Category: Books

The Vogue Knitting wasn’t the only new knitting magazine to arrive last week, but it was the only one that was probably worth mentioning. 

The new Verena also arrived.

When I was first notified that Verena was no longer going to be published I was devastated because they had so many sweaters I loved.  Then, when I was notified that they were resuming publication I was filled with glee and quickly dropped the required cash for a new subscription.

I shouldn’t have bothered.  This is the second issue of the "new" Verena I have received and both have been completely boring.  What a disappointment.

Here it is more than half way through the week and I am still catching up with last weekend.  And not all bad things happened, and I did indeed enjoy my short visit to Rhinebeck.  Any problems were purely of my own doing and stemmed from the generally overwhelmed mental state in which I was operating. 

There were some good points though.


For the first time in a few years, the winter issue of Vogue Knitting arrived BEFORE the sheep and wool festival.  I distinctly remember running around Dutchess and Ulster Counties on a Saturday evening two years ago looking to purchase a copy of the magazine because mine had not come and I desperately needed more information on a pattern for which I wanted to purchase yarn.

In fact, even though I missed time at the fairgrounds and a party or two, I was happy to spend stolen moments curled up with this issue of VK.  I like this issue far, far more than the last one, the much touted anniversary issue, which I thought was quite disappointing.

Admittedly I was first attracted to this sweater because of the color.


But when I looked more closely I found that I still loved the pattern.  I actually have some of the recommended Colinette yarn in my stash, although perhaps not enough for this sweater.  I purchased it for something else, for which it may or may not be suited.

In fact this seems to be the color of the season, at least as far as my attraction to the Russian collection in the magazine, because I was also attracted to this sweater, which is fabulous for its color, and the lovely shaping and detail, enough interest to keep it from being a boring knit, and yet no so busy that it doesn’t get worn.

I have mentioned several times lately that I seem to be increasingly attracted to color work again, although you haven’t yet seen me start any sweaters that require multiple colors in any form.  Still I feel myself getting closer and closer.

This issue has three sweaters that are really tempting me to take the color plunge:

But it is not all about color, or at least bright color.  I also love this classic cardigan shown in the section on Paulina Porizkova:

 
I find all of Tom Scott’s designs fascinating and I am particularly attracted to the interesting shaping of the garments, although this simple wrap uses no shaping and I love it.  This is the sweater from this group that I am most likely to get made first, and it is the only one in the set where I actually like the fringes as part of the design.

Still, this short, one-sleeve wrap is also high on my list and looks like it would be fast an entertaining to knit and wear:

Although I love beautiful knitted lace, lace garments are among the least likely in terms of my actually wearing them,  so they aren’t usually high on the list.  None the less, there is an absolutely beautiful beaded shawl that I would love to knit:

And Shirley Paden’s lace skirt and top also attracted, especially after I noticed that it was indeed two pieces and not a dress.  I don’t think I would knit or wear this as it is written, but I am very intrigued by the design and I am already dancing around a few ideas.

Of course the likelihood of my getting to any of these projects in the immediate  future is even further in the world of fantasy.

I was browsing around the web, exploring blog links from people whose blogs I read regularly, and I found this unread book meme at Pea Soup.

Apparently I am to compare my reading habits to a list of books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users.  These are the top 106 "unread" books.  I have read, and loved, a surprisingly large number of them.   

The books I’ve read are marked in bold.

The books I started but couldn’t/didn’t finish are in italics, surprising few of the books on this particular list.

The books I read but couldn’t stand have a strike through.

Those I’ve read more than once have an asterisk*.

I did not mark the ones that are on my "to be read list" as it could be all or none of the remaining books, or some of the books already read, depending on the day, the weather, my mood etc.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment*
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude*
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The name of the rose*
Don Quixote*
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey* (read in multiple translations)
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities*
The Brothers Karamazov*
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad* (I own 3 or 4 translations and have read all of them)
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales* (in both Middle English and a modern translation, multiple times each)
The Historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera*
Brave New World*
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo*
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & demons
The inferno*
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles*
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels*
Les misérables*
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune*
The prince*
The sound and the fury*
Angela’s ashes
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved*
Slaughterhouse-five*
The Scarlet Letter*
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*
The Aeneid*
Watership Down*
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

I think I am amazed at the quality of books that people are not reading.  There were only a couple in that list that I either couldn’t read, or couldn’t stand once I did read them, and I have read well over 3/4 of them.

Some of my knitting time over the weekend was occupied by poring over a new book:

Since I love Fiona Ellis’s Inspired Cable Knits I pre-ordered the new Fair Isle book from Amazon and it arrived sometime near the end of last week. Since that time I have spent some time looking at the book and thought I would attempt a more thorough review.

Fiona Ellis seems to have successfully worked out a style combining traditional elements in sweaters that have strong traditional roots, but are not limited by traditional constraints or styles and which are also quite modern and fit into modern lifestyles   This book appealed because I love Fair Isle knitting and have several books on the subject, but find that it does not, for the most part fit into my lifestyle.    About one traditional stranded fair isle sweater is all I need and it would not see heavy wear.  I think the author has been successful in using fair isle techniques and patterning in sweaters that are not, for the most part fair isle sweaters.

If you are looking for a book on traditional fair isle knitting, this would not be the book for you.  Hopefully one would glean this from the title.  This does not mean the book is devoid of useful information.  There is a good information section in the front of the book which covers techniques, terms, and assembly of the sweaters.  There is certainly enough information here to get most knitters through the construction of any sweater in this book even if they have no experience with fair isle or stranded knitting.  There is a good glossary of terms and even a needle size conversion chart.  In the back of the book is a list of all the yarns used along with a photo of each project which makes it easier to find the desired information.  Almost everything you would need for finding the materials for a project and substituting yarns if desired can be found in the book.  I would prefer it if WPI information had been included with the yarns as well, as I find that this is quite helpful for successful substitution, but actually this information is included in few knitting books.   There is also a good list of yarn sources.

The patterns seem to be well written.  The sizes are given, the diagrams also include measurements, there is a thorough list of yarns and equipment needed for each project.  Ms. Ellis also highlights any specific techniques that might be needed in constructing each garment and refers the reader back to specific information in the introductory section that might be helpful.  The instructions seem to be clear and thorough although I have not yet followed the directions to knit any sweater in this book.

Truthfully, I don’t usually look at how well the patterns are written when I buy a book.  I am all for style or good detailed information on technique.  I tend to figure that I can figure out how to do anything else, and I have always knitted with this attitude, even when I was a fledgling knitter.  That does not mean that I haven’t thrown sweaters at the wall and walked away for long periods of time.  But although I have not looked the actual writing of the patterns in the past, I recognize that this is something to which I should pay more attention, especially if I am going to make some attempt at recommending books.

While I am still on general opinions of the book, I do have a few quibbles.  First of all the editing is not always great.  Occasionally words are missing from sentences, although not that I have discerned, in any sections explaining a specific technique.  Some of the pictures are styled more like fashion shots, were taken in motion, and either do not show enough detail of the sweater itself or are somewhat blurry.  Fashion photography has its place, and some of the photos are beautiful, but I want to see a good photo that shows the shape and fit of a garment that I am about to knit.  When photographing knitting that has fine detailed pattern work like Fair Isle, I want to see the detail of the pattern and blurred photos do not aid in this process.

Another complaint I have is about sizing, although to be completely fair this is not unique to this book, and this book is better than many.  It lists the finished chest sizes of each garment at the beginning of each pattern, and the diagrams all have measurements as well.  This seems like it would be obvious, but I am surprised at how many knitting patterns do not give this information.    However the sizes seem inconsistent, especially when paired with other visual clues concerning the sweaters.

For example, lets look at the first two sweaters.  This sweater is knit in DK weight cotton.  The XS is given as 35" finished chest and the S as 39".  Obviously from the photo it is not a close fitting sweater, although it is hard to see the exact details of the fit from the model’s pose. Still, the sweater looks loose but not tremendously over-sized.

The second sweater is in a worsted weight wool.  It is not written for an extra-small, but the small measures 34 1/2 inches at the chest, about the same size as the XS in the first sweater.   So I would assume that this sweater is meant to be more closely fitted than the first.  But the photo of the sweater seems to indicate otherwise.  In fact it looks too big for the model:

There is no indication of what size sweaters the models are wearing, or indeed of how the sweaters relate to the body size they are written for.   It seems to me that it would be easy enough to publish a fitting chart listing the actual body sizes that a designer is writing for, something like you find any mail order catalog and in sewing patterns.  If a designer gave us actual body measurements, for example a size XS is designed to fit a person with a 32" chest, S is a 34" chest and so forth, and then gave the finished dimensions of each sweater,  it would be much easier to decide which sweater to knit.  I might not knit the sweater that corresponds to my chest measurement if I want more or less ease than the designer, but at least I would have a better indication of what the designer intended.  This book is so thorough in so many ways, it seems a shame to me that such a little detail as this was omitted.

Of course knowing what the designer intended still doesn’t tell us what size sweater is shown on what size model.  And I can understand that the models might not want a caption saying "X has a 32 inch chest and is modeling a size L", but I do think that knitwear designers need to think about how they present and label the photographs of their designs to provide as much information as possible to their audience.   I of course tend to assume that most models exist within the range of standard model proportions, namely tall and small, but this is not always the case because all models are not runway fashion models.

But on to the fun stuff.  You know that I buy a book like this for the patterns.  I am a sucker for new patterns, for colors, for designs that make me think differently or inspire me to try new things even if I don’t knit the actual patterns in the book.  There are several sweaters here I would knit.

First of all, I love the first sweater, the cotton raglan with the fair isle sleeves shown above.  I would definitely wear that in spring, fall and on cool summer days (it is not appropriate for mid August humidity in the Hudson Valley).

I also love this cardigan, although the main photo does not do it justice:


Granted I am biased because I also love the colorway shown, but I also love the shaping and the detail, I love the way the patterning is used for a simple front band.  I love the pleated sleeves.

I also love this little top:

This top is shaped and apparently meant to be a bit more fitted given the measurements (XS = 32") which is appropriate for a little summer top.  This is the kind of thing I live in during the summer months, again except for those days of 90% humidity when nothing is appropriate.  I love the feminine details which enhance with overwhelming the style. I like the combination of colorwork and lace as well as the touch of Berroco’s Mirror FX in the pattern detail. 

I like the touch of pattern work in this sweater:

This is really just a lovely soft sweater without the fair isle detail and I love the nice wide neckline.  I might be tempted to leave the pattern work off, but I think that in the end I would like the sweater better with than without.  First of all the color detail adds a little interest.  Secondly notice how the color work is placed at the shoulder line.  The stranded nature of the fair isle patterning will provide a firmer fabric at the shoulder which will help add structure and support to the garment.  This hides having to have an ugly firm seam and it provides shape to what would otherwise be a rather floppy sweater.  The same thing is true at the sleeves.  The fair isle band will help hold the sleeves in place, allowing the lace to flare out from a fairly firm wrist.  Without the fair isle I would think that this sleeve would just stretch and get in the way of everything.

Then I love this much more traditionally shaped sweater:

Doesn’t it just look like a wonderfully comfy weekend sweater? It makes me want to take a walk on an Autumn day, kicking the fallen leaves in my path. I can see it as shown, straight through the body and mid-hip length (on me) or altered to have a little flare toward the hips and cut a little longer as well.

There are a few other things that inspire me as well.  I like the scarf shown on the cover, although at 9 inches in width it would never be my everyday tuck into a coat scarf.  Still there are times when a big warm dramatic scarf is just the perfect thing, and I love the i-cord fringe at the bottom as well.

There are also several men’s sweaters that intrigue me and which I might adapt partially to sweaters for myself.  I wouldn’t make them as they are written, and the men in my life don’t wear sweaters so I am really no judge of men’s sweaters, but they do inspire me, and I am a big fan of books that make me thing of sweater design in new ways. 

I am also interested in the IDEA of this sweater:

As you can tell, you can’t really tell much about the sweater from the photo.  A better idea is available from the diagrams, it is a pretty traditionally shaped, straight raglan with a hood.  I realize that I am mostly attracted by the artful photography and the colors, and that often, falling in love with a pattern based on such sketchy details is  recipe for disappointment, but it haunts me nonetheless.  It certainly gives me a foundation from which to work so something is bound to come of it eventually.

As a last note, I love this sweater, although I have absolutely no one to knit it for:


How could I not?  My favorite colors.  The perfect amount of detail.  Unfortunately there are no little girls.  Maybe someday.
 

I was writing to a friend about Mary Gordon’s new book, Circling My Mother and I mentioned that I had trouble understanding the profound Catholocism that filled the book and which imbues almost every page.  But that is not exactly true.  There is much to admire in the book, as indeed there often is in Gordon’s writing, but I still cannot grow comfortable with her prose.  IT is not Catholicism, as there are many overtly Catholic writers whom I greatly admire.

So what is the problem?

Admittedly I am occasionally shocked and most certainly uncomfortable with the pure vindictiveness that sometimes comes pouring out of the writer’s pen.  There is no shortage of vitriol in this book.  I suppose this is something I consciously try to avoid, perhaps to the extent of sometimes failing to defend things that should be defending.    But this is my problem not the author’s.  And although the periodic harsh outbursts bother me, I have never disliked a book solely because it made me uncomfortable.  There must be more.

I suppose in reading this book, I was hoping that by reading Gordon’s attempt to reconcile herslef with her mother, I could attempt to reconcile myself with Gordon’s writings.  I found that I could not.  However much I may admire aspects of Gordon’s prose, I cannot connect.  I still find myself wishing I could throw the books into a corner,  I can read the words, but there is no communication here.  I feel like I am reading something alien and foreign, and I cannot seem to bring myself to wrap my mind around it, whatever "it" may be.

And what prompted these thoughts, aside from a note to a friend?  Why is the subject not forgotten?

Well, I am currently reading Julia Cameron’s Floor Sample and although Cameron’s upbringing is also profoundly Catholic, and she too spends time questioning the beliefs with which she is raised, and although are personalities are nothing alike, I am finding myself to be much more sympathetic to Cameron.  The book is entertaining and thought provoking.  It is easy to read whereas Gordon’s was not (but then again that could just be my personal reaction — there was nothing difficult in the prose or the story line).  In reading about Julia Cameron’s life an her journey, even though we have taken profoundly different paths, I am finding much to reflect upon and much to share.

Reading a memoir is, of course, always a personal journey.  One hopes to find a connection between the reader and the author, something in common, some way one can say "I am like this person".   The more I read Mary Gordon, the more incomprehensible I find her.  Oddly I did not find Gordon’s mother incomprehensible, it is the daughter that confounds me.  The more I read Julia Cameron,the more I feel connected even though we have little in common; the more I am able to say I can understand.

I suppose to a certain extent I am attracted to Cameron’s intellectualism.  I am attracted to her questioning of everything and the difficulty she has letting her mind rest.  Her inclination is to make everything more complicated that it has to be.  I can sympathize.  Even though I am not and was not raised Catholic and the emphasis on religion or the lack of it, was different in my childhood, other things were similar.

I too grew up in a house filled with books, a house in love with literature.  I went to the library daily as soon as I was old enough to cross the streets by myself.  I was allowed to read anything I wanted to read and my parents stood up for my reading choices, defending them against the rules and mores of the librarian, although I was required to read all the books in the children’s and young adult sections before progressing to adult books.  Once there were no more "appropriate" books for me to read, my parents defended my choices and encouraged me to read widely.   By the time I was in high school I had graduated to hanging out at the local university library where I was allowed to roam free and read at will, my father arranging for me to check out books using his faculty card. 

At 16 I too was reading Tielhard de Chardin and Paul Tillich.  I too was struggling to find a view of God to whom I could relate and to forge a relationship to and understanding of religion.  I too was struggling and questioning.

That I did not end up as an alcoholic is not because of moral superiority but probably the luck of the draw.  Cameron became an alcoholic with her first drink.  My chemistry is of a different sort.  My personality as well.  Had I ever experienced a black-out I would have run for the hills  — I fear loss of control almost more than anything else.  This is probably because I am the child of an alcoholic.  It is not always a blessing.  Trust and love also require a willingness to relinquish control and I have at times lost out because I was unwilling or unable to make that leap.  I have work hard to learn to let go….it is something I will always have to work at.

I am not far in this book.  But I am being pulled in. 

Life is amazing, simple and hard at the same time.  This person’s life is sad and strange and compelling at the same time.  I am beginning to think she is very strong. 

We are off to Knoxville tomorrow morning early to visit baby Owen, who is apparently turning into quite the mobile little person since we saw him last at the end of May.  I am not taking my computer and will be out of touch but will catch up upon my return.  There is also some promise of actual sewing in the future if all continues to go well.

In the meantime, I have been savoring a few pages each day from this wonderful book which arrived at my door last week:

It is filled with beautiful ideas and wonderful ribbons and although I live in a rather modern house and most of the ideas presented are along the lines of home decor, I remain entranced. 

I love ribbons and anything that justifies my passions with taste is fine by me.  There are certainly ideas here that are filling my brain with dreams.

Have a good week and I will back after the 14th.

I was surprised that I enjoyed reading Vinita Hampton Wright’s novel Dwelling Places as much as I did.  Oh, I picked it up at the bookstore because it looked interesting and I fully expected to enjoy it, but I really expected a quick, read, a short escape, passage of time on the bicycle, something along the lines of typical popular fiction, something that is a great escape for a few hours, but then it is past. 

This book has proven to be something else entirely. and there have been times when I have had to take a pause from it, not because it is a bad book, but because I need time to reflect. and absorb.  Sometimes Wright’s portrayal of her characters seems so honest, almost painfully so, that I need to distance myself from for a little bit just to come to terms with them.  And that, in the end, is what I find so entrancing about this book.  It is bleak at times, but there is also humor there, and plain old sheer human-ness. The story is neither saccharine nor overly harsh and foreboding, the characters are fully developed and sympathetic.  I found myself caring for these people, and relating to them, but then anyone who has  gone through family crises or major changes in their lives can respond to the ways these people attempt to cope with their lives.

Perhaps it is just that we are in the midst of life-changes here, but I believe my thoughts on this book are more than just that…

This one stays on the shelf.

But they were really very short books.

A while ago i put in several requests for books at the local public library.  For the most part they were for new fiction which was scheduled to be released this spring or summer.  I figured they would stagger in slowly, there are several books for which I am number 4 or 5 on the waiting list, and one, the new Michael Chabon novel, for which I am number 45 on the list for the 7 copies held in the 4-county library system.  I don’t expect to see that book very soon. 

Two books had no list, but they had different release dates so I did not expect them to arrive at the same time.  Ha!

After watching the birds nesting by our front door in mid May, I also requested An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden, a book I had loved when I was young.  I thought I remembered the story, but could not remember specifically what the book had to do with sparrows, so I thought it was time for a re-read.

The notice came from the library on Wednesday, the day I picked up M and the baby for their long-weekend visit, and I did not get to the library to pick up the books until Saturday.  By that time I had three more notices of books that had arrived:

I started the Godden book Saturday night after mother and baby had gone to bed.  I finished it Sunday after I returned from my 5 1/2 hour trek to the airport (LGA) and back.  When I got home all I wanted to do was curl up in my nice quite bed and read and my wishes were granted.  About the time I finished the book it was time to go out to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant.

An Episode of Sparrows was much as I remember it, and I enjoyed reading it again. Of course, it very quickly became evident that the title referred to the fact that the Misses Chesney called the street children sparrows.  Yet even remembering the story I still found the book exciting and suspenseful.  Godden writes well and manages to capture the joys and hope as well as the despair of the children without sentimentality. Even in such a short novel, I felt the characters were all people I knew and could almost see and feel.

The Matts Wahl novel, The Invisible was even better.  Both books are well written but the Wahl translation is beautiful — I can’t really judge the original.  The story was simultaneously gripping, suspenseful, and quite haunting, really a beautiful story even as it is quite disturbing.

Both novels raised interesting questions about people and human nature, as also does the book I am slowly reading on the bicycle (I haven’t exercised in a week) but more about that later.

 

I am dreaming of sweaters.  I am dreaming of sweaters whose yarns are not represented in the pile of yarn-to-be-knit.  I am dreaming of sweaters for which the raw materials are most likely not anywhere in my stash. I am dreaming of three sweaters.  There appear to be some similarities between the sweaters, but appearances can be deceiving. 

These sweaters invaded my brain in the order shown above.  In terms of discussion however the last shall be first.

 

 

 

I first fell in love with this sweater when I saw an advertisement for it in one of the spring knitting magazines.  The pattern book was not yet available.  Eventually I ordered it and it arrived yesterday.  The bodice and peplum are knitted separately in Stacy Charles’ Muse which is a 65% viscose, 25% cotton, 10% polyamide (nylon) blend. I find that I still love this sweater, I could easily order the yarn, and I might have something appropriate in my stash but there is still that pile of yarn in the corner.

Now this sweater is somewhat problematic.  I like the sweater, but I think it looks dumpy in the photograph.  It is swirling around in my head at the moment because of its similarity to the Anny Blatt sweater (first picture above).  But wait, you might say, those sweaters are only marginally alike.  Well, actually…..

The shape of this sweater is very much like the first sweater, both are fitted classic shapes.  I have checked the schematics and both are remarkably alike when knitted to the same size.  Of course the yarns are quite different and the drapes of the sweaters will be quite different. The Rowan Sweater is knit in Cotton Glace which will not hang with nearly the body skimming drape of the Anny Blatt Sweater.  But there are many color choices available and I think this sweater has great potential. And although I normally would wear the colors shown for this sweater, I think the muted color adds to the dumpy image of the sweater.  I would knit this in something much more vibrant.

But obviously the Rowan sweater is an "also ran".  I am thinking about it due to indecision about the sweater I really covet which is the Anny Blatt sweater, named Padies:

So why didn’t I order the yarn for this sweater when I placed my Anny Blatt order?  Indecision. Simple indecision. This sweater is knit in alternating stripes of 5 yarns, all in the same color, except for the Victoria ribbon which is used in two colors in the bottom eyelet section.  This sweater is shown in a color called Tango, which is  a light orange (yellow red) with contrasting stripes in Crepuscule, which is deep prune (or a deep red-purple)

So what alternatives are there?  I found two. 
    FAIENCE which is, as you might have guessed, shades of blue.
    GERANIUM which comes in shades of red, perhaps pink-blue red

I like Geranium, but the new yarn used for the bodice, Selene, does not come in Geranium, although every other yarn used in this sweater does come in that shade.  Selene comes in two shades of red and it is possible that one of them would work.  As for the contrast, if Geranium is a medium-to-light red-purple, the contrast, in keeping with the design above, should be a deep Yellow-Red which would make it something that reads as a dark brown.  I would think that I would try for the colors Ecorce or Moon. Of course if geranium is orange-red or true-red, the contrast option would have to be different.

Now, every yarn comes in color Faience.  So that problem is solved.  But I already ordered yarn Selene de Bouton D’or for this sweater (click to enlarge):


There is also a fair amount of blue yarn in that pile of yarn sitting in the corner of my studio, waiting to be knitted.  I seem to be running a blue streak right now, which is fine, I can wear certain shades of blue quite well, but generally I am more of a green and plum kind of person.  So I wonder if I want more blue.

Faience also looks, and it is difficult to tell this on web samples, like it might be a little darker than the other two yarns, although it is possible that other yarns could be blended in to give the sweater a more light-toned look.  Also the yarn appears to me to read as more true-blue, which makes the contrast a little more difficult.  In the model sweater the sweater is all made in shades of one primary color — in this case red.  A light yellow-red sweater with dark purple-red accents.  In the case of a Faience sweater I would need to use accents in another color, I suppose running to one of the secondary colors on either side — green or purple, but the contrast is not as appealing to me.

As I write this it sounds more and more like I am leaning toward geraniums doesn’t it? Originally I leaned toward blue, but that was before I started considering the contrast.

But I am not supposed to be ordering yarn.  And I do, in truth, feel a little overwhelmed in the yarn department right now.  Cotton Glace will be available, no problem, but the other yarns might not be…….

And this is how I talk myself into accumulating a yarn collection.

In Friday’s Wall Street Journal there was article about the erosion of the shoreline in Siasconsett on the Eastern side of Nantucket Island.  Basically, the shore is eroding rapidly in that part of the island and many wealthy people have large nice homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean which they wish to protect.  I am sure there are also some less wealthy people who have had homes there for some time, but these points are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.  Anyway, the rich have set up a fund and they want to rebuild the beach.

Of course controversy is brewing here, and rightly so.  In this case I side with the fishermen.  I hope they win.

I personally have nothing against rich people building houses wherever they wish to build houses.  I like ocean views as well, or mountaintop views.  But they have to learn to accept that money doesn’t buy everything and they might just loose that home. 

There is evidence that rebuilding the beach may protect the homes for some time, and it will certainly protect property values.  But there is no evidence that rebuilding the beach actually stops erosion, in fact evidence is mounting that the efforts made to restructure and resurface areas of the ocean have often made the situation worse in the long run. All you have to do is google beach erosion to find tons of references.

Then there is the issue of disturbing the natural environment and the striped bass habitat.  The statement made by one of the landowner’s that he would pay the families of fishermen the lost revenue that would be incurred by the loss of fishing grounds is incredibly arrogant.  Yes that may help one family, but what about the future generations?  What about future generations of all of us?  We don’t really understand the longer term impacts that some of these changes might foment.    I think this idea that we can try to configure the earth to fit the pleasures of some wealthy humans and the long-term fate of the rest of the human race and the planet itself be damned is an incredibly bad idea. 

I am surprised that they are even getting permission to do this, but then money and power talk. And governments are run by and intrinsically connected to people who have money, and projects that don’t cost the public anything in dollars up front are easily approved.  The short term goals are met and the idea of looking at the long term seems to be a foreign concept.

I have been to Siasconsett.  The old houses were beautiful. Some of the new ones are simply grandiose.  The place itself, looking out at the ocean is beautiful, but part of that beauty is its very danger, the pounding of the surf, the thought that it could all be washed away in a moment.    There are places in the world where you can have a fabulous view of the ocean and where there is a smaller risk that your house will be washed away.  Do the research.  If you can’t stand the risk, don’t buy the house.  .