Project Grace

A dear friend of mine died recently. Grace was only 64 and she died of pancreatic cancer. It was a horrible end to a gentle and generous person. I will miss her tremendously.

Grace was a knitter and seamstress extraordinaire. She could puzzle out a pattern in her head and solve other people's mistakes and mis-stitches. She could create patterns and tailor and calculate in her head. Her ability was both fascinating and impressive.

I have had the good fortune to inherit a mostly-finished blanket that was part of her legacy. It's about ten inches too short and it comes without any notes or patterns. This is it:

There are a total of seventeen patterned panels across the front and a border around it.

A couple of the patterns are easy to figure out:
This one is a simple X and O cable with a Diamond Bobble cable in the center


This one is a Trophy Cable on either side and a Seed Stitch Diamond in the center:


And the center section is a simple diamond trellis cable:


Then there are the Mystery Stitches:

Bramble?


Slip Stitch Diamonds?


I think that finishing this blanket without a pattern is the perfect way to remember Grace. I will have to use my head and I will have to be careful. I'm checking my gauge to make sure it will go seamlessly from her work to mine- I'll have to use a larger diameter needle- she always knit looser than I do. I've been thinking about how to recreate the mystery stitches and I've poured through my books. I think I have one of them solved- I found a pattern that looks like it's the right one and I have a swatch knitted up that I'll subject to a close comparison. The "Slip Stitch Diamond" I haven't found a pattern for yet, but I think I've worked it out in my head. I have a swatch of that started too- I don't have it perfect yet, but I think I'm on the right track.

Grace would have it figured out by now, most likely. She'd have loved the challenge.

I love it too.

My Orange Alarm CLock

I have an alarm clock that goes off every morning sometime between 5:30 and 6, regardless of what I do to silence it. It used to make me a little hostile-feeling, but now I have some compassion for the annoying little bugger.

We have 3 cats, Feisty, Patches and BK. We also used to have Neal. Neal and Feisty were brothers; Neal was put to sleep back in January after being diagnosed with cancer.

In our bedroom, we have installed a pet door that goes out onto the balcony so that the cats can go outside. BK uses it as her main form of ingress and egress from the house. Patches will routinely go out and sunbathe as well. Feisty and Neal used to go out every morning and experience the sunrise from the balcony- they'd lounge out there for about an hour and a half before coming inside.

Feisty is a very dumb cat. Every morning, bright and early, Feisty starts to call out, "Mwrow? Mwrow? Mwrow?" while trying to figure out how to get outside. He'll paw at the wall a little bit. "Mwrow? Mwrow? Mwrow?" The other cats don't have this problem. They go over to the kitty door and nose it open and walk outside without hesitation. Feisty can't figure it out. I don't know if he can't find it or doesn't know how it works- I've tried to teach him countless times, but every morning it's the same drill. "Mwrow? Mwrow? Mwrow?"

I drag myself out of bed and open the kitty door for him (I stick my foot into it and lift the flap and he figures it out and goes outside- I do this every morning.) I used to get aggravated by it and throw pillows at him to try to get him to stop. Nothing worked.

Then I realized that he used to go outside without any problem when Neal was around to lead the way. Now when my alarm goes off every morning, I drag myself out of bed, go over to Feisty and give him a scratch behind the ears and simply open the door for him.

I don't know if he consciously misses Neal. As I mentioned, he's a dumb cat, even bearing in mind that he's a CAT. What I do know is that his life is a little harder for him without having his brother around.

Every morning at around 5:30 or 6, I miss Neal a little bit and I have a bit of extra affection for Feisty. It's not so bad a way to start the day, actually.