WiP Wed…Thursday

I swear, I took these pictures yesterday and just didn’t get around to writing the blog post.

There has been a good chunk of knitting on the Swirl. Aside from having one knot in each skein (so far) of Rustic, I’ve been happy with the knit so far. Fortunately, Rustic is a quick and easy spit-splice.


When I took this picture, I was on Welt #10. Now I’m about to start #13. Here’s a slight zoom on Wednesday’s progress.


I’ve also had a good sized sewing project percolating this week. It’s fun, and now I need to sit down and start sewing. Zoom.

(Yes. The fabric is a little bit blurred. Yay Photoshop.)

One final note. Four years ago today, this happened. Hugh is coaching the U.S. Women’s volleyball team this quad. Earlier today, they won their semifinal to advance to the gold medal match. I hope they bring home gold.

M&Ms Quilt #3 of 8: Denise!

Before I start talking quilting, I have a very important announcement to make:

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I learned early that December 21 was the winter solstice. Easy to remember, since it’s also my dad’s birthday! We’re off to the family birthday dinner shortly and remember, the days get longer from here on out!

Meanwhile, back to quilting.

Denise wanted a Christmas quilt.


She provided some sashing fabric to go between the rows and some other fabrics to coordinate. She also sent along some of the fabric that will be used as the borders so we could all do our best not to clash.

I pulled stash fabric for the reds and greens I used, but if I remember right, I used one of Denise’s blue snowflake fabrics for my background.

Mine is on the bottom, right below Carol’s snowmen!

I pulled the mitten pattern from one of my very favorite holiday quilting books, “Joy to the World” by those evil geniuses Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith. I swear I want everything they publish, including “More Joy to the World.”

Here are a few more close-up looks at my row. The green-mitten appliqué blocks on the ends are identical, and the pieced blocks are the block that’s becoming my “signature” block – the good ‘ol Double Z from Quilters Cache.



Once I had the whole thing pieced and attached, I realized that I probably should have done two mitten blocks, one green and one red, and three Double Z’s. I wasn’t thrilled with how closely my row mirrored Carol’s, but that’s my fault for trying to do this in a hurry. I hope Denise is pleased with the final product. Here’s how it looked when it left my house


And here’s how it looked at the “Big Reveal” on December 8!



That’s Denise holding the right edge of the quilt. Happy Holidays, my friend. I did get your package in the mail and I love it :-) (I'm just way behind on "life" and haven't made the time to send out thank-yous. Shame on me!)

Oh, and to the rest of the M&Ms, I have received my quilt and I love it! It’ll be blogged last in this series.

How to Mail a Hug

Every so often, the topic of who is “knit-worthy” or in general terms worthy of a hand-made gift comes up on Ravelry. I had always thought that my best strategy for figuring out who was “worthy” was to give a low-investment gift (meaning something I’m not emotionally invested in making, much like the two Jaywalker Scarfs I gifted a year ago).

You give the zero-baggage gift to a person. If they react positively (as in the case of those scarfs), then they’re worthy of future handmade gifts. If they brush it off, then No Soup For You! And they’re off of the list.

That’s it. Two categories. Nice and clean. Then, in August, I discovered a third category. Something you are compelled to knit for someone. You have a consuming emotional need to DO something.

As many of you remember, on the first day of the Olympic Games, a family that I respect, admire and care for deeply suffered an unspeakable tragedy.

There was nothing I could do from here. I hope desperately that the two interviews I conducted on August 9 were well-received by the family. Telling the world how wonderful Todd and Barb and their family are was quite literally the only thing that I could do.

As the days and weeks went by, it became obvious to me that I needed to do something else for this family.

So I started to knit.

The family’s company color is purple.

I needed something functional that wasn’t size specific. Here’s what I came up with.






I listened to the sage advice of Turtlegirl and weighed the first of my three skeins. Completed the increase section and weighed again. I made note of how much yarn I needed for the increase section (in weight) and when I had that much left on my last skein, it was time to decrease. So I did. And I didn’t have much left

The finished project was mailed to Minnesota just before I left for the Lake for that last stay at the end of September. I haven’t gotten any kind of confirmation that it arrived, but that’s OK. It was made with love and I hope it brings some comfort.

A Hug for Barb

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert from Knitty.com, Fall 2004
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy
Color: Visual Purple
Source: Bloomin Yarns
Needles: KnitPicks Options US 10
Started: 23 August 2008
Finished: 10 September 2008
Mods: Knit until I ran out of yarn, with love.

Bachman Bars

Bachman Bars
Recipe by: Barb and Wiz Bachman

Grease 9x13 pan
Bring 1 cup sugar and 1 cup White Karo Corn Syrup to a boil and remove

Stir in 1½ cups creamy peanut butter and 6 cups Special K cereal

Spread in greased 9x13 inch pan

Melt in a double boiler
6 ounces butterscotch chips
12 ounces milk chocolate chips
Spread over bottom layer.

I woke up on Saturday morning to the news that Wiz and her parents, Todd and Barb, had been touring the Drum Tower in Beijing when a 47 year old nutcase attacked the group, killing Todd (her father) and inflicting critical, life-threatening injuries on Barb (her mother) and the female Chinese tour guide.

I spent the day crying off and on. I did two interviews talking about Todd and Barb, one with Yahoo! Sports that is posted here. The other was with a good friend who is writing for her Tuesday column in the Orange County Register. I’ll post that link when it goes live.

Todd and Barb are amazing, wonderful people. Please indulge me while I make a pathetic attempt to tell you a little bit about about them.

Their youngest of three daughters played volleyball at UCLA. I worked with her during my first two and her last two years with the Bruins. She was the first student-athlete that I met when I started at UCLA. That recipe I put at the top of this post? Bachman Bars (OK, so the recipe card Wiz gave me at her senior banquet says “Special K Bars” but screw that. They’re Bachman Bars!) were present and consumed at every single banquet during those first two years I was at UCLA and the three years Wiz played prior to my arrival. After every Friday night match (roughly 5x/year) there was a social for family and boosters and most of the parents brought a dessert to go with the athletic department-provided food. At her senior banquet, Wiz handed out recipe cards for the bars.

I woke up yesterday morning and Chris (the Hubster) had heard that “relatives of the U.S. men’s volleyball head coach” had been attacked. Wiz is married to the men’s volleyball head coach, who is from New Zealand, so when that news was paired with “Americans were injured” Chris put the pieces together rather quickly. I couldn’t compute it until he said what I couldn’t accept out loud: It’s Todd and Barb.

After a series of frantic emails to people I know with the U.S. delegation in Beijing, emails to my former co-workers at UCLA in case they couldn’t connect the dots, and the confirmation that Todd was dead and Barb was in surgery, Chris and I talked and decided that we should keep our plans for Saturday. There was no sense in sitting at home and being sad. There wasn’t a damn thing we could do from Pittsburgh. For me, Saturday’s plans included a Hurricane Knitters gathering at PAKnitWit’s house.

When I was completing preparations to leave the house, I threw some tin foil over the peppermint brownies I was bringing to the gathering. I looked at Chris and said “Why do I want to stop everything right now and make Bachman Bars?”

Instead, I picked up WeirdyPants and got a Rufus fix at her house, then we made it over to PAKnitWit’s, where I was only physically present. I was in and out of the house all day, emailing and texting with former co-workers. Talking to the reporter from Yahoo! Sports for half an hour. And crying off and on.

I feel badly that I was a drippy wet blanket on what should have been a fun knitting day, but all the Hurricane Knitters seemed to understand. (thanks, guys!)

Todd and Barb attended all of Wiz’s college volleybal matches. All of them. That’s no mean feat when you live in Minneapolis and your kid’s home games are in Los Angeles. Once she started playing internationally with the U.S. National team, they frequently traveled abroad to watch their daughter play. This is why I truly believe that this was a completely random act of violence. Sure, they were probably identifiable as tourists, but so are 75% of the humans in Beijing this week and next. They were seasoned enough travelers that I'm certain they weren't wearing anything that would scream "Americans!!" to random homicidal/suicidal crazy people.

Todd and Barb were responsible for the end-of-year team video for pretty much all the years they were involved with the program. Wiz, as well as Todd and Barb, were invited to my wedding (they were in Italy with the U.S. Women’s national team and could not attend). I was invited to Wiz and Hugh’s wedding in December, 2006, but could not attend because I was in Hawaii with the Bruins women’s volleyball team.

They were parents to the whole team at UCLA. And to me, when my own parents were 2,500 miles away. Again, they were parents and "volleyball nomads," cheering on Team USA at as many matches as they could attend, all around the world. Their two older daughters live on the same street as they do in Minnesota, while Wiz and Hugh are in Southern California because of volleyball.

There is no distinction between "son" and "son in law" for Todd and Barb. Wiz and Hugh were going to be in Beijing because Hugh's team was playing? Great! Let's go! A quote in one of the articles I've read said that Wiz was really excited for the Olympics because her parents were coming to Beijing and she'd have a good chunk of time to spend with them in China. That's indicative of the relationship Todd and Barb had with their kids, and it's a very familiar feeling to me, having spent eight years living thousands of miles away from my own parents and sibling.

I really don’t know what else to say. How to convey what special, genuine, wonderful people they are. I wish that there was something, anything, that I could do to ease Wiz’s burden right now. I simply can’t comprehend watching my father murdered and mother critically injured while I stood and watched, unhurt. I’m not a praying person, but I pray to whoever will listen for Barb’s recovery. The only thing that could make this whole awful thing even more awful would be if Barb doesn’t fully recover.

As long as I have known Wiz, she has always taken a camera everywhere she went. When Chris and I met her at Downtown Disney just before we moved east, we were on the road (and running late) when I realized that I had forgotten my camera. No worries, Wiz would have hers! In a funny twist of fate, Wiz had forgotten her camera that day as well, so we didn't get a picture of the two of us that day. So I share with you a photo of Barb, Wiz and Todd from Opening Ceremonies for the Athens Olympics. This was Todd and Barb’s 2004 Christmas Card, but I think my copy didn’t survive the most recent purge of stuff. Bachman’s, Inc., the family’s horticultural business in Minnesota, posted it on their website.

Barb, Wiz and Todd

The Bachmans are loved and respected. By me. By many people. I am heartbroken by this news and eagerly await each morsel of news and word from my friend if there is anything at all I can do to ease her unbearable burden.

Quick Update

I was mentally composing a Yarn Pr0n Friday post when I realized ... Today is Thursday.

::headslap::

This morning's phone call seems to have gone well. I will find out after the holidays if "they" are willing to have a Director of Media Relations who telecommutes, 'cause I ain't moving again, let alone to Starkville, Miss. (Sorry, Bill!) I know one of my (very VERY enthusiastic) references has already spoken to the person making the hire, which will either vault me to the top of the pile or scare them off entirely :)

So I'm not gonna sweat it. I'm going to enjoy the fact that I found out today that our Christmas dinner spent almost two months in our freezer and yet I don't have to cook it (mom needed to rent freezer space from us on a really good meat sale at the start of October) (I love that going to dinner at my parents house can be a drop-of-the-hat decision) (I love that I don't have to get on a plane to spend Christmas with my family this year)

Oh, and once again, I am reminded that Bryant Gumbel is an awful play-by-play announcer. If we had a radio in this house, I'd totally be listening to Mr. Hillgrove. I love Mr. Hillgrove, even if I'm too much of a wimp to eat chicken wings with him. Sorry. I can't do the extra-hot wings.

Thanks for checking in. That is all.