Extreme Knitting Redhead: Tie mi kangaroo down, sport (sic Rolf Harris!)

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tie mi kangaroo down, sport (sic Rolf Harris!)

So I don't post anything of interest for ages and then I come up with a seemingly non-sensical title!

Well, there is a very good reason for the title - the lovely Sue from Kangaroo in South Chailey has very kindly agreed to help with our antics on World Wide Knit in Public Day on 13th June.

She has very generously offered to provide me with some lovely purple yarn (colour of the Alzheimer's Research Trust) with which to knit and also to hold a collection in aid of the Alzheimer's Research Trust at the Lewes Carnival on WWKIP day. What a star! Thanks Sue.

For anyone who lives in and around Brighton or Lewes, it's well worth checking out the Kangaroo website as they hold many and varied courses there and the instructors are very good. I actually attended an intarsia class there just before I did my first ever Fair Isle project and that was how I learnt how to knit with yarn in both hands - it's so much easier seeing someone doing it in real life.

On WWKIP day we have permission from Brighton Council to hold a collection in the afternoon and so Paul and I will be riding the tandem up and down the cycle lane along Brighton seafront with me sitting on the back knitting! Sarah, Mike and anyone else who's available will be shaking their collecting tins at the passers-by.

It would be fantastic if any local knitters could come and join us.

I am ashamed to say that the poor Oregon cardigan is still languishing in my knitting bag as I have lost my knitting mojo completely at the moment. I know it will come back so I'm not worried and in my defence I have lots of other craft projects on the go at the moment plus I'm spending all my spare time in the garden. Did that sound convincing? Please feel free to give me a virtual kick up the backside to get me knitting again!!!

2 comments:

Linda said...: Susie - I'm so sorry and do owe you a huge apology for not donating sooner. My only excuse is that life gets in the way some times. I wish you the best of luck with your continued efforts to raise funds for such a worthy cause. I'll be at the StitchnBitchLondon WWKIP Knit Crawl this year again and I know it will be too much fun. Linda; June 5, 2009 at 8:10:00 AM PDT
Linda said...: P.S. My kniting mojo is hiding under the couch and won't come out no mattef what I do. Is this like writer's block?; June 5, 2009 at 8:11:00 AM PDT

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.