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Category: Knitting

Just in time for the Holidays

It appears that yes, I can finish something I started.

You may or may not remember this sweater. I last showed it to you in Mid September, in pieces on the blocking board. I had every intention of finishing it up right away. There were some complications and then I had every intention of finishing it in mid-October, but alas I managed to distract myself once again. And now, finally finished. Presenting Abigail modeling Raspberry Glitter, just in time for cooler weather and holiday parties.

If you look back on that original post, you might note that there were sleeves. Alas they were the source of great angst and upset, and after (yet another) ripping and re-knitting session I abandoned the sleeves all together. It seems I had forgotten something critical, namely that bias fabrics need to be cut with ample room to allow for drape, and although the sleeves would have fit had they not been knit on the bias, they felt too snug when I wore them. So I ripped and re-knitted them a bit larger only to find that I still disliked them. Although the shell itself is perfectly comfortable, I found the sleeves to be shifty itchy things, best banished from my presence. Abandoning the sleeves has resulted in a sweater which I will actually wear.

But there is more.

While I was battling those recalcitrant sleeves, I needed something peaceful and relatively calming in my hands. Enter a bag of Classic Elite Paisley in a lovely muted aqua. It seems that I keep buying the same colors over and over again, and I decided that this yarn would make a lovely shawl, a shawl for someone else. Shown on Matilda, who is waiting to be padded out, is the finished shawl, which has been donated to my church's prayer shawl ministry. The resulting fabric is soft and snuggly, with a lovely drape, and I am sure someone will enjoy it. Blocked dimensions are 19 inches by 90 inches (or 7 1/2 feet), Which proved to be a slight blocking challenge, as seen below in a photo I shared on instagram last week.

I've already started another project. Details, perhaps, soon. And for those of you who want more than pretty pictures, who wish to delve into the gory details of yarns, patterns, mods and what have you, I will manage to update the knitting blog within a few days.

November 16, 2018
Pity the Poor Missionaries — a September Review

Somehow my September felt a bit fractured.

I am not completely settled in the apartment even though I have been here two months. I am mostly unpacked, but things don't work the way I want, and there is still tweaking to be done. The work on the house got started and then stopped, mostly my own fault, as I made a change that halted progress in the short-run but makes far more sense for the long run. That decision also made more work for me, project work, not creative work, and ate heavily into my time and energy. But progress has resumed. The foundation for the addition went in last week. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and framing will begin this week.

September felt fractured not because of extra work, but because I decided to break some habits, to say no to the part of myself that is happy to take on everyone else projects at the expense of my own dreams. I thought it would be easier than it has in fact proven to be. It seems that relinquishing structure, although necessary, proved difficult. After all, decades of career choices have honed those organizational and managerial skills. One would think that, a decade into "retirement" I would be ready to follow my dreams; instead I was blindsided by how entrenched this instinct has become, this urge to take on projects, any project, rather than trust my inner self. I didn't really retire, I just took on other projects: acting general contractor at the old house, supervising George's care, serving on church vestry. I am the kind of person that, when I say yes to something, say it whole-heartedly, who gives 110% to the task at hand, who will take on everything that is needed.

But there is a toll, and I have come to the point where the price is too high. In this last project I also got burned, and my heart was broken. I realize that much of that pain has stemmed from my own crumbling walls, my own inability to separate my own personal "church and state", or my inner life from my involvement in worldly things. I realize that the last decade (or more actually) has involved a lot of soul searching, a lot of forgiveness and reconciliation, a lot of inner growth. The time had come to say no, not to my own dreams, but to all the obstacles I place in front of achieving them. Tackling projects, solving problems, organizing things, although all good and easily justified, also prove to be a very effective technique for avoiding self-doubt about my own dreams. After all, I have had decades to practice those avoidance techniques, and all under socially accepted guises. I am good at organizing things. I am good at solving problems. I don't know if I am any good at creative stuff. In fact I might suck at creativity; all the decades of avoidance may have seriously atrophied those creative muscles. The thought of finding out is kind of terrifying. But I have placed myself on this particular ledge, and there is no other choice but to step into the precipice. It should come as no surprise that the process of letting go might engender fear, and perhaps even a casual flirtation with depression.

But here I am, still standing. A little worse for wear perhaps, still kind of a newbie at trusting my creative instincts, but I also accept that I cannot, at this point go back, to do so would be to give in to fear. "Fear is the mind killer" is the mantra in Frank Herbert's novel, Dune. What, after all, is there to lose? Myself? Well perhaps that is a greater prize than all worldly definitions of success the world can throw at any one of us..

I might not have gotten as much done in September as I had hoped, but that is just fine. I need to remind myself that life is not about accomplishments checked off in the great ledger book in the sky. I didn't blog much, but well, we all have days when we have fewer words than others. I also didn't read much and that was a bit more of a surprise. I wrote briefly about The Mars Room here, and Candide here. Midwinter of the Spirit is the second in the Merrily Watkins series, and if Merrily flounders a bit, and struggles with her own head vs heart issues, I am in no position to judge.

I did spend quite a bit of time knitting. I don't have anything to show yet, but knitting is the one activity I am perfectly content not to rush through. The act of knitting itself is enough, and eventually progress happens. I am nearly finished knitting a shawl to match the red sweater I blocked in September, which is still not completed, but more about that later. And I started a prayer shawl one day when I simply needed something different. This prayer shawls simple repetition is more mindless than the red, which is not difficult, but does require balancing two yarns. Together, the two shawls, one for me and one to give away, have kept me entertained and calm.

And here it is, October already. I made keema matar last night, a dish teeming with childhood memories. My mom made keema matar for us when we were children, although we knew it as missionary curry. Apparently we refused to eat it the first time she made it so the next time she told us the peas were Missionary heads and missionary curry was born. How I loved missionary curry. How I loved gobbling up those peas, pretending I was a cannibal and devouring those missionary heads in the savory meat sauce. I was not particularly fond of peas in any other guise. Of course there was also the spectacle of the thing itself at my mother's table, the rice, the curry, the bowls of condiments. But the spectacle is best for sharing; alone I took a simpler approach, equally delicious.

My approach to the curry has also evolved. My keema matar today no longer tastes quite like the memory of my mother's, although that was my initial goal. I also no longer need to reimagine the peas as missionary heads, although the memory does make me smile. Those warm memories are a good thing — memories of family meals yes, but also memories of imagination and play, dreams of exotic places, and terrible things made safe and familiar, warm and nourishing.

October 2, 2018
Knitting Reboot

I am knitting again, knitting regularly and consistently. Sitting and knitting, usually while I am watching TV, is incredibly calming and settling, but it is also energizing and exciting simply because the process of knitting, although actually slow, rhythmic, and almost meditative, also allows time for my brain to wander, depending on what I am knitting of course, not in a frenetic way, but in a smooth, swirling way, an underlying babble, like the purling of a small stream.

I have resumed the process of unpacking the sewing room, and my small cutting table has been cleared. It is in use today for blocking a sweater, the pieces of which are shown above.

I am somewhat appalled that it took me 8 months to finish this sweater, it is not difficult, but I will also admit that I ripped the first piece three times before I completely wrapped my head around the bias short rows and the technique. With time I also realized that my knitting space at the house was inadequate. I was not knitting, not due to lack of desire, but due to frustration and discomfort. I can't say it was an oversight, but it was definitely a miscalculation.

The previous owners of my house had the TV downstairs in the living room, which is not what I wanted. I had planned, all along, to turn the two smaller bedrooms upstairs into a library/television room but I wasn't ready to begin the remodel when I moved in May of 2017. I needed to live in the space, get a feel for it before making any final decisions. I have no regrets about the delay itself. Admittedly, I also questioned whether or not I wanted another large tv, if my viewing warranted it. I hadn't really been knitting much in the old house either, and television watching had become of something of a soporific, a tool for numbing an agitated mind. I moved in with only a small TV, placed in a corner of my office with a single reclining chair.

It actually took me most of that first year to realize that I had in fact made a mistake to admit to myself that I missed my large TV. In order to see on the small TV I actually had to watch it, and pay attention, I couldn't knit simultaneously. The corner absorbed sound, the small screen absorbed detail. I could either look at the tv or my knitting but could not really do both. I also, eventually realized, that the chair was a terrible knitting chair, that attempting to knit induced a crick in my neck. I wanted to knit; I dreaded knitting. The situation was untenable.

When I moved to the apartment I went ahead and bought the new large tv. I have a comfortable sofa to sit on, with a table nearby where I can put a pattern if I need it, good light. All of this is planned for the new library/tv room/office as well. And I love knitting again.

I purchased enough yarn to make a triangular shawl to match the sweater, and I am working on that now. The sweater, shown above, will be dry enough by this afternoon to begin seaming. Once the red sweater is off the board I can block the scarf I shared with you last week. Blocking will meld the stitches together and make it look "finished". Then I have a hamper full of projects that have been abandoned in various stages of partial completion. I look forward to occasional spelunking forays into that hamper, to finding and reclaiming relics of knitting past. Starting to knit again has simply been the first step, and it will not be the only fiberly pursuit, just the opening thread.

September 19, 2018
Saturday Morning

The view out my window promises a beautiful Saturday morning. I however have a sinus headache, and have already been out twice with Tikka and know the humidity is higher than I would prefer. That doesn't make it a less beautiful day; it simply means I need to modify my expectations.

Moises is settling back in after my return from Texas, settling back into the apartment as well, as I don't think he was fully acclimated before I left. Hence the sinus headache. M is very clingy right now, and consistently tried to crawl up under my chin during the night whereas I usually manage to keep him on the lower half of the bed. I know he needs comfort, but I have learned that I am allergic to cats, only mildly so, as I can have him in the house as long as I vacuum and don't let him cuddle up under my chin, but allergic nonetheless, Cat-in-the-face was neither good for my ability to breathe or for my sinuses, but we will both recover.

I am planning on a slow day, a day for puttering. Next week is busy, so a personal day is a necessity. Even so I may or may not keep up, just as I did not keep up with the blog this week past, and I am beginning to accept that a production schedule doesn't really work because I am not really interested in production, in producing a particular thing. This is something that has shaped my creative life all along, even with sewing and knitting. I am interested in making, but with writing, like in knitting or sewing, the end result is a happy bonus that comes out of the process. I am not interested in the making in order to produce, I am interested in the process itself, and the results are simply a little something extra.

That said, I did actually finish something last week. I knit a small scarf. I had a skein of gray Ritratto mohair by Filatura di Crossa, and a few little bits and bobs, yarn samples from a mailing or two, so I knit a narrow scarf, I'm not sure I ever thought I would want a narrow scarf, but I love this one and look forward to the day when the weather will cool enough that I will wear it. I suspect that is a few months away. I've almost finished another sweater, at least the knitting part, but I don't yet have a place to block anything, including the above scarf. I may get that much of my craft room cleared away this weekend, but considering my pounding head, and a general sense of laziness, I make no promises.

This last week also ended up busy. Monday was intentionally quiet: knitting, practicing embroidery stitches, sketching a few design ideas. But I knew the week would be filled with meetings and events, and that quiet time was needed for balance, as I suppose it is, again, today.

The house is also progressing nicely. The walls have been opened up. The two small bedrooms that will be the new library are now one space, and I can get a wonderful sense of the space and the light. This photo was pretty early in the morning, an hour and a half or so
after sunrise, but still lovely.

And framing is going in, so I can begin to imagine the new layout, walk through and feel the flow. That translation from space on paper to something three-dimensional, a reimagined space, is wonderful, and I exciting. I fell it is going to be as wonderful as I imagined it would be.

Foundations will be going in soon. There are still meetings and decisions to be made both large and small. I love the process, but even though I am not doing the work, it is exhausting, and I am a bit behind.

It is also September, and the fall season has started up. There are plays, concerts, exhibits, events — my ability to step back and not overload my social calendar has always been somewhat weak. I have learned to better balance quiet time, creative time, with going out time, experience and fellowship time, but I don't quite know how the demands of the remodel will play into that. I suspect that once I get through this first couple of weeks, my input into the job will quiet down and things will be easier.

In the meantime. I'm still plowing through ideas. I did take the time out last week to go to the production of Candide at the Clarence Brown Theater, which was utterly fabulous, one of the best things I have been to in a long long time. I knew Bernstein's score but had not seen the musical production. I have read the original play, in both French and English, but had not read the libretto. I love the way everything comes together here, the sharp wit, bitterness and hopefulness, the cynicism and satire in the world view. That is in fact, something that I think Voltaire does well, that combination of cynicism, with hopefulness. Of course Bernstein's music plays up the hopefulness. But I saw the same thing in Grass as well, in The Tin Drum. Can one be both cynical and naive? I think that is the essence of human greatness, that we need both. And that is also, of course, why we need art.

Truthfully, I had not been a big fan of Bernstein's score, although it is quite possible that this was due to my own lack of imagination. I had heard it in concert on more than one occasion, and, lushly beautiful as it is, I felt disappointed. But I also tend to feel that music meant to accompany something else, as a libretto perhaps, is not complete without the words and even then, perhaps not without the visual component. One needs all the pieces to come together. Do people who love show music love the music itself, regardless of seeing the show, or do they love the music because it also triggers for them memories of the show? I've never asked. And again, this may again be a crisis of my own lack of imagination. I don't think I will ever be able to listen to Bernstein's score again without reliving bits of this production however, and I think that is a good thing, just as I can't listen to West Side Story without seeing West Side Story in my head. But then, I love operas I've never seen live, or do I? Or do I imagine the opera in my head while I listen, and do I listen only to the operas I can imagine, whether or not I've heard them performed? Context, it seems, is always important.

The production is over the top and highly entertaining, and I love having the symphony present, on the stage, as part of the performance. Candide himself is wonderful. Everyone is wonderful. Really, I wish I had bought tickets for more than one performance. It would be a joy to see again and again. Who knows, perhaps I will.

September 8, 2018
Random Post on Thursday Morning

I started writing a blog post last night but I was tired and I tore it up. I decided to knit instead. Now that was a far more calming use of my time even though I am still knitting the same red sweater. I am past the half-way point on the front, moving up the sides, and almost done with the sequined yarn. Before long I'll start the neckline shaping. I stopped knitting for a while, but now I'm back. Sometimes lately however, I am already too tired before I begin, and I end up unknitting as much as I knit. Somehow I find even that to be soothing, a way to let my mind purl with the stitches, putting the day to rest.

That reminds me that yesterday started and ended in the sewing room. I wanted to wear a skort I had purchased in Florida two summers ago. I wore it heavily that first summer, and not at all last year because it needed mending and some minor alterations. I failed to get the sewing room unpacked so the skort sat, unworn, until now. The inner portion was partially disassembled, so I traced it off before reassembly. I wanted to trace the entire skort so that I can make a pattern and reproduce it, but I could't find my tracing wheels and the day was moving on. Instead I dressed and took Tikka for a walk.

That makes the second garment I've worked on in the new sewing room. It took me a year, which is pretty bad, considering I will probably have to pack back up soon enough while we go through the remodel phase. I am not however, going to stop sewing, stop making, and this time I have a plan for how I can continue working, whatever else is going on. I've done enough of putting my heart aside. No more of that.

But all I've done so far is mending, although I have pulled fabrics and patterns. The first thing I worked on were my favorite black shorts. They needed taking in, in fact this is the second time I have taken them in and I still love them, even after 5 years and two major alterations. I suppose when they finally fail, which may well be at the end of this season, they too will have to become a pattern. But working on them was difficult. Black thread on black fabric in a room with no light is not how I define fun. I have not yet unpacked my task light that I used in the old sewing room, where the light was also very good.

Are you seeing a theme here? Things unfound? The lamp was not in any of the boxes labeled "sewing room", all of which have been unpacked. That meant it had to be in one of the boxes still in the basement, the boxes labeled quilting, needlework, or dying. Perhaps my tracing wheels could be located down there as well. But initially , at least before the skort, I wasn't eager to go down to the basement and haul those boxes out. Instead I went to Target and bought two small, inexpensive task lamps, six-month lamps, lamps I will be happy to use until the new sewing room is done, hopefully in early 2019, and then, if I no longer need them, will be happy to set free. Those lamps made using the sewing machine and the serger possible, navy on navy this time, for a navy skort.

Then the day got in the way. Tikka and I walked. I rode my bike. Sheets went in the wash while I went out in the garden to plant small dwarf sedums and Meditteranean iris, iris ungularis, in the sunny rock garden near the roses. After working in the heat and the sun, I went down into the laundry room and chilled, ironing sheets and drinking coffee. The laundry room stays about 62 – 64 year round, and I keep a sweater by the door, but yesterday, hot from the sun, the chill felt wonderfully refreshing. I looked at the last two winter sweaters drying on a rack, ready to be stored until next year, thinking about the large alpaca blanket I need to disassemble, wash, repair, and reassemble in a slightly new form, thinking about how much I love that space and how I should really hang photos on the wall, make the space more cozy.

Just as I finished the sheets, Varmint Busters showed up to take a look at the bat problem in the attic. Apparently not much can be done abut the bats until they leave for the season, meaning the end of November or early December. The previous owners had apparently tried to fix the bat problem before they put the house on the market, but rather than putting up the kind of screening and one-way gate system that prevents the bats from reentering, they have some other kind of ad-hoc screening system, which gives the bats a way in and a protected space in which to stay should they so desire. Apparently it also allows squirrels in, and the squirrels have already chewed through the screening, which I suppose the means I have had squirrels in the attic as well. Trying to get the bats out now will be a major headache, if it is even possible, and it probably isn't. In December the whole mess will have to be torn out and done properly. Oh well. Welcome to my old house.

Lunch, more work in the yard, some time spent starting to clean and clean-out the garage, errands, another walk with Tikka, dinner. So goes a day.

I decided that I would try to find the tracing wheels and the lamp, so I hauled the three large boxes out of the basement storage area and into the laundry room. Needless to say I found my lamp, in a box labeled "dye stuff — store". That was a mistake. I also found the tracing wheel and a stash of other miscellaneous tools, some of which will prove to be useful. I found a bolt of muslin, a plus for summer sewing plans. I also left a pile of stuff on the laundry room floor, stuff I have to go back and sort through and put away.

It is time to finish sorting and unpacking anyway. I've been here too long, I hate the weight of things undone, things pulling me backwards, boxes of things that are never opened. Some things are waiting for the remodel, such as books waiting for library shelves, but generally I want it all unpacked and sorted, which is strange because in a couple of months I'll be embarking on the remodel and things will get packed up again. But I am different than when I moved here. Decisions I could not make a year ago come more easily now. I no longer want to drag the past along with wherever I go.

I went back upstairs and traced my skirt. I didn't take the tracing and make the actual pattern pieces. I was already too tired for that. As I mentioned above I tried writing a blog post, but I was too tired for that as well. Instead I knit 8 rows in my red sweater and went to bed. All in all a successful day. Today there is more planting to be done, and I have to water all the new plantings, take a walk, and deal with the chaos in the laundry room. It is enough.

May 17, 2018
Brief Update

I stayed up late knitting, and I finished the back of the red sweater. You can see it below, not quite finished, but close enough that you get the sense of the thing, and why it was difficult to photograph in process. I will block it today, a quality control check, to be certain that I maintained gauge, that my calculations were correct, as I rewrote the pattern somewhat. Better to know now, before proceeding. I have not been as consistent in my knitting as I had hoped, but even so, it is a good start. When I am knitting I want to do nothing but knit. When I am working on something else, my focus shifts, which is, as I suppose how it should be, living in and enjoying each moment and each task.

It was cold in the house this morning. The weather has been warm, unseasonably warm, and I had turned off the heat. Luckily I hadn't yet put away the alpaca blanket I knitted some years ago, although I had, in fact considered it. The blanket needs to be disassembled, washed, and repaired. But it was still at the foot of the bed, just in case.

So I S was snug and warm, surrounded in delicious softness and I was reluctant to venture out. The house was cold. When I finally pulled myself upright I learned that it was 59º in the house. I turned up the heat, let Tikka and Moisés out for their morning romp, and made a pot of coffee, my first pot of coffee with my new coffee grinder. The old grinder died over the weekend, accompanied by screeching noises and billowing smoke, and the new grinder arrived yesterday.

As I write these few words, I am drinking a cup of wonderful coffee, far better coffee than I made with my old grinder. It warms my hands, and frankly discourages me from being eager to run out to my morning meeting at Panera, not because I am not eager to see a friend, but because I am not eager to give up my superior coffee. Friends trump coffee however, and off I shall go.

When I return the house will be warmer; but for now I am enjoying that sense of warm air drifting through the rooms, the deliciousness of warm air meeting cold, a feeling akin to holding a cup of warm coffee in cold hands, except felt with the entire body. There is nothing quite like it, and it is good to be reminded of the blessing of warmth, the luxury of my life, When the house is always the same temperature I can forget what a joy shelter and warmth and yes, good coffee, truly is. I feel the warm air meeting the cold, I see the sunlight creeping across the branches outside my window, the glistening of the dew on the twigs, the rise of steam from my furnace, the whisps of fog. And I know how luckily I am and how perfect small moments can be.

February 27, 2018
Saturday Meanderings

Moisés took his first walk in the snow this morning. It was slightly before dawn, still almost dark, but the light was lifting. Perhaps I am not the only one settling in to myself. Perhaps Moisés is just experiencing a mid-life crisis. He is nine, and hasn't really been outside since he was a small kitten; he's never shown interest, and the two occasions he did find himself outside he was terrified. Perhaps he just wants to see what is so exciting to Tikka? I'll never know his reasons, and I was not sanguine about letting him out but he was determined. Now he and Tikka go out in the morning for a brief wander before breakfast. Tikka romps, oblivious to the snow; Moisés picks up his foot after each step and looks at it with unsettled disgust. Still he explores a little further before following Tikka inside for the joys of the breakfast bowl, Tikka dancing and spinning in eager circles, M with a dignified stroll and a brief swaying to one side, just enough to brush against my ankles.

We seem to have all settled into this place. I still worry that M will wander away; will get hit by a car, or hurt by another animal. But I suppose I have to let him be himself. Tikka is usually content to stay here in her own space, our yard, and she is far happier with this yard than she was with the condo. I don't know why unless it is just that I worry less. I do worry, I worry that she will run off after another dog when she sees one walk by — the opportunity to be social outweighs the risks of the invisible fence every time. Often I don't worry about the collar, she is not inclined to wander anyway unless tempted, and the temptation is too great, collar or no. She generally only wants to be out if I am out anyway, where we can keep an eye on each other. Both beasts are homebodies, happy in their space. Like their mom.

I've been knitting. I've been sleeping late as well. Knitting and sleeping. I think there is a connection here. I never wanted to be a person who woke up hours before dawn, a person who went to bed in the middle of the evening either, although I've been a lark most of my life, a person who bounds awake with joy. This is a project I started in December, didn't like, ripped apart and restarted this past week. Perhaps I simply needed to knit that shrug first, to get my knitting muscles back in gear, to rekindle the spark. I've been dreaming of yarn and cloth and fiber and thread, dreaming up projects, recording ideas, but the actual act of creation eluded me. I would pick something up and put it down again, overwhelmed with weariness.

Perhaps I was just committed to too many things that were not truly what made me happy, that were against where my own nature wants me to go. I really want to do nothing but take meanderingly slow walks, bury myself in thread and fabric and yarn, play, cook, eat, share. And yet I never quite managed it. I was always distracted by too many things that needed to be done. I was bound by not enough time when what I really needed was to escape time altogether.

When I pick up my needles and knit, I escape time. I sit and knit late into the evening. The hours disappear. It seems I was not knitting because I was disconnected from something essential, essential to me at least. Perhaps I was letting who I was dictate who I should be. That isn't it exactly. I was letting my past dictate who I should be, letting the world dictate who I should be. What I did was never who I was. My mistake was in thinking that it should be. Who I was is integral to who I am, but it is only a past me, a part of me, and not who I have become. Even though I don't wish to be that person anymore, I have struggled with letting go, with saying "yes, you are right, I could solve that problem for you, but no I will not, I can not, because to do so denies who I am at my very core". I need to be here, to play with yarn, to embrace silence, but also to share, to share my gifts as they are, not as they are expected to be, to accept that as busy and distracting as the world may be, in its very essence it is completely here, in every moment, in every small vortex of space.

There has been a cardinal in the tree outside my office window every morning this week. Every morning except this morning. The photo is from a couple of days ago, from before the snow. The light is muted by the storm window. I don't like storm windows, or screens. They mute the light, deaden the play of light in the house, deaden the face of the house from the street. And yet the screens remind me now of how many veils and walls we build. The snow will pass. This cardinal will go and another will come. There is no rush.

January 13, 2018
A Finished Object!

Sneaking in just under the wire, I actually finished something in 2017. It may the only thing I finished this year, as at the moment my life seems like a giant conglomerations of works in progress. There is another knitted object, a sweater, which I was supposed to block yesterday, but did not due to some unforeseen developments. It may dry in time for me to assemble before the strike of 12 on New Year's eve, but it is not likely. But at least it is nice to have finished something (other than books).

I got a mad urge to knit something simple. I was working on another, more complicated, project, but it had become apparent that redesign was going to be needed, and I was not up for the math at that moment. Out comes some super bulky hand-dyed yarn I bought at Rhinebeck years ago for a shell that never materialized. Just as well, I would have worn it in Hyde Park, but not in Knoxville.

The pattern I started out with proved not to work for a yarn quite this bulky, so the project got simplified. I am happy enough with the results, at least for now, and I have been wearing the shrug/capelet/loopy thing the past week as it has been cold. It is in fact, perhaps a little too big. It fits over my coat, as shown below, but that may make to big to wear as a wraplet over a winter dress, and I have at least two dresses that would be perfect.

But for the moment I am happy with it as is. It is warm and the color makes me smile. I have the same yarn in another colorway, and I'll knit that up as well, but in a different style, an actual capelet perhaps. If that project turns out to be preferable, this may be deconstructed and reknit, but by then we will be far enough into 2018 that it can count as a new project. It will be colder than average for at least the next week, and this thing will see plenty of wear. Besides I need to knit something on smaller needles for a while, my hands are much happier with small needles, and for me that is actually faster and more enjoyable knitting.

Happy New Year! I'll be back in 2018.

December 30, 2017
Monday Miscellany

The first camellia blossom opened on Thanksgiving day.

I spent a good bit of the first part of the day in the kitchen, certainly a very happy place for me. Then there was family and food, fabulous movie time as we all settled in to watch Hayo Miyazaki's Spirited Away in the afternoon. It was a perfectly lovely day, filled with companionship and I enjoyed cooking and hosting just as much as I enjoyed the time together.

I must have been tired however, as I believe I took 3 naps on Friday. It is probably not surprising, since I was up working both early and late both prepping for thanksgiving dinner and with various household projects bookending the work of the painters every day. The living room was finished Wednesday afternoon, just in time for me to put the glassware back in the breakfront and resume Thanksgiving preparations, and the truth was that I would have been perfectly happy to just sit still and look at the walls. The painters will finish up this week; only the laundry room, 3 small closets, and the garage remain. It was perfect timing though for a long weekend, and Friday was spent simply puttering. I'm sure there will be further adjustments, mostly minor, in time, but for now I am content to sit and wait for inspiration to strike.

I finished a pillow cover I had been working on rather haphazardly, knitted from two skeins of Colinette's Prism yarn that I uncovered when I was recently sorting and cataloging yarn.. The colorway is called Gaugin. This was the first project I had knit for myself in quite a while, and I am happy with how it turned out.

Saturday afternoon I started knitting myself a sweater. It has been a long time; the last sweater I started, two years ago, is still sitting in my knitting box waiting to be assembled, and it has probably been over three years since I've actually knit and finished a sweater for myself. I've not been good at updating my ravelry projects so I am not certain about dates. But I am amazed at how fun and soothing I am finding the knitting to be, and how free of obligation. That doesn't mean I won't finish this sweater. I will, and the act of knitting is also kindling my desire to finish off those languishing UFOs. I suppose there needs to be some fun knitting to balance off the more detailed, and work-like part, which is finishing, but even the finishing seems appealing again.

Slowly things are coming back together and I am rediscovering the way time stops when I have yarn or embroidery thread or fabric in my hands.

November 28, 2016
Some Quiet Time

Over the past couple of weeks my time has felt fractured, with too many disparate things competing for attention. Somehow despite my best efforts at scheduling there has been no time for sustained work, or rest and it has taken its toll, and so I have granted myself a personal retreat, a time for respite, for allowing time for dreaming and deep breaths, a time for self-care and for deciding who and what will occupy my time.

Although there was a day where I pretty much lay about, sleeping, reading, watching, I did finish the prayer shawl pictured above. It is a simple pattern, done in a simple yarn. The colors caught my eye. The edges tended to roll, so I tried a technique I read about in a Rowan pattern, and I crocheted around all four sides of the shawl to finish it. I am slow at crochet. I can knit far faster, but it is a useful technique and it solved the problem. Then I added the fringe, then while catching up with a new television series, Bull, I cut the remaining yarn in segments and attached the fringe.

It is a lovely shawl, soft and snuggly, with a lovely drape. And I who used to hate knitting shawls and scarves, have found some peace and enjoyment in the process. I've therefore sorted through the remnant and odd ball stash and created a collection just to be used for a few future shawls. But first, I think the next project, as yet undetermined, will be something for myself.

October 15, 2016