beeeee good

Starkville Oktibbeha County School District's mascot is the yellow jacket.  My husband is very supportive of their sports' teams, in particular, their football team.  In large part, this is probably because his mother, he, and his kids had all gone to school there.  Two of his grandkids went to school there for a few years, too.  Since then, they've moved on and now live elsewhere, where yellow jackets are considered pests and not a point of pride.

Years ago, when I first met Jerry but before we were even engaged, I knit on a loom a very long tailed, shaped yellow and black stinger hat with a deep brim.  Since then, he asked me to affix a retired Coast Guard patch the rim's front.  Now, when the weather warrants, he wears his hat to his  Friday night football games.  Folks usually ask him where he got it and if his wife would consider making and selling one for that particular person.  It tickles me, but I am super glad that he doesn't volunteer me, since I don't like working on deadlines.  Besides, I wouldn't sell themed hats, for several reasons.  One is that I'm not licensed to use the Georgia Hornet {which has leased its mascot usage to SOCSD to use as its yellow jacket.  The other reason I don't sell my yarned works is because very rarely would this be considered profitable.  Handmade items are usually labor intensive and that alone would drive up the price.  I tend to make stuff with particular recipients in mind, and then give those completed products as gifts.  For one thing, it avoids the entire entitlement aspect of what a paying customer might think is justifiable demands on their part.  And no one's feelings get hurt on either end of the transaction.

Having said that, I am way behind on projects that I've started, worked on, almost but not quite completed for others.   Several folks are waiting for their afghans, tho they are not pressuring me, they do ask from time to time.  Sometimes, I will work on something for someone, and they won't realize it is for them until I tell them that I am almost done.  Then for whatever reason, I end up setting the item aside for an indeterminant amount of time.  Eventually, I complete the project, but it's almost anticlimactic when I do.

So it seems to defeat my purpose to start a new project, but sometimes, I just can't help it.  Projects press me into working on them.  They might prey on my mind, demanding my attention, until I begin dreaming of them.  Case in point, my husband has shared with me this picture he found online of a sneering hat.  I know that if I made it, he'd wear it.  And I love making stuff for folks who appreciate gifts.  So I foresee this as being a quick project that would be completed within a weekend.  Now that our weather is cooling off, hats are "in".

Also, I can't keep a secret.  I used to be able to keep them and did so.  But no more.  I had planned to make this for Jerry, since he does use blankets to keep warm while watching TV or reading.  I saw this awhile back and thought, hm.  But at the time, I didn't do anything toward that end because Jerry has a multitude of throws, none of which I've made.  He used to use a Raiders throw and then an MSU one, and of late, it's been a Dr Who one.  But I think I'll give the throw a go!

It's like a snuggle sack, but open in the back and only done in the round from the knees down.  I think I'd skip the white wings and just do the stinger and body as the main part.  I'd also do it longer so that it can extend up his chest and so that a doggie or two can fit under it with him.  All three girls tend to pile up with him in the cooler weather.  Libby usually sacks out along his right thigh, sometimes on the blanket, sometimes under.  Chiquita is always to be found under the blankets, usually between his shins, keeping the lower part of his legs nice and toasty.  Sometimes Sophie curls up on his thighs, or sticks her nose out from the blanket so that she can breathe fresher, cooler air.

I'll post pix as I go.  But I'm warning ya, I'm not yet ready to start on these.  I've been chomping on the bit at another possible project and I want to have a go at it first.  More on that later.

the passing of an age

Ms Foxy, my mom's cat that had been her brother's.

This past weekend, my uncle died.  We've not been particularly close over the past twenty years, since I've moved to the South, leaving Pennsylvania.  But as a child, then as a teen, I do have fond memories of the times I spent with my aunt and uncle.  I spent many weekends with them, just outside of town, at their little house on the hill overlooking the dam where the area kids swam in the summer waters.  When my cousin was a baby and into her toddler years, I watched her often.  We called her "Pipshin" at the time.  She grew out of that nickname, I'm sure.  My uncle had adopted her when he was in his mid~forties, the age I am now.  He had had an entire lifetime before she came along, and yet, his most important role would be as her father, that would last him another thirty years.  He died at just 74.

Foxy lived til the ripe old age of 18.

My mother was five years younger than he was.  He was the closest sibling in age to her, with three older brothers than that yet.  All of them are gone now, my mother included.  It saddens me, in that mild way of resignation, not sharp horrifying painful grief, that all my Grandma's five children have died, passing from this earth, residing here for such a relatively short time.  Mild resignation because that is the way of the world, that time marches on and we age, cycling through our lives, dying off, and yet time continues, sloughing through generation after generation.

Last summer, I saw a few of my first cousins, other grandchildren of Helen Evert, nee Blass.  I also visited with some distant relatives, of extended family, grandchildren of our grandmother's siblings, grandchildren of those first cousins, grandchildren of grandchildren.  Our Aunts Flo, Ethyl, Lorraine, and a few others from that oldest living generation holding down the fort while the rest of us milled around them like moons revolving around these founding women who birthed generations of variously surnamed beings who have continued the life cycle, taking our places accordingly, here but for a speck of time.