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Booker Reading Part 1

This year it felt like I was making great headway on the Booker. Prize long-list. At one point it even felt like I might finish all the books before the short-list was announced. Considering that I had read none of the long-listed titles before the announcement, that was probably unlikely, and this proved to be the case. As the date of the short-list announcement approached, I realized that I would be far from finished, yet I still fully intended to write a post listing and rating the books I had read. This is not due to any pretensions that my opinion matters in the scheme of book prizes, or anything really, merely an exercise in pursuit of mental clarity.

However I found myself slowing down and unable to corral my thoughts.

The short-list was announced (above in title order). I was simultaneously thrilled to see that four of the books I had read made the cut and frustrated that I had failed to write. I thought the opportunity was over. Then I realized it wasn't. I still like the books I like. In the end, I think it will be interesting, to me at least, and since this is my blog nothing else matters, to note my own comparisons, ratings and thinking on the matter

Still it took me over a week to get myself to a point where I felt I had energy enough for my brain to work in a somewhat coherent matter and then another week to actually get words to take shape. That is just the way my life rolls at the moment. Hopefully my brain and I will get through this intact.

So what did I read? Before the short-list was announced I had finished seven novels on the long list, and was in the middle of an eighth. I have since finished the eighth, but this post is only about those initial seven novels.

These are the novels, shown above in order of my preference, from first (Small Things) to last (Booth). I thoroughly enjoyed all the books except one. Even though I had not read the entire list, I thought my top three were strong short-list contenders and I was rather on the fence about the fourth, Glory. I found that rating these books was very difficult because they are all quite strong and the distinctions that make one book more meaningful than another are often minute.

And now my thoughts, in reverse order.

7. Karen Joy Fowler: Booth. This was the third Booker-nominated book I read. It was, and continues to be, the least in my estimation by a rather wide margin. I suppose what I struggled with the most was that there was little that was literary about this book, other than its intentions perhaps. Booth is about the Booth family, the family of the infamous John Wilkes, and the times that led up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Ostensibly it is supposed to be about how the forces of the time and culture shaped the outcome and how the family itself both contributed to, and dealt with, the aftermath of President Lincoln's assassination. The author has stated that she wanted to write about how a family deals with their own culpability and all of the questions of might-have-been or could-have-done. She has also spoken about her own struggles with current political turmoil in American life and her attempt to reconcile her feelings through writing this novel set in another time of great political and social turmoil. In fact there is no shortage of interesting ideas and big questions in this novel. The problem is that these ideas are dealt with in a rather heavy and plodding way with conventional language and really rather pedestrian prose. They remain, somehow, "ideas that we are supposed to address" rather than something seamlessly revealed in the story itself. This novel captured me with neither literary allusions that opened new insights or a story that captured my imagination.

6. Leila Mottley: Nightcrawling. This novel, based on a real-life case of institutional misconduct, was a fascinating, thought-provoking, enlightening and thoroughly enjoyable read, even if its subject matter is ultimately upsetting to my own comfortable middle-class illusions.This is the story of Kiara, a seventeen year old girl who lives alone with her older brother following the death of her father from cancer, possibly exacerbated by his own sojourn in prison, and her mother's incarceration following the drowning of a baby sister due to neglect. Her brother is a talentless wanna-be rapper who has abandoned caring for her in pursuit of his dreams. Kiara also serves as babysitter and ultimately the primary caregiver for a nine year old boy whose mother is a junkie. She is a girl with no options. Faced with a tremendous rent increase and a series of happenstances, Kiara drifts into prostitution and quickly finds herself in a situation from which she cannot extricate herself. The writing here is brilliant, and Mottley, who is really a teenager herself, captures the combination of innocence and scathing bitterness that define the world of her protagonist. The action and the feelings are often hyperbolic, but to me this both works for and against the novel. It gives a sense of urgency and loss to the story, and it captures completely the way a teenager, a teenager who has seen far too much of the bitterest side of the world, deals with what she sees around her. Hyperbole and teenage angst go hand in hand. The amped up emotion however is a dual edged sword; it is both a strength in terms of drawing the reader into Kiara's mind and heart, and a profound weakness, because there is no way to delineate issues, no way build emphasis. When everything is overwrought, there is little room for nuance or clarity. I am grateful for having read/heard in my mind this voice, but at the same time there were times when the story would have had even more power had a little more distance been maintained. I do recommend this powerful novel, and Mottley is a rising talent. I hope to read more from her in the future.

5. Hernan Diaz: Trust. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, and it has remained on my mind but I give it more points for ideas than for actual execution. Trust is a novel written in two parts, or is it four parts? There are actually four short novellas which make up the novel, all of which revolve around the story of a Wall Street Tycoon and his wife during the time leading up to the crash of 1929. But there are actually two parts to this novel, and the first two stories are divided from the second two stories by a rather significant shift in point of view, and in fact reflect a greater cultural shift, although the stories are not necessarily told in strictly linear order. Sounds complex no?

The novel opens with a short, roughly 100 page novella written in the style of Wharton, Wharton with a perhaps a touch of Theodore Dreiser thrown in, about the life of a wealthy New York financier and his wife. I found it quite interesting and engaging, but flawed. It is not completely successful, either as a nineteenth-century novel, or as a modern pastiche of a nineteenth century novel. But that is, at least in part, the point. The second novella tells a very similar story of a Wall Street tycoon and the mental instability of his wife. The third version of this story is told by another narrator, Ida Partenza, who tells the story of how she wrote the second novella, combining this with the story of her own life and choice to become a writer. In Ida's novel we make a transition toward the a more modern approach in novels, and from this point Trust becomes a far more engaging read. The reader might wonder why the author did not interleave these stories in alternating chapters, but I do think the linear progression and delineation is part of the story, even if I feel the technique was not entirely successful. Diaz is giving us a deconstruction of the novel which is simultaneously a deconstruction of the myth of the American dream and the stories we tell ourselves. Diaz deconstructs not only the division between art and science and art and finance but also the divide between the stories we tell and the realities we portray, especially as they concern capitalism, free markets, the idea of the self-made man, and the common good, as well as the even bigger question of trust. The reader trusts the writer, must trust the story being told, must trust the myth on which a society is being built. But this novel consistently calls that trust into question and raises the issue not only of who gets to write the stories but of how and why the story is written. This grand scheme also references all kinds of side issues around which this novel revolves: finance and markets, the suppression and co-opting of women's ideas and voices, and an interesting discussion of music as well as art. In once sense, I can also see this novel as a musical composition in four movements. I need to follow that idea a bit further, which means of course that I will be reading this novel again.

4. NoViolet Bulawayo: Glory. Glory is a viciously funny satire that seeks to portray the events in Zimbabwe following the coup which deposed Robert Mugabe. Despite my laughter, I admired it more than I actually enjoyed reading it. The author has stated that she initially considered writing non-fiction or perhaps more conventional novel but eventually decided to write something more satirical taking her inspiration George Orwell's Animal Farm and utilizing local animal-based mythologies. I can perfectly understand the choice of Orwellian satire, and although I do feel that Bulawayo has successfully updated the Orwellian tradition for a perhaps younger, twenty-first century audience, writing a novel full of wit and humanity. I do not think the novel quite measures up to the level of art seen in Orwell, other African writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’, or even some of the other writers on this list. I also think that her use of the animals, the constant references to twitter, and the repetition of short sound bites have made the novel more of-the-moment and accessible, even if ultimately less profound as art.

3. Percival Everett: The Trees. This is a powerfully explicit and confrontational novel about lynching in the United States, specifically connecting our history of lynching and police violence against people of color, which the author explicitly links to genocide.

Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over 100 years, no one notices. Where thee are no mass graves, no one notices. American outrage is always for show. It has a shelf life.

This is accomplished in a novel that successfully wraps a brutal expose in a cover of genre convention, in this case a crime procedural or detective novel. Short chapters, snappy dialog, and laugh out loud stereotyping and humor lure the reader into its circle. The novel is outrageously funny while simultaneously being deeply unsettling. In one heartbreaking section there is a list of names of the victims. It is a sobering list, coming as it does in the middle of the action, the impulse may be to skip over it, but instead one should take time with these names, google them, think about the implications. Everett does not pacify his reader with with pat answers or easy solutions. In fact the novel questions the entire idea culpability for the past and the role of justice, of its necessity, of the way it makes us uncomfortable because it often defies morality, defies societal convention, societal secrets. I did have some issues with this book, although not with its subject matter. If anything Everett played to my own biases and understandings. But I do think this is a pointedly inward looking and pointedly American novel. Although the need for justice is universal, and historically this need always erupts somewhere, somehow, into something deeply unpleasant, the novel does not feel as much universal but deeply specific. Still it stays on my own short list because it is so brilliant at what it does.

2. Alan Garner: Treacle Walker. Treacle Walker is the story of a young boy of indeterminant age, Joe Coppock, who is convalescing at home, when he encounters Treacle Walker, a rag and bone man "able to cure all things except jealousy", which caused this reader think back to the etymology of the name treacle itself, which harkens back to Middle English as an antidote to venom, where it is derived through old French from Latin and Greek thērion or wild beast, a derivation aptly relevant throughout the course of this short book. Treacle Walker is also probably the most elegant literary exploration of quantum mechanics I have ever read. As might be expected from that previous statement, there is a plot but it is follows a rather thin, definitely non-linear thread. I find the book thought provoking and thoroughly enchanting, but I also acknowledge that it may be difficult for many American readers as it is rife with colloquial language, references to British culture from the mid 20th century, and a heavy use of local (English) folktales and myths and literary traditions. Still, it is worth the effort. Alan Garner has written a novel that seems to capture the magic of reading.

Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These. Keegan's novel has already won the 2022 Orwell prize for political fiction. Set in Ireland in 1985, the story, on the surface, has all the makings of a sickly sweet holiday feel-good novel. Christmas, Ireland, A protagonist who does the right thing and helps a girl in distress. And there are probably people who will read this short novel as just that, but it is so much more. This is the story of Bill Furlong, the father of five daughters, a man who runs a successful coal and timber business, and also the child of an unwed mother who was taken in and helped by a widow who employed her as a domestic servant. Bill, who is an introspective thoughtful man, who is already disquieted by the poverty he sees around him and the comfort displayed by the Catholic Church, is thrown into a deeper crisis when he visits the local convent to make a coal delivery and is shocked by the appalling physical condition in which some of the girls under the care of the nuns are treated. Keegan captures this man, his history and his struggle, as well as that of his country and his church, in spare, elegant, pitch-perfect prose. Not a word is wasted. Rarely does the reader come to know a character so deeply and thoroughly in such a short time. It is a beautiful book, and yet one that does not pander to the reader with easy answers and a perfect ending except that Bill knows that his action is not an ending but a beginning, and not an easy one at that, but one upon which he has no choice but to embark.

Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

September 20, 2022
Hello From The Studio

There have been some happy hours spent in the studio this summer and yet at the same time there is very little to show for that effort. Much of that was spent in handwork practice that I am not ready or willing to share, or that is not mine to share. Some time was also spent with some older textiles, refreshing my memory regarding textile restoration, hand work, and organizing thoughts and plans. It always seems like the planning bit is the longest part of anything really, and in many ways the least amenable to blogging because it can take me days to organize my thoughts into a path, and longer yet before that path becomes coherent.

Why should it be so complicated you ask? Don't I just want to make clothes? Well, yes. Yes I do, but being myself, I can even manage to turn that into a maelstrom of musings.

First however, I finally finished the bookcase that goes in the Northwest corner of the studio. It had been partially assembled, and I had some piles here and there, mostly on the pressing table, making it unavailable for current projects.

Here is the finished corner now. Well the rubber mallet is no longer on the floor; it has been properly put away. I added four cubes, and shifted the bookcase slightly so it occupies that entire end of the room between window and wall. This required moving the white plastic cubitec unit that I had built in the laundry room, and later found to be less useful than I had hoped, out of the basement and across the way to the studio. Then of course I had to remove all the books, expand the bookcase and put everything back.

This all took place over a series of days. The books were sorted and put in order. Then there was a mad frenzy of searching because it seems very apparent to me that a box, or two, of books is missing, and yet I cannot find them anywhere. I am certain I had certain books, equally convinced that I would not have given them away for anything, and yet they are nowhere to be found. It is completely illogical that, of all the things that could disappear in a move, two boxes of books would be the items that would "fall off the truck". I have no explanation. I probably never will, and really it is irrelevant.

But it was a great deal of fun to reacquaint myself with my knitting, sewing, and fiber books. Many happy. hours were spent reading, looking at patterns, dreaming dreams. I still think I want to come up with some plan for cataloging the patterns in the various volumes and magazines, as well as the notebooks full of patterns I have clipped over the years but I am really not sure if I will ever get to that. The world is full of patterns, and yet, I also discovered there remain many things I still want to knit, or to knit again.

There is still a lot of organizing that must happen before the studio is fully functional but increasingly it is becoming a space that works for me. I really like what I have achieved so far, and it has proved functional and maintainable. There are still some boxes of things to sort through, and the two bins of UFOs are larger than I would like, but at least everything is together in a coherent way.

I did get all the sewing patterns organized, or most of them. There is a small basket of about a dozen patterns that have turned up here and there on my desk waiting for me to get around to cataloging and filing them. I also got about 1/3 of the yarn stash photographed, catalogued, and put away. The remainder has been corralled but I need to work on plans for how to organize the storage closet. I got started, changed my mind, and temporarily abandoned the project. I can't resume cataloging until I have a coherent way to sort and store the cataloged yarn. I rearranged the sewing tables, but haven't yet shifted the way I store tools and small things so that they work with the new sewing arrangement. Actual sewing then, as opposed to cutting and flat table work, is still a little bit of an adventure.

I bought fast-dry foam and sunbrella fabric to make new cushions for the outdoor seating, but then, when I had the time and energy, we were drenched in rainfall. Now that it is dry, I once again do not have the energy. Sooner or later it will all come together. In the meantime the materials are in their own corner, waiting peacefully.

The last time I wrote, dress patterns were on my mind. They still are. I ordered more muslin because I was out but I have not made much progress on the dress front. The five dress patterns are dresses I will wear again and again, and I have no problem with that. I am living in the three dresses I made. They are pretty much worn, washed, and worn again. I am perfectly content. I could simply make more dresses and continue on my merry way.

But I also have a closet, a closet that contains clothes, mostly separates, that need to be worn. Sewing dresses is easy because I don't have to coordinate them with anything else. But what do I do about my other clothes? I do want to wear them. And I don't particularly want a closet full of widows and orphans. In the past I just sewed, and knitted, whatever it was that I felt like sewing or knitting at the time, and hoped that eventually it would go with something in my closet. But I think I want to take a more organized approach. I want a closet where everything works together, or at least with its own capsule of items. And this means both more time thinking about what I have and what I need, and also more shifting to a more organized approach.

It started with these slim stretch cotton ankle pants. They fit now and I very much like them. Except that, as you can see, they were initially too wide at the ankle. I don't recall if that was the style when I purchased them, (whenever that was; I am surprised I held on to them) or if I just have narrow ankles in comparison to my hips. But I don't think the combination of this width and this length is flattering.

So I thought I could take them in, tapering down from the knee. I didn't want to take up too much, because doing that would require dissassembling the entire pant, recutting it and putting it back together. It would be easier just to make new pants. The pants are now about 1 1/2 inches narrower at the ankle than they were in the photo above (see lower two photos). And the blue thread is really not that bright in real life.

I think they look much better. But the process of altering the pants made me think about what I have in my closet and what goes with what. Although I was thrilled to find something I had forgotten that fit me now, I was also frustrated to see a closet full of clothes that do technically fit, but which I have no idea how to wear so that they work for the person I am now, with the body I reside in now. I need to figure it out. I need to let go of what doesn't work, regardless of whether it fits, and I need to have a plan to make and/or buy things that I will actually use together with the things I have.

And so it seems I have a whole new project. I have started working on that: pulling clothes out of the closet to see what goes with what, trying on outfits, photographing them, putting everything back away. It is daunting because I have to try everything. I've been avoiding buying new things or making new things because I didn't know what I had, and opening the closet was overwhelming. It is one thing to add a new item to an existing wardrobe that woks well together, and to create outfits and play with ideas. It is somewhat more exhausting when when I don't know how anything goes together, and many of the things I once wore no longer work for who I am now. Sometimes it feels like this closet belonged to someone else and I am, in some ways, starting from scratch. It is all exhausting. It is also very rewarding as I have a much better sense of who I am now and what I want to wear now in this stage of my life. I am gaining a more focused sense of what I need and what I want.

For example, one thing I noticed is that the above pants look much better with the pointy toed flats than they did with the ankle-high buckled sandals. I discovered that I like a necklace that sits much closer to my collarbone. The 18" strand of pearls in the top photo is too long and needs to be shortened, probably to somewhere near 16". Pearls that are never worn because the lengths of the strands are wrong can be restrung.

I am developing a catalog of sorts of what works, and series of lists and plans. I don't want to make, or even spend money buying, something that doesn't work. Oh one of the things about making is that not everything works, and I am sure I will make many duds, but at least I won't be flying blind. I am not sewing now and yet, finally, I am becoming increasingly focused and excited about the options ahead.

August 27, 2022
Adventures in the Kitchen

Slowly I start adding things back into my life. And yet. I think I will leave it at that, a fragment full of both frustration and hope. I grow frustrated. I grow tired. The eternal cry of "MORE" rears its ugly head. This has always been my curse, and perhaps it is the one lesson from my childhood that will be the most difficult to relinquish — the wanting to know everything, to see everything, to miss nothing. And yet, despite this struggle, I become increasingly unhurried, increasingly content to just be here, wherever, with less, worried about less. It is a good place to be, although I do not always manage to remain wrapped in its stillness and peace.

When I take the time to pause, I see that these frustrations are unfounded. Yes, I can grow tired. Who does not? Certainly I am doing so much more than I was a year ago, when, in the midst of chemotherapy, I was not doing well at all. And yet I wonder. Why this need for an accounting? I wonder if it matters, ultimately, in whether or not a life was well lived. Perhaps the pursuits of more, whatever they be — popularity, power, things, experiences – perhaps this life of pursuit is a life in pursuit of a mirage. Increasingly I think all that matters in life is that we love and find joy, our own joy, the joy that is essential to our natures, the joy that resonates and explodes our own essential selves into lights in the world. As I increasingly understand, joy is not a solitary pursuit. In order to live in joy, I must also share that joy with others. I cannot do it by myself for only myself. Self-centerdness is the opposite of joy.

Sometimes joy is quiet and calm. Sometimes it is active and riotous. Sometimes it makes a mess.

In July I started cooking again. Not "get dinner on the table" cooking, but cooking cooking. I started exploring new recipes and rediscovering old ones, playing with dishes both complicated and simple. Certainly the results were often delicious and satisfying. There was an occasional failure. But the joy came not just from the results but the very act of making, of exploration, of rekindling a kind of muscle memory. Cooking is a creative exploration, a gift to those we feed. Or it can be. We need to cook; we need to eat. There is necessity. One of our gifts as humans is the ability to elevate necessity into something beautiful, powerful, shared. The creation of food is also a gift, an act of creation and also of reverence of sorts, of honoring the things that nourish us, and in nourishing both ourselves and others in the process. Mostly I fed only myself. Occasionally I fed others. I tended to go overboard, but that was primarily because I was caught up in the act of exploration, of rekindling some previously misplaced neural networks and following them into new delights. But I have no doubt that the act of creating, of feeding myself even, not only of feeding others, percolates into every aspect of my presence in the world

A lot of this cooking came about because I would flip through my old recipe files and think about the things I have not made in a long time. I learned that my tastes have changed. Some recipes were successes. Some were failures. I am far more sensitive to tastes of preservatives in food, far less enamored of commercial processed food than I once was. Perhaps not oddly, I would have said, even then, that I did not eat that much processed food. But perception is relative. Now even less appeals. Except for Fritos perhaps. I still love Fritos. But my once-upon-a-time self could devour a bag of chips, hoarding them for myself, and now about a handful is all that I want before something shifts and the bag goes in the trash. Once I could eat a Frito plain, but no longer. It remains a great vehicle for something else, but even then the limits of my tolerance is easily reached. I would rather have a slice of turnip, or cucumber, or even a spoon with my hummus or my dip, but the spoon, of course, is not an option in a social setting. The spoon itself, the idea of eating a shared dish with a spoon, is an inward, and ultimately selfish act, a turning away from the communal. It is good we do not serve spoons with our dips. The communal table allows us to use appetite, a physical appetite, as a trigger, turning ourselves outward to others. I need to feed myself, but I cannot be whole, wholly myself, alone. "Our daily bread" is not just bread, it is the communal experience we need to survive: physically, emotionally, spiritually. We humans are selves only as part of a communal gathering. Nourishment is also communion. So also is creativity. The creative act might seem solitary, but in fact the very act of creation means that it flows beyond itself, sometimes even in ways that are not immediately evident.

Oh wait, I am writing about food, about cooking.

A significant amount of my recent cooking explorations revolved around a new to me cookbook, Mi Cocina, by Rick Martínez. I grew up eating both Mexican and Tex-Mex food. I spent a great energy in my 20s expanding my Mexican culinary horizons beyond what I learned in childhood, primarily because options for Mexican food in New York State were slim in the 1980s. We ate a lot of Mexican food, both simple and complex, exploring regional Mexican cusines, and revisiting my childhood Tex-Mex favorites. But after my husband died, I mostly stopped cooking Mexican food. Perhaps it seemed too much work for a solo diner. Perhaps it was simply too emotionally fraught of an exercise. Martínez has rekindled that love affair with both the flavors of Mexico, with the joys of flavor itself, of cooking something with attention and detail and yes, joy. He has also reminded me that although complexity in and of itself is not needed, detail is important. Nourishment, and joy also, often comes from the meetings of several simple things. I needed this.

Exploring new culinary ideas, finding new favorites, revisiting the once tried-and-true. Not all was measured and calm. I have always been a person inclined toward too-muchness, all in or all out. I repeatedly write about that here. It is another of my ongoing struggles. But our struggles and our joys shape our lives. I am not sure that this tendency, this bubbling forth and then retreating, is at all unusual. I look around me. The world is balanced, but it is rarely measured in its flow. Perhaps this too, this idea a life well-lived is a life of moderation, of calm, of evenness, is another mirage.

In some fit of energy, or was it madness, I looked at the freezer, which desperately needs cleaning out, and some detailed culinary plans started to come into focus. What after all is the point of exploring the new without also using what I already have. Accumulating more is rarely the answer in and of itself. I decided to make chili. Three big pots of chili in fact. Remember that part of my nature that tends toward excess? This is not in fact as extreme as it sounds. It does not, in fact, take three times as long to prep three pots of chili as it does one, as many of the ingredients overlap. Once the first pot of chili is bubbling away, the others fall in place. I made two long-time favorite recipes and one new one: one in the slow cooker, one braising slowly in the oven, and one on the stove top. The cooking also takes no longer for three chilis than for one.

Of course, one is left with a great deal of chili. A party perhaps? That would have been a great idea, and I will do it someday. This time I just put the chili in the fridge for 36 hours, allowed the flavors to meld and the fat to rise to the surface and solidify, then I reheated the chilis and canned the bulk of it. Does it make sense to move meat from the freezer to pantry shelves? Yes. Although it doesn't really eliminate the problem of having a backlog, pints of chili are more usable than pounds of frozen meat. There will always be days when I need to eat but really just want to reheat something simple. So yes, having chili, or beans, or spaghetti sauce makes sense. I would simply rather can, or freeze, my own than buy commercial. My pressure canner holds 14 pints. A pint is a good sized quantity for a solo household. And so I canned chili. I could have frozen sealed pouches of chili, but remember, I am cleaning out the freezer here. It needs to be defrosted, as well as reorganized. After two rough years, my priorities have evolved.

Little did I know the chili would prove useful sooner rather than later. Early last week, I went back into atrial flutter, where I have remained. Each day my energy would be lower than the day before. Rows of glistening jars of easy and nutritious chili and the pouches of colorful vegetable soups lining the shelves of my freezer, have been a godsend. Earlier this summer I mourned that I did not have the energy to grow tomatoes, to can them as I had a few years ago. I miss that, and my home-canned tomatoes were more filled with the essence of ripe tomato than anything I can buy the store. I wondered if I would ever undertake such activities again. Then chili happened, and I find myself blessed with bounty just when I need it. I am all about efforts that yield tangible rewards.

And my fluttery heart? We are addressing that also, I am in no danger, or no more than any of us are on any given day, and all is well.

August 22, 2022
Thoughts Without Resolution, or July Books

I did so much in July. None of it was exotic or exciting. Mostly I just started doing things, the kinds of things that were once routine. Finally I am feeling like I am getting my feet back under myself and beginning to function in some way that feels like it is approaching normal. I am still tired; occasionally I become temporarily frustrated, especially when I overtire myself and all my routines and plans crumble around me. I do realize, however, that I am tired because I am doing more, and this is a good thing, and my frustrations are alleviated. There is nothing like getting your assumptions about your own independence knocked out of you. And yet at the sometimes it is necessary to stare upward from the bottom of the well before realize that "doing more" has nothing to do with the meaning or purpose of life.

But that does not mean I am not going to write a blog post. Nor does it mean that I will not admit that I did not lot read a lot of books in July. I read. It is just finishing that was slowed, and it is ok to admit that, even to admit that I struggled with some of my reading. There was one book I loved, and one, more difficult, that I did not love, but the reading of it was still a good thing. Alas I just noticed that I listed the first book, the one I love, in my last post, crediting it to June when I actually finished it on July 8th.

That leaves only one book to list here:

44. Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

As. I've already stated, I struggled. I am quite aware that Poe is a seminal American author, and that much of the development of American Literature, are influenced by his work. I am not just talking about mass or popular culture and our love of horror stories and tales of mysteries and the haunted house at the county fair. His influence percolated into high culture as well. I cannot deny that he was a great storyteller, or that he was brilliant, a genius, really.

I was plagued by the thought that he could really never be credited as being a fabulous wordsmith, or even at least to my mind, a great writer. That is okay. There are those who write beautifully but emptily, and those who capture our imaginations and even shape our culture but whose prose is pedantic at best. Perhaps that is one of the downsides of working one's way doggedly through over a thousand pages of an author's work. Most of the work is not great. Even the great work could use editing, but as I also look at the some of the edited editions, I also see that much of Poe's genius gets edited out as well. Oh we all know the stories.

If I don't feel that Poe's poetry is great as poetry, it is certainly great in terms of its cultural influence. I suspect that most Americans, especially those educated in this country, can quote at least some part of the Raven. Poe, was also a critic, and particularly a critic of the influence of the earlier poetic tradition America had inherited from Britain, and I do think his thoughts on the evolution of poetry are something he explored in his own writing. He is also on the cusp, if not a pivotal influence, although this is nowhere near my own level of competence, in the changes in poetic form that were soon to occur, both in American and English poetry. But I think his insight, and his obvious attempt to pursue it, were more astute than his craftsmanship.

In terms of the stories, I think the best of them have seeped into the popular mindset. They have been edited and reprinted for readers of all ages. They have been turned into movies. Much as I disliked reading some of the stories, and thought they needed editing. Poe tends to expound at length on distracting topics, and he repeats, again and again, the same tropes and conventions to the point of pedanticism. But he is a brilliant storyteller. His stories are cryptograms, often historically funny as well as frightening, Poe had great insight into the human psyche, and also a great understanding of how to create myths that pervade the mind of both the individual and the greater culture beyond. In this, he reminds me of Dickens, although Dickens was by far the better artist. And in his understanding of the motivations, fears, and actions of his characters, he reminds me also of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. But Tolstoy wrote his novels with great understanding of the human psyche, but also with great love and care for his characters. Both he and Dostoyevsky were, again, far superior artists. And although Dostoyevsky explored some of the darker impulses of the human mind, and did so with great insight, his novels seem almost naive compared to the darkness explored by Poe. Perhaps here it is blessing that Poe's art does not bring the reader that sense of connection that Dostoyevsky does, because to do so would make the story unbearable.

But enough of Poe. I don't regret reading Poe, and he made me think of many things, including how little I understand Poe's writing and in fact that entire period in American Literature and its influence on the literature of today.

I do want to mention, briefly, What Strange Paradise. It is a beautiful book and I loved it. But it is also very dark, very sad, and has a very ambiguous and not hopeful ending. It is the story of a 9 year old Syrian boy who follows his uncle onto a fishing vessel set to sail north with a load of refugees seeking asylum. It is a rash decision and the boy, Amir, does not really understand what is happening, the pressures, or the consequences. The boat flounders, and Amir is the only survivor among hundreds of refugees found dead on a beach. The story is told, quite effectively, in alternating segments titled "Before" and "After". In each we see the world, often as interpreted by a small child. It can be quite devastating, and much of the story will bring up issues about bravery, desperation, hope, and fear, but also uncomfortable truths about cruelty, about the fleeting nature of outrage, and even kindness. It is a novel that can be quite uncomfortable to the sensitive reader, as it is explores the limits of hope, and the reality of a comfortable world that may rise up in occasional moments of outrage, but us otherwise perfectly content to keep unpleasant truths, especially those we fear might affect our own security, hidden behind barriers. It is a novel I will not soon forget.

August 5, 2022
Books Read January Through June 2022
I've got to start somewhere.

There have been periods where I have read, and periods where I have not. Periods where I have thought about writing about what I have read, and, yet again, long periods where I have not. For long stretches of time I have not written anything at all. All this sounds, in many ways, negative but I assure you it is not. Circumstances are what they are. Passions too, those things that drive us, ebb and flow. And yet these things are not the source of joy, or even happiness. All of this to say, in a rather complicated way, that I am doing well. There have been dips and bumps but overall this has been a very good period in my life, even if it is not a period defined by outward accomplishment.

Perhaps that is exactly what has been needed. This has been a fallow period of sorts, a drawing in, of coming to terms, and of growth, of replenishment. It seems to me more and more that I know I am changing, that I have changed, but I don't yet know what will come of all that. My own tendency to want to do all the things , if not moderated, leads to the internal stripping of nutrients from the soil of my soul. And yet rest alone is not the answer. But what is rest anyway? Rest means not only resting while giving the body time to heal, which perhaps is not rest at all, or it touches on only one aspect of the complex face of rest, because healing itself is hard and active work for the body. Rest can also simply entail the quiet drawing in of nourishment. Not passive. Not empty. Stasis, not in its sense of inactivity but of equilibrium.

Balance. I've never been a person given to balance. But perhaps balance itself is something to be explored further. We tend to simplify: advising ourselves that balance entails a form of compartmentalization, our efforts and indulgences parceled out in given packets of time or energy, or thought. Wake up, meditate for 15 minutes, shower, work x hours, exercise 30 minutes a day, knit for 1 hour a day. This is not balance as the earth knows it. Think of the thunderstorm and the rainbow, the powerful force that also opens the opportunity for new growth. The harshness of winter followed by the languor of summer. Even the fallow field is hot with activity, activity that lies just below the surface. Replenishment. Fallow. Balance.

Meanwhile I have read, as I mentioned, in stages. Most of my reading has been lightweight, completely fitting in this period of rest and regeneration. Occasionally I have ventured into something deeper. Occasionally something haunts my thoughts. I don't think I will discuss these books or even necessarily rate them. At least not here. At least not now. They are just part of what has filtered into the soil that is the field of my soul. Some of it good, some of it not, and yet all a part of the cycle of life and growth.
1. Lauren Groff. Matrix: A Novel.
2. Amy Greene. Bloodroot.
3. Kreis Beall. The Great Blue Hills of God.
4. Joyce Maynard. Under the Influence: A Novel.
5. Anuk Arudpragasam. The Passage North.
6. Lilo Bowman. Love Your Creative Space.
7. Kevin Kwan. Crazy Rich Asians.
8. Kevin Kwan. China Rich Girlfriend.
9. Kevin Kwan. Rich People Problems.
10. Robert A. Weinberg. The Biology of Cancer.
11. Judith Krantz. Scruples.
12. Colson Whitehead. Harlem Shuffle.
13. Diana Gabaldon. Outlander.
14. Diana Gabaldon. Dragonfly in Amber.
15. Richard Powers. Bewilderment.
16. Matt Bell. Appleseed.
17. Damon Galgut. The Promise.
18. Diana Gabaldon. Voyager.
19. Diana Gabaldon. Drums of Autumn.
20. Diana Gabaldon. The Fiery Cross.
21. Bryant Terry. Black Food.
22. Mabel Dodge Luhan. Lorenzo in Taos.
23. Diana Gabaldon. A Breath of Snow and Ashes.
24. Paddi Newlin. Hidden Treasures.
25. Diana Gabaldon. An Echo in the Bone.
26. Louise Erdrich. The Sentence.
27. Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina.
28. Andrew Sean Greer. Less
29. Patrick Radden Keefe. Empire of Pain.
30. Diana Gabaldon. Written in my Own Heart's Blood.
31. Laura Bates. Everyday Sexism.
32. Mary Dan Eades. Caddo Bend.
33. Stanley Tucci. Taste: My Life Through Food.
34. Heather Cox Richardson. How the South Won the Civil War.
35. Diana Gabaldon. Go Tell the Bees I am Gone.
36. Lee Child. Better Off Dead.
37. Stuart Woods. Chiefs.
38. Iona Wishaw. An Old Cold Grave.
39. William Davis, MD. SuperGut
40. Anthony Doer. The Shell Collector.
41. Patti Smith. Woolgathering.
42. Bridget Quinn. Broad Strokes.
43. Omar El Akkad. What Strange Paradise.
Looking at the list, I see much rereading (marked in blue): 19 of 43 books. All were intentional, for one reason or another. One thing that did stick out is that I belong to two book clubs, and between them almost every book this year has been a reread for me, sometimes of books I would not otherwise have reread. Only two of my first reads were for book clubs. In many ways that seems to fit into the theme of the year, a period of gathering in, of reevaluating. Looking at the list now, I am filled with wonder. What I see are roots sprouting, spreading, intertwining. What I see are roots that belie the arbitrary categories by which my trained, educated, conscious mind wants to organize the world.

I don't quite know what I think about this, about what is worth rereading and what is not, what is worth rediscussing and what is not. Often I am surprised. Other times I am disappointed, but I realize these things are all about me, not the books, not the people with whom I am discussing the books, me. I see books as living things, the thoughts or ideas of a writer taking shape through words. Reading can be an act of relationship, even though may not be as complex as an ongoing active relationship with a person. Or is it? My relationship with some books is more multifaceted and complex than my relationships with some people. And yet, with either, it is up to me to hold up my end. Each of us is exactly where we are, exactly where we can be, in this moment. And that is all. Expectation is about the person who is doing the expecting, about their own internal struggles, although they may not see it as such. As humans this is part of our struggle. We lead with our own preconceptions, with expectation; I am not certain we can completely abandon its grip, but I do believe we can chose to set it aside. We are our pasts, our presents, even to some extent our futures although we know not what they may be. Judgement closes us off from the world. So does passive acceptance. If we are not in struggle, we are not, perhaps, in relationship.

And yes, reading has brought me to this point, at least in part. Books are like the seeds, old and new, that sit in the soil. Then, when I am in the world the thoughts that have been slowly taking root sends out little shoots of understanding, of empathy. The source of insight is irrelevant, sometimes even surprising, and often more multifaceted than we think. Whenever someone tells me they are a simple person, when I say this myself even, I think "no, you are not, you are minimizing the interleaved depths that have made you what you are." On the other hand, we are all, in once sense, incredibly simple. We are all incredibly complex. We all hide parts of who we are from ourselves and from others. This we call survival.

And, after saying I will not read books, I am reminded of a quote from a book:

"Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters."

Louise Erdrich, The Sentence, page 3

Like books, like thoughts, like a fallow field, there is a lot hidden in that sentence. Its meaning, when first read, belies its depth, its contradictions. Intentionally, I choose not to discuss. Not today. Think about it,

But for me, enough with thinking. I am here. I am hopeful. I am filled with thoughts and dreams. In the end that is the crux of it, circumstances be damned,
July 19, 2022
Five Dress Patterns

I went to a four day sewing retreat at Papermaple Studio in New Orleans and had a fabulous time. The studio was beautiful, spacious, well-equipped, and Leisa was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. I met some interesting ladies, all of whom were working on really lovely, and sometimes very special projects.

I however worked on muslins, dress muslins to be specific. I came home with four muslins, all in the final stages of fit, and I believe manageable for me to finish up on my own. All of the patterns are for dresses I would make and wear over the summer, wearable shapes that I would probably make repeatedly. I feel like I am in a good place to jump back into making my own clothes, and I also feel I learned a lot. Leisa helped me to look at the fitting process in new ways, and I am very excited to move forward.

Alas I am traveling most of this month so you will not be seeing immediate progress.

I also did some sewing before I went to New Orleans, partially fitting and making up the Closet Core Cielo dress pattern.

Admittedly I felt a little confused by the entire fitting process. It had simply been too many years and even though I am more adept at fitting knitting patterns, somehow I just could not wrap my head around the process, so perhaps I was not quite as methodical as I could have been. I did a quick muslin of the basic pattern, decided I needed to pinch out a pleat on the right side of the dress, from the neckline angled down. You can see that in the pattern piece above, the green lines, which are all on one side of the center fold only.

Once I drew that in, and pivoted the pleat out into the dart, it changed the angle of the shoulder and armscye, although it did not change the armscye or sleeve shaping at all. You can see the repositioning in the blue line above. I should have made another muslin. But I did not. I just went ahead and cut my first dress, rationalizing that I could spend an endless amount of time on muslins and I desperately needed summer clothes. The final dress was not perfect, but it is wearable, and will get me through the summer. I suspect I am more aware of the flaws than are most people, except perhaps for my closest and sharpest sewing friends.

Here is a (poor) picture of me in the first dress, a purple 65% linen, 35% cotton blend. As you can see, I made my dress longer than the pattern illustration. In fact I had to add about 5 inches in length to the pattern, all below the waist. I love the shape of this dress, it is exactly the kind of loose, easy, dress that makes hot humid summer dressing tolerable.

I did note a few problems, but that didn't stop me from making two more dresses. The second dress is an Australian cotton print, and the third version, my favorite so far, is in a more loosely woven muted green linen check. I did not go back and perfect the pattern before making these dresses. As I stated, need trumped perfectionism. Although I admit that the first time I put them on I was self conscious about my own failings, I promptly forgot that and was simply happy and comfortable. Generally, I hate making things under pressure, which is exactly what I did here. I needed clothes and I whipped them out. Now that I have my most basic wardrobe needs covered, I can spend time with my sewing, hopefully learning and improving as I go.

Each project is a learning process, and I don't intend to get so wrapped up in perfectionism that I never wear anything. I learned a lot about fitting the Cielo dress through making the three copies, more than I did from the muslin. Then I learned more about fit by working on the four muslins in New Orleans. Every project is a learning process. I am sure there will be successes and failures. If I have an excess of successes, I may grow tired of my three dresses, or I may not. In the meantime, a part of me feels like a kid again.

June 17, 2022
Retrospectoscope

I am sewing. My projects have been a mixture of successes and near-misses, truthfully some of those misses are fairly widely off the mark, but not unwearable. There have been times when I have grumbled at myself over making "rube" mistakes, at errors that could have been caught earlier because I certainly know better. Yet none of my efforts have been wadded up and tossed in the trash. Reconnecting with old skills appears to be a meandering path.

It also takes rookie mistakes sometimes to remind oneself of why things are done the way the are done. There is something about saying "I didn't think it mattered in this case" and admitting that you were wrong, that it did indeed matter. There is something also to be said about moving forward anyway, about living with your mistakes, and accepting that it is all a process. Perfection doesn't come down like a lightening strike from the hands of God, however much we might wish that it did. I told myself initially that I would start simple, that I would wear what I made, mistakes and all, if possible, and that I should remember my younger, beginner, self. Even though I have skills, some of them are quite rusty, and others seem to have retreated into deep hiding. I am a begin-againer.

I am sewing for myself now, but what I actually want to look at today is some sewing I did earlier in the spring. Sewing that was not for myself, was not particularly difficult sewing, but which nonetheless rekindled that love of making things, and reminded me of some of the why's and wherefore's of my path.

This past Sunday was Pentecost. My church was filled with joy and balloons and people wearing red. I had never been to a church filled with balloons on Pentecost before I moved and found this church, but it is a thing of joy. But this post is not about Pentecost, or about church except insofar as it references sewing for church.

The color of Pentecost is red and the church is draped in red. There are two ecclesiastical reds in the Episcopal church however, Pentecost red which is bright and vibrant and a deeper red, a Holy Week red. There are in fact many shades in between given the variations in the way fabrics take dyes, but that is not the point of this post either. My church only has one set of red hangings for the altar, and this is not unusual. Our hangings are actually Holy Week red, but I doubt very few people care about this minor point. I like ritual, and I like knowing that there are colors associated with seasons and saints and all kinds of what-have-you; but that is my inner medievalist, medievalist and lover of ritual. I doubt most people even notice the difference. I am not thinking we need to buy (or make!) more. Rather, in thinking about shades of red I am also reminded of the direct connection between reds, between the somber red of Holy Week, and the vibrant red of Pentecost, between blood and fire, between despair and joy. We cannot have the balloons and the flames and the joy without also having some acquaintance with the dark side. Our joy can only burst forth after we have been dipped in despair.

But the red hangings also reminded me of a spring sewing project, specifically a Holy Week project, a project about which I did not blog, partially because it was "too simple" but also because I was once again under the weather and struggling with heart rhythm issues and I didn't have the energy or wherewithal to write.

But now, even as we embrace the future, the retrospectoscope has been opened.

Back in April I wrote about making a cover, or dress, for a small cross. I also made covers for all the processional crosses in the church, and another dress for the standing cross, this time in red for Holy Week. Our church had not, at least in my memory, used red for Holy Week beyond Palm Sunday, and we did not have the appropriate covers for the processional crosses. And so I made some.

It was a fun project. First I had to find a red fabric that was as close to the red fabric already in use as possible. Then I had to measure the crosses and draft patterns for the covers. They were pretty simple geometric shapes, but I did have to think about such things as proportion, or where to place the channels for the drawstring ties in order to create an attractive balance. Because I had to measure the crosses and create the patterns and figure out how the drawstrings would work. None of this is as complicated as an actual dress, but it was still a good way to restart the process of thinking about making things, about sewing, and about sewing math.

It was also a good refresher course in technique. I figured out pretty quickly that sewing the rather tight curves at the top of the cross cover was a tad tricky, and that I much preferred using hand-stitching to gather fabric where necessary, and basting curves in place by hand rather than by machine. Handwork may be slightly slower, but it offers much more control. Or perhaps this is just a temperamental thing. It seems I am far less interested in speed than I am in the process and the idea of doing something well. Making the cross covers reminded me of this and allowed me to practice skills which continue to come to be useful.

I made three cross covers for processional crosses. I neglected to take pictures of them in use, but I admit to feeling absurdly happy when I saw them in church during the church service.

I also made a second dress for the small chapel cross, this one in red. The second dress had deeper pleats than the first dress, the result of actually thinking about the pattern and the shape and the way volume and shape influence each other. But this dress was also made out of a fabric with more drape, a fabric that handled volume in a different way, and that contributed to the dress as well. Even the same dress, on the same figure, in different fabrics can be entirely different.

June 8, 2022
I Have No Idea

What do you do when you have fallen out of a habit that you once found useful, calming even, but which now seems like a distant memory. Is it better to "let sleeping dogs lie", or is there some semblance of yearning still hovering in the inner recesses of the soul. Is this a true yearning, or simply a reminiscence, a remembrance of things past, nostalgia rather than growth.

I don't have the answer to any of these questions. 2022 has not been my best blogging year, but it has not been a year in which blogging was absent from my mind. Rather it has been more of a time of reacquaintance with so many things — chores, passions, energy, loss, newfound treasures. I suppose this is a long drawn-out way of saying some kind of reset has been required.

The month of May in particular has felt very much like a slow process of reconnection. There has been plenty to do, including things I used to write about: books and music in particular, but random navel grazing as well. These are all things about which I have spent time thinking even if not writing, thinking and wondering. There is a part of me that wants to return to the blogger I once was, before I knew anything about blogging, before anyone read my blog, when I just wrote whatever I felt like writing for the joy of it. A time when most of my friends thought the idea of blogging was suspect, and then, since they didn't know or care that I was blogging, I felt no sense of obligation to be anyone other than myself. Is there a way to recreate that bloggerly moment? Blogging is, in many ways, an anachronism. At least the kind of blogging I yearn for, not the commercialized, stylized, marketing-world blogging of today. But then, perhaps I too am an anachronism.

I am older now, and I am far less inclined to feel any sense of obligation to being anything anyone outside of myself expects me to be. But a yearning for the past isn't necessary a path forward, even as I think there are things to learn from that yearning. Our dreams, our thoughts, our emotions — not just these but also our indulgences — the things we read, the things we listen to, even the things we watch — all of these are our instruction manuals, if we are paying attention at least, our guides through the complex process of constant change that is life. I do believe we are attracted to and find the things that relate to some essential aspect of our inner selves, but whether we move forward or continue to look backward is up to us. Holding on to the past, to false stability, isn't growth

In early May I adopted a dog. Her name is Garbo and is is mostly standard poodle with a tiny sprinkling of golden retriever fairy dust. She is sweet, elegant, silly, and a great companion. She greets me all wiggles and squeaks when I come home, and she runs around improvising a small symphony in squeaky toys to show her gladness at my return. She is also a calm and patient studio assistant.

Garbo has also gotten me out of the house for two walks most days, a long walk in the morning, and a shorter walk most evenings, although there are some evenings when I am out at other events and our late walk becomes very short indeed. My goal is to gradually increase my walks to be 3 to 5 miles per day, not all in one walk, but divided between two, or even three walks, although three may not happen often in the midst of summer heat and humidity. At the moment we are up to three miles per day. In terms of energy, and cardiovascularly I am ready for an increase, but last week I had a bit of ankle tendinitis, and this week my left knee is bothering me, so best not to push. The knee is probably due to differences in gait caused by back pain last week, and that aforementioned ankle, and I do not think it will be a long-term setback.

I have also been catching up on the piles of stuff, and the many tasks and routines upon which I fell behind following chemotherapy, radiation, and then struggles with atrial flutter and two additional procedures. I am still working through cycles of physical therapy for damage to my right shoulder and chest musculature. It has taken me some time to get fully settled back into these routines: walking, stretching and exercises, housework, cooking and all the activities of maintaining a comfortable and valuable life, including reading, knitting, needlework and yes, sewing. The goal has been in terms of reestablishing habits. The writing habit has not yet been the priority, but the air seems to be signaling that said change may be in the works. The trick for me is, always, to maintain structure and habits, when my natures is now, and always has been, to throw myself entirely into the activity of the moment and allow all other things to fall away. This was not manageable when I was 20, but at that time I could convince myself I had time. Now I realize more fully how interrelated everything is, how fleeting the passage of time, and my increasing inability to bounce back from abandoned structures.

I can accept that I have not, prior to this moment, had time to write. Do I now? Once again I have no idea.

I don't want to return in any haphazard, piecemeal fashion. I want my writing, like my daily walks with Garbo, to become a fixture in my life, something that is a necessary part of existence whatever other temptations may arise to lure me away. I want my writing, like my walks, like cooking, like playing with fiber, to be something that is a necessary part of who I am, and therefore not subject to whim. I must walk, even when I don't feel like it. Garbo and I both need the walks, and the need to walk Garbo is enough to pull me out of my own periodic funks and reluctances. But rebuilding habits is a struggle. Is blogging the same? I suspect it is.

I suppose then, I am writing a long, navel-grazing statement of intent. I intend to blog. I intend to maintain the three separate blogs, as they play different roles in my mental and writing life. Does that mean that occasionally one or the other will be neglected? Probably yes. Just as in life. There was the week I cooked a great deal, trying new recipes from a new cookbook. All other activities fell back. This past week I have spent more time sewing, and my knitting has fallen by the wayside. I have knitted most days, but there are days when that knitting may consist of a single row, a tiny blip. The habit has not been lost, but my focus has been more about priorities than product.

Am I ready to add something new into the mix? HaveI a reached a state where the habits that I have formed are well enough established, like these flowers in the garden, that they will continue to blossom? Am I ready to fill in the empty spaces? It seems the only consistent thread in this post is that I have no idea of what the thread is, or where the answers may lie hidden. Here I am. Life is often easier than I expect it to be, and at the same time it is harder than I want it to be. But isn't that the basic conundrum of human existence?

June 6, 2022
Learning

I haven't been quite as absent from the sewing studio as I have been from this blog, but I can't say that I've been making earth shattering progress either.

I finally got around to finishing up the sloper that my friend Liana helped me start the beginning of March, and which I transferred from film wrap to paper the beginning of April. It is what, the end of May now? I am certain that a little more timeliness would have helped the project, but at least I am slowly inching forward.

I used that first paper draft of my sloper to make a pattern draft for a cardigan I was knitting, a cardigan meant to be rather boxy and knit with positive ease. I wanted something a little less boxy, with better shape around the shoulders, so I plunged ahead, even though I had not yet made any attempt to fit that muslin. Yes, fools rush in. But there will be more about that on the knitting blog. There would be more already but I have suffered from a great failure to take photographs of progress along the way.

Anyway, although it seems incongruous, playing with shaping through knitting has been instructive mostly because of the scale. I don't have to cut an entire garment, I can play with shaping incrementally, ripping and reknitting as needed. It may sound painfully slow but it has also been an instrumental process in helping me clarify my thoughts.

Eventually I decided I needed to fit the muslin.

It went pretty well, and mostly was spot on. The seams ended up where they were supposed to be. The neck and the armscyes were mostly ok. The bust however was problematic. Whether we compressed my breast tissue too much with the plastic wrap, or I componed the problem by allowing the plastic to relax somewhat I will never know. You can see that I don't have enough width in the bust in the photo above, and the pulling is also pulling the armscye out of alignment — that pucker. It needed more work.

Actually, in this photo I have actually captured one of the few times in my life where I have felt busty, or accepted that I might actually need a full bust adjustment. Oh I knew it in my head, and although I gained volume post menopause, I also accepted retroactively that I had probably needed larger cups sizes when I was young and skinny and thought of myself as "dartless", a moniker coined by my mother and which I apparently struggled to outgrow, despite all evidence to the contrary. In all likelihood I simply needed a smaller band size, and bigger cup size than I could find in my local JC Penny. Add that to my own, also probably culturally-informed issues with my scoliosis, and let's just say that I wasn't helping myself in the fitting department.

But this is not the time root out the past; rather it is time to dress me, now.

It seems this meandering path toward fitting and sewing has been a process of reaching some understanding. My full bust is slightly over 5 inches larger than my high bust. Obviously then I need full bust adjustment and I need darts. I wear a fairly small band size, slightly larger since breast-cancer surgery for comfort reasons, but that is neither here nor there. I am also not only asymmetrical but tallish (5'9") and have a long torso, both of which serves deemphasize the bust, which can be to my benefit. Except when it is not, when it keeps me from fully realizing my own options.

Still I learned some things. I did need more width at the bust, but not a lot, and mostly on the right rather than on the left. There goes that old asymmetry thing again. And I needed more length on the left than on the right.

I didn't take another photo, post pattern-correction, and I was not absolutely meticulous about every little detail. My plan for this muslin was that it offer fitting help and give me an idea of how to work with patterns and my own three-dimensional shape, not be a perfect model for drafting future patterns. In fact, I am still having trouble wrapping my head around patterns, and how this muslin translates to other shapes. That is part of the process I am sure. Hopefully long forgotten muscle memory will be activated as I progress and I will not spend all my times floundering in the weeds.

Here are the front pieces. As you can see the asymmetrically is not is markedly noticeable here, at least not as much as in the back, see previous post for that. I haven't gone to the trouble to give you a photo that highlights scale or the actual differences or sizes of anything here. That is not the point for me at this moment. Right now, this exercise is as much conceptual as it is practical. My immediate sewing needs are for summer garments. Heat and humidity are not compatible with closely fitted garments in my experience. I could probably spend my life playing with perfecting something that is supposed to be an abstract guideline. And then I would have nothing to wear.

I don't think I want to think about any of it at all right now. But I will. I assume I will have to.

May 30, 2022
Addressing the Pattern Stash

It seems I continue to work in a rather roundabout fashion, working toward goals but not getting directly to the point.

This past week I cataloged and organized sewing patterns. It was admittedly something that needed to be done as they were in no particular order, which was proving difficult when searching either for a particular design or even for ideas. The search for patterns was not what prompted this fit of organizational mania however, although perhaps it should have been, as I went out and bought a duplicate of a pattern I already owned simply because I could not find the original. Now I have them both. Silliness, silliness. We must be kind to ourselves over our various sillinesses.

In fact, I started unpacking, sorting and cataloging patterns last weekend because I felt unsteady doing anything else. I had been through another episode of atrial flutter and had an ablation last Friday. On Saturday I was somewhat tired, and someone slow in terms of focus despite only having "light" anesthesia. It seemed unwise to cut patterns, sew, or perhaps even man a hot iron — the potential for errors was too high. The patterns were there, completely disorganized and apparently overflowing the allotted space, waiting to be unpacked and organized.

It proved to be the perfect activity, not completely mindless, but not requiring attention either. Sorting through the pattern stash filled my mind as I imagined the things I dreamed of making, remembered sewing projects and outfits of the past, and not least also indulged my penchant for organization orderliness, lists, and organization.

I used Pinterest to catalog the patterns, primarily because of its visual orientation, but partly also because many patterns had already been uploaded, which made it easy to add them to my own boards. By using Pinterest, I can sort patterns into categories and I have the option of putting one pattern in as many categories as makes sense to me. Then the actual patterns can be filed in a very straight-forward and orderly fashion.

There were of course, too many patterns. There may be some patterns I am not fully convinced I still want to make, but I am also not convinced that I am ready to give up on them either. For example there are two dress patterns I bought because I wanted to knock off a particular dress, and each pattern offered some of the necessary components. I don't remember exactly what effect I was going for, only that these patterns seemed like a good starting point. Maybe I can work with that; perhaps I am no longer interested in the outcome. I don't know yet.

There is also this collection of patterns. I was entranced with them when I was at JoAnn fabrics with my mom early in the spring of 2021, before I knew I had breast cancer. I knew I needed summer clothes, and thought they would be a good starting point, giving me some good, simple, options to kick off my summer sewing. All of these garments would be suitable for a hot humid summer, and would give me clothing options while I worked on other fitting issues. Then my plans changed and I didn't sew. I still have the patterns. For the most part I still like them and see their use. One is questionable. But I will never really know what I think until I sew them up.

There is also much apparent duplication in he pattern stash, in some categories more than others. I am OK with that, although it is something I intend to address. There is no rush because, once organized, all the patterns fit in the space I had allotted to them. This was something of a happy surprise, made possible because I also found a use for five baskets I had purchased for another purpose, but found they did not work as well in that application as anticipated. Win-Win.

That doesn't mean I don't intend to deal with duplicates. Although I am basically attracted to sewing clothing because of my love of wearing clothes, there is another side of my sewing life as well. I am also subject to a certain nerdy, process-oriented, curiosity and a tendency toward comparison.

I can't just say to myself "pick this tee pattern and work from there". If I did so, I would always feel I had potentially missed out on something. I actually look forward to the process of comparison, of taking the six or so tee patterns I have, laying them out, comparing them, figuring what works and why. This is the same reason I occasionally buy a pattern because of a single detail that fascinates me. It is the same instinct that makes me have sets of knitting needles in different materials despite the fact that I have one favorite — there are always instances where my favorite is not the best choice. This is the same instinct that makes me want to take on, or at least be highly attracted to, projects where other knitters, sewers, cooks, etc had trouble making something work. This is not because I think I can do it better, it is more a curiosity as to why something fails, what it takes to make it work, if possible, and what I can learn from the process.

I will need some basic tees and turtlenecks come fall. I am not desperate, although it is possible I may be before I finish playing. I have some materials for experimentation and perhaps opportunities for learning. I suppose life could be easier, but as I spent time the last week sorting through sewing patterns, I actually grew more excited by the possibilities for not making life easier.

There are some of us who just seem to be wired that way.

May 6, 2022