Saturday Treasure Hunts & Knitting

I have a three day weekend. This is such a pleasure. I meant to get up early and go thrifting. Of course I slept in and then had lazy Saturday am coffees at home.  The happy result of this was getting to an Estate sale late at the half way point. This is when they throw everyone out of the house and make you line up all over again. Then when they allow you back in everything is half off. 

Lining up at 1 pm in the Hot Florida Sunshine!

I think they really use this time while we are broiling outside to run to the bathroom and eat their lunches.  Running a busy Estate Sale is a lot of hard work.  

The wait was well worth it.  I went home with a full trunk of goodies.

 I hope tomorrow is a nice sunny day so I can take pictures on the lanai. 

~Knitting Right Brain vs Left Brain...my thoughts~
After a fun day of shopping I am ready to sit and relax with my knitting.
I have planned to try and make a lace scarf for well decades. I have started so many lace projects only to have them land in the frog pond.  I am going to blame it on my right brain vs left brain thought process.  Knitting is a visual pleasure (right brain). Counting lace patterns and looking at charts is analytic (left brain).  I have discovered I have no left brain. Ha! 

No Fuss Shade Loving Shawl

I also have a very hard time seeing that tiny itty bitty thread of lace weight yarn. I found a very simple pattern No Fuss Shade Loving Shawl I think despite all my problems I will be able to pull this one off. I hope so as the yarn Silky Alpaca Lace that I bought on Webs summer sale is really soft and lovely. 

Shade Loving Shawl

So stay tuned in and if you want a little shawl in your Christmas stocking you just might get one.

Anne/Lambie

Vintage Memory Haze

I recently opened another box of my mother's things.  Simple everyday items.  They are vintage now as years have passed and the common things we took for granted have achieved a new level of importance to those who love vintage, collect vintage.

My mother was storing away her sewing supplies.  She saved everything and neatly put things away for future use.  That is her writing up there on those paper labels.  Labels made from recycled scraps of envelopes, the back unused sides of writing papers...she used everything.  It is plain to see she has thread in a plastic bag, buttons in a paper sack, rug & embroidery hooks (she misspelled embroidey...a clue) each bag carefully tagged. 
My Mother was leaving visual reminders to herself in the most practical of ways.  One with Alzheimer's can look at a spool of thread in a plastic bag.  Plainly seeing it's color, shape, and might even take it out and hold it in wonder.  Searching for meaning in this relic of the moments just gone by.  Clenching the fingers aged with knobs of arthritis around its smooth surface and with mind racing in a windstorm of noise be unable to remember it's everyday name. It is hard to imagine being in that spot.  We all forget momentarily why we walked into the kitchen or where we set our keys last...this is so much more.  This is the loss of controll of everyday actions and thoughts. This is scary stuff.  My mother fixed this problem for years without mentioning her vast unknown fears to us her family.  She labeled every plain everyday thing.  Took notes and then copied them over again and again. 

Mom also copied down what was important to her.  Left little pieces of paper with quotes that were important enough to be transcribed and left behind.  The things she wanted to remember to say to us, or hear again herself. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The sky is full of blue
and full of the mind
of God"
         -child
from book "Dakota"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christian love is the
warm,
free,
continuing expression
of intelligent good will
to all
without being
judgemental
or manipulative
(Walker Evans
definition)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vintage collectibles.  So much more meaning when you think of how easily things can be forgotten.  We treasure everyday objects because they are what our daily lives are made of.  What we build our futures with.  The thoughts, readings, buttons, threads that bring us to our eventual end.  If you loose the 'thread' of it you have lost yourself.  Alzheimer's is just as devastating to minds and lives as the land fills that so greedily cover up and rot our possessions. 
If you look at the CT scan of a brain with Alzheimer's you plainly see vast dark areas of nothing amidst the remains of functioning matter.  In this way it is like collecting vintage. You cherish the broken bits of pottery as you hope you find all the missing pieces to the set of Grandmother's silver. What bits you can no longer find or retrieve you will regret, tell their story and remember.   If you are so unlucky as to have lost the memory then you can only hope to find your notes. 

Thanks for leaving the notes Mom.  I am remembering you.  Your brilliant creative mind and I cherish your notes.  They whisper to me the things you didn't remember or have time to say to me. I find you in them and in that I am fortunate. 

from Mom

Mom in her high button shoes.

Love, Lambie