Catching Up!

Hello, my friends!

Just smack me on the back of the head for not writing! A lot has happened since I last wrote in May. The month of May, as you might remember, was a tough one for me. I underwent a course of Rituxan at the Cancer Center. Enough time has passed that I can say, unfortunately, I don't think it helped much. I still have painful throbby lymph nodes. They aren't as bad as they were but they're still nagging at me. I see my doctor sometime this month. We'll see what she says. She may not want to do anything else with the hopes that it may slowly continue to work. 

I was out of town the entire month of October. My Ex-husband, who I have remained good friends with, has not been in good health. He has type II Diabetes and has a lot of complications as a result of it. He has been in and out of the hospital more than me. One of the times he was hospitalized started out with him taking a fall at his home. He was down for a day before anyone found him. 911 was called and they took him to the local hospital. (Background - My Ex lives in Bryson City, NC. It's a very small town in the mountains of western North Carolina. Because of his conditions, he is a severe fall risk. The closest local hospital to him is 30 minutes away. This hospital is not qualified to treat trauma patients or any patients with serious problems. Patients that arrive with complicated problems are stabilized and transported to Asheville, NC which is an hour and a half away from Bryson City) This local hospital, not having the resources to treat him, stabilized him with intubation then transported my Ex to Asheville. He was in the hospital for quite some time this particular trip. Keep in mind, this was one trip of MANY that had been made recently. He had fallen other times and 911 had to be called to get him up and to the hospital. Its been a vicious cycle for him and my family felt really bad about the whole situation. His mother is English and lives in Warwickshire, England. After my Ex had required intubation to be stabilized, we were all very worried. His mother felt the situation to be serious enough to come to the United States to check on him and be with him for a while. We felt the same way. You see, David has a sum total of 1 friend where he lives and has been too ill to work or get out to meet people and make friends. We were very worried not only for him medically, but his state of mind. He didn't have anyone and the people that cared about him were thousands of miles away. His mother, my mother and I concocted a plan to meet up in NC and surprise him with a visit. At the time, we didn't know if we would be meeting up in a hospital or at his home. We just got in the car and left on October 5th. We made it there on Oct 9th, picked up his mother from the local airport an hour after our arrival and we surprised my Ex. He had no idea we were coming! It was quite emotional for all of us. We stayed until Oct 26th. It was a long visit to a place we didn't know very well which was very VERY different from what we are accustomed to. It worked and we did what we set out to do...to comfort and support someone who desperately needed it. 

I have continued to knit and design during these months I have been quiet here and while I was gone in October. I will share with you the two shawls I have finished and released since I last wrote along with what I am working on currently. I think these shawls were started around the same time. Port Day was started in May while I was receiving Rituxan at the Cancer Center. It was named Port Day for obvious reasons. (Actually, Mom had been designing a shawl she was going to call Port Day but the design didn't really work out and she gifted me the name. But I digress.) Port Day was a collaboration I did with Dream In Color Yarns. I chose the colorway I wanted to work with...it was called Velvet Port! I think that's funny but maybe it's just me. It is a crescent-shaped shawl with a garter stitch body and an elaborate border...

One of my test knitters, Theresa Hill, Knit hers with a lighter colored yarn and it shows the mock cables better...

I love Port Day and it has such special meaning to me for obvious reasons. I hope you all like it as well! 

Verdana was designed with my grandmother Cookie in mind. Cookie was my mother's mother. She was and always will be known to me and my family as Cookie. My brother gave her that nickname when he was a toddler. He would yank on her pant leg and say "cookie," then he'd get one. The name stuck. I always took such pride in having a "Cookie" rather than a grandma or a grandmother. Everyone else had one of those...I had Cookie! Cookie was, like my mother, a scarily intelligent woman. Among her many talents, she was a Master Gardener and Horticulturist. She also specialized in Ikenobo Ikebana. She absolutely loved the minimalistic approach and simplicity of Japanese flower arranging. Knowing this next shawl was going to be a "Sexy Spines" shawl, I wanted to design something that would pay homage to Cookie, the amazing woman she was, and her love of all flowers. Verdana was born from these ideas. She was knit with Wooly Wonka's Ceridwen Sock in the colorway Scottish Heather...

For the record, I didn't set out to knit two purple shawls in a row, it just worked out that way! 

If you follow me on social media, you know that our trip home from North Carolina was just what we needed. We stopped at 3 yarn stores and 1 winery in the 5 days we took to leisurely get home. It was just what we needed. You also know that we acquired Dobby from a Walgreens and that he now lives with us here in Albuquerque. He likes to watch TV and drink wine with us at night...

We were watching the Poldark Finale here. He was SO into it. Dobby picked out his own yarn at the yarn shop in Chattanooga for his clothes...

And he's been on us since then to make them. I keep explaining to him there are things that need to come first. The collaboration with Desert Bloom Yarns is next after I finish my Mellifera which is almost done. This is the state of the Desert Blooms unnamed project... the body is complete, it just needs its border. The yarn is baby alpaca/silk/cashmere (my favorite blend) in the colorways Silver Dollar Cactus and Apache Plume...

And while we were on the road, I started another shawl. It is named, but I am reserving that for its release! This is Amore's Yarn Studio Plata merino/silk in the colorway Long Tale...

This one also has the body complete and just needs its border. I will be doing some designing this week to try and get these started and on their way to being finished. 

I am so sorry for not having written any sooner. Life happens, I know. The whole reason I started this blog was to communicate with you all what happens in my world of knitting, designing and my otherwise general crazy life. I do hope you don't hold it against me! I hope you are all having a wonderful start to the Holiday Season and that your Thanksgiving was wonderful! There is certainly much to be thankful for....like the beautiful distraction of knitting. It has saved me this year, as it has every other year. Such a beautiful distraction while being productive at the same time. Let alone the health benefits of knitting we all know about now. I am knitting because it's good for me. I am knitting because I need the beautiful distraction that it is. I am knitting because I want to be productive. But mostly, I knit because I feel this great need to send something beautiful back out into an often chaotic and ugly world (Especially now). That somehow, my little corner will be left a little prettier, a little softer, and a little more calm than I found it. 

Have a wonderful day! And until next time...Knit On!