Bound off

The knitting world has lost an amazing woman. Joan Davis has passed away following a period of illness. A master knitter, a creative designer, and a wonderful teacher, she was an inspiration to many in Maine's fiber community. She will be sorely missed.

For years, Joan ran knitting cruises on Penobscot Bay, and held "Knit-Ins" at midcoast Maine's bed and breakfasts. She organized 'fiber luncheons' at local restaurants and had guest speakers entertain us and educate us about various aspects of fibery things. She was my ultimate resource, the woman who knew absolutely everything about knitting, and I often looked to her for information and advice, which she always shared happily and freely.

Joan was adventurous as well. Once she put a few shetland sheep in the back of her SUV and drove them across country, because a friend wanted to add a few Northport shetlands to her flock in the midwest or somewhere. It was somewhere far away, anyway. Joan was willing to go to any lengths to promote wool production!

As you knit along this evening, please take a few stitches in memory of Joan. She'd like that, I think.

The Llama Song

From the Department of Strange but Wonderful Things You Can Do with Flash Animation:

The Llama Song!

Sure to bring a smile to your face. :)

A Year

Yesterday it was a year since Brenda died. It's been a long, hard year, for me, anyway.

We were closed on the 7th & 8th, ostensibly for cleaning & painting (which we did) but mostly because none of us could imagine being open on that anniversary. We would probably just keep crying and the customers probably wouldn't understand, because I am sure that last year's events are not at the front of their minds.

So we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and painted. We kept as busy as we could and it helped us get through it together, just as being together helped us get through that tough day last year. Last year I remember saying to Susan, how will we ever get along without Brenda? I still feel that way, every day. She was such an amazing woman.

As everyone was cleaning and laughing and working together, I listened to their voices and thought, what a contrast from last year... when we sat on the floor together and held each other and cried. It was so awful then.

We got a lot of cleaning and painting done, and the store looks pretty good. I cleaned and reorganized about half of the office, and I will pick away at the rest of it over the next few Sunday mornings. I finally changed the answering machine message, which still had Brenda's voice on it. We didn't get everything done that we wanted to, but I am surprised at how much we got done! We can finish it up over the rest of the Spring, a little here, a little there.

Jury Duty

I had my last session of jury duty yesterday (Yes! I am off the list for 5 years now!). About a hundred of us in the jury pool went to the Knox County courthouse; we proceeded to wait for the lawyers and the judge to come in. We waited and waited. After a while the bailiffs went out. We waited and waited some more. Somebody suggested that what we needed was a little entertainment. There was one of those big, portable chalkboards in the court, and someone had foolishly left a piece of chalk on it. We considered tic tac toe, but the perfect appropriateness of another chalkboard game was evident, given the setting and the players. So we played Hangman. We saved two stick figures from death before the bailiffs returned.

Meanwhile, I was knitting the whole time on a sock. It's done in Schaefer yarns "Anne"; 72 stitches on size 1 dpns. You can tell how long we waited by virtue of the fact that when I entered the courtroom, I picked up the stitches for the gussets and started working in the round again, after finishing the heel. By the time we left I was just ready to start the toe decreases.

No jury was called; the party took a plea bargain. I guess it was a pretty entertaining way to spend the morning.