Back to Business Now, Shall We?

Hello everyone! Long time, no see! First off, I would like to thank all of you who had left a comment, sent an email, or PM'd me on Ravelry and Facebook your condolences and thoughts of prayers. It was all greatly appreciated and needed during my time of grieving. I've had to deal with the deaths of friends and parents of friends, but never had to deal with one so close to me.

My grandmother played a HUGE part in my life, as well as my brothers and all my cousins. For those who don't know me too personally, I come from a very small town in which my mother's entire side of the family (sisters and brothers, and then their own children) also resided. So growing up I was always surrounded by family. To bring us all together my Grandma would always make sure everyone was at her house for Sunday dinner - whether we wanted to be there or not. Even if it wasn't Sunday, I was still at my Grandma's house a lot, as were most of my cousins. Most my childhood memories involve being at my Grandma's...hiding under her dining room table cutting my own hair (and then someone lifting up the lace tablecloth to reveal the guilty me), sneaking into the fridge to see if the grass jelly had set (my Grandma knew this was my absolute favourite and would make it for me a lot), the endless amounts of charcoal BBQs during the summer, lying on the hammock with my cousins swinging me to see if I can do a complete 360 without falling out, walking the dog (ok, the dog would walk me...he was an English Sheep dog!), eating freezies and Mister Misty Kisses from Dairy Queen on the patio, my Grandma shoving chocolate bars and packs of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum into my hands before leaving to go home. Most of all, I remember her just sitting there on the sofa with her TV tray playing with her deck of cards, usually solitaire, with a ball of yarn and either a crochet hook or DPNs next to her...all while taped Chinese soap operas played on the TV for background noise.

I'm going to miss my Grandma a lot. Even thinking about her and how she's no longer with us physically makes me misty-eyed stilled. Her passing has made me realized just how much older I've gotten and with that, how much older everyone else has gotten. Namely my parents. And that sent me into a mini-depression. I'm also still trying to get over my immense guilt that my Grandma never got to meet my son in person. Her first great-grandchild, her only great-grandson. A few months ago I was thinking about how I would love to have a photo of my Grandma holding my son, to go with the photos that I have of her holding me as a toddler. It makes me sad to know that this will never happen. I think both my Grandma and my son would have liked each other...they're both incredibly stubborn and full of fight.

Before I left my hometown to return to my "normal" life in Victoria, a cousin of mine had found a hand-wound ball of yarn with some metal DPNs amongst my Grandma's belongings. She asked me if I wanted to hold on it as a memento. And I did. My Grandma had only seen me knit once, and that was when I was still a beginner and was making my first attempt at knitting the Slouchy Hat. She's never actually seen any of my hand knits, her eyesight had gone from bad to worse by the time I had finished my first noteworthy knitted item. I like to think I inherited my love of the fibre arts from her. Although, I remember more of my Grandma's crochet skills than I do her knitting. Everyone in my family, myself included, has at least one blanket crocheted by Grandma. At her wake, my family and I had a discussion about those blankets and commented on which ones we had and which were our absolute favourites. Talking about those blankets and other various Grandma items (like how I was the only one to receive a knitted sweater and a few purses!) has inspired me to finish knitting up the Log Cabin Blanket that I had started last year (and am in no way even near being finished!) and gifting it to my son, and then doing either a modern or traditional version of the log cabin blanket, or a mitered squares blanket for Brett. This might take me forever to do, but it'll be worth it. It would be like an everlasting small token of my love. Just like how my Grandma did it.

Ok, now I'm getting all misty-eyed. So let's talk about something else, shall we?

During my blog-break I did get a fair bit of knitting done. I'll have a lot to catch up on...such as a finished shawl, 3 pairs of socks (hence the photo at the beginning of this post), and several WIPs! I've also got some exciting things coming up that I would love to share with y'all, but this post has gotten way too long to mention them all now.

So on that note, I'll end here.

'Night!