Sympathy for Marie

Today's post has no pictures or happy updates. Instead, I ask that you please send your good thoughts, wishes, and prayers to Marie, who was involved in a very serious car accident July 1.

Marie and her sister, Betty, are regulars at A New Yarn and both took my magic-loop sock class last month. I had received an email about the accident shortly after returning from our camping trip, but I hadn't gotten many details and had no idea how very serious it was. Last night at A New Yarn's Wednesday knitting circle, I got an update from Betty. Absolutely nothing has been confirmed regarding the accident, so there's still a lot of speculation. What's known for sure: Marie (and her older-model, smaller car) found herself up against two massive (think gravel and bucket-style) trucks at an intersection on the road to her home.

As I understand it, the accident involved hills, locked brakes on one of the trucks, blocked view of the area around the intersection, bright sunlight, and a driver who didn't know the roads or intersections there very well. The bucket-style truck, with locked brakes, T-boned Marie, knocking her car back out of the intersection. Then the gravel truck misjudged what it would take to get around the accident and hit the bucket truck... just perfectly enough to send it tumbling, upside-down, to Marie. That's what's been gathered so far about how it happened, anyways.

Marie is still in the hospital. The situation has been critical, has involved numerous surgeries, and will require lots and lots of time for recovery. It's sad and scary.

I first met Marie at A New Yarn's pre-Mother's Day sale. She is, among other things, a fiber enthusiast, a sheep and alpaca rancher, and proprietor of Slug Ranch Fibers in Snohomish. (An enterprise she told me started when her daughter came home one day x years ago saying she was going to raise a sheep for her 4H project... it's grown from there. In addition to building a large barn and working her fiber business, she and her husband also learned how to shear their own animals. Can you believe it?!) I've seen Slug Ranch fiber for sale at various shops around the city.

Every time I've spoken with Marie, I've been impressed by her eagerness to share helpful information and to bring other people along to the next step in their knowledge and love of all things fiber-related. At our first meeting, she told me about a spinning guild in Snohomish and then invited me to bring my spinning wheel to the New Yarn knitting circle the following Wednesday and spin with her. Marie is a remarkably fast spinner. She's the type of knitter who's deeply curious about new techniques, who's fearless in her approach of a project—whether based on a well-loved pattern or a new chart. She always seems to have tireless energy, and she definitely has a great sense of humor. She's interested and interesting, and the combination of Marie and her sister around the knitting table is a force to be reckoned with!

Betty was working on some serious lime-green bed socks for Marie last night and was in good spirits. To be honest, I would have been surprised to see her in anything but good spirits. She's that kind of lady!

A New Yarn has a comfort shawl in-progress for her. Anyone can drop by the shop and knit a few rows. It's a simple, triangle pattern in decreasing garter stitch. Three yarns are being worked— sometimes at once, sometimes solo—in a variety of fiber types in denim, frosty blue, and white. If you are in the north Seattle area and have an opportunity to visit the shop, I encourage you to come knit on the shawl. Claudia, who runs A New Yarn, would like to have the shawl finished before Marie is discharged from the hospital. Sorry, I don't know the date... but I don't think it's going to happen very soon.

I knit on the shawl a bit last night. Then, amazingly, my daughter asked to knit on it. She did a fantastic job, and at 8 years old, I suspect she's the youngest to contribute some stitches. If only I had brought my camera.

I am very sad for Marie and her family.