Just a little horsetrading


So I broke part of the body of my car during the nasty weather over Christmas & New Year's. Just to add insult to injury , it happened one Wednesday nite, in the dark & driving rain while on the way to knit with the girls. I guess the snow plow lifted a big piece of the blacktop with the snow & left a HUGE pothole that spanned the entire lane of the main road. I hit the thing with an awful bang & discovered the break in the body the next day. I guess someone else had broken it some time ago & had it fixed with Bondo because the bracket is broken at the part that bends. My fall into the pothole broke the repair & left the nose swinging free of the fender. Over time, it just got worse as the plastic nose warped away from the headlights as it bounced in the breeze. So before applying duct tape around the fender, through the wheelwell & under the hood, I decided to consult with the fellas at Lordco to see if there was some industrial strength glue or velcro or something to hold the two peices together. Someone suggested I go to a sheetmetal shop & get a bracket made. Apparently I can get a Z bracket or an L bracket made & then I just screw the ends to opposing parts. A customer suggested I try the Fender Shop just down the road. Apparently they have whole nose replacement peices for a couple of hundred dollars. Well, why not???

So I find the Fender Shop on a little side street a half block long between old broken down houses. I see racks & racks of fenders, hear the noise of someone working but can't find a door into the joint. Lucky for me there's a phone number on the sign & I eventually find a nice man who examines my damage. Car's too old he says so you'll have to find someone to make a bracket but it won't be pretty. Who cares, says I, this is a work vehicle & I don't give a damn what it looks like as long as it's safe, sound & runs properly. Hold on he says, I may have a solution. He comes back with a cordless drill & a handful of screws. He drills two holes in the fender & screws two 4" wood screws through the plastic side nose & into the metal inner fender. There he says, nice & neat, if it comes loose, just put a couple more screws into it. He wouldn't take payment unless I wanted to knit a wild scarf for his 12 year old. Sold, said I & the scarf is already on the needles . . . .

And that's the Moss Stitch Blazer under the wild scarf in progress. I tried to take a picture with it on but I couldn't get enough of it into the picture in the mirror with the flash going off. So You'll just have to believe me when I say I wore it yesterday. And I'll wear it tonite when I go knitting. And I may wear it on Friday when I go to the Fibres West in Abbotsford too.

So as soon as I finish the wild scarf - I'm going to get busy with something in the Purple Marble yarn. I tried swatching the pattern for the red Kimono on the front of the Knit Kimono book & I really like the pattern!! I want this one for summer so I want something warmish but still light & cool. The Marble really produces an open pattern so I'm wondering if it might not be a better option than the Indigo Noragi pattern . . . . decisions, decisions . . . .