Sundries and such

After a little more than a year in a nursing home with dementia, my 86-year-old mother-in-law Betty passed away this past February. Sadly, my husband, an only child, is now an orphan. My own family has reached out to him to let him know that they're his family now, but that can be a bit overwhelming for Philip -- I have 5 older brothers who are all married and sometimes our family get-togethers can get a bit overwhelming for him -- even after 10 years!

We had Betty's belongings in a storage unit but recently moved them into our garage so that we could save the $120 a month it was costing us. Being unemployed and with a lot of time on our hands we've been sorting through her furniture and belongings -- had an estate sale in our driveway for three weekends in a row -- Betty would be happy that the sale of her belongings helped us make our latest mortgage payment.

Going through the things that made up her life was sad for Philip -- much of it was from his life growing up as well. But there were some amusing surprises as well...

Before I share, let me put it into context. There is one major difference in the philosophies of my family and Philip's -- Philip's parents philosophy was, "Why do it yourself when you can pay someone to do it for you," while my family has always held, "Why pay someone to do it when you can do it yourself."

So for Betty that meant eating out instead of cooking, taking clothes to the tailor rather than sewing a button herself, getting the dry cleaner to pick up and deliver her clothes, etc. Up until she went to the nursing home she wore suits everyday!

With that knowledge, I just had to chuckle as I sorted through the boxes and counted up about 5 full sets of pots and pans, a huge collection of cookbooks and a beautiful old sewing machine, among other things! There were two sewing boxes full of needles and thread and buttons and a sundry of knitting items including yarn, needles, vintage measuring tapes and a decorate box full of bone crochet hooks!

I loved Betty -- she and I developed a relationship that was asclose as a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law can. She always introduced me as her daughter and as time went on and her dementia set it she would barely start a sentence or question and I could finish it or answer it without a hint of what was on her mind.

We miss her so much - her wry humor and her and bright smile. And I know she'd be smiling that I found these things, knowing I would tease her about them, but most importantly, that I will use them!

Groovy Things

Well I haven't left the house since I decided to embark on my little experiment, but I do have to go to the post office and the bank today so we'll see what happens...



I have, however, started to read the book, and so far it is keeping my interest. It along the same vein as Debbie Macomber's Shop of Blossom Street series of which I've read A Good Yarn.



I probably would be deeper into the book, but I've been trying to use my time to clean our house room by room -- after 2 years of working at the restaurant 7 days a week, suffice to say our house is a bit of a pit! Piles of stuff everywhere. Helping that along is the fact that we've got 5 cats, a dog and a bird so there's plenty pet hair and bird fluff to deal with.



I've also been trying to finish this Groovy Striped Felted Bag which is going to be a beach bag for my mom. It was supposed to be a Mother's Day present, but now is more likely to be her present for her birthday next month.



The picture here is the product image of Natalie Wilson's pattern. I've actually modified the pattern a bit. Instead of knitting with 6 different colors of yarn, I decided to use 2 yarns -- one is a solid color for the sides and bottom of the bag and then I'm using a Noro self-striping yarn to create the striped sides of the bag.

I tend to knit at night in front of the TV so I thought it would be easier just using the self-striping -- requiring less late-nite brain energy that usually is in small supply!

I've finally finished knitting all the sides so tonight I'll start sewing up the sides. When I have a chance I'll take a picture before I felt it and post it here!

The Friday Night Knitting Club - A Social Experiment

A little more than a month ago, the restaurant my husband and I managed for my brother closed down. While we look for work, I've made it my personal mission to destash our belongings to make a little money to supplement our enemployment checks.
This is driving my husband crazy because I'm selling most of our books and CDs on Amazon -- I just keep telling him we can always re-acquire when we have work and don't have to pay $800 a month for healthcare.

So I'm standing in line at the post office waiting to mail 2 books and a CD that sold overnight and I'm holding the book "The Friday Night Knitting Club."

The woman standing in front of me asks me if its a good book, and I tell her I haven't started reading it -- that my mother just mailed it to me because I'm a knitter. Turns out she is too! So we discuss our local yarn shop and she's trying to figure out what to do with all those little balls of yarn you end up with after finish a project. I tell her about Ravelry.com -- a great website for the knitting community around the world. I belong to one group called "Scrap Happy" where one member posted a link to her blog, SimpleKnits, where she had amassed a list of 500 knitting projects based on how many yard of yarn you have -- from 1 to 285 yards.

I also belong to the Thrifty Knitters group, which is a great forum where I learned about frogging sweaters for the yarn, and Random Acts of Kindness where users post needs and wishlists that others fulfill as their RAK for the day. I tell her about how when the restaurant first closed, I posted a note about "knitting for sanity" about how we were unemployed and I wouldn't be able to buy yarn for a while and I've since received care packages of yarn from knitting around the world.

Next thing you know, she's asking me for my name and address because she wants to destash and send me some yarn! I'm a little embarrased and tell her that I didn't mean for her to do that, but she insisted. So I took her email address and sent her the link to blogpost on scrap projects. She wanted to make toys for her grandkids and there are plenty of ideas there -- my favorite being the finger puppets.

Then, this man 3 people down the line asks me if the book is any good because his partner is a knitter and belongs to a knitting circle that meets at the local Coffee Beanery on Friday nights. I tell him that I haven't read it yet, but it's supposed to be very good and he declares that he's going out to buy it for his partner right after he mails his packages off.

I used to belong to a knitting circle at my local yarn store, but can't afford the fee for the two-month session. This man points out that the Friday night group is free so I'm going to go check it out this weekend.

I called my mother when I got home and told her that her gift of the book was giving more than she intended and told her about my post office antics and she was delighted. Then she came up with a great idea -- carry the book with me wherever I go and see if it continues to facilitate these unexpected encounters.

We knitters love to talk about knitting with anyone that will listen so I've decided to take up my mom's idea and carry it in the outer pocket of my purse when I go out... we'll see what happens!