It's Like a Blanket?

I had friends over a few weekends ago. They all knew, vaguely, that I crocheted and while they were there I mentioned I was working on an afghan for my cousin's wedding. Only one of them knows anything about crochet so I dragged out what I had done so far so they could see what I was talking about when I mentioned strips and braiding. We were chattering blithely on when I caught the eye of my Chinese friend who asked "what's an afghan?" She's very Americanized in many ways (a right proper little Capitalist) but there are still things she's unfamiliar with that most of us take for granted. Which goes to show that you should never take for granted that everyone knows what you are talking about. Lesson learned.


Here it is, done at last. It's huge being nearly 6 feet long and approximately 5 feet wide. The afghan is made up of strips which are themselves composed of 3 separate strips braided together and held in place by 2 rounds of stitches. The main strips are stitched together with what's called a reverse single crochet, which makes a pretty, braided edging.

And a closer up view.

Tonight I'll double check for loose ends that need to be woven in, and make sure I got all the markers out. Then it will get washed and blocked. It's an acrylic yarn so it should wash up nicely.

Ties Abinding

My baby cousin is getting married this coming Saturday. J is nine years and eleven months younger than I, and the nearest thing I have to a brother. He is not my only cousin, but he is the one I have the closest ties with. Although my extended family is large, I grew up with only two aunts nearby, and only one had a child. He and my younger sister were especially close as kids, being less than two years apart.

A lot of family are gathering this coming weekend for the wedding. Some of them have never ventured more than 50-100 miles from home, so that tells you that this is a big deal. Partly it's because J is an only child. Most of the rest of them come from families of 5 or 6 kids, and I often think that the younger ones get the short end of the stick because by the time their big moment - be it wedding, graduation, or new babies - comes along their older siblings have already been there and done that and I think the extended family doesn't always make as big a deal out of it.

Probably I should explain what is meant by "extended family." Here's the deal: my mother comes from a family of 8 kids. Her oldest sister had 5 kids; the next oldest sister had 5 kids; the oldest brother had 5 kids; my mom, only two; the four younger siblings are 0, 3, 1, and 0. So that's 19 cousins just on my mom's side.

My dad was the baby of 4, but his sibs did their part to populate the world. His oldest sister had 4, his older brother 4, and his next older sister had 6 kids. That makes 14 cousins on my dad's side, or a whopping total of 33 in my generation alone. And I'm not even going to get into their kids and their kids' kids.

J appears to be the last of my generation to be getting married. Okay, there's me, and one or two other cousins about my age who are holding out; but we're a bit set in our ways at this point and nobody seems to be expecting announcements from us. J is also well liked in the family, and his wedding may be the last really good excuse for a clan gathering on my mom's side; so I think more people than usual are making the effort, even though it means going out into the big, bad suburbs.

I'm anticipating some family stories, and I'm also thinking that this might be a good time to get some of them written down. We'll see. Stay tuned.

Stopping By the Junkyard* on a Sunny Evening

I took this photo from the window of the subway, part of which is above ground, while we were stopped outside a station for a few minutes. It amused me, not for the first time, to look out on the length of track and see wood trestles holding the rails. I know nothing about railroad lore, but I presume the trestles used for our underground, highly electrified, modern commuter system are much the same as those used to build the First Transcontinental Railroad over 100 years ago.







*Not really a junkyard. Not what you would call a junkyard, proper. Just a lot of well-used looking vehicles. Probably the backlot of an auto repair shop, but that doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

That's What I'm Talking About

Stairs. Aren't they pretty?

They've been in place a week or so. The railing is the last little bit. Yes, I know there's some missing. Family Member's job sent him off to Italy to install some dude's wine cellar. I know, I know: Italy, home of wine connoisseurs and old world craftsmanship, and they buy American. Seriously. Makes no sense to me, either; but Family Member got a trip to Italy out of the deal. It was wasted on him, though, as all he had to say was that everything was very old, everything was crowded together, and he missed American food. Of course he didn't have much time to assimilate, either. They flew into Milan, or thereabouts, checked into the hotel and the next day had to board a train to Alba. And if you read the Wiki link, you'll know more about it than he learned while he was there. Not the adventurous sort.

Last weekend I had to remind myself several times that I could go down to the yard right from the deck; it wasn't necessary to go out from the basement. This will take some getting used to. But it's A Very Good Thing.

Pay Attention and You Might Learn Something (More Deck Stuff)

Steps - the beginning.

If I had realized how much work goes into putting in stairs I might not have agreed to having Family Member do it. He and the various family member assistants are doing a great job, but it's a big task and I'd be feeling pretty guilty if he hadn't volunteered to do this of his own free will.

Why is it such a big job? Well, stairs down from the deck have to go somewhere and my yard is small; having them come straight out meant they'd end up somewhere outside the back fence unless they were built really, really steep. Clearly some creative thinking was required here. Thus it was decided that I should have a landing so that the stairs could, so to speak, turn back upon themselves. I lose a little yard, but it was just space that needed mowing anyway, so I'm good with that.

Then there have to be support posts to hold the stairs and landing in place. Since you can't just stick a post up there (there are apparently rules about this kind of thing), holes had to be dug into which the posts went, along with cement to hold them in place. This, I learned, is what they call a "footer." And let me tell you, when it comes to equality between the sexes, men win, hands down, in the "ability to dig deep holes" category.

Those jagged boards you see are called "stringers." They are the forms upon which the actual treads are layed. How do you know how many treads are involved? Math *shudder* The length you need is called the "rise." The average height for "risers" - that is, individual steps - is 7". You can go to a 7 1/4" or higher; but if you need more than a few steps, it's gonna get hard on the legs making the climb. So you divide the length by 7 and you get the number of stairs.

I ended up with 11 steps down to the landing, and another 6 to the ground. So how high up is my deck? You do the math.

Did You Know? A Deck Update

RAILINGS! I've got railings!

You may not know this but there are building codes and industry standards that dictate what you can and can't do with railings. For instance, depending on your locale, specifications for railing height range from 32" to 48". This was of particular interest to me because, being short, I found my old deck railing much too high for my satisfaction. So when I started looking into getting the new deck, my personal requirement was that the railing be no higher than absolute minimum required. In my area that minimum is 36".

Behold the 36" railing:

Another thing I discovered is that the railing must not be "climbable." This one strikes me as being good example of regulatory silliness. I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a fence that really can't be climbed if someone puts their mind to it and tries hard enough, especially since there's no corresponding regulation against having tables, chairs, stools, ladders - or anything else with a climbable surface - in the vicinity of the railing. Further research says what this really means is not giving idiots really obvious footholds, should they get it into their heads to do something stupid. Basically, we're protecting people from themselves.

Another rule says that the maximum space between balusters (those are pickets, btw) is 3.5" maximum. And apparently they test this by trying to roll a 3 1/2" ball between them. Because if the space is too big, the same idiot who tried to climb the railing will stick his head through there and get stuck. And just think of the damage he could do to the balusters in the meantime.

Yes, there's a gap where the stairs will be. So Family Member says "Don't forget you don't have stairs yet." And I say "How can I forget what I never had?" Yes, some idiot could jump off and hurt themselves. Then again, the idiot could decide to jump off the stairs, once I have some, and hurt themselves. There's only so much you can do if people are really determined.

In the meantime, I'll avoid inviting idiots over to my house. And if you come to visit, please don't climb the railing or stick your head through or jump off the stairs. Which I'm hoping I'll have by then.

Deck Update

Old deck goes "bye-bye." Everybody wave.

For some reason I find it very amusing that these chairs were left hanging there while they ripped up the floor. That splotch on the first one is the vacant dove's nest. That amused me, too, which is why it's still there.

But now I've got new deck flooring! Isn't it pretty??!!! FYI, that's my neighbor's Rose of Sharon shrub in the background.