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Category: Knitting

A Few Scattered Things

Not much has happened and yet I want this blog to represent more of my life than mere book posts, even books and the ability to escape into the pages of a book is much of what makes life tolerable.

1. I finished another knitting project, an open-work wool scarf knit out of a DK-weight wool, Colorissimo by Lana Grossa. I am very happy with this project and look forward to wearing it even though I can safely assume that it will be a few months yet before this appears regularly in my wardrobe.

2. I also realized that I made an erroneous assumption somewhere along the line. I started the year thinking I would continue this blog, and also reconnect with my sewing and knitting blogs. For a few months I manage to do so. Then life intervened and I struggled. At some point I decided that running multiple blogs was a silly idea and I abandoned it. I was wrong.

I realize now that decision was fueled by exhaustion, by my inability to really keep up with much of anything in life, in fact fueled by chemotherapy and my struggle withe the initial adriamycin/cytoxan regimen. My mistake was to assume that, because my previous goals seemed impossible in that moment, they would also be impossible in the future. Life under my current paclitaxel regimen is easier in many ways than that previous regimen, but not without its complications and difficulties. Still, my head, at least is clearer. Although I realize that all of my assumptions about life and my priorities pre-2020 are no longer viable, not all of those assumptions should be tossed into the refuse bin.

Hence I have resumed writing on purlsandmurmurs. This week I wrote three posts on that blog, two catching up with finished projects, and one about the newly completed scarf show above, basically bringing that blog up to date since my last post in April. I will continue with both blogs and eventually reengage with my sewing blog as well. I am now imagining a trio of overlapping circles. They do not have to be completely separate; there will be some overlap between them, but overall they form a balanced whole.

3. Following a recommendation on Frances's blog, I watched the Korean Series Navillera on Netflix. I thoroughly enjoyed this program and felt it was incredibly well written and balanced with good development of all the characters, both the primary characters and the supporting roles, throughout the program. It helped me considerably with my knitting, but as the program was in Korean with English subtitles, it would have been easy enough and engaging enough to enjoy without a knitting project in my hands. Indeed there were quite a few times I needed to look at the TV and not my lace crossovers, which also provided the necessary balance my neuropathy-addled fingers needed.

As an aside, I cannot begin to tell you how hard I find it to take a photo of a picture on my TV screen. Just capturing the photo above took me days of repeating and freezing the screen and balancing my own native inclination to shoot everything crooked and out of focus. My brothers will tell me how much this frustrated them even when we were in high school. I must have taken well over 100 photos. Apparently my personal sense of being somewhat slightly out of focus with the world is deeply embedded. But then I suspect that life without challenges and complications would be a boring life indeed.

August 21, 2021
Catching Up

I had every intention of writing a post before this, every intention of writing about my birthday, two weeks past now, about small and joyous celebrations with friends and family. I planned to write a thoughtful post about outdoor concerts and history, and even an Independence Day concert and how nice it was to sit on the lawn, watching a diverse community — ethnically, politically, economically, socially — gather together and listen to music that celebrates the brighter side of the American experience. In this age of pandemics and lockdowns and "me too" and "Black Lives Matter", all important, we also need to sometimes be reminded of the good things that tie us together, even when those good things are only music.

Of course there is no "only" to music. Music is basic to human experience. Just as, for all our failings, we should not belittle dreams and optimism and the hope of doing better, for these are also part of both human experience and the American experience. Our founding fathers, our ancestors wherever they were from, were not perfect people, nor are we. It is good sometimes to be reminded to celebrate the optimism of their hopes, of the historical optimism of our dreamers, even when we fail to live up to them. Because it is my hope that we can try and try again. It is easy to forget that despite all that is not right in the world, there is much that is better, and if we share our dreams, we can be better yet.

Geesh. I didn't think I had that in me.

My goal today is actually to catch up on some finished projects, more of a "See! Look what I've done" post than a meditative, thoughtful post. Although I can't claim that "doing" has actually been one of my goals of late, things still get done at their own slow meandering pace.

I started this cardigan in February, before my life got turned upside down, and I finished it in early July. I am happy with it, happy to have made it, happy at the prospect of wearing it even though at the moment, it is the last cardigan that will fit in my cardigan drawer. Of course I will knit more cardigans, and I will probably have to let go of something along the way. Life really is not about buying things, having things, even making things, although making, communing with both other humans and the world at large is an important part of creating a good life. Having more doesn't make us better people, or even happier people. And my compulsion to knit is more about the making than the having more aspect of stuff, and about the joy of wearing something I made.

My life, as small as it is at the moment, is actually fairly full, and fairly content, if not always pleasant, and I am suprisingly content to knit a little here and there, to take some string and turn it into something both useful and beautiful. I am blessed to not experience the need to rush, the need to butt my head against deadlines. What makes life good is not really about deadlines, about having or doing more. A good life is not even really about how far we can remove ourselves from pain and hardship and tragedy, because these are the reality of existence the everyday presence of the cycle of life. Living a good life is about how we choose to cope with the life we are dealt and for each of us the choices are different. There is always choice, even not making a choice is a choice. Every person's choices are unique to them, to their own hearts and experiences, they are not ours to judge. My choices, or at least my preferences, although I have occasionally bowed to outside pressure in terms of choices, more so when I was younger, revolve around books, the making and sharing of food, yarn and fiber. These are my happy places.

Two weeks ago I finished a sweater, the second of the two cardigans I had been working on. This one is in purple cashmere. Both the pattern, and the yarn are from L'Atelier in Redondo Beach, California. The pattern is called Back to the Future, the yarn, Classica DK, for those of you who care about those things. I had shown you snippets, bits and pieces of the project before, and I assembled it slightly differently than usual this time, knitting and blocking the body, assembling it, then knitting the sleeves, knitting them to fit, and setting them into the finished sweater after blocking.

Of course, my summer shift does not coordinate very well with the sweater, but it is unlikely they will be worn together, at least in public. I have worn the sweater already. Cashmere has that wonderful quality of somehow adapting to body heat cycles, and there are days during my chemo where I am simply cold no matter what the ambient temperature, although mostly the opposite is true. I am not handling the heat of summer well. The garden suffers and knitting thrives. Curling up in a comfy spot, occasionally in a cashmere sweater accompanied by a soft and fluffy blanket, with a book or more yarn is the epitome of cozy comforting self-care.

The second project I am sharing with you today was born from the first. When I finished this cardigan I had two skeins of yarn left. I also had one skein of the same yarn in a green-teal, from a cashmere pullover I knit in 2018, as well as a bag of color samples of the same yarn (shown above). My initial plan had been to make a scarf using the green and the miscellaneous samples, and to turn the two skeins of purple into a hat. But it soon became obvious that although a scarf can be knit from less than 300 yards of DK weight yarn, I couldn't wrap my head around creating said scarf with the 10 colors I had in such a way as to produce a scarf I would actually wear.

Much knitting and ripping and reknitting ensued. Then, after a day of weighing and calculating, I came up with a plan for a simple garter stitch scarf that would use up most of the yarn and would create a scarf of the scale I prefer. The end result is balanced, but not quite symmetrical, which is fine with me as I have always been more interested in balance than in classic symmetry. And there are a few subtle variations mostly due to small variations in yardage. Although all the small samples are the same weight, they vary in yardage. This is not surprising. The white yarn, which is not weighted with dye, has the most yardage per gram, and the yardage varies with each color. I wonder if someone has done a study on this, on the weight of dye as it affects the yardage on skeins. Someone probably has, and I distinctly remember that there are certain yarns that contain significantly less yardage per gram in black than in other colors. Not that I am going to follow up on this; it is just idle speculation on my part.

Here is the scarf in its entirety. I am calling it by the not very creative name of "bits and bobs scarf". I used up all but a couple of inches here and there of the yarn samples, and all but about 6 inches of the green yarn. I was somewhat concerned that I would not have enough to finish the alternating striping at the end of the second end (following the gray) but I did. I also used 1 1/2 skeins of the purple cashmere, leaving half a skein. I can live with that.

I am very happy with the results and it will probably get lots of wear, or at least as much wear as I can manage, depending on the variability of Knoxville winters. I can wear the scarf with the cardigan on many Knoxville Winter days, but it will also look lovely with my muted-plum all-weather winter coat, so that is a distinct advantage.

It seems interesting to me that I have knitted two cardigans and two scarves lately, after not knitting winter things for a while, especially warm winter scarves. I am working on a third scarf now. They suit this time and place in my life. Just as part of living a full and relatively contented life though chemo means listening to my body and letting it claim all the rest it desires, so too the creative life revolves around listening to what my knitting muse desires, not in a mad rush to finish, but sometimes just letting the yarn run through my fingers, happily knitting a few rows, then contentedly caressing and admiring what my fingers have wrought.

July 19, 2021
Late June, Garden, A Sweater

I don't know how June has passed so quickly by. It feels almost as if I missed it, or perhaps I just slept through large swaths of it. I am over 1/3 done with chemo, next week I will be half done. What a relief. This particular course seemed easier than the first two, perhaps because I slept more and tried to do less, perhaps just dumb luck. I suspect that my summer and my quest, such as it is, is to realize and find my way through the tunnel of darkness that is the dominant cultural myth of my time and come out on the other side. Or in other words to undo the shackles of the idea that doing more, constant stress, and lack of sleep are the hallmarks of a life well lived.

In fact, I seem to let go of something each week. But I gain things as well. Time spent with friends. The joy of simple meaningful work, work simply to participate and share the benefits of this life, with myself, with the world around me, with friends. Granted my particular bubble is mostly internally focused at the moment, but there are always cycles where we need to look inward, to brush off the accumulated dust of worldly cares and other's expectations.

The garden is progressing along at its own pace. I have scattered a few pictures here and there, much the way they pop up in my life. "Oh, look at this!" I might think. The daylillies are blooming now, the later, larger, hybrids. Still scattered about in temporary holding stations all, except for the one immediately above, which I had planned to move, but which I now think is in its perfect location already. I love the contrast of the flower with the Japanese maple behind. Perhaps the scale of the daylily is off, compared to the maple and the other plants. Perhaps it is exactly that juxtaposition that I find appealing. A reminder that what I imagine the world to be and what it actually wants to become rarely align.

I also managed to finish one sweater, and photograph it. I can probably finish another today, but it will not be photographed today so wait for that in another post.

This is the mixed yarn, multi-striped sweater I am calling Blueberry Season. It is basically an unstructured cardigan as it was knit in the round and split at the armholes. I actually tend to prefer cardigans with seams as the seams add structure, but in this case, given the widely varying weight of the yarns and the mix of colors, it was easier to knit in one piece. The sweater itself is rather slouchy but the sleeves are more closely fitted, which is my own preference. For one thing, I do not like floppy sleeves that get in my way, secondly, having a garment fit across the shoulders to the bust, as well as in the sleeves, adds more than a tiny bit of silhouette to the shape, providing contrast to the loose body. To my eye, it looks less 1980s and more 21st Century. It may be all in my head and not born out in photographs, but if the sleeves and shoulders fit, I feel sleek and modern. Most of style and beauty is in the mind anyway, or it is so superficial as to be ephemeral and ultimately meaningless.

Or so I tell myself.

So this is it right now. I am keeping up. I love to drink my morning coffee with the sunrise. This morning I was watering a few areas that needed extra help following recent heat. I am not allowed to dig at this particular stage of my treatment so any garden progress is pretty much on hold and I am learning to leave the door locked on those inner demons that might try to chime in and make me feel guilty over things not done.

And I will leave you this photo, taken early this morning, in the horizontal light which brightens and blurs everything. Li'l bang coreopsis and Li'l Lyme Hydrangeas. A combination that will bring me joy throughout much of the summer. The hydrangeas are just opening, the coreopsis will move through flushes of rest and bloom, as do we all, reminding us that summer is a time not just of frantic pursuit, of outdoor adventure and accomplishment but also of languor, repose, and retreat.

Happy summer.

June 29, 2021
What Was I Thinking?

Whenever I get too deeply in my head, too deeply in my own obsessions and excesses, my too-muchness, life has a way of reminding me to slow down.

Way back in January I said I was going to resurrect the old knitting and sewing blogs. I had plans. Big plans. I should know better. I was always the kind of child whose eyes were too big for her stomach. I still am that child. I want to do everything, to know everything, to miss nothing, and even as I recognize that I cannot physically do that, neither can I manage it psychologically. Another part of me wants to sit on the grass and stare at a dandelion for hours, to be lost in dreams, to play, and to let my imagination run wild while the world slips by unnoticed.

For a while I managed three blogs. For a while I didn't even manage one. You know what? It doesn't matter. But what does matter is that I rediscovered something and that is sometimes my own tendency not only to overthink, but my tendency to allow my own ideas and inspirations and general mental peripatetic overdrive leap far ahead of what is actually important. I am not a knitting person as distinct from a sewing or needlepoint or embroidery person. I am not a gardener or a cook. I am all those selves and more. There is no one thing I am driven to come home and focus all my energies on, at least not consistently. The more I try to compartmentalize myself and my interests the more confused I grow. I need to hop from pile to pile, and sometimes I need to knock all my piles down and let them reconfigure themselves in news ways.

All of this is a long way of saying that all I have energy for is one blog. Actually, all I have interest in is one blog, one life, one me. So sometimes, if you are not interested in x or y, I may bore you to tears. There are days when I bore myself to tears. So be it.

So what has happened in the ten or eleven days since last I wrote? Precious little. Precious little is a good thing.

I spent two days mostly knitting, not this past weekend, but the one before that. I finished the sleeves on the purple cashmere sweater and blocked them. You can see them just above. While they were blocking I finished the front edge of the sweater. All that is waiting now is for me to seam those sleeves and attach them to the body of the sweater. Haven't done that yet, the story of my life.

That same weekend, I rounded up the remaining yarn from the multi-yarn striped cardigan I have also been working on and divvied it up into two equal parts. I wanted to make sure that the sleeves would be identical in their stripe sequence, and that sequence already varies slightly from the body of the sweater because I ran out of two yarns. Very little knitting has been done since, but I do hope to finish this second set of sleeves over the course of this week. No rush. I cannot wear either sweater until the weather cools, and yet I am itching to start something new.

I also opened my birthday presents from 2020. You might remember that I promised to buy myself some fermentation crocks. Smaller crocks than the giant 3 or 4 gallon crock I already own, which is too large for me to lift when empty, much less haul around when it is full of cabbage, or anything else for that matter. Since I am not feeding an army of teenage boys, there is no reason for me to make gallons of sauerkraut at a time. But Covid-19 also happened last year and I was not able to order the crocks I wanted from Sarah Kersten studio until May. As you can see I went a little overboard. Remember what I said about excess?

At least they arrived before this year's birthday. Due to my reduced energy levels, it took me a day to open all the boxes and unwrap the crocks. They are still sitting on my dining room table. Now I have to figure out where to keep them. I had already prepared a nice fermentation shelf downstairs in the cool basement, but if I want to actually use these crocks this summer, they need to be in the kitchen, because I don't have energy to chop and prep and haul pottery up and down the stairs. As it is, it took me three days to clean up all the packing materials and haul it out to the recycle bin. But I did. And before recycle pickup. Sometimes my joy in small accomplishments is almost too big to contain.

This past Saturday was one of those days my cardiologist warned me about, one of those days where the best option was staying in bed or perhaps lounging on the sofa. I suppose it could have been a perfect knitting day. Instead it was a cookbook reading day, a reminisce and dream about food day. I have owned Marcella Hazan's first cookbook, The Classic Italian Cookbook, since 1980. Marcella Hazan taught me about Italian food, and the book is now, 40 years later, stained and falling apart. I knew I would need to replace it but had been dithering, loath to part with an old friend. Then I happened upon this book, a compilation of Hazan's first two cookbooks, in my local second-hand bookstore for 75 cents. Of course I bought it. I spent Saturday in my pajamas, wrapped in a cuddly blanket, reading both cookbooks and cross referencing the recipes to be sure that everything I cared about in the first book was included in the second. Only two recipes failed to make the cut, and I understand the rationale, even as I myself am loathe to give them up. I am not planning on letting go of the original book anyway, at least not at this point as I have space and it holds too much sentimental value. Needless to say, I also discovered a lot of new-to-me things I want to cook, next time my cooking hat is on anyway. And those two recipes? They are pretty much a part of my culinary DNA, my mental repertoire, but a back-up copy has been made. I have forgotten things before, doubtless I will do so again.

Hope you are having a great week. Today is chemo day, and another cycle begins.

June 22, 2021
Woolgathering

Somehow, it struck me this morning that it has gotten to be Thursday and my blogging has fallen into arrears despite the fact that I have been working on four, yes four, separate blog posts. It seems to have simply been that kind of week, and I am hoping, since today is cold and rainy, that I can manage to pull something together, even though I am not inclined toward tackling any of those bigger, although not really weightier, posts or projects. Instead perhaps a few small things that have brought me joy this week, not so much a coherent statement, but a gathering of various bits of fluff.

(Success! I posted to the knitting. blog, and this is now the second blog post of the day, one I intend to finish.)

Above and below are photos of the finished Autumn Vine cushion. The lower photo is the pillow in its final home with two other homemade pillows, both of which I have probably posted to this blog over the years. In the photo above you can see the error in the vertical stripe, where I miscounted once between the green and wine strips. At the time I was constantly tired and suffering from terrible back pain, so I intentionally decided not to rip back. I do love the pillow, inordinately, despite the flaw. It is not its existence so much that annoys me as the fact that it would have been easy enough to fix. I suspect there is a lesson in that.

Anyway, my apologies for the overlap today. Both of these photos were also posted over on purlsandmurmurs, along with others, as I wrote a rambling post about pillow placement and the process of finding a home for Autumn Vine. These same photos will probably show up on instagram as well, so if you follow me there you may face repetitious overload.

Yesterday was sunny and warm and I spent some time working in the garden. I planted a few remaining daffodils, which should have been planted long ago and which may or may not bloom this year. And I prepared garden beds for fava beans and peas, perhaps some spigariello and other greens. While I was outside I noticed how pretty the thyme looked in the afternoon sun.

Yes, that photo, too, was lifted from Instagram. Some thyme plants had clearly survived their first summer and winter, but this was one that I feared had died as it was all dried up and shriveled, at least until it burst into new growth. Change. How often it surprises us when we least expect it.

In the kitchen I was admiring my new oven gloves:

I bought these small sized welding gloves from Amazon in January, and they are at the moment probably my favorite kitchen tool. I have kept a pair of welding gloves by the gill for some time, but they are too large for me, and although they work when grilling, I need more manual dexterity in the kitchen. These seem to make everything easier and every time I wear them to lift some heavy pan out of the oven, or remove a hot lid from a pot, I feel like dancing around the kitchen as if I was in some kind of musical.

And while I am on the subject of small kitchen improvements, enter the bar mat. I Intended to buy this long ago, but instead was making do with a microfiber cloth, or a paper towel, or nothing under the coffee grinder and the constant little bits of ground coffee would drive me to distraction. Oh I know they are still there, and I still have to clean the mat, but somehow it feels more contained and intentional now. There are no more little bits of coffee dust skittering across the countertop and the mat is easily lifted and rinsed. It even cuts down on the noise from the grinder. Such a tiny thing, but it elevates my coffee making experience.

Small things, big joys.

February 11, 2021
Signs of progress….signs of life….

There are occasional snowflakes floating by outside my window this morning. There are not so many as to count as actual precipitation, more like a random thought slowly escaping from the thick layer of clouds. It may be a chilly day, a mostly indoors kind of day, although Poncho and I will take a walk, a day for all kinds of preparations and explorations.

The plumbers arrived early to repair a venting issue in the studio bathroom; when they are done the studio will become a much more pleasant place to work. I hope to spend some time there this afternoon, either sewing or cataloging, perhaps a little of both.

In the meantime I am working on garden planning and various odd tasks. There has been a lot of running up and down the stairs, measuring garden beds, thinking about shrubs and flowers, thinking about vegetable crop rotation, puttering, pondering. At some point I despaired that my garden layout last year was more spur-of-the-moment than well-considered, making the planning process a bit more of a challenge. But it is a fun challenge. There has also been much playing with pencil, eraser, ruler, and colored pens. Making colorful garden plans may not be the most efficient method, but it certainly may be the most fun.

But even though today is gray and cold the garden is slowly revealing signs of growth. Yesterday, between playing with markers I was out weeding, planting bulbs, and generally puttering about, happy to have fingers in the soil. While planting tiny ipheion bulbs I found that the small Harvest Moon sedums I planted last summer, and which I had believed had all died, are starting to poke their heads above ground. A few have advanced a little further than others, but finding the little pink faces peeking out from the mulch while I scattered tiny bulbs was gratifying and encouraging. As to the bulbs, it seems I seriously under estimated the number of bulbs I would need. I planted 50 bulbs yesterday, covering only a third of the designated area, but then again, this may be an opportunity once I see what decides to return in 2021.

Tulip and daffodil bulbs have been poking their tender heads above ground for some time now, advancing and then pausing in wait for the next sunny day, but had not noticed much else in terms of winter or spring growth yet in the front or back yards. Yesterday however I walked through the east side yard and was charmed by the hellebores, who are bravely sending out buds even though the greenery itself looks worse for wear. The hellebores in the front yard may still be hunkered down, but in the east, the blooms are ready to burst forth.

No garden work today though. I am determined to finish the border on this, the first of the two alpaca/camel blankets that I am restoring. I absolutely adore the way this is turning out and I hope to have this finished, blocked and ready to use this month, which means that I need to finish knitting the border today.

I have to admit I needed all these things this week: signs of growth and blossoming and success, a reminder that whatever setbacks occur, we can always pick ourselves back up and move on. And now, I have some time before my first meeting of the day, so I can go curl up under a light warm blanket and finishing knitting.

January 28, 2021
2020 in Review and Moving Forward (Part One)

2020 was full of challenges in so many ways, and not just for me, but I also have to admit that overall I did not have a bad year. Yes there were challenges, and yes I am very fortunate. I did not lose my source of income or my home. I can stay safely sheltered. Yes I miss seeing friends, but I also realize that this period of sheltering at home has offered the possibility of reflection. No one likes change, and yet to some extent we are all driven toward it; this is part of the conundrum that makes us human. I prefer to see the challenges of the year as an opportunity for growth, for evolution. As much as we would like it to do so, the world will never again be what it was before SARS Covid-19 made its presence known. Much as we would like the lives we once had, the true telling of who we are is in how we cope with the now and next, not how we yearn for the past.

I did struggle with some health issues during the time of our collective shut-down. Some were self-inflicted, such as a garden fall brought on by stupidity, a fall that kept me from doing much gardening during the peak spring planting time. Others were through no fault of my own. In retrospect I can see that I was struggling with one thing or another, either decline or the frustratingly slow pace of recovery from April through November. In retrospect I can see that I struggled more than I even realized at the time, but there may be a blessing in that. Either way I refuse to dwell on it.

But there were good things as well. I reacquainted myself with my love of cooking and food. Yes, I would like to be feeding others; that does not mean I should not enjoy feeding myself. I planted a vegetable garden, not as large as I had hoped, but large enough that I struggled to keep up given others setbacks. In fact the process of gardening expanded my horizons, both in terms of watching plants grow, watching birds and beasts in the yard, exploring new flavors and combinations. When one cannot go out, perhaps one discovers whole universes in one’s own backyard.

The garden will be here. More will be planted. Perhaps there are benefits in taking things more slowly. I tend to be a person whose dreams are bigger than my ability to execute them. If I cannot slow myself down, the world slows me down instead. Perhaps I should learn from that. Perhaps I never will, but I have hope. One of the advantages of having too much to do, is that reality puts a damper on enthusiasm and actually leads to more creativity. I will be planting for years to come., I am planting now. Three cryptomeria globusa nana were planted last week. I’ve prepped the ground for three more, and they will go in soon. Baby steps.

I started the year with great sewing plans. I was going to make 4 summer linen tank/tunics, 5 dresses, goodness knows what else. It did not happen. I went to a sewing retreat where I fitted a muslin and cut out three dresses, copied from a favorite summer dress from my closet. Only one was completed, the muted purple Japanese print dress. I wore that dress despite my misgivings that the quilting cotton was perhaps a little too “happy hands at home”. I discovered that I didn’t care. There were far too few opportunities to wear a dress, to see a friend, to worry about what others thought. The dress made me smile, and smiles are always good.

The second dress, out of a muted wine linen with an abstract leaf print, was mostly completed in March but not hemmed. My intentions were good, but my motivation waned with a general sense of stuck-at-home malaise. I picked it up again in August only to toss it aside once more. I had made errors, the correction of which seemed more than my poor, oxygen-starved, brain could handle. I picked it up again in December to discover that the solution was obvious and easy. Not perfect, but good. I have something to look forward to wearing when the weather warms.

Two dresses. Countless face masks. 45 yards sewn.

Although there seemed to be long stretches of time in which I knit nothing, knitting output was the greatest it has been in a decade. Seven completed projects, 33 skeins used. Paltry in once sense, and yet more than enough. How much does one need, after all? And yet, one should use what one has. Better garments to wear than yarn on a shelf.

Cozy Cowl Cardigan, knit in Rowan Kid Classic is still my favorite winter sweater. And one that has been in heavy use since Thanksgiving. I don’t know if the weather has been colder or if I have been more sensitive, but I am once again happy for cozy sweaters.

A prayer shawl, hopefully enjoyed by someone, somewhere.

Citron colored socks knit in Lichen and Lace 80/20 sock yarn. Desperately needed and in now in heavy rotation. In fact, after 7 months at home my attitudes toward every day wear are changing, and I actually need more socks. There will be sock knitting in 2021. Yes, I could buy socks, but I will not. Fewer things, well made, hand made, mended, and even then they will wear out. But worth every second. It seems if I have learned anything, it is to not take things for granted.

A throw or lap blanket knit in shades of Blue Taiyo by Noro yarns. I loved knitting this. I love curling up on the sofa under this. I bought yarn to knit another, and other blankets as well. In fact I have blankets on the brain. I want to knit my own blankets. Perhaps I’ve gone off the deep end.

A summer sweater, knit in lace weight linen, held double. Started in the summer of 2019 then put aside when I started the fuzzy pink cardigan. Hopefully this will become another favorite. I almost wore it this past weekend, when the temperatures were in the 60s. Instead I was pulling up small trees partially uprooted by snow and digging in the garden. There will be plenty of opportunities for future wear. Generally the warmer seasons are longer than the colder ones here in Tennessee.

And finally two warm hats from the same pattern. You saw those both, just a week ago. A warm head is a happy head. Poncho and I spend an hour or two walking each day. Walks with Poncho are slow, and hard on my back (and ears if the weather is cold — hats help) we might spend an hour circling around in front of 3 to 4 houses. Poncho is cuddly and sweet and may well be another spirit-guide. Perhaps all the “forward movement” of my life is just a myth, another circle. I know I’ve said this before.

I continue to be thrilled, even as I continue to struggle with the dichotomy of wanting to make more while simultaneously needing less. Having finally gotten started, I don’t think I will be stopping soon. But I also realized it is not really about making more, planting more, doing more, about rushing through things, but just about the whole process of life, making, using, eating, breathing. Especially that.

January 4, 2021
Unmuddling

It snowed on Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning I awoke to a winter wonderland.

I suppose this could be considered a gift or a curse, depending on what one was planning. But Christmas, or the spirit of the holiday, whether one celebrates a Christian Christmas, a general secular American Christmas, or any variation on the theme of winter solstice celebrations, remains. We tend to get all caught up in the surfaces of things, and forget they are just that, surfaces, and the thing itself is deeper.

(I continue to be fascinated by photos taken through windows, and am amused by the way the kitchen lights appear like small hovering orbs.

I love the silence following a snowfall. It is as if the world has been swaddled in a comforting blanket. My mental flailings and discomforts are calmed, ready to emerge anew. Not that much is happening here, it was a quiet but lovely Christmas. As Covid-19 continues its rampage across Tennessee, I live a mostly solitary life, and, although I have indeed had more than enough of living inside my own head, I am finding that clarity and focus are returning.

I started posting to my knitting blog again. I had initially intended to start earlier in the fall, before my heart and body rebelled, but better late than never. Nothing profound is being said there, but the blog is fulfilling its original purpose, a record and a journal of my knitting. I never do well with paper project books. I tend to lose them, to pile up miscellaneous bits of paper, to toss them all in a fit of declutter mania. Perhaps though this is what I need in order to find my way back here, to this blog, as well.

I suppose I originally needed to record my ideas for the blanket project, but I quickly realized that I needed the focus of simply recording progress and ideas. I also posted on the two hats I knit over the holiday weekend. Both are using super bulky Manos del Uruguay yarns, both using the same “sidewinder beanie” pattern. Details can be found on my knitting blog (link above) or my ravelry page. I am not certain that anyone wants the details here.

I desperately needed the hats. None of my current hats pull down over my ears, my fur earmuff has disappeared, or perhaps in a bit of early move-to-Knoxville craziness I gave it away. After all, my first winter in this town I don’t think the temperature got much below freezing. This winter has felt cold to me. I don’t know if it is actually colder or if I am colder natured, but I am enjoying wearing sweaters and curling up in blankets by a fire.

Christmas Eve and Christmas day were filled with a flurry of Zooming, Texting, Calling, and socially-distanced gift opening. I actually missed cooking however, so over the weekend I made cholent, perhaps not traditional Christmas fare, but it worked for me. I used the same recipe I have used for decades, now online, here. I stopped making it because I can no longer eat barley, and the initial grains I substituted: rice, millet, quinoa, somehow left the dish lacking. Then I found Job’s Tears (Coix lacryma jobi) also sometimes called Chinese Pearl Barley, although it is not related to Barley (Hordeum vulgate). I had read that they were a good gluten-free alternate to barley and so thought them worth a try. And I have to admit I am quite happy with the result.

I used to make my cholent with flanken, but that is a cut not commonly found here in Knoxville. Technically, probably any stew meat would do. But I also needed pastrami, a good chunk of pastrami, and good quality pastrami does not seem to be a regional specialty either, so it took me a little while to pull together the ingredients. Hence Christmas cholent. I am not complaining.

And so here we are on another chilly gray December morning. The snow is partially melted. I have a few large shrubs or small trees that have been partially uprooted by the weight of the snow, and they will have to be attended to. At the moment, however, I feel hopeful. Maybe all I needed was a hat. Poncho pulled me out for a walk pretty much immediately following my shower, and here I am, wet hair tucked up inside my new cap to keep warm, snug, and ready to face the world.

December 28, 2020
Making and Mending

Over the weekend I finished knitting the trim on oversized boxy linen tee. I have named it summer sunset, although that is a little bit of a stretch…

Weaving in myriad yarn ends took a full evening of knitting time and I also admit that I approached the finishing instructions — to toss the thing in the washing machine and the dryer with a bit of trepidation, even though I had done exactly this with my swatches, and I had the data to prove this was the right course. But most of my knitting choices do not lend themselves to wash and dry, and I have felted a sweater or two in my time, so experience and knowledge were at odds.

Needless to say the sweater turned out beautifully. I actually think this will work well as a summer top for all but the hottest and most humid days, but also as a layering pieces in spring and fall, perhaps even the warmer days of winter here in Tennessee. I an already imagine it with a pink-coral turtleneck and brown chinos…. but today is too cold and I am not inclined to play dress-up.

After the sweater was done I started dismantling a blanket I had knitted at the end of 2004 and into early 2005. The colors don’t really go with this house, but that was not the reason for disassembly. The blanket was too large, and I was finding it impractical. I had knit it extra big, because George was a bit of a blanket hog, but now this larger-than-king-sized blanket blanket dragged on the floor off my queen-sized bed and felt cumbersome for a solo sleeper. It also required mending and was too large and heavy when wet for me to wash it.

I spent most of the weekend taking it apart. Lint and cat hair covered every surface and my sinuses were acting up a bit. I initially thought I would start this back in August, but health issues interfered, and Moises thought it was a perfectly cuddly bed. This weekend I paid the price in sinus congestion for allowing him the luxury.

Now I am washing the individual components. Once that is done I will lay them out and think about how to reassemble them, making necessary repairs as I go. There are several threadbare spots and holes. I don’t really like the way I assembled this the first time around, so my plans are different for this iteration although I don’t know what I will do with the old border, which I removed in its entirety. I do not plan to reattach it, but it is in such good shape that it seems a waste to discard it, and I am sure some idea will eventually surface.

I had thought that this would be my “next” project. But I see now that it will take several days just to wash the many squares, laying them out n my sweater-sized blocking board. I will need something to tide me over until I can start the process of renewal and reassembly. Which means, I suppose that I will be sorting through project boxes again later today.

Last but not least, I made a minor repair to one of my favorite winter coats. The separating zipper tape on this cashmere duffle coat was pulling loose and it had become difficult to zip. I did not make this coat, but I have always loved an unlined duffle, and almost always had at least one in my closet. This one is several years old and is by Kinross. When it finally wears out, I shall make my own, but at the moment, minor mending will suffice.

Last night my eyes were too tired last night to be able to even see the eye of the needle, much less thread it, so I put it all off until this morning, when I thought I would go to the studio to use the powerful embroidery magnifier. Luckily this wasn’t necessary. Freshly rested, I threaded the needle and repaired the coat in less time than it would take for me to walk out of my bedroom and over to the studio; in less time, in fact, than it took to make my first cup of coffee. This is good, because it is chill enough that I want to wear this coat again today.

December 7, 2020
A Few Things That Made Me Happy

Working this colorful wrapped stitch in Prism lace weight linen.

The beauty of the fallen Japanese maple leaves on the ground cover below.

A simple salad supper, a craving one evening despite the cold weather. A salad inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, adapted for rose celery from GirlnDug farm. Shrimp. Feta. Happiness.

More autumn color. Ginkgo leaves have really captured my imagination this year, especially the way the color seems to concentrate the autumn light, but I had never been able to capture any fragment of that sense in a photo. Until this one taken in the waning afternoon light.

This week I learned that one reason my eyes were always tired is that my prescription had changed, and was in fact too strong for me. One eye no longer needs a prescription for distance vision, and the other only a slight prescription. We decided to see how I would adapt if I tried to return to contacts, this time wearing only one, for reading, while my stronger distance eye went uncorrected. Bonus: For the first time in years I can actually see to put on makeup. But I am not yet sure I am used to seeing my face without the protective layer that glasses provide. Not yet certain how this will work, or if I will be back in my glasses in a couple of weeks, but the irony is worth noting with a bit of self-compassion. When I stopped wearing contacts and started wearing bifocals, I missed my face; now, I miss my glasses and feel exposed.

Snipping a few herbs early one morning I was entranced by the frost on the leaves of oregano and chervil.

Music has not stopped. Although I still miss live performance, zoom has been wonderful. I have subscribed to the Norwegian Digital Jazz Festival through the Big Ears website, and I listened to this concert earlier this week. I have replayed it at least once (one of the advantages of zoom, although I still miss the way the vibrations of music in the air change a space). The Eivind Aarset Quartet is more to my taste, but I still found Hedvig Mollestad fascinating and enlightening with the way their music seems to dance on a precipice, blurring lines between free jazz, heavy rock and prog. At times powerful, occasionally beautiful, certainly perception-changing. Tonight Big Ears is presenting a concert by the Bad Plus and I am looking forward to it.

I finished the bottom trim on the boxy linen tee and I have to admit I love the way it is turning out. This is not exactly how the pattern was written, as four colors were used in the sweater, but I only have 3 remaining. It took me a little fiddling to align the three colors in a way I found pleasing, but now I am happy with the results. I have not finished the neckline yet simply because Poncho decided to move up in the world, advancing from lying at my feet, to joining me on the sofa. I approve, but Moises is not yet convinced. There were a couple of evenings in front of the tv, dog on one side, cat on the other and no knitting in between.

And there it is, actually a pretty good representation of my week. Not much happened. Not much needs to happen. Life is good.

December 4, 2020