Papa Time

You might also call this Grandpa Time, but DH made it abundantly clear that there is only one Grandpa in our family, and that is my dad (who is pushing 95 but suffers from dementia, poor sweet man, doesn't recognize anyone any more). So what do you call a male grandparent who does not want to be grandpa? Well, in my southern family you call him Papa. In this case, Papa Nick (so as not to be confused with Papa Paul, the other grandparent). Papa Nick likes this. I guess it has a kind of pater familias ring to it, which appeals to his German control-freak nature. And I also guess that he feels younger than he would if he were called GRANDPA NICK. We all have strict orders not to use this in his hearing ( HAH!! -- GRANDPA NICK, GRANDPA NICK, GRANDPA NICK -- that was fun, if a little childish).

Now, I myself have no objection to being called Granny. There has always been a Granny in my family. My mother was Grandma to my kids, but my dad's mother was Granny. She passed almost 25 years ago, and after that there were no grannys in the family until it was my turn to step up to the grandparent plate. I voluntarily -- no, proudly -- took up the Granny mantle and title.

Should I change my blog name? Perhaps call it Deep South Granny? Knitter Granny? Granny's Two Sticks Hell-on-Wheels? Are we getting a little silly here?

Speaking of Knitting...I finally wove in the ends and blocked my Clapotis. Even in lace weight yarn and size 2 needles, it is wonderfully long:


Detail of the stitch pattern (sorry about the blur):

In the immortal words of my late DMIL -- Sehr elegant.

Granny Time

So much to do, so little time. It has been almost a month since the last posting. Life is busy, life is full of stuff.

A great treat today -- my daughter-in-law and granddaughter showed up at our door at 10AM. It has been more than 2 years since I last saw them. At that time they lived in Hawaii, and they came for a visit (with my son). Now they live in Mississippi, but son had to stay home at his job, so we had the great pleasure of a full day with the two of them. The whole family went to the park (not terribly exciting just to say, but a perfect piece of Americana, and just wonderful for taking pictures and talking, talking, catching up, and talking). One daughter had to leave for work, so there is a gap in the family portrait.

The past month has been the usual round of dialysis, doctors appointments, more dialysis, and more doctors appointments. On the up side, I have been spending countless hours knitting in waiting rooms and have finished DH's Fair Isle Vest.

Here it is being blocked:

Here is a detail shot of the pattern itself:

If it looks really intricate, rest assured that it is. Judicious enlargement of the teeny tiny detail chart, lots of stitch markers, and religious use of a row counter are mandatory! The big sweater chart (row-by-row) was less than useless. Enlarging it to full size made the details too blurry to see, and there were some serious mistakes in the written pattern. Its only use was for the starting row, which was row 4 of the pattern detail. I am totally clueless as to the reasoning behind this, it makes no sense at all.

If you are going to go to this much work, I think it pays to make the inside as nice as the outside and enclose the edges of the steeks. There is an excellent explanation of this at www.kidsknits.com. Not difficult to do at all, and you end up with the insides looking like this:

Voila, one work of art.