It's gotten bigger. The Itty Bitty Sockyarn Bits Blanket is now officially baby blanket sized! The poor thing was unceremoniously dumped into the dirt on the hill when I ran to get a screaming, bleeding child off the sea-doo on the afternoon of the 4th, after just sitting down to knit about 20 minutes after arriving at the lake for a long holiday weekend vacation. My youngest step-son Ben had just landed wrong while tubing with his brother. His brother was fine, they didn't bump heads, or hit anything, but Ben's permanent front tooth had been knocked perpendicular and WAY shoved up past the gumline. I won't go into any details other than saying a LOT of blood, a LOT of screaming, dumping of yarn, running, ice in washcloths, towels, jumping into van in our bloody swimsuits, clothes, etc. lucky to have shoes on the rest of us and THANK GOD for extra knitting in the van. Always, ALWAYS have emergency knitting stuck inside your vehicle. SCREW the jumper cables, you can always borrow some from another car. Can you borrow some yarn and needles as easily? I think not.
Nutshell version, everyone's fine and the sockyarn blanket got picked up, dusted off and knitted on later that weekend. Longer version includes spending about 4 hours at the only hospital in our part of the Ozarks. Let me tell you people, you see some strange things on the 4th of July in an emergency room. But seriously? In an Ozark emergency room on the 4th of July? OH holy hell I could write a book. After waiting and trying not to watch the sideshows, they bring Ben out, heavily sedated on an iv morphine drip telling me we have to drive him RIGHT NOW to Children's Mercy Hospital in KC (3 hours away) RIGHT NOW. Oh, and try to make sure his tongue doesn't swell up and choke him on the way. Ok, WHAT? How do you DO that? Make sure his tongue doesn't swell up? What do we do if it does? Squish it back down? Holy crap Ozarkman!
OK, back to nutshell version as my fingers are tired of typing and want to get back to knitting and get some sleep. We raced safely back over hilly, windy roads and poor Joey almost barfing from carsickness in the back. Joey, David (older stepson) and I stayed behind at the cabin as we had everything out, turned on, fire still burning in the pit, etc. Jeff grabbed clean clothes, wallet and cell phone and hit the road around 7:30pm, spent most of the night at Children's Mercy and finally went home around 6am with Ben. They wired his tooth where it's supposed to be and told him he's got a 50/50 chance of it taking hold again, otherwise can have it replaced. No stitches, I don't know HOW they did that, but I didn't look too closely as I get queasy easily. He's on antibiotics and pain meds and feeling better. Apparently in the cat scan they did, they said Ben actually fractured his skull where the tooth root came out. No one seemed very concerned, but that freaked me out.
So, the emergency knitting? My sock yarn blanket was still back in the dirt on the hill. My sock in progress was in the cabin. I'd left the Pi Shawl in the van to pull out when I had time to concentrate as I was ready to start the edging on it. THANK GOD I had that to grab as we went into the ER. Well, the only problem was that the DIRECTIONS to said edging was in the cabin. Also the EZ Knitters' Almanac book? In the cabin. Good thing I've got a LOT of yarn left as I faced four hours and no other knitting. The shawl will be larger. Did the next set of YO increases and let me tell you, that thing is gonna be HUGE by the time I get an edging on. It'll be pretty, but damn it'll be big. Seriously, though, emergency knitting. GET SOME and keep it in your car. A ball of sockyarn and some needles? It'll save your sanity some day. And laceweight yarn? You can knit FOREVER on that stuff.
Sunday afternoon they came back to the lake. We spent two more days and then Joey and I went back to KC. Jeff offered to keep Joey for me too, but I said, no, I'd better take him home with me. He's got to get ready for a sinus surgery in two weeks and I just didn't want to push it.
Good thing as when Jeff called today to check in he said they almost had to go back to the hospital. After being told, no, it wasn't the tooth getting knocked out, it was Ben's eye. Apparently while Jeff was working on a big tree that uprooted in a recent storm, the boys got bored and thought it would be fun to throw rocks at each other. Yeah. Ben took a big one just next to his eye and has a big split, goose egg and bruise. When Jeff told me I couldn't help it, I said, "um, THAT'S why I didn't leave Joey."
Apparently Jeff doesn't think it's the funniest thing he's ever heard that every time he calls now I ask if he's at the hospital. I tell you, I still think it's funny as hell. He called tonight while I was at MisKnits for the FO Wednesday night. Jo Major was working on a gorgeous shawl. I came in, wiping my eyes from cracking myself up at the witty comment of "what hospital are you at now?" See, it's STILL funny. ANYWAY, walking back in and heard my son Joey ask Jo Major what she was knitting. "A Shawl" "What do you do with it?" "You Fight CRIME with it." And just for a minute, he looked like he was thinking......so THAT'S how they do it..... and then the regular 8 year old boy look came back. But just for a minute, you could totally see him thinking he could fly if his momma would just make him a magical cape.
Some more neat knitting I'm working on...a very cool stitch for malabrigo yarn. Free pattern will be posted soon. I found a neat stitch in a very old knitting/crocheting book from the 40's as part of a sweater insert on teensy needles. Thought I'd try it out on malabrigo, cause everything's better on malabrigo. So in love with this I'm making TWO scarves. And working up some matching fingerless mitts. mmmmmmmm malabrigoooooooo
Man, I was just thankful we were all mostly ok and mostly in one piece. Also I was totally thankful that we got out of the ER before dark and the unlucky firework injuries started coming in. I tell you, I barely had the stomach for what we saw just on a regular Ozarks-Gone-Wild July 4th Daytime version. I sure hope God has a good sense of humor, because part of my prayer when we were finally all together again was "Dear Lord, thank you for not letting any of us get ourselves blowed up." Man, it's not safe to spend too much time backwoods. I swear the next thing you know you'd find me eating squirrel and knitting that backless tank top made of fun fur on knitty. Ok, so we've totally grilled squirrel and drank home-brew at our house, but I draw the line at knitting a backless fun fur tank top. Draw. the. Line.
Funny how my outdoor knitting adventures never quite turn out like those Elizabeth Zimmermann wrote of. Somehow the great outdoors and knitting seemed to mesh in such a peaceful manner for EZ. I just try to not get blowed up.
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