Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Start of another phase

My mother is moving to assisted living.   We grew up in Brooklyn, then my mother moved to Heritage Retirement Village in CT 20 years ago.  Now she is going to RI which is closer to my sister.  We started the process about a month ago.  My sister interviewed residences in Rhode Island and we chose Tamarisk over any of them.  Then the checklists started.  Moving is traumatic at anytime but going smaller is hard.  Whittling clothes and belongings can be difficult but Bonnie, who has been helping my mother for years, is amazing with her.  So patient, full of humor and really loves her.  They spent the last 3 weeks going through everything.

When I arrived yesterday they were almost done with the pantry.  I got to help with clearing off surfaces into boxes, deciding which artwork was coming and communicating with my sister on the check list, marking boxes with contents and making some last minute furniture and coat decisions.
My sister and I are both very much into lists and crossing things off.  She is jealous of the √ mark I can make on my mac but she cannot on her PC so I made her a really big red one in Photoshop.
The movers were supposed to come at 11.  Nice guys who even took the plants.  Actually they were unavoidably delayed almost an hour so Bonnie took mother out for lunch and bought her a couple of pairs of sneakers on a credit that needed to be used up.  It was way easier to proceed with only me here directing and I think less stressful to my mother.  The place is really empty now.  The carpeting which looked great before now needs to be shampooed.

I wanted to make a pair of socks for my sister for taking the lion's share of the work. I also did not want to make yet another pair of Jeans or Paynes grey socks (she has lots of them) so allowed myself to purchase some denim, taupe and grey JaWoll sock yarn right before I left.  I was excited that the skein contained reinforcement yarn.  I immediately started the toes and got rather enthused that I might just be able to make a pair of plain socks to present to her before I left to come home.

However as I got more into the toes I realized that these socks were not going to pass my sister's princess test for softness.  I finally noticed that the yarn was superwash WOOL and nylon, not superwash anything specific.  Arghhh wool pool yarn = yarn from meat sheep, old rams, cheese sheep, old ewes, etc. Many many people who find wool itchy have never worn pure merino, only wool pool yarn. If you think I am a micron snob, she makes me look like Miss Scratchy.

Oh and Yarndex quotes Lang on this yarn ""Jawoll" is so soft & fine that it can also be used to create beautiful sweaters, gloves, hats, shawls, really any fingering-weight project. "  so I kept on knitting hoping it would soften up.

I love the way the colors are coming out but the feel of the socks as they are being knit is not passing MY softness tests so I can't imagine how it will pass hers.
I googled Warwick, RI yarn shops and found one very close to Tamarisk.  Yippee!  I will go there Thursday afternoon.

The onliest problem is the socks will then be 4 days behind schedule.  
Repeat after me..."I will not pull a Yarn Harlot Rhinebeck stunt....I will not pull a Yarn Harlot Rhinebeck stunt....I will not pull a Yarn Harlot Rhinebeck stunt...."

Uh oh.  I found the yarn shop's website, who look really interesting BTW, BUT they have the audacity to be closed on Thursdays.  Soooo do I order from WEBS right now? And will I need to pay a small fortune to get yarn to my sister's house by Thursday? or take my chances on having time to go to another shop?





1 comment:

Lori said...

Call the shop and explain the situation to see if they can accommodate you for a few moments on Thursday... Often shops are happy to do so, and it never hurts to ask.

Best of luck with the transition, I hope you mom settles in comfortably.