Category Archives: Family

Family

Folder # 6

Posted on by Jean

Before I get to folder #6, I just want to say you people rock!  I ended up driving to NH alone for Thanksgiving.  Joe woke up with the flu on Wednesday morning so Dan, the boys and the dogs stayed home and I made the trip alone.  When I got home there was a pile of packages on the living room floor.  Hats, mittens, scarves, gloves…  It’s dark and gloomy today so I’ll get pictures tomorrow.  There are also more prizes that were donated (awesome ones) that I’ll post tomorrow.   Please, if you send a package, put a slip of paper inside with your email or Ravelry link so that I can get hold of you if you win a prize.  If you sent a package already, could you let me know in an email who you are?  Thank you all so much for your generosity!  There are going to be some warmer people on the streets of New York this Winter.  My email link is up on the left sidebar if you need it.

Joe was much better by Thursday night and I got a sort of mini vacation.  My Uncle spoiled me with great breakfasts and it was nice getting to spend so much time with my Aunt.  She took care of me a lot when I lived with my grandparents and I remember those memories with fondness.  I also got to see my buddy Kim of Woolen Rabbit and her hubby again.  My Uncle and Ken actually already know each other so it’s kind of funny.   A lot of “small world” stuff between that Kim and I.  🙂  I’ll miss getting to see so much of each other when we move to Texas in June.

I was tagged by Kathy Knitigator to show a picture from my sixth folder in my “my pictures” folder.  Odd that hers would be a picture of Shelburne Falls.  I was just there yesterday!  I stopped at the Firefox Fiber Open House on my way home.  I also stopped at Harrisville and Webs but more on all that in a few days.

The pictures in my sixth folder are from my last visit with my grandparents before my beautiful grandmother passed away.  These were taken February 17th.  She died on May 22nd.  I’m so grateful that I took the camera out that day.  I love these pictures so I couldn’t pick just one:

Gramps telling a story…. always a twinkle in his eye…

The view from their kitchen after the heavy snows that NH got last year.  I sigh every time I see this view.   I remember being a little girl and them walking us through woods telling us where the house was going to be built and trying to imagine the view through the trees:

Animals and Nature, Family, Spinning

Just Stuff

Posted on by Jean

I just signed up for a Spinning/Dyeing class with Barbara Parry of Foxfire at Webs.  I had no idea Webs was less than three hours from me.  I’m really looking forward to the class.  I bought a drumcarder almost three years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long).  And I think it’s been almost three years since it’s been out of the box.  I actually met Otto Strauch at Rhinebeck.  I was a little embarrassed to tell him I hadn’t used it in years and thought maybe it’s time to pull it back out of the box.  I’m hoping this class will get me motivated to use it.

Now I’ll fill you in on all the changes that are about to take place for us.  We’re moving back to Texas in June . Thank God in Heaven, we are moving. West Point is a beautiful place, I love being near my family in New Hampshire, the schools are awesome and my neighbors are great.  But I really… no… really, REALLY… hate the house we’re in. They are demolishing these houses starting next year.  They really are that bad.

I think it has a lot to do with my creativity and organization being snuffed out over the last year.  I fully believe that if you love where you live you are a much happier person.   I’m definitely not happy here.  I can’t get organized and that drives me nuts.  I get overwhelmed and completely shut down.

I’ll miss Fall and I’ll miss being so close to New Hampshire but that’s what they make airplanes for.

We’ll be four hours from most of Dan’s side of the family in Laredo and four hours from his sister in Kingwood.   Texas A&M is the halfway point between us and his sister.  Dan’s family has a suite at Kyle Field so we’ll be there for a lot of games.  Dan flew down for the Army/Aggie game last month but before that we haven’t been to a game since Daniel was a baby.   The boys can’t wait.  Especially Joe, who started playing football for the Army Junior Black Knights this year.  When I was pregnant with him and we found out he was a boy Dan used to tell people that it was one more chance that he’d be called “Dad” by a Dallas Cowboys Quarterback.  Dan finally got his football player.  Funny that it’s the smallest of our boys that decided they wanted to play football.  He may be little, but he’s got heart for the game.  Here he is putting the stop on Mini Sink Valley (it was pouring that day):

So that’s the scoop of what’s been going on around here. 

Family, Friends, Knitting, Travel

No More Holes In My Gussets!

Posted on by Jean

Daniel, Lucky and I got home from Columbus last night.  Bottom line, Lucky is deaf for life sadly. 

Jeremy came and stayed with us from Ball State so that was a great save to the trip.  We spent all day Tuesday at COSI while Lucky was at the OSU Vet Hospital:

It was a great way to spend the day if you’re ever in Columbus.

Back in early May I went to West Port, Ct to meet up with Jennifer (Major Knitter) for a class with Charlene Schurch.

Here’s a great shot of Jennifer in her beautiful shawl.

I went thinking I’d just have fun because, after all, I’d been knitting socks so long, what could I possibly learn. I even have a few of her books that I’ve knit socks from, so for sure she wasn’t going to teach *me* anything new.  Ha.  Shows what I know which isn’t near as much as I thought.  lol.  It was not only great fun but Charlene was a FABuoulous teacher and I learned a ton.  No more holes in my gussets!   

There were many great socks to be seen:

Family, Knitting

A Very Special Pair of Socks

Posted on by Jean
02
Aug

Thanks for all the kind words regarding my grandmother.  She really was a great woman and well loved in her community.   We shared the love of knitting.  She was my inspiration for learning to knit in the first place.  My very first large project was this sweater for her in 1989. It’s from Simplicity Knitting, Winter 1988. It’s #24 and just called Icelandic Cardigan. 

About five years ago we visited my grandparents when we lived at Ft. Campbell, KY.  I’d shown my grandmother a pair of socks I’d been working on.  A few months later she told me on the phone that after seeing me enjoy it so much, she’d like to try knitting again.  She’d given it up years before due to severe arthritis in her hands.  It was about six months before Christmas and she wanted to surprise my grandfather with a pair of socks.  We were talking on the phone and she asked me about how I’d done the kitchener stitch.  As we were on the phone she took notes.  She mentioned the socks now and then over time and she showed them to me when we visited in February, frustrated because she couldn’t keep focused on them.  I wanted to help her finish them but I didn’t want to offend her and make her feel like she couldn’t do it.  She was still aware enough that her forgetfulness was very frustrating for her.  Between the arthritis and the Alzheimer’s, knitting was very difficult for her.

After she passed away I asked my grandfather if I could look for the socks so I could finish them.  He knew exactly where they were and led me to the little basket on their desk with a finished sock, an unfinished sock, the pattern book she’d used for years and years and a little surprise…. paper clipped to the pattern book were the notes she’d taken while on the phone with me five or so years ago.  What a gift!

I finished the sock that she’d left on the needles and gave them to my grandfather for Father’s Day.  He was very moved.  I’ve knit him many socks over the years, including a pair of alpaca ones that he had put away to be buried in.  You may remember me telling you that he loves my handknit socks so much that he puts duct tape on the soles of them as soon as he gets them so they’ll last longer. lol.  These simple acrylic socks have replaced those alpaca ones and I couldn’t be more pleased.  The sweetest thing about it all… look to the right.  See the yarn wrapped around something?  Can you make out what it is?  Take a closer look:

My thrifty Scot grandmother had the yarn wrapped around a plastic knife. lol.  And there it will stay forever.

Animals and Nature, Family

Where Do I Begin?

Posted on by Jean

So much has been going on since my last post a million years ago…. I don’t really know where to begin so I’ll begin where we left off. The winds of change are still blowing and we still don’t know where they’re blowing us.  I’m really surprised at how calm I am about not knowing where we’ll be in life and in location less than a year from now.  I just have this feeling that everything will be okay and definitely better than it is right now. 

Dan put in his retirement paperwork a few weeks ago but they’re trying to talk him out of it. In the beginning he would have dropped the paperwork if they’d told him for sure that we could go to Ft. Hood, TX but they may have waited too long. “Penciling” us in just doesn’t cut it after five deployments and 20 years.

I do have sad news to share.  A part of my heart was taken on May 22nd. I got a call from my cousin that my Grandmother had suffered a heart attack and and it didn’t look good. We were on the road within an hour and made record time to NH. Though she never regained consciousness, her heart stopped two hours after we arrived in Wolfboro so I was able to hold her hand and tell her I love her and how very much I’d miss her. I had just called her the day before to let her know we’d be coming up the first weekend in June to help my uncle paint my grandfather’s workshop.  She was very upbeat and I’m so glad that I’d called her.  At least she didn’t have to suffer the Alzheimer’s.  She was in the early stages and it was already very frustrating for her. My grandfather is heartbroken. They loved each other since they were six years old. I’m grateful that Dan took the job at West Point so I could be so close to my family and spend some time with her. We had a private funeral for her on my little acre on top of the mountain. She had eight children, 25 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren and every single one of us felt her love and were devastated when she passed away.  I still can’t get my head around the fact that I can’t just pick up the phone and call her anymore.

I came into this world wearing layette sets that Gram knit for me.  She was buried in the Field of Flowers Shawl I knit for her a few years ago.  It made me feel good to know that she’d have that wrapped around her to keep her wrapped in the love I felt for her.  I miss her so much.

To end on a good note, I have news about Lucky.  He may get his hearing back!  While visiting Kim of Woolen Rabbit a couple of months ago, she mentioned PSOM might be the cause of his deafness (he’s not completely deaf, he can hear very loud sounds and Aggie barking).  When I got home and googled it, I was amazed to find out that the vet at OSU doing a study on PSOM was the very vet that did Lucky’s BAER hearing test when he was in foster care last year!  I emailed her and after doing several other Cavaliers, she thinks this might be Lucky’s problem after all.  Her initial reaction last year (just a couple of weeks into the study) was that it was nerve damage.  Daniel, Lucky and I will hit the road next week to Ohio.  Keep your fingers crossed that his surgery is successful!

Family, Travel

Kim Wasn’t Lying!

Posted on by Jean
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My new “little” cousin, Nelson,  in the sweater I knit for him last month.  I think this is the last time he’ll be wearing it. lol.

We went up to New Hampshire over the weekend.  Got to meet up with Kim (Woolen Rabbit) and hubby again for lunch and a trip to Patternworks.   What fun but I can’t believe that as many times as we’ve met up, we don’t have a picture of us together.  I’m sure it’s because neither of us really like to have our picture taken but we’re going to have to remedy that next time.  And she wasn’t lying about the snow!  It’s exactly the kind of snow I remember as a little girl up there.   There’s a picture somewhere in my grandparents basement of me standing on the sidewalk in front of the house we lived in with snow piled way over my head on either side of me.  I remember my grandfather and uncles having to climb out the 2nd story window to clear the snow from the front door and the 1st story windows.   As soon as we hit Highway 16 our jaws dropped as we saw the several feet of snow get deeper and deeper.

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The Texas boy got a little taste of New England life as he helped my cousin get the snow off of her roof.   This was after we’d just gone up and helped my grandfather clear off his workshop and garage.   My 82 year-old grandfather swore to us that he wasn’t going to worry about the roof of the house because he’d shoveled it a few times over the last month and it didn’t have the accumulation the workshop and garage did.  Yea.  When I went out to take the above picture of Dan and Muria on her roof they just pointed up the hill at my grandparents house:

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See the guy in the red jacket on the roof?  That’d be my very stubborn grandfather.  See the the yellow wood in the foreground?  That’d be the fence that Joe could just step over because of the snow.

Crazy.  Just crazy.  I’m glad we won’t be around when all that melts.  What a mess.

Family, Knitting

Two Little Red Mittens

Posted on by Jean

After Norma’s (nownormaknits2) post the other day I used our TV time this weekend (which was a lot due to the storms that blew through) to knit a couple pairs of mittens for The Soaring Eagle’s Project.  I had some Gjestal Naturgarn in a beautiful bright red left over from this sweater I knit for Joe.

  Funny… for Joseph’s sweater I toned down the color with some brown dye but it was a perfect bright red for mittens.  They’ll be winging their way to Rachel later today if the ice melts a bit.  I used the patterns from Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns. After knitting the larger pair I knew it was going to be close to get another pair out of the skein so I cast on a small pair.  Here’s what I had left:

Also started pulling out old UFO’s.  This is the back and one front part of Chick Knits Ribby Cardi in Elann’s Highland Wool. 

Due to the ice, the boys have another day off of school today.  Joseph, however, will be spending the day doing a book report that was supposed to be due today.   He never brought the book home so we made him pick out one he finished recently so that he had something to turn in when they go back to school tomorrow (hopefully!).  Trust me, he’s only smiling because he knows I was taking his picture.  Hoping to nip procrastination in the butt by Junior High.

Jeremy is supposed to fly here on Thursday.   I’m a little worried because it looks like another big storm is going to hit Indiana that day.  Ugh.  We’ll all be SO disappointed if he doesn’t make that flight.  We’re all dying to get our arms around him and have him home for a couple of weeks.

Family, Friends, Knitting

Ice, Ice, Baby

Posted on by Jean

We got hit by quite an ice storm last night here in New York.  The boys had a two-hour delay.  Too bad we didn’t know about it before everyone was up and ready.  Lucky slipped when Dan took him outside this morning so that’s how we knew to check the roads.  It was some nasty stuff but made for some pretty pictures!  Of course the rest of the week calls for rain.  blech.

I keep forgetting to post the picture of  the socks I finished with Kim’s (Woolen Rabbit) yarns.  I think this colorway was called Boysenberry?  I know it was some kind of berry.  Gorgeous stuff all the way around.

Also finished another gift for my grandfather.  A nice warm hat.  I used Elann’s Uros and that same sock yarn that I used in his socks (trying to be thrifty, couldn’t use the sock yarn for anything else). You can get the free pattern by clicking here.  It’s very basic but I figured I’d save someone else doing the math.  I did the decreases at the crown by alternating ssk and K2tog so that there wouldn’t be swirls.  My grandfather just doesn’t strike me as a swirly kinda guy.

Jeremy comes for Christmas in a couple of weeks.  I CAN’T WAIT!!  We haven’t seen him since he came home on R&R from Iraq almost three years ago.  He’s doing so great in college that we’re treating him to a night at a great B&B in the Catskills and two days of lift tickets.  I can’t wait to see his face when he opens his stocking on Christmas morning.  He loves to snowboard and I told him I didn’t know if we’d be able to make it up there or not but to bring his snowboard because there’s actually a small slope right on West Point.  Bwahahaha.  I love surprising people.   Just hate being surprised.

Family, Knitting

Mountain Man Socks

Posted on by Jean

Need a quick Christmas gift?  I have an idea for you.

This is a very basic, simple pattern that I came up with for my grandfather that I’m calling Quick & Thick Mountain Man Socks.  You can download the pattern by clicking here.

I used two strands of yarn together.  One strand of Elann’s Peruvian Pure Alpaca in Black and one strand of a very fine German sock yarn.  It came out to 5.5 sts per inch.

We put our tree up on the first and I forgot to share my favorite ornament with you:

It’s my little knitting lady from my favorite Christmas Store in Germany, Käthe Wohlfahrt’s in Rothenberg.

Joe is quite the crafter.  It was his favorite part of German Kindergarten.  He’s always coming and asking me for the stapler and tape.  Last night I found this on the tree:

For as ornery as that kid can be… I think he just may be the one of my four boys that ends up a priest.  He can be very sweet when he wants to be and he’s always the one that says grace at meals and worries about what time it is when it’s almost time to go to Mass.  I found these pictures on an old website I used to keep.  This was Joe at about six months old in late 1999.  I knit it from Debbie Bliss’ Nursery Knits.  I found the teddy bear buttons in a shop in Germany.

Family, Friends, Knitting, Travel

No Place Better than New England for Tday

Posted on by Jean

Lots to catch up on!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We made the six-hour trek to New Hampshire.  We did pretty good traffic-wise.  Hit it in a few spots in Connecticut on the way there but pretty much smooth sailing other than that.

As if getting to live this close to my family isn’t great enough already, it’s even better because I get to visit with Kim (Woolen Rabbit) and her hubby who live a very short drive from my family.   I was especially looking forward to her meeting Lucky since we both have a love for the Cavalier breed.  We met them for dinner on Friday night and she surprised me with this:

Gorgeous, no?  The pattern is Delicato Mitts from Anne Hanson at KnitSpot and the yarn is Kim’s.  I’m telling you, the girl’s got an eye for color and she seems to have my favorites down pat.

I’ve been working on socks with the yarn Kim gave me when we went up over Labor Day.  I guess it’s only fitting that I show them in progress… I wasn’t hiding them, Kim, I promise!

I tried the Sherman Heel on the heel and toe.  I love the way it looks but…  Dear. God!  If I don’t have my mind completely on it I lose track and have to rip back.  I am getting the hang of it though and getting better at figuring out where I am without counting.  I’ve never had to rip back so many times.  I think it was worth it though.  NO GAPS!!!  Can I hear an AMEN?! The Sherman Heel was originally posted on the Knitlist which is long gone. I’ve added it to the bottom of this post.

And then when we got home I found this little gem from Claudia (bavgirl) in my mailbox:

Thank you so much, Claudia.  It was a fun little challenge.  And thanks, La (Knottygirls), for telling me about it!

My grandparents gave me a great gift as well.  A photo album put together by my great-grandmother on Gram’s side.  I’ve promised to scan every page and photo and make CD’s for everyone.  I couldn’t wait to get it home to compare to my family history notes.  This is my great-grandmother x3, Christiana Lewis (Soule) Chick (left). 

Her sister, Judith Thomas Soule, is on the right.  Christiana is my favorite person in our history because through census reports I’ve been able to get the most information on her.  She is my link to all my Mayflower ancestors.

It’s getting very cold and grey here in the Hudson Valley.  This is the view my boys have on their way to/from school each day and every weekend when we attend Mass.  This is taken from the Catholic Chapel here at West Point.

The Sherman Heel from the old Knitlist:

The Sherman Sock, or ‘How did you do that?’

Mary Sherman Lycan, 9/3/99:

The Sherman Sock is named for my late father, Rallston Sherman, an inventor. He always said an inventor is someone who is too lazy to do things the right way. The Sherman sock is knit from one side of the base of the toe cap, around the toe tip, and up. It is worked flat on two needles for the double-mitered toe and heel, and in the round for instep and leg.

Its advantages:

  1. As with peasant heels, the identical toe and heel are structurally independent, with no need for gussets or other awkward foot shaping. Use a contrasting color for toe and heel, for a very nice effect. Leg and instep are straight tubes, allowing for maximum freedom in stitch and pattern design.
  2. The mitered toe and heel, based on Montse Stanley’s suggestions for mitering, are easier to work than wrapped short rows. The decreases and increases are smooth, without holes or long carries inside.
  3. Toe-up construction allows for best use of yarn: if you start to run out, make tennis anklets; if you have extra, make long socks.
  4. Toe-up construction of identical toe and heel eliminate guesswork on the length of the foot. The depth of the toe cap is the same as the depth of the heel, so you can try on and measure as you go. Just poke your toes into the toe.
  5. Toe-up construction allows Fair Isle, lace, and Aran patterns to be knit right side up, except on the first half of the toe cap. If you want your multi-row patterns to come out even, toe-up construction allows you to fit the foot exactly, and fudge the leg length, to accomplish that.
  6. Worn-out heels and toes can be reknit as peasant heels.
  7. No more toe grafting!
  8. Sherman socks are fun to fold flat into little torpedo shapes.
  9. The invisible cast-on at the base of the toe cap makes it impossible to tell where you started knitting.
    Mystify your friends. ‘How did you do that?’

For more information, see: http://web.archive.org/web/20071231151807/www.knitli…