Grandparents Day

The Sunday after Labour Day (in the USA, so the first or second Sunday of September) is Grandparents Day.  The only one I've posted about at any length is my maternal grandmother, who is the only one alive as I've written this blog.  My paternal grandparents disappeared when bio-dad left the family, and my step-paternal grandparents died decades before I met my stepfather (who most of the world knows as my father, he's been a part of my life for so many decades), and I also had a step-maternal grandfather.  But photos of these aren't on my digital media, and so harder to add to the blog.

I do have a photo of my maternal grandfather, although he died decades ago also, and I forget why I captured it electronically.

Arnold "Zep" Zimmerman

I've probably be thinking about him because football season just started, and it's still baseball season, and he was deeply devoted to both sports.  He played in college, but never professionally, instead building a truck parts and automotive business with his father and brothers.  We all learned the games at his knee, and I remember attending them with him, or watching many on television.

Every Sunday for decades he hosted a family breakfast at a local restaurant.  I remember sitting at the far end of the table, because I was one of the youngest.  You could hear my grandfather everywhere as he told stories and laughed.

I remember the bowls of sultanas and pecans set around their house for snacking.  All of the family gatherings he presided over (his parents having died long before I was born) with dozens of the very extended family, and friends, crowding tables or scattering through whichever home hosted that event.  The tradition of him singing "Down By The Old Mill Stream" with his brothers - cheerfully in four different keys, and with silly gestures that had us all laughing.  Some of his jokes, at least one of which wouldn't be considered politically correct, but it makes me laugh to remember.

There were not-so-good times too, as there always are with families, but I am glad to have so much happiness to remember.

Fiberuary - Week 4

 

Day 22 - On The Road

My mother had surgery on Friday, and I went to pick her up on Thursday.  That's my current "car scarf", a simple item (sometimes a "car hat") that I can work on while waiting, or taking into a location in case there is a queue.  The one shown is now finished and I have started another.  I didn't notice until looking at the photo later that the house flag is nicely framed above my knitting.

Day 23 - Self Care

I wanted to have a photo of one of my favourite shawls, but didn't take one before going to my parents' house (I stayed through the weekend to help them while my mother recovered) so had to make do.  It's crocheting and knitting and a wee bottle of a really nicely scented hand lotion, which is the "self care" part, especially as the yarn I am knitting is a scratchy wool.

Day 24 - Memories

Top right is an afghan crocheted by the great-grandmother I never knew, and which I repaired many years ago.  It's very heavy, single-crocheted wool in panels with a lacy connecting stitch.  Bottom right is the aran-style blanket my grandmother knitted.  At left is the last gift I made for her, a lap blanket that I gave to my grandmother on her final birthday.

Day 25 - Handmade Gift

Technically, many gifts - I have a friend who loves to knit socks, and for many years she gave me a pair each year.  These are not all the ones she made for me, just the ones I could grab most quickly when I had a few minutes today to take the photo.

Day 26 - Where in the World

Some of my yarny souvenirs from travels - Argentina, Austria, France, Germany.  Possibly others, I would need to check notes from past trips.  I couldn't quickly locate yarn from New Zealand, and I didn't buy any in Thailand (although I did knit a scarf on that trip that I treasure as a memory), and there are some other yarns that became items I did not include.

Day 27 - Sip and Stitch

Too late I realized I should have taken a photo of my knitting with the drink (tonic water) I was sipping on my flight to Dallas.  Sip & Stitch at 37,000-ish feet up!  This was after I landed, and settled in "my" room at the friends' house where I usually stay when visiting.  They stock Diet Dr. Pepper® for me.

Day 28 - Gratitude

Two friends donated lots of yarn of all kinds to the Urchin Street area at North Texas Irish Festival, with the only requirement that none of it returns home.  The ladies in charge were delighted to receive it and to pose for a photo that I posted so my friends (who could not attend this year) could experience their gratitude.

That concludes my Fiberuary for 2025.  Will I do it next year?  Maybe.  It was a nice distraction this year.  But it's also a challenge - I know, that's the idea - to find a subject each day.

Mother's Day 2024

We're postponing the big celebration until next week, because my niece's boyfriend graduated with his master's degree yesterday so my brother's family has been there to celebrate and bring back furniture.  Also, my mother and father aren't quite up to celebrations following surgeries.

So, my parents and I have been cleaning out closets (I know, so exciting) and I'll make a cheese soufflé for supper with a side of asparagus.

Photo is from a Mother's Day brunch of seven years ago, showing me and my grandmother and my mother, and my mother's aide of the time who'd been providing services to my grandfather and grandmother for many years:

Motherhood is complicated as is daughterhood, and we're doing okay.

Her 108th Birthday

My grandmother would have been 108 years old today.  She died late last May, two weeks after her 107th birthday.

Photo taken on one of last trips.  My grandmother
is watching a video of her beloved Pavarotti.

It's been a complicated year for me, emotionally.  We were close and yet often disagreed.  More than once since last May I've found myself thinking about telling her something, sending her something - and I cannot.  I had to remind myself that there's no longer a need to send a card at a holiday, or a postcard from my travels, or to make a vest or some other item as a birthday or holiday gift.

In the Jewish tradition, you spend a full year mourning a close relative.  I am coming to the end of that year, and yet in some ways, the mourning never ends.  As long as there are memories, I will miss not being able to make more with her.

As my mother often says, 107 years is a good long run.  I am glad I was able to visit and celebrate that final birthday with my grandmother.

Now it can be told.

One month ago, on May 4, 2023, my grandmother had her 107th birthday.  For many, many years she would only admit to being 35 years old, and if you asked why she would tell you one of these reasons:

• The year she was 35 was a good one, and she saw no reason to change it.
• Jack Benny only admitted to being 39 years old, and he is much older than she.
• Sometimes an amalgam of both.

My grandmother was quite irate at my brother one Thanksgiving when we visited, and since his birthday was around then we celebrated, and one of her neighbors noticed.  The lady asked who was the honoree, and when my brother admitted it was he, she asked how old he was.  Proudly my brother said he had just turned forty.  After we returned to my grandmother's apartment she scolded my brother, asking how people could believe she is just 35 when her grandchildren are older than she!

The only time we could get her to admit to being older was if there was a senior discount - and not always.

It proved a complication when my grandmother was in hospital a number of years ago, and the doctors called my mother telling her they needed to invoke the Healthcare Power of Attorney she held, to give my grandmother some treatment.  My mother was surprised, as she'd spoken to her mother a short time before and things didn't seem that much amiss.  The doctor explained that he'd gone in to assess and speak with my grandmother, who was having gallbladder trouble, and my grandmother's answers suggested that she was not mentally capable of making decisions on her own behalf.  My mother asked what the questions and answers had been.

One, of course, was age.  My mother asked whether the doctor had asked the date of my grandmother's birth or the actual number of years.  Both, he replied.  My mother asked if my grandmother had properly named the year which would make her 35 years old that day, and the doctor admitted that she had.  Well, pointed out my mother, doesn't that show she still a bit sharp?

The doctor said that my grandmother had also not known who the President was.  My mother, who knows her mother very well, asked if she had been unable to name him or had just said "that man".  The latter, the doctor admitted.  Given that the President of the time was a Democrat, my mother suggested he ask some other questions, as my grandmother was not likely to name anybody other than a Republican.

Until shortly before her 107th birthday, that was my grandmother.  She was fighting pneumonia in April, which is why I thought of sending her birthday blanket early as a get-well gift.  The truth is that I was not certain she would still be alive for her birthday, or not capable of recognizing a gift.  But she rallied, and was alive, and my mother and I flew down to visit.

What my mother had not told either me or my brother is that my grandmother had suffered an apparent stroke earlier that week, and after discussions with her medical providers and the aides attending, my mother had called in the local hospice team.  My grandmother had been adamant that she did not want to die in hospital, so as long as it could be done, my mother determined that she would be cared for at home.

This happened on the Monday, and since my brother and I usually call on the weekend, and then I would call midweek, we didn't know.  (When I called on Wednesday evening my grandmother wasn't able to say much, and I thought it was just because I called in the evening - she'd been sundowning for a while.)  And my mother, being busy with everything, hadn't told us until she and I were on the way to the airport.  I texted my brother to ask if he knew, and he hadn't.  So now we did.

I was very glad to be able to see my grandmother one last time, and for her to be able to recognize and talk with us, although she was very weak and not always cognizant.  We visited for what time she could handle, but clearly there wasn't much time left.

During my trip to Texas, knowing she was failing, I had my family promise that if my grandmother died they would tell me, and I promised not to leave the meetings early but to change my return flight and meet people in Florida.  My grandmother hung on, and I got home, quickly doing laundry and turning my suitcase in anticipation of another trip.

Thursday evening, we got the call.

On Friday my mother and I flew down, and in a concentrated whirlwind of activity, fueled by hamburgers and ice cream and assisted by some of the aides, in four days we cleaned out my grandmother's apartment.  Furniture was donated, special items packed to bring home, and the final arrangements made.  I'd had some photos taken during the birthday trip, because I knew they would be the final ones.  Of course we found others in a couple of photo albums, most recording parties and travel my grandmother had done with my step-grandfather, and a few older ones of family.  My grandmother, unfortunately, was not a sentimentalist and tended to weed out photos she deemed unimportant - on visits we would salvage what we could.

So it has been a month since my grandmother turned 107.  I won't post a photo from that final trip, but one from earlier, when my mother and I visited for her birthday and my grandmother was only 99:

Since my grandmother was born just before Mother's Day, we made a point to visit for her birthday (or as close as jobs allowed) instead, because, she noted, people always remembered Mother's Day for cards and gifts and visiting, but would forget other times.  Visiting for her birthday showed we remembered her all the time.  Even after she turned 100 we were not permitted to acknowledge her age during our visits, even though the community where she lived included the fact in their newsletter.  My grandmother said she hoped most of the people there were frail of memory and wouldn't remember that her age now had three digits.

I've already felt the pang, not being able to call to tell her about the Memorial Day service I attended last weekend.  Veterans and servicemembers were very important to my grandmother, and she took all the recognitions - Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day - very seriously.  We found photos of my older niece's graduation among the ones my grandmother kept, and I realized we wouldn't be sending her any of my younger niece's graduation, which happened the weekend my mother and I were cleaning out the apartment (we watched a livestream).

The birthday blanket came home with me, and I've washed and folded it and tucked it into a special shelf in the linen closet, with a bluebonnets blanket a friend designed, that my grandmother loved and often had wrapped around her legs.  They are going to stay there for a long time.

I love and miss her, very very much.

I Restarted a Shawl

I finished the Reyna Shawl:

That one took about two weeks to make.  Then I started a different pattern with the remaining two balls, but did not like how the thick-thin of the Berocco Topaz yarn worked with the pattern, plus having a lace pattern on every row instead of every other required more attention than I could guarantee, and it was getting fiddly.  I frogged the shawl and restarted with something simpler:

Yes, it mostly looks like a lump of garter stitch, but there are large holes on the edge.  You can see a bit of them in the lower right.  I took this photo after I used all the frogged yarn so it appears tidier than it was.

I don't have too much more to report.  My mother and I went to Florida to visit my grandmother last weekend, as it was my grandmother's birthday.  It took her a bit to realize we were really and truly there, but once she did it was a lovely visit.  I gave my grandmother the blanket and she was overcome - how soft, all the colours!  She grabbed it up and hugged it, and kept rubbing her face in it while we talked.

I am so glad I didn't mail it to her, but was there to see her joy at receiving the gift!

Finished two things.

I finished the anthology I was reading, begun around March 1st.  I was interested not just because I enjoy Agatha Christie books, but because I was familiar with derivative works - movies and plays - of two of the titles.  In the anthology, Five Complete Hercule Poirot Novels, there are these five novels:

• Thirteen at Dinner
• ABC Murders
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Cards on the Table
• Death on the Nile

Of course there have been numerous films made of Murder on the Orient Express, and I have seen a couple.  Death on the Nile was the first play in which I was involved after moving to Texas, and as I read the novel I kept working out which characters were combined to streamline a cast.

Cast photo - I was Stage Manager.  "15" is not the year, it's the 15th photo in the set of the
production photos.  Yes, the title of the play is different from that of the novel.

I also finished the blanket I was making for my grandmother.

It is based upon the pattern for the Roundabout Mandala Afghan, but I only had four cakes of Lion Brand Mandala Sparkle (colourway: 'Hercules') and also wanted to make something smaller since my grandmother is tiny and she will use this mostly when sitting in her chair.  So instead of the second set of corners and the outer border, I repeated the inner border two more times, then added a round of scallops on the outside to make it look more finished.

My grandmother has pneumonia, so instead of waiting to take it to her on a surprise birthday visit (Shhhhh!) I may send it now, as a Get Well gift.  And I hope that she does get well.

Things getting finished - and minor heat wave.

Temperatures in the 90's(F) this weekend, so I went out early in the day, and stayed home the rest of the time.  This means I didn't see friends in an outdoor concert, or attend a little street festival - things I definitely would have enjoyed in the Before Times, but with the COVID-19 numbers surging, the combination was enough to keep me home.  Air conditioning is on for the first time this year, and I did a check of the filter but it's almost clean, so I didn't replace it.  I have been drinking a lot of iced tea, and eating paletas to keep cool.

Just in time for very hot weather, I finished one of my UFOs, the Fiberlady Swirl yarn top.  I tried it on while on-needles to see about the fit, and it seemed to be OK:

Tried on over my t-shirt.  Two circulars at the bottom.

The top used only two hanks of yarn, in the end, and while unshaped fits well and is cool. 

Finished!  And ends run in, but not blocked.

So it's finished in plenty of time for DFW Fiber Fest, and when registration opened yesterday I went online and managed to score all the classes I wanted to take.  (Good thing I did, as two were filled by the end of Saturday.)  It's been a long time since I've had a full weekend of classes.  Of course whether I attend depends upon the state of the pandemic at the time, but I can make that decision in September.

I'm up to five books finished, of the eight I declared; I'd like to finish twelve this year, but we shall see.  I left The Agony and the Ecstacy home, so I am back to it now, and it seems as if I never make progress even though I read a half a chapter or more each evening.  It has almost 800 pages, not including the appendices, and I'm slightly past half, which may be why it feels that way.

Instead of another UFO (and I've found a couple more) I started something new - of course!  During the Stitches Expo earlier this month I heard about Miss Purl's Party Shawl which mingles crochet and knitting, and decided to start it.

There will be a LOT of ends to work in at the top edge.

I am using stash yarn and not all the colours, just two, and working at a larger (and not quite as drapey) gauge.  Right now it has some handspun for MC and Fiberlady BaaBoo for all the contrast colours; I'll reverse that in the border.  I am using the BaaBoo doubled to more closely match the handspun, which has uneven thickness.

The BaaBoo is (I think) Cafe au Lait colourway, and as you can see the handspun (which I am pretty sure is also from Fiberlady) includes tans, blue, and white.  There may not be enough of the yarns to do the full border, but I am OK with whatever is achieved.  Yesterday the designer released an updated pattern and I've decided to stick with the original one, as I understood it well enough.  I may do a proper version of fingering weight later using the updated version.

My grandmother told me that she received the shawls I sent to her for Mother's Day, and loves them, but thinks they are too pretty to wear so she keeps them spread on her bed and admires them.  I assured her they are washable, but she doesn't want to take any chances with the sparkly yarn.  Oh, well!

Mother's Day 2022

I managed to get here for the holiday; I was supposed to fly on Friday, but there were storms and my parents worried.  So on Thursday I changed my flights to Saturday afternoon, then because my parents worried about more storms, to Saturday morning.  Hurrah for Southwest making changes easy and without imposing additional fees.

There was a three-house layover in Baltimore, but Terminal C was nearly empty so I had time to walk steps, and write an article, and edit a newsletter, and so on.  On the way home my mother drove past a couple houses she wanted me to see, in case I am inclined to buy (being closer to family, after the last two years, is appealing) and one was open following a garage sale.  We stopped to see and my mother explained she'd spoken to a sibling the week before, so we got to look around (it's an estate sale) and while the house is bigger than I want, I did buy a Cubii and a sewing machine.

Ah - the era of the cabinet and machine colour!

They included several boxes and such of sewing supplies.

The daughter was delighted that I was not only interested in the sewing machine but knowledgeable, and my parents agreed to store it until I figure out about moving here.  Now I am inclined to take the Anna Dress class at Stitches @ Home in June, since I will be here and can do the sewing.  It's somewhat my style of easy dressing, especially if I can fit it to my dimensions and add pockets.

Then my father and I spent some time in the evening going over the latest papers for my uncle's care.

For Mother's Day I made two meals; a cheese soufflé for luncheon, which has become a tradition for Sundays when I visit, and then baked salmon with herbed butter sauce and roasted sweet potatoes for supper.  This entailed just getting them into the oven at the correct times.  Mom was going to cook but I snuck around and did it instead.  Mom said she felt very lazy but hey - it's Mother's Day!  She's entitled!

We also called my grandmother and she felt very much attended, since it's rare that all three of us (my mother, my brother, and myself) call her on the same day.  The shawls have not yet arrived, and I hope she likes them - but as my grandmother told me, she loves anything I make for her.

The gifts to my mother and sister-in-law were donations to local food pantries.  There is such need, especially with the rise in food prices, and as Mom said, she doesn't need more things to dust.  So we are happy to provide meals to our neighbors.

One funny bit:  My mother noticed my new eyeglasses immediately when she picked me up at the airport.  It wasn't until the next day that she noticed my haircut!  And yes, with air-drying the waves come out and it looks shorter.

One more week.

I realized that I have one more week of my no-knitting-for-Lent restriction.  So far I have finished five scarves (one was a UFO), one hat, and the test sweater.  This is the last item I expect to make before Easter next Sunday:

I started after the weekly KnitTalk Zoom call
and got this far.  The starting always goes quickly.

It's the Lotus Blossom Shawl and mostly a simple crochet but there are some tricky bits.  I am not using the yarn called for (although I have it) because I've been wanting something to make with this yarn.  It will likely go to my grandmother for her birthday.

Speaking of which, as I said in the last post I visited my grandmother, who is definitely frailer in body and mind.  Some due to age, and some due to isolation, we are certain.  I brought some of her favourite foods every day and didn't get photos of her with all of them, just the KFC and pizza:

   

I introduced her to YouTube, so we spent much of the visit viewing The Three Tenors and opera and classical music flashmobs:

Watching her favourite, Luciano Pavarotti,
sing "Che gelida manina".

We joined my Sunday night virtual knitting group from KnitTalk:

We also had Zoom calls with most of the family, and she got to meet my brother's new(ish) dog.

My trip home was rescheduled a bit due to bad weather but I made it mostly smoothly and a day earlier than originally planned.  When I listened to the storm in my area the next night I was very glad to be neither flying nor driving in it!

Then it was busy at work, and through the weekend, and it seemed that every time the weather looked good enough to go for a walk, by the time I got my shoes on it was raining again.  Oh, well.

When I fly I wear a N95 or KN95 mask, and since they are plain I draw on them or write a quote.  Often it is from somebody whose birthdate is the day of my trip:

This one is from Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). The full quote is "I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse... I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist". She was a Mexican-British artist and writer who mostly lived in Mexico after her father disowned her when she announced she didn't want to be a proper debutante but decided to move to France with Max Ernst.

My life is neither that interesting nor that dramatic.

Finished! And flying.

The test sweater is finished as of this afternoon.  I don't want to post the full photo until the designer clears it, so here is a closeup of the button placket:

Overall I think it came out better than I hoped it would, since I had to use whatever is in the stash.  I have bits of the black and purple left, maybe 30-40 metres of each, and just a couple metres of the off-white.

In other knitting news, I've been meaning to post this photo, showing a few goodies I've gotten recently:

Lily Chin posted about the socks, and Trish Day figured out a source.
The bag is from Franklin Habit's shop - he learned this is how
knitters in France call "yarn chicken" and was inspired.

Yes, I am still not buying yarn.  😇

And yes, I am going to be flying again - although not as originally planned!  My April Fool was to get a call from Southwest late last evening advising that my flight today was cancelled and I needed to reschedule.  Apparently all the people on the flight were trying at once so the website was not successful.  I called and a wonderful human got me on a flight pair that will get me to Florida later - but still today!  And a different airport, once that usually is rather more expensive, but in this circumstance I am accommodated.

Tomorrow I see my grandmother, after much, much too long.  💖💕

The final month of the year

I know that I should do a review of last month (this post was started on December 2nd, not the first as I try to do with the beginning-of-month posts) and have new resolutions for December, but I really cannot think of anything other than "more of the same".

I forgot to take a photograph of my grandmother's shawl before mailing it as part of her Channukah gifts package, so I don't have that to show.

It's a good thought.

I've been doing my usual posting of Hanukah songs on social media, so maybe once the holiday is finished I'll add the list here.

Resolutions Report

I've decided that since I really don't like the border on the Omega Shawl, I'm going to pull it out and simply do some garter stitch and call it done.  It's long enough, since I'm short, and the yarn is at a black band which I think will be good for the bottom.  Otherwise I'll have to go through the shades and I'm not that interested in hundreds of stitches in stockinette, over and over.  Therefore this UFO should become a FO before the end of the year.

My one resolution to the KnitTalk group was to do the Falling Leaves Cardigan by end of year.  I've had the yarn for a while, I found some great buttons in my stash, now time to cast on.  Of course, I keep getting distracted by other things.   Thirty days and counting down....

Mid-December report & a special gift for my grandmother

My last post included photos of the items I knitted and crocheted for my grandmother's Christmas gifts.  I didn't include this because I purchased it from an eBay seller who has been running an online estate sale and the auction had ended too recently for it to be here when I did my first-of-month post:

As you can tell, if you are from Chicago, this is an ornament featuring the famous clock on the Marshall Field's building* downtown.  It came with the original box, in which it is shown at left, with the Marshall Field's logo on the cover.  When I saw this in his postings it brought back memories of when my grandmother and great-grandmother took me to The Walnut Room for luncheon.  My great-grandmother got the pot pie, I don't remember what my grandmother got (maybe also the pot pie? I tried it once or twice), and I got the fruit salad with little date bread sandwiches.  They were such a treat!  I remember having to be very dressed up for these occasions, and when I spoke to my grandmother last weekend after the ornament arrived (with the cookies and rugelach I sent her for Hanukah, so she knew she could open it immediately), we reminisced for quite a while about these "ladies' luncheons".

*Yes, I know it's now owned by Macy's, along with everything else Marshall Field's.  But to longtime Chicagoans, the building itself will never be Macy's.

Channukah 2020

This year was the first one in a long time (maybe since childhood?) that I was home on all eight nights:

   

   

   

   

Because I am allergic to chocolate, I bought a chest (it looks like a miniature treasure chest) of fruit jellies gelt, and had fun coordinating each evening's treat with the candles.  I confirmed for myself that one box of 44 candles is exactly enough candles for the festival - it's been a long time since (a) I had a new box to open (purchased specially this year) and (b) I've been home every night.

My cooking club met on the 7th night, and the theme was "Christmas Cookies" so I made a Channukah treat.  I thought I should do something dessert-ish because of the theme, so regular potato latkes were not an option, and I didn't want to try to make a single sufganiyah.  I found a recipe for apple latkes, but decided to make levivot, which are a sweetish cheese-based pancake with raisins - or in my case, since I have a lot of them, dried blueberries.  I added some sautéed apples with a sprinkle of cinnamon, and the whole was yummy.  I had enough to make levivot for breakfast the next two mornings.

Mid-Month Mini-Resolutions Report

No progress to speak of in finishing this month's mini-resolutions, in part because some of my cleaning and organizing and looking in the stash turned up a book with a mitten pattern I wanted to try, and knit a pair:

That is actually the second pair I knit.  It's made from leftover odd bits of yarn that may have been part of a baby sweater for my brother and/or me.  I knit the first pair with some vintage Red Heart yarn from a time when it was 100% wool, plus some bits of brown alpaca and black wool lingering in my stash:

  

I had wool left (I just barely had enough alpaca for the mittens; it was very fine so I carried it with black) after finishing the mittens so I made the hat.  This finished off the multicolour.  Both pairs of mittens and the hat (garter stitch except for ribbing at the bottom) will be donated to charity.

The mittens work up fairly quickly, especially as I did the thumb side of both at the same time.  This is so narrow, it makes sense to me to do it this way.  The Red Heart ones are much too big for me, the pink-and-blue ones (I used thinner yarn and smaller needles than the pattern indicates) just about fit me, although I want to fiddle a bit with where the mittens divide.  Third time might be the charm - and those will be for me.

She waited several hours

My grandmother did, she said, after my birthday package arrived, before she opened it.  "I knew it was something that squished" she said, which was true because I hadn't put the gift into a box before wrapping it, so it would fit into the box I was using to mail it.

This shawl: 

Patons 'Glam Stripes' in Navy

For the record, her birthday is next Monday, and I didn't expect her to wait that long.  It's a bit of a running joke that my grandmother doesn't deal well with curiosity - she wants to know what is in the package now.  Sometimes I wonder why bother wrapping it - but she does have fun unwrapping.

I didn't finish my vest, but I did finish and mail the Mittens for Akkol grad items:

The sweater is more person-shaped when it's not patted out for photographing.  For the scarf I used the same stitch pattern as in the borders on the sweater.  The socks are overdyed wool and I didn't realize the two hanks were slightly different shades until I wound them, so I alternated yarns every three rows, with the darker one used for ribbing, heels, and toe.  The pattern had a texture to it but I left it out given the striping.  I wanted these to be semi-mindless.

The vest is past the dividing at underarms, but it's not nearly mindless enough and I am trying to figure out what to do at the armholes.  That will depend upon how much yarn is left.  I may figure it out this weekend.  For mindless things I made five rectangles for The Linus Project, and two scarves that will be donated to shelters.  All but one scarf are in garter stitch - nice and mindless.

I've also been doing cooking, including some very nice bread and sandwich rolls:

I found out about a cooking group at a library, and they moved online.  We had a meeting this week and everybody showed what we've made from our pantry.  I did a soup with lots of kale, because I got a bag of it at the farmstand last Saturday.  We didn't get to taste each other's cooking this time but we did have fun getting recipe ideas and talking about what we miss being able to cook.

Resolutions for May

I am one for two on the April resolutions, because I made the shawl but didn't finish my vest.  So first up will be to finish the "We Knit In Texas Y'All" vest.

For other items, I will finish the baby blanket I was going to do in March and hand off to friends to deliver.  Of course, all the travel stopped, so pressure to finish was off.  The baby is already in this world but the month that includes Mother's Day seems a good time to get it finished and shipped.

For a new item for me I think I will take a set of red yarns from one of the DFW Fiber Fest vendors and make a pair of socks.  With the colours I can do a very plain pattern and let the yarn be the energy.  My mother loves red, so it seems appropriate - and somewhere I think I have some red socks I was making for her.  I sent a Mother's Day gift so I don't need to make one for my mother, and my grandmother loved a box of soaps I'd sent to her, so I'm done with gifts for a while.

Music for May

A friend posted this challenge, which she'd gotten from her son:

She posted partway through April, and note it has a bonus challenge, so I decided to wait and start it on the first of May.  I'll post the dailies on Facebook and a summary list here each week or two.