Landladies and Designers and Mothers, Oh My

Or, In Which the Hands Figure Things Out While the Rest of the World Blurs Together

I should be sleeping right now. But I'm not (obviously). Instead I am up in defiance of unpacking and new jobbing and going to the storing (Why the hell did I throw out so much stuff in the last two moves? It means I've got to buy it all again, and I never remember all it is I need until after I get home from what I was sure was the last trip.)

First on the list of only slightly knitting related is that the very nice house that wasn't available until the end of October became available earlier, because the landlady moved early so she could have us as renters.

The Things are thrilled. Acres to play on and trees. Especially the apple tree with some of the best fall tart/sweet apples we have ever had.

I am thrilled. Because of the house, yes. But mostly...well, mostly because when we were unpacking, I found a lost treasure.

I'd had a nice set of Lantern Moon dpns for sock knitting. I managed to maim and mortally wound two needles in two days on the mad, cross-country, Stanley-infested job interview some months back. Jedediah, stalwart friend that he was, did emergency tape surgery, but knitting was sluggish every third needle. I had them replaced, though sadly, the two new Lantern Moons were not as pointy as the fallen LMs. I sighed, decided I could not live in the past, and knit (sporadically) on.

And now here we were back in the state we love and staying with friends and looking for houses and one of the kids knocked my knitting off the table in my room and a needle went MIA. One of the last of the two pointy needles. Of course. We went over the room with a fine tooth comb when we moved everything out, and still no needle. I substituted a Clover, but it wasn't the same. The yarn made a raspier sound as it moved along the needle.

Then, as I was unpacking a Styrofoam cooler of bathroom odds and ends (don't ask) I decided the best thing to do would be to tip the random cotton balls and Q-tips that had escaped their boxes into the trash. Something thin, brown, and beautifully pointy came rolling out too, and my hand caught it before it hit the bin; before my eyes had told my brain what was happening, even.

What other omen does a bistickual crafter need? This will be a happy home. Thank you, dear landlady, for moving early. I don't think I would have survived another two weeks of mismatched needles.

But the hands were doing double duty for me even the week before we moved. I mentioned how my brain and my hands were at war over the Shetland Lace socks. My solution was to (timidly) email the designer the following very confusing query:

Hello!

I'm knitting your pattern for the Shetland Lace socks and have loved it so far. Very well-written!

I have a quick question though, as these are only the second pair of socks I have knit.

I'm knitting on 3 dpns (because I like imitating a porcupine) and have the stitches even distributed with 20 on each needle, and that pattern had me consider the stitch marker as the center of the heel. With my last sock pattern, then, I moved stitches so that I used only one needle while doing the heel. This meant moving the end stitches from the heel needles onto each of the other two needles so that I had the correct number of stitches for the heel and the instep.

For your pattern, however, will I have to do it differently? Especially since you specify that the purl stitch needs to be moved to make the 29/31 split. With the last socks, I did basic ribbing so there wasn't any worry about altering the pattern. But with the lace, I want to be careful that I do not alter anything if it will effect the look of the sock.

Sorry that this is not very clear. I'm relatively new to all this and kind of knitting in isolation, though I did just find a great LYS where I moved to, so as soon as I get unpacked... Thanks for your help and for creating such a beautiful pattern.

Best,

(well, me, of course)

Somehow, from that maze of confusion, the designer, who should be sainted or knighted or at the very least be gifted a lifetime supply of warm cookies, responded quickly and clearly:

Oh how I wish we could just sit down together for a minute or two. It would be so much easier than trying to explain.

Well, here goes. If this still doesn't make sense, we can try again.

In the pattern, one circular needle is the instep and the other is the heel.

The easiest way to convert this to double points is to use two needles for the heel and two for the instep instead of splitting it into thirds like you have it. With four double points you can pretty much follow the pattern as written using 2 dps = 1 circular.

A second option using three needles, when you get to the heel, put the heel stitches on one needle and the instep stitches on two needles.

The purpose of the 31/29 split is to center the lace panel down the instep of the sock. Knowing that should help you figure out stitch placement.

Marguerite

Reading that should be quite clear, but the minute my brain tried to envision, it began to second guess itself, a sure sign that mental lock down would be commencing. My hands came to the rescue once again. They quietly hushed my brain and, using the pale Clover needle to advantage, inserted it into the knitting directly after needle number one. They slipped stitches from one needle to another, splitting the numbers evenly, then slipped the last stitch on the left as called for. My eyes and brain blinked, then thought, "Oh, that's it? Why didn't the hands tell us earlier?"

(The hands probably would have, if the brain hadn't been so pushy and know-it-all.)

But right now the hands don't have time to make the sign language equivalent of nah nah na nah nah to the brain. The hands, which have been feeling rather cocky due to their moments of cleverness and dexterity, are now paying the price for their pride.

My mother repacked several boxes, mostly belonging to Thing 2 and mostly squashed, as Thing 2's boxes included lots of airy spaces. My mum valiantly pulled boxes apart and repacked while the rest of us loaded up the ABF freight truck with other items.

Now, my mother is a woman who can pack. Seriously. She can fit things into one small space that even those sadists who squash sleeping bags and tents into coverings that a normal human can never get back over the rerolled bag or refolded tent would envy.

She's also a woman who managed to slip in a good deal of extras in her "repacking of your things, dear."

Finding the mixing bowls and measuring utensils was a lovely surprise. I adore baking, and my mother knows that. And really, can one have too many measuring spoons? I think not.

I was a bit more perplexed, I'll admit, by this:

Call me stupid, but it wasn't even the stuffed cow that caught my eye first. I recognized the Tupperware and the thermos (probably because I'd seen them at my parents for years), and stared at the mini-food processor. I hadn't bought that, had I? I mean, I was happy to have it, but still. Where did I get that?

Then a Thing passed by and said, "Cool stuffed cow. His name's Joe. " A Thingish hand reached out, then paused, considering. "I can have him, right?"

And that's when the Tupperware dropped. Only a Nana would pack a cow with kitchen stuff.

And only a Nana would stow away extra bedding for a family on a budget. She was generous to a fault. The only problem is that she had forgotten that she had done similar for me sometime between the births of Thing 3 and Thing 4. I already had a largish box of the last bunch of sheets and blankets she bequeathed me. Rather very largish.

Dust gets into boxes on long moves, and Thing 4's dust allergy is not one to brook much of any sort of dust. This meant washing. Lots of washing. And for the poor hands, folding a stack of sheets and pillowcases that came out almost as tall as Thing 4, who is slightly taller than average for his age.

So, if anyone has any ideas on what to do with a billion sheets and limited sheet closet space, my hands and I would be ever so grateful. I mean, I live in a one-story house. It's not like I could even use them to heroically lower Things to safety in the event of a fire. Given the short distance to from a first floor window to the ground, all I'd have to do is chuck them out the window.

(Note: next ramble will be lots shorter. Promise.)

And it really is the first (of November...)

Believe it or not, I have some October blogs written. I was forced to take one night off from unpacking to just write, as there was this funny little tic under one of my eyes and my Things had begun to gathering in a little knot to hold whispered conferences that always ended abruptly whenever I entered the room.

I confronted them on this and the fact that they had ulterior motives for these chummy gatherings. They denied this, saying that Things always consulted each other. And got along. I was hallucinating if I didn't think they were always this way. I eyed them suspiciously, then returned, twitching, to the mountain of boxes, telling them and myself that I was fine, just fine.

It was the missing knitting & crocheting books and yarn that did me in. After a week and a half of having them safely packed away, I cracked. I opened every single box in the house and garage, tumbled their contents, and did not rest until every tin full of yarn was stacked in an untidy heap in my room and the boxes of books were sitting on top of the box containing the bookcase I had not yet put together. I think at this point I may have just sat in my little craft-filled corner, rocking back and forth and chuckling maniacally while I held a hank of baby alpaca against my cheek.

It was then that Things gathered in my doorway. Things Three and Four shoved Thing Two, the obviously newly-appointed leader, into the room with me. She approached cautiously.

"Mum?"

I chuckled softly under my breath and clutched the the soft fiber more tightly.

Thing Two put her arms around me and hauled me to my feet (she's a strong Thing). She led me over to my laptop.

"Why don't you blog awhile, Mum?" she said in that soothing tone that psych ward nurses reserve for mental patients who might go beserker at any moment. "Now let's put down the yarn and write, okay?"

The tricky little blighters had already pulled up the blog page. They knew how to hook me.

And so I wrote. And wrote. And gradually the twitch under my eye faded away and my head began to clear.

I finished some blogs with a grand flourish, announced that I was even up to making dinner instead of ordering out, and watched as the Things heaved a collective sigh of relief.

"Just let me throw the pictures in," I said.

It was then that we realized that in my frenzy to find yarn and books, I had somehow managed to bury the camera.

It's always the little things, isn't it?

So, with the camera finally re-found, and the boxes gone enough to justify me returning to the computer, the first few days of November will be a stroll down memory lane, as it were.

Hope you don't mind.

Wrong

(Before I begin, I have to point out that for the first time in ages, I'm actually able to post a blog on the date for which I intended it to be posted. I'm quite chuffed about that.)

I am in house hunting hell.

Well, okay, maybe not hell. I do have a tendency toward the dramatic, I'll admit.

House hunting purgatory, then. (We'll ignore for the moment that I'm Lutheran and when Luther got in a snit with the Catholics he chucked out things like Purgatory. Think the Catholics have now too, for that matter.)

The thing about moving back to small towns is that they're, well, small. There aren't as many housing opportunities.

There are lots in the small city where I'll be working, but the Things' requests (and my own wants, too, quite honestly) are for some space and especially, for my "Learning Disabled" Things, a school small enough where they won't get lost in the crowd. After years of living with LD and of working with them, I can categorically state that all LD means is someone with an unusually high IQ who tends to think outside the box and who is totally unimpressed by conventional sit on your butt and do it this way learning. Makes me wonder why the word disabled is even part of the label.

(Anyway, little me digression there, sorry. I get like that when not in full tell-a-story mode.)

So, we've spent lots of time trucking around visiting school districts and trying to find housing in them.

The general result in School District #1 has been that houses are either 1) more than I would want to pay for a mortgage, let alone rent, especially with a heating oil winter coming on, 2) actually below what I expected to pay and therefore tiny and already rented anyway, or 3) perfectly within my range and available, but not rentable to me because the landlords generally rent to childless couples only and I am not childless. I'm not even a couple. And when you have 3 homes in category 1 and a single home each in categories 2 and 3, your options ratchet down rather quickly.

School District #2 has a house. A lovely house on 8 acres. A lovely house on 8 acres in my price range with enough square footage for all our furniture and for furniture I don't even own (like a couch) and a terrific propane fireplace (which I would soooo use) and a prospective landlady who really wants us to have the place because, as she said in an email, she thinks we would take good care of her home, and that means everything to her.

It's a lovely house that is not available until the end of October. This would mean driving the Things from the town we are in to some sort of before school drop off each morning, driving into work, driving back up to get them from some sort of after school, then driving clear back to where we currently are. If you are at all familiar with Maine's "you can't get here from there" road system, you would, as I did, quickly realize that what should be about 20 minutes of driving on straight shot road between the three towns (if said straight roads actually existed) is more apt to take an hour. One way. Besides, although my hosts would say stay, I don't want to impose that long. And it's not like there's a handy extended stay hotel to live in for a few weeks either. Small town, small city. Sigh.

So, the perspective landlady who really wants us is racking her brains trying to figure out how to get out of her home earlier so we can get into it, I've emailed a friend who has a mother with a large home in a great school district father south down the road (but at least it's interstate driving; interstates are pretty straight shots, even in Maine) who was seriously considering looking for someone to move in to help pay for oil (she and I are very sympathetic on views on politics, religion and kid raising and she adores my Things so we get on like a house afire) and we go today to look at a place 20 minutes north up the interstate, which has a dean from work in the same area with whom I cold commute, and also has a fireplace and at least an acre of land, but which is more along the modular home build which will mean not lots of insulation.

(And yes, I realize that that last sentence-which-is-its-own-paragraph is the sentence from hell, but I believe it is punctuated properly enough to not technically be a run-on AND it perfectly illustrates just how quickly my brain is slamming together options so you're stuck with it. Mea culpa.)

The last house is at least the perfect excuse for lots of sock knitting. Really warm, thick socks, like the Frankensocks.

Not that the socks I am currently knitting are warm or thick. (Yes, I'm actually going to talk about knitting on a knit/crochet blog. I know that seems odd given the last few posts, but please bear with me.)

I'm knitting Shetland Lace Rib Socks from Stitches of Violet with the purple Trekking sock yarn that knocked the Frankensocks out of the running awhile back (we won't discuss just how long awhile back that was, okay?). The socks are my first go at lace, and I am loving the idea that regular mistakes (i.e. holes! Holes in the knitting!) could create something so beautiful.

Well, for real beauty, go click on the link. My stitching isn't that perfectly even yet, even allowing for the blobby lace look the Yarn Harlot talks about and the fact that I have a tiny point and shoot digital camera. (I so want a rig like Deanne has. Nice camera. Nice price too, I am sure. Sigh.)

And I've come to an interesting bit in the pattern. I'm getting ready to do the heel. Heels have never bothered me. I learned short row heels while knitting Christmas stockings and have had fun turning them ever since. But my old sock pattern (the first and only pair I'd made up until now) had me consider the stitch marker/first stitch as the center of my heel. This made sense to me, because it's where everything began. (If that's completely illogical, don't tell me. Dyslexic brains move in their own logic sphere.) To do the short row heel then, I simply slipped an equal number of stitches off of each side of my first needle and onto the other two dpns, then knit happily away.

If I use the same process here, though, I will mess up the lace patterning when I return to knitting lace; each repeat is a set of ten and I need to keep that set together or I will have an off-kilter foot. I'm off kilter enough as it is, I don't need twisted feet.

One bit of my brain says, "The sock is a tube. Therefore, you should be able to split the stitches as needed and the tube can't do a thing about it. It can't even run home to its mommy crying because it hasn't got one. Just do it." The other bit says, "Yes, but it's a tube knit in the round, which means you're knitting a spiral. A spiral might care where you say the middle is."

The rest of my brain has told both bits to shut up. Some days, there is nothing more fun than being a house-hunting, dyslexic, beginner knitter with not another knitter in sight. I wonder if Maranacook Yarns is open right now? After all, it's fine to be out driving; all Tropical Storm Kyle is doing is dropping rain that sounds comfortingly heavy as it hits (that's due to a frontal boundary and upper-level trough that's pulling Kyle this way; I should mention I'm a bit of a weather geek too). It's only in fall that rain sounds that way, have you noticed?

Oh, and Arthur? Does this blog answer your question?

On the Road (Again--Sigh)

Just two weeks after one cross-half-country trip, we're doing another one.

The Things gave us a smile

girded up their resolve

and buckled in.

The poor, beleaguered little "bread van" gamely chugged along.

(And it should. I've replaced enough of its parts that there's not much to stop it from being a new mini-van save for the paint job. Oh and all power seats and windows that you don't have to roll down manually and doors that open with a push of a button when you're half a parking lot away. But other than that? It's so there.)

We even rigged up the ultra-posh mini-van with movies look by hooking up the laptop to a charger.

(And in case any of you out there were wondering, if you accidentally drop an audio book case on a keyboard, you stand a good chance of knocking letters clean off. Just a little fyi there.) We then slotted a special cassette into the player

(Yes, you heard me right. A CASSETTE player. This. Van. Is. Old. :) ), hooked it into the laptop and viola! Movies in surround sound and with a screen far larger than those nancy little screens the cool new minis have. We even balanced the laptop perfectly between the two front seats with the laptop bag providing center support. And we felt just too darn clever for words, let me tell you.

I liked all the movies that the kids watched while I was driving, but I discovered that some don't work for the driver of the car. I adore Wallace and Gromit, but visual humor doesn't translate well for the audio listener. Lots of silences with me searching my memory for the funny part that I should be laughing at right then.

Sound of Music, though, was great. LOADS of people gabbling and bursting into song, which is a real help at 11:00 p.m. when everyone else has nodded off and it's either sing along or be reduced to carrying on pointless conversations with oneself (and I do that enough as it is).

WARNING! Never, never, put in the latest version of Pride and Prejudice at 11:45 p.m., thinking it will fill the time until you get to the hotel. I don't care how sexy Mr. Darcy looks striding across a misty field in a great coat (you're driving and not supposed to be peeking at the screen anyway). The music is so soothing and the accents so sweet that before you know it you'll be slamming the last of your soda and waking up a groggy Thing to demand that it talk to you and ask you lots of questions to keep you awake for the last three miles.

Thank goodness for family. Normally we stay with them instead of at a hotel when we reach New York, but this time there was other family there too. Hence the hotel, and a kind offer from grandparents and great-aunts to watch the kids play in the pool so mom could go back to bed, after a nice continental breakfast, and have nice siesta (I felt so multi-cultural, though when you're as mixed race as me, that's really not all that hard).

That of course, meant that we did not leave New York until check out time, which meant we could either do one long days' drive to Maine or stop in New Hampshire and crash at a former student's place. Since Jedediah's now long graduated, he can officially be moved up to good friend. Besides, he had hosted the Stanleys on my wild ride back to the east for an interview earlier this year

and they had played his drum until all hours

and then stolen one of his books.

Three Things after the Stanleys would be a walk in the park.

Jedediah lives in Littleton, New Hampshire. I LOVE Littleon. It's the only place in the US I have ever found that paints instructions for pedestrians to wave thanks to cars that stop for them. People stop to help direct you out of tricky parking lots when your van is loaded and visibility is poor, and manage to hold a entire conversation with you while still saying, "Litta more, deah, litta more. Yah can back up another fahve. Therah. That should do yah." Stop to ask for directions and you'll wind up giving your life history to people who are sincerely interested, or at least you assume they are by the number of questions they ask to keep the conversation going.

But the best thing in Littleon? Some canny yarn and fabric shop owner has guaranteed a way for knitters and crocheters to bring their non-knitting/crocheting partners to the store and keep them there indefinitely, so that the knitter or crocheter can stock up to his or her heart's content.

t

As long as the partner is interested in Nascar, that is.

I can't tell you how much I wished that shop was opened when we were there.

And so at last, we rolled out of New Hampshire and on into Maine. We didn't go over this

(it's the Pisquata Bridge and the Things always cheer when we cross it going north; it's their way of saying we're back) but instead came up a new way. Appropriate, I guess, as we are going to be in a new town and with a new job.

Now all we have to do is find a house to rent and we can unpack our stash and all will be well. Housing should be easy, right?

Saying Goodbye

So we made the decision. It meant leaving the land of amazing summer thunderstorms

and heading back east to the land of more trees and darker nights where all the stars are visible.

We said goodbye to family, with the knowledge that we'd see them soon.

Letting go of others, whom we might not get the chance to see again, was difficult. We left behind places like this:

and Pastor Tim and his wife Judy, who listened so well and helped so much.

And also here:

St Peter's, and all the friends we had made there.

We shut our door, packed our bags of yarn, hooks, needles and books, and headed toward the open window, taking with us all our old friendships in their new forms.

For whatsoever from one place doth fall,

Is with the tide unto an other brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

Edmund Spenser