Extreme Knitting Redhead: Getting ready for the 7 Skeins

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Getting ready for the 7 Skeins

That title may not mean anything to you unless you're a fan of Kate Davies and her designs, which I am. I've been following Kate for years and love her work and her enthusiasm so when she announced she was creating her own brand of wool I pricked my ears up with interest!

Kate's new yarn is named Buachaille, a Scottish word meaning 'Herdsman', and she has chosen 7 shades of yarn with wonderful names such as Yaffle and Highland Coo in colours reflecting the countryside where she lives. To launch her new venture she has created The Seven Skeins Club which I signed up to immediately and was very excited when my parcel of yarn arrived the other day.

Ptarmigan, Haar, Squall, Between Weathers, Islay, Yaffle, Highland Coo - what wonderful names!

Here on her blog, Kate wrote about how she chose the names for each skein. Such wonderfully rich tones.

Project bag

Over the course of the next 7 weeks, we lucky members of the 7 Skeins Club will get a pattern delivered every Friday so we can be the first to experiment with the new yarn. Although we won't know in advance what the patterns are we do know that they will be for accessories which can be completed over a few evenings. Roll on Friday, that's what I say!

In other news the cushion is finished and I'm pleased that I managed to save someone else's cherished work. How sad that such pretty needlepoint was just discarded. It will be well loved now anyway.

This weekend, David Babcock is again running the Kansas City marathon but this time he's doing what he calls a 'Doily Dash'. You can read about it here on the Lion Brand Blog. I know he was having some problems registering this as a Guinnesss World Record attempt when we spoke last week (it can take an age and there are strict rules) but I hope he goes ahead anyway as it's such a fun idea and all to raise funds for the Alzheimer's Association of America again (thank you David xxx). He's also going to be finger-crocheting flowers during the New York marathon a couple of weeks later and handing them out to spectators as he completes them. What fun.

David making a doily out on a training run

I did say that I hoped he's be using macho-pink yarn for his doily but he said he prefers a white one! I'm actually more impressed by the speed he'll be running as he's aiming at 10 minute miling which would be impressive even without the crochet. Go David - you rock!

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.