Friends with Tools

Hello!

Life

Life is definitely dominating right now.  One of my brother's best friends from high school came with his brother and installed a lift to carry Mark from the living room/bedroom he has been using to the main part of the house.

Mark's house is split into 3 levels:  The entryway opens to a living room, dining room and kitchen.  From this level you can also access the part of the back yard where there is a patio and barbecue.  From the living room you can go up stairs to the bedrooms or down a half flight of stairs to what once was a family room.  This lower level has a bathroom and the laundry room, also, as well as a door to the garage and access to the lower part of the back yard.  Can you tell the house is on a hill?  To get to the front door from outside there are stairs.  All of these stairs are a nightmare for someone in a wheelchair.

So the lower part of the house has slowly been fixed up to be Mark's room.  He has his computer for work, his hospital bed, a small refrigerator, table, a TV, chairs for visitors, etc.  He can get to the bathroom and outside through the garage.  One lucky thing is that it is open to the kitchen by a half wall, so Mark is included in the family while they cook, eat, and so on, but he was still not WITH them.

NOT ANY MORE

Enter Pete and Joe.  Friends with tools, building knowledge and experience, and a generosity of spirit that can't be matched.

They brought Mark a special lift,

 cut the half-wall,

 installed everything, and we ate dinner together as a family.

A family with GREAT friends.

Knitting

I have made so much progress on my Echo Flower Shawl.  I started the shawl about a million years ago, ok, April 6th.  The Beginning Lace Knitters Group in Ravelry did it as a KAL, but I was busy with other things, so I started mine way after they had finished.  I have worked on it pretty much every month, but super slowly.  I am finished with all of the main repeats and and working on the first border pattern section.  And, I am almost finished with it.  I am on row 13 of 15.  There is one more chart, the Edge Chart, with 8 rows and then it is just soaking and blocking.  As this shawl is for my mom, though I am tempted to keep it and make her a sweater instead, it would be amazing if I could finish it before I have to drive back up to Washington next week.  Where would I block it, though?

The big thing for me in this border section is the Nupps.  Yep, nupps (rhymes with soups)!  Made my first ever.

before purling back

3 completed nupps

I am very slow with the purling back, and a few times I have missed loops and had to "fix" things.  I haven't tinked or frogged back, and my lifeline is at the beginning of the whole border section (which makes me nervous).  Three more rows.  I can do it.

Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with nupps.

Mark and his daughter "ride" the lift.