"Knit on with confidence and hope through all crisis"

Elizabeth Zimmerman was one smart lady. Sorry for the radio silence, but last Friday, my father-in-law had a massive stroke. I know you will all be tempted to tell me stories of your dad/mom/friend that had a stroke and had an amazing recovery.... but the outlook is pretty bleak at this point for my FIL. Basically, the entire left side of his brain is dead. There is hope for 'some' recovery - but one nurse said that most people would have died from the stroke that he suffered.


The fact that he is only 61 makes it all the more shocking. So I've been spending the week supporting my husband, housing my mother in law, his brother, and his best friend... and it's been more than I really expected to ever have to deal with, in all truth. I've never been through something like this - and wow. It's hard. And I now realize why, when bad things happen to people, we all bring food. What a huge help that has been for me this week!


So - in the waiting rooms, I've been knitting. Plain old socks. For Aaron's best friend - who the second he heard my FIL was in the ER, just jumped in his car. Didn't even know what hospital he was going too! On Friday night, I was knitting a more complicated sock (but seriously, it was a baby cable rib - so not brain surgery either). I picked up some self striping yarn and begun the odyssey that knitting a pair of size 15 socks will be:

I used my drug dealer scale, and I'll need to throw a different color for the toes. I'm pretty sure that SOMEWHERE in my stash I have some plain blue sock yarn, lol.

When I'm at home, I've found that knitting allows me too much 'thinking' time. So I started going through my quilt stash, and producing some presents. I finished my mom's Christmas present (which I started 2 years ago) and also the quilt for my babies crib. But those were sent to the machine quilter today without getting photographed.

I also finished a quilt for my father for Christmas:

It's a kit from Keepsake Quilting - super easy. I'll quilt it myself later - but I'm trying to get some Christmas presents out of the way before the baby arrives!

And this is another simple quilt for a friend who is having a baby in December also:
I love the black dots and multicolored stripes.... it kind of looks funny right now, as just the pieced top with no borders.

But quilting is great for me when I'm stressed out - you have to really concentrate on cutting and sewing and can't think of anything else. For me - I tend to get all wrapped up when knitting. The knitting is for the waiting rooms, and quilting is for at home. Of course... I've almost run out of quilting projects - but that is ok for now!

Saturday is fast approaching, and I'm headed to Rhinebeck for the day! Huzzah!