Murder, knitting and other news

Happy New Year, everyone. It has been a while, I know—a whole month, in fact.

Christmas with my daughters and parents was good. It was hard seeing Mom severely affected by the oedema. Her face is so swollen that it affects her voice, which for some reason I hadn't noticed it over the phone.

Dad recently had to close the family business, founded by my grandfather in 1933. Somehow it didn't dampen the spirit of our time together. Simply nothing gets Dad down.

There was a very weird thing: a homicide in my sister-in-law's family. Her brother was charged with second-degree murder after their mother was found dead on Christmas Eve. This was in the news in London, Ontario on Christmas Day. My parents are recently estranged from my brother and his wife, but my niece phoned on Christmas night with the news. This was pretty disturbing for my parents. I had not seen the woman or her son in many years.

On a more pleasant note, here is the reason for my post. Marian and Brenna are modelling my three most recent knitting projects, made for them. Marian's sea-green birthday beanie (her favourite colour) was made from handspun merino she herself picked out at The Black Lamb in Port Hope. The yarn is about the most gorgeous I've ever worked with, unfortunately the photo doesn't do it justice. The pattern is an old standby I've used for myself, Mom and Brenna in the past.

Brenna's birthday hat was made from another simple pattern using some yarn I picked up earlier. It's something called Karen, a blend of wool, mohair, acrylic and alpaca. When I took the girls shopping for yarn, Bren picked out the green and gold handspun merino (her favourite colours), and I knit it into a simple 3X3 scarf for Christmas. It was fun to work with, and the fastest project I've ever completed, starting on a Saturday afternoon and finishing on Sunday evening. I haven't used such a chunky yarn before, and discovered it was really satisfying.

Marian's feather-and-fan scarf (for Christmas) has been equally satisfying but more labour-intensive, in fact I'm still working on it. Coincidentally, this knitter used exactly the same yarn as I am for this pattern. Marian turned 16 in December. Here she is also wearing the malachite stone I gave her for Christmas.

Brenna turned 14 in November and you can see how she has become the big little sister. Marian levelled off at 5'1" and Brenna is almost two inches taller.

I had the opportunity for a relatively serious conversation with Brenna over the holidays, in fact I asked her advice about a sticky family matter, and she was remarkably helpful. Like her mother, she doesn't miss a thing. But her perceptiveness is tempered by compassion. Top it off with an even temper, clever wit, and capacity for weaving the funniest stories from mundane experiences, and you have a young woman with great potential for getting along with people. Brenna seems to be popular in her new class and suddenly, in grade nine, enjoys school. This fall she began learning black-and-white photography and started developing and printing in the dark room. It would be unjust to pretend she has no issues, or that she is never unhappy, yet she seems to manage these things resourcefully.

Marian and I both, who take things too seriously and frequently feel at odds with the world, are fortunate and grateful to have her around.

With her hair colour and style, we decided she must be the demon spawn of Draco and Kes.

Marian has taken up spinning with a drop spindle. I asked Danny to help, and he was all too eager to teach, such a bad influence.