bigger, a canopy of trees is overhead, gardens grow nearby and the smell of green and growing things drifts over your family. I know it’s coming to the end of a long Canadian winter and that’s all you’ve known, my wee beast – but the sweet and brief summer is coming, and you’ll love leaves when you meet them. These leaves also are a nod to your growing family tree – the branch that your parents have started, and the new leaf that is you.

Around that field of leaves is a tiny border of bitty hearts – for the month of February you were born in, and because even before you were born Jack, you had become the centre of your parents hearts – their dearest little love.

Sweet bairn, around that is a border of an old English pattern called Rose Trellis. See the roses climbing on the diamonds? This pattern is meant to invoke an English garden, and to remind you of your grandmothers. I am a grandmother, and I am here to tell you that their love is something you can count on now and every day that they live. There is an Italian proverb that says “If nothing is going well, call your grandmother” and Jack, this is great advice. I’ve met both your Grandmothers and I can tell you this: Not a day will go by that they will not wish to have you with them, and not a day that either of them would be willing to cross the sea if you asked them to. Distance is nothing to a grandmothers heart, and having a little grandson myself, I don’t think it’s much to a grandkid either. Your grandparents are going to be your strongest supporters and your biggest fans and you can count on them. I know that they feel so lucky that you have been born.

Beyond the very English garden looms the very Canadian Rocky Mountains. You are a first generation Canadian Jack, the child of immigrants and now a native citizen of the most beautiful country in the world (at least most Canadians think so) and you’ll grow up with those very mountains looking on you every day. We met your mum and dad because of those mountains, They live here because of them, and they were wed on the side of a mountain with the glorious range all around. Your parents are at home here – amongst the bears and the glaciers, the snow and the wildflowers, the striking blue lakes, the shimmering rivers and the spectacular peaks and trees. I am quite sure there will be some considerable debate about if you will be a skier or a snowboarder Jack, but Joe and I have already decided to stay out if it. Your orientation won’t matter to us at all and we can love you no matter who you are or what you love. I can’t wait to see you grow the same sense of belonging for the great wild places of this country – just as your folks and many aunties and uncles have. You live in a remarkable, beautiful place, and it is the sort of place that shapes people.

The border of your blanket- the part that goes all around the outside, is made up of waves. Great cresting waves, to symbolize how much of who you are and were you come from is reflected by your relationship with water. It goes without saying that your parents have a wonderful connection to the water around where you live – if your mum hasn’t already thought about when she can get you in a canoe I’d be surprised, and already you’ve met a great deal of water- albeit rather frozen. These waves are for the water near where you live, that your parents love to be in and on, they are for the water they crossed to come to Canada and the waves are to remind you that this is all that separates you from your English family – who live across the pond and many, many waves. For the English seaside you’ll visit, for the beaches and oceans you’ll see – and finally, for the water you came from yourself, born on a wave, already shepherded by your strong and lovely mum.

All of this together in one knitted thing is all that I hope for you wee Jack. The strength of mountains, the constancy of lapping waves. The sweet green leaves of the world all around you, and the enduring help of a family, as beautiful as roses and your own garden. This blanket is soft and it is big enough that you will fit under it your whole life, and I hope it’s a long-serving reminder of all the gifts and strengths you were born with.

You are a most welcome, hoped for and loved child, welcome, welcome, welcome.

Love,

Stephanie

I was just sitting here wondering how I catch you all up on everything from the last little bit because there has been so very, very much and I thought I’d start there. Holy cats, wing of moth, what a lot has happened – or maybe it’s not really that much and just feels like it because of one enormous thing that’s made everything else so much trickier.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been feeling like trash. No- wait. Hot trash. I’ve been catching everything that goes by for ages and never feeling like I catch up health-wise which leads to me feeling really behind on everything else (because I am) which was stressing me out and making me feel worse, and then I had several really scary … episodes, is I guess what you’d call them, and the whole thing culminated in a really terrible trip to the ER on Family Day weekend, which then wound up being emergency major abdominal surgery two days later. 0/10, do not recommend, and it was such a traumatic experience that I don’t even want to write about it yet.

I do recommend having fantastic kids and a great husband who all busted a move taking care of me and replacing my efforts around the house once I got home. I felt so crummy for the first week afterwards that not much of anything happened, though when conscious I did make really decent progress on that baby blanket I was working on the last time we spoke.

Me and the blanket, tucked up in bed together. A romance for the ages. Pattern is all mine, of course, and the yarn is Juniper Moon Pategonia.

I was supposed to fly out for a visit to a friend just a week after surgery, and then go on to the Spring Retreat at Port Ludlow, but my surgeon said I couldn’t fly for two weeks so I rearranged everything, cried into my pillow a little, and then put all my efforts into making sure that I was in the best possible shape to go and work at the retreat. (Also, I finished that baby blanket, I’ll show it to you when the recipients are in possession of it. It’s still making it’s way to them and I don’t want to spoil the surprises.)

Let me tell you – the day that I headed to the airport to wing my way west, I was not my usual chipper self. I managed to get it together by the time I got there, and Debbi’s a formidable powerhouse who made the whole thing possible but I am convinced that it was the power of my will and how much I love the retreats and the knitters that come to them that got me through that thing.

Another distraction, and proof that I do indeed finish things. This is Delightful Dots – yarn is from Lamb and Kid.

When I got home I went to bed and… well. I stayed there for about 24 hours – I think I slept almost 14 hours straight, and when I got up I was determined. I was saying all sorts of things like “enough is enough” and “time to get it together” and boy was I sick of not being well. I was tired of the restriction that I can’t lift anything, tired of being exhausted by the end of every day – absolutely fed up with wasting time on crap like naps and early bedtimes and stupid rests with lame cups of tea. I got up and I gave the week my all. Determined to muscle through we celebrated Charlotte’s birthday and gathered to observe the anniversary of her death, and I cooked and cleaned and organized and I suppose what happened was predictable.

I am here distracting you with a picture of my finished February Socks. Yarn is Jadawoo Designs in “forest moss” and the pattern is Siroc.

It didn’t work. All I’ve been trying to do is go, go, go, and all I hear from my body is no, no, no, so for the next few days I’m going to give up, as gracefully as humanly possible. I’m going to knit. I’m going to work quietly at my desk. I’m going back to rests and naps and lame cups of tea. (I actually like tea, I don’t know why I’m so mad at it.) I’ve started another baby blanket, if you can believe it – one more epic and then I think there’s a lull in the baby train for a bit. I’m only at the centre for this one, if I can truly rest and knit today then I’ll be blocking it tonight, and pick up all around for the edging tomorrow.

Yarn is still Juniper Moon Pategonia. Pattern is still all mine.

This one’s got a pretty epic set of borders, so the middle is comparatively wee. Tonight while it’s blocking (do you hear that optimism it is so impressive) I’m going to work on my SISC socks.

Yarn is Northbound Knitting MCN in Metallurgy, Pattern is Footsie.

Shocker – I’m behind on these. The rules (they are my rules so I can break as many as I want) of the Self-Imposed-Sock-Club say that I’m to knit 10 rounds per sock per day – but it turns out that there’s an invisible asterisk by that rule, and it reads “unless I am rushing a blanket”. So.. behind I am, and it feels right and valid – at least when it comes the socks.

Sigh.

Dr Seuss said “How did it get so late so soon?” and that my dear readers, sums up my feelings about this year so far. I cannot name a single thing that is on track so far, I feel behind on everything I’m trying to do – Joe finally arrived home from out west after three weeks away, and I was so looking forward to being back on track when he came down with norovirus. (I refuse to capitalize it to make my lack of respect clear.) I’m barely over the last thing I had so I have washed my hands until they’re sandpaper and mopped down the bathroom 87 times a day and slept in another room while muttering “not today Satan” under my breath and so far, so good. He’s well on the mend now so I feel like I might have dodged it, but honestly it’s enough of a mess over here that I this week I’m going to have to drop a few plans out of my queue and prioritize only the things that really matter. Case in point, I have completely let go of any plan to clean anything and am knitting this baby blanket like it’s a job. (Well, except for my jobs and setting up the Spring Retreat, there’s one or two spots left I think if you want to hang out IRL.)

I have two baby blankets to knit in the next little bit and if I had my way I’d be on the final edging for the second one, rather than starting the second border. (I have half a mind to let all the parents know what I think of babies that arrive back to back and so soon after Christmas, but I like babies too much to complain properly or with any kind of heart. This one’s for friends of ours and the next for my niece – no more grandbabies yet.) I’ve knit the centre and a garter border, then a little border and the first big one – today I start the second big border and garter section, then there’s a little one and another garter section and then bingo, I start the edging.

Pattern: mine Yarn: Juniper Moon Pategonia

It never ceases to surprise me how slowly this part goes. It seems like it should be so fast – the part I just completed is only 12cm deep and holding the work in my hands it’s pretty demoralizing that it took days, but really, each round went all the way, well… round, and that means that I added 12cm on each side, for a total of 48cm knit, and that means the blanket is now almost a half metre bigger and that’s a load of knitting and no surprise that it took a few days. Ellie is here for the weekend and although he’s a knitter he doesn’t want to spend hours and hours and hours at it, so we will see how far I get. (Abigail is here this evening and her focus in the area of the textile arts is pulling needles out of knitting, so I can’t imagine I’ll make good time then either.)

When I’m not working on the blanket, I’m working on my Self-Imposed-Sock-Club. The plan is 10 rounds a day on each sock each day- and last year that churned out 12 pairs of socks quite handily. I bagged up 12 patterns I want to knit and 12 skeins of yarn that I want to use and matched them up, stuck them in brown paper bags stapled them shut, mixed them around so I don’t know what’s in what bag, and put them on a shelf in my office. (I then instantaneously forgot what was in the bags, thus making it ridiculous that I’d mixed them up to try and fool myself.) The idea is that I pull down a bag each month but I got a late start in January and the rest of the month was on fire and there’s this big blanket and …

Pattern: mine Yarn: Must Stash: Space Wizard

I’m not done yet. I need to knit the toes on these, and then go back and put in the heels. It’s a forethought heel, I put a little waste yarn in where the heel goes, and I’ll pull that out, collect the stitches and bob’s yer uncle. Sounds fast, right? We’ll see how quickly I get there – It’s pretty motivating to think about what might be in the next bag I pull down and I can’t do that until I finish these – I wonder if this is less fun if you have the kind of memory that would let you have any idea whatsoever what is in those bags- my memory being what it is means that the SISC (Self Imposed Sock Club) is a complete mystery and a surprise, just like it was being mailed to me every month.

Off I go. Someone has to knit those toes – and hide my knitting from Abigail. (Let me know if it’s you. I’ll work on the blanket.)

This entry comes to you on the auspicious occasion of my 21st Blogiversary, from the rather inauspicious location of my bed- where I’m tucked up with a wicked cold, a parting gift from Meg and her crew.

She had surgery 10 days ago and has been staying here since then – my little grandchildren all over the house, with me cooking and cleaning and doing some of the school run with Elliot. (He loves school by the way, and the only thing we don’t like about it is that it’s turned him into a walking viral vector, and I’m reasonably sure that he’s the reason I’ve been sick for months, including a nasty run with pneumonia and something terrible that derailed Christmas.)

It’s been a blast to have them here, current virus not withstanding and we do like to stick together as a family so I suppose (she says, blowing her nose again) that it is more than worth it. The whole family headed home this morning leaving me alone in the house, and I promptly retired to the bed with my knitting where I’ve slept most of the day and have no plans any loftier – but I’ve always written on my blogiversary, and I didn’t want to stop now

Over the last while, I’ve been thinking a lot about moments and the way we spend our time. I think of it a lot when I’m with little kids. That while I’m just making dinner or doing the dishes, or chatting with them as I clean, or as they’re annoying me while I try and write an email or do some work… that while all of that is Wednesday morning for me, to them it is a series of moments that are making up their childhoods, and I (like the other grownups in their lives) feel a certain responsibility to try and make things magical. I make fancy pancakes, I dance in the kitchen, I read endless stories and play in the park and anytime I feel like this is a burden or interpret it as pressure, I try and remember two things.

First, while we are responsible for making the magic in children’s lives (and the grownups we love too) children have unbelievably low standards and can show unwavering love and devotion to even the worst of adults with terrible ideas from time to time. Second, you never know what is going to be accidentally magical – when I was a little girl my Grampa (who was a wonderful person and grandparent and together with my Grammy is the model of all I do with Elliot and Abigail) worked so hard on making my childhood amazing. He took me on a plane, I got to go in a hot-tub at the Calgary Hilton. He gave me a hammer and let me smash rocks to find potash in them at the end of a driveway in Saskatoon. He worked incredibly hard and yet some of the most cherished moments of my childhood were watching him in his element when he wasn’t even trying, me sneaking down over the stairs to watch him waltz with my grandmother in the mornings, or raging at the squirrels who were eating the corn he’d planted. (Fair enough, his yield was only going to be four ears. He was all in.) One time while we were out somewhere he said he’d named a lake for me. “Lake Stephanie” he said, as we whizzed by a surely-already-named lake, him gesturing out the car window. Looking back I’m sure we were on our way to something he thought was going to be life-building magic, but it was that one line and a soft wave out a window on a twinkling winter night that did it. It was a transformative moment between us. I am older now than he was when he said that, and I remember it like it was yesterday. You never know what will do it, what the real moments are and it’s not like at the time it was so important, but I see it now.

Funny topic for a blogiversary you’re probably thinking, but hold on, here comes the tie in. This blog was that way for me. Twenty-one years ago my kids were little and I was building their childhoods and our lives and to take a break from all of that and give me a connection to anyone who cared about the things that I did, Ken gave me this blog. I sat down with my little laminated HTML sheet (if you don’t know what that is ask someone in their 50s) and I wrote. I didn’t know it then, but it was one of those moments. It was magical. I mean, it wasn’t then, that’s what I’m trying to say. Right then it was me and a computer the size of a compact car in the dining room, and it didn’t feel magical at all. It didn’t feel like anything other than trying to learn to blog.

Twenty-one years later it’s clear that that moment was a life changer. Probably even bigger than having a lake named after you. That moment created a connection with all of you, and that little stone thrown in has created ripples that are still changing my life every day. I love you all. Thank you for writing back, thank you for your comments, thank you for catching and ordinary moment, and making it magic. You changed my life.

PS: It has become tradition to kick off my fundraising for the Bike Rally every year on this date, and well, why not. To be completely honest- after last year I was a little reluctant to sign up again, and I am starting to feel a little old for it, but I in the end I did sign up, and I’m going to give it my all. Every year we weird out the people in the PWA office by donating an amount that seems random to them and has meaning to us – this year obviously, it’s $21, or a mutiple thereof, if you’re so inclined and you figure the Blog has meant that much to you. The link is here. Some people like to thank Ken today too, after all he’s the guy who set this blog up. If you like, his link is here.

PPS: More later when I’m better, I owe you loads of posts and I have a blanket to explain. (Abigail pulled the needles out. Patrons, thank you so much for your patience while I’ve been so unwell, I’ll be back in that space very soon.)