Category: murmurs

I just discovered this  today, somewhat late, as my day started with a rush of efficiency and then lapsed into a stroll through dreams and shadows.  I have just been catching up with the world of the web.

So for Grace’s Poppies, which is also a wonderful new discovery, I have happened on something I can post today.  This is indicative of nothing, amidst the volumes of poetry that grace my shelves, mocking my one time dream of writing, my hand happened to fall to this:

The Flaw

  By
Robert Lowell

A seal swims like a poodle through the sheet
of blinding salt.  A country graveyard, here
and there a rock,  and here and there a pine,
throbs on the essence of the gasoline.
Some mote, some eye-flaw, wobbles in the heat,
hair-thin, hair-dark, the fragment of a hair —

a noose, a question?  All is possible;
if there’s free will, it’s something like this hair,
inside my eye, outside my eye, yet free,
airless as grace, if the good God . . . I see.
Our bodies quiver.  In this rustling air,
all’s possible, all’s unpredictable.

Old wives and husbands! Look, their gravestones wait
in couples with the names and half the date —
one future and one freedom.  In a flash,
I see us whiten into skeletons,
our eager, sharpened cries, a pair of stones,
cutting like shark-fins through the boundless wash.

Two walking cobwebs, almost bodiless,
crossed paths here once, kept house, and lay in beds.
Your fingertips once touched my fingertips
and set usn tingling through a thousand threads.
Poor pulsing Fête Champêtre!  The summer slips
between our fingers into nothingness.

We too lean forward, as the heat waves roll
over our bodies, grown insensible,
ready to dwindle off into the soul,
two motes or eye-flaws, the invisible . . .
Hope of the hopeless launched and cast adrift
on the great flaw that gives the final gift.

Dear Figure curving like a questionmark,
how will you hear my answer in the dark?

 

It seems like I have been boring for a long time now, as if
I am in some shadow existence, part of my life, but really only skimming the surface. I putter; I fall asleep given any
opportunity. I don’t write because I
have nothing to say. I make lists, I talk about THINGS, as if their presence
will make up for the void. I don’t sew or knit because I feel incapable of
creativity.

 

I blame it on January. January is always hard for me, partly because it is often gray, but it
is not the grayness of the weather that makes me this way, the grayness of a
January winter actually more reflects my mood than shapes it. January is the month that marks the life that
might have been and hence it is always sheltering background sadness. Sometimes I get busy, cleaning out closets,
filing and doing other mindless busy work, scrubbing floors (how unlike
me). Sometimes I sit and stare at the
fog on the river, at the boats passing by, at the cardinals on the once snow
covered bushes. I think of planting peas
but I don’t have the energy to order the seeds yet, just to dream… This foggy mood has gone on, probably since
before January, since before the holidays, but I kept busier then. Little automaton Mardel, keep moving, don’t
think. January is my excuse, the cover
that hides what lies beneath the surface.

 

January is the month in which my last pregnancy would have
come to fruition. It was the only one
that got far enough along for me to think of due dates and names and the
potential for change that was coming. It
marks, in my mind, the division between the time there was hope and the time
there was none. That first January
passed quietly. I did not even realize I
was depressed until considerably later. By the next January, I realized that there would be no children no
matter how hard I tried and January became my month-of-despair. Better, sometimes, to contain things. Having always been more a dreamer than a hard
realist, hanging onto the vision and the date of the dream-that-was-lost, was
more telling than the dates of any sad events or hard news. Now, at the end of the eleventh January, the
fog rolls in slowly sometimes. I sit and
lose time completely. I know I will snap
out of it. Probably our upcoming trip to Tucson will break me out of my
routine. But I also realize that certain
things will always be a part of me and I just have to accept their presence and
try to mostly avoid their sharp edges.

 

I have knitted and unknitted the pink socks endlessly,
trying new pattern stitches to see what I like best in this yarn. None have satisfied me. Perhaps none will. Sometimes that repetition of forward and
back, forward and back, endlessly rocking between accomplishment and reflection
is the greater progress. I suppose I “should”
have knitted a swatch. But the swatch is
so planned and methodical, so blindly assuming that all our plans and goals
will be achieved. Forward and backward,
knitting and unknitting; sometimes the circuitous route is the best.

 

Monday was darning day. A rather rare occurrence, but in the general
theme of things it came following mending week, where buttons were popping
hither and thither and all manner of things were coming undone.

First, there was this Eileen
Fisher Jacket, which seems to have gotten snagged, creating a hole.

 

I really can’t see the
stitches here, it is not just the photo, and I can’t really see the
pattern. Size 0 double points
shown. Some knitting was required but
the stitches were coming undone in many directions. Despite the fact that this sweater is fairly
new, the little yarn sample that must have come with it had gone missing
although I found yarn pieces from sweaters that left my life decades ago. Perhaps some reorganization is required in
the buttons and threads box.

The closest thing was purple
wooly nylon thread, not close as you will see. Not an excellent job, functional but certainly not pretty. Luckily it is hidden in the drape of the jacket.

Then Tabasco caught herself in the cushy knitted blanket, creating
a hole:

Luckily, although knitting
was also required here (2 rows) the needles and stitches were much bigger:

You can see the darning
needle as I prepare to Kitchener these off the needles. I really do like grafting, which is perhaps
why I don’t mind darning too much.  The
discovery of the Kitchener stitch was one of the defining moments of my
education, opening worlds of doors, a veritable “aha” moment when I could see
possibilities opening up before me. To
prove what a total nerd I am, the other such moment in my education came when I
took Organic Chemistry, another life-altering experience. Since I took it in an intensive form that
condensed the entire year into one-semester, it was roughly 3 months of
euphoria: hard work, but very happy work. That course was part of the “pre-med eliminations” and although I made
the cut academically, I discovered that I was temperamentally not cut out for
pre-med. I hated the intensity and
competition, I lacked the necessary drive.

Back to darning; there’s
still more.

 

Despite having just stated
how much I love grafting, I obviously messed this up on the first sock. Of course, over the last months these socks
have been in constant rotation, pretty much going from wash to feet and back
again, so the problem might have been just a wear spot. Picking up a narrow row of dropped stitches
on size 0 needles was no picnic and took me close to an hour. None of my crochet hooks was small
enough. I do have two tambour bead hooks,
the larger one would have worked, but it has gone missing and the small one was
much too small. 

When I finished the repair, I
also shored up the grafted seam, where I saw a couple of other weak spots. When I originally finished the sock I tried a
technique that billed itself as simplified grafting, which I found less easy
and less effective than the real thing. I don’t know why I bothered.

Which leads me to the final darn, my darning Waterloo:

 

This is the back neckline of
a silk and Lycra turtleneck I got for Christmas. I was told it was a pretty inexpensive
turtleneck, and the problem might be in the manufacturing, but I doubt it. I have had this problem before on turtlenecks. The problem is caused by my exceedingly fat
head, 23 5/8 inches around. The neck on
which this behemoth sits is not proportional, being slightly smaller than
average.  Herein lies the problem: a
turtleneck that actually hugs the neck strains at the width of the head. Popping of stitches often follows.

Sorry that the photo is so
blurry, I could not quite focus on the tiny stitches. There are 32 stitches in that little hole
pictured above. Way, waaay, to
small. The hook shown on the ruler is
the small tambour bead hook. It was
small enough to pick up the one stitch that had dropped down about 30 rows and
crochet it back up the ladder. Once that
was accomplished I spent a considerable amount of time trying, unsuccessfully,
to get those stitches on the smallest needles I own, 0000, but the needles were
too big. Do they make smaller knitting
needles? Finally, eyes burning,
convinced that I was going to go blind, I sat back, spun my chair around, and
when I opened my eyes what did I see? The sewing machine! Frankly dear
reader, I saw salvation staring me in the face.  I cheated; I stitched that seam right up. The finished version is not attractive but it
is firm and stretchy. Since it is at the
back of the neck, virtually hidden when the turtleneck is turned down, I can
easily pretend that I don’t know it is there.

My recent experience with frogging, re-knitting, and frogging again has put a damper on my knitting and sewing activities.  I am appalled, absolutely appalled, at the apparent lack of basic skill I repeatedly demonstrated with this sweater.  Rogue is really not that complicated of a pattern, and I am not even having problems with the more complicated bits, but rather with the simple, beginning knitter skills of casting on and joining a simple piece of knitting without twisting.  Did you know that a second opportunity to twist comes up when you pick up the cast on stitches to join the hem?  I never thought about it before, and in fact, the sheer genius with which I seem to seek out and commit  new mistakes truly amazes me.  I wonder why I even try to knit or sew or engage in any kind of fiberly activity….

And yet, the urge to create cannot completely be suppressed, and I suppose even the exploration of ever new ways to create errors is just another adventure of discovery.

My computer is down, has been down since the weekend, and I am waiting for the technician to come back with my new motherboard.  Thank goodness for onsight service.  At any rate he has come and gone once and will be back once the new part is delivered.

Although I have been knitting, my knitting time has pretty much come to naught.  I have been knitting in an endless loop of knitting and reknitting, constantly repeating the same mistakes.  I am usually not quite this incompetent… well hold that thought and don’t remind me of my past failures.

I have started Rogue four times.  Each time I thought I have had it perfect, each time I discover it is twisted.  What is it with me and this sweater?  I actually love knitting it, I love the pattern and I love the yarn.  Why can’t I do this correctly?  I can knit in the round without twisting the sweater, I have done it in the past…this is like that sleeve several years ago that I had to knit five times before it came out right (the first sleeve was fine).  Perhaps in my deep subconscious I really want to knit a cardiganized rogue and my brain is just to dense to realize this?    Well, I may take a break.  I may start something else.  I may return to the battlefield. 

Someday my computer and my photo posting abilities will also be back in service.  Here is to functioning computers and competent knitting in 2006..hopefully coming soon…

I and my suitcase full of yarn have returned from Boston.  The yarn that travelled to Boston has, for the most part, come home untouched, but we have all made new friends.

Of course, I knew I was being unreasonable, packing more yarn that clothes, but I had high hopes.  I feared I was coming down with a cold and the thought of snuggling up in the hotel room with pay-per-view and a pot of tea fed my knitting fantasies.  The cold waited until I returned and now I face the plethora of holiday preparations with red nose, scratchy throat, and the energy of a damp dishrag.  ‘Tis the season.

There is Tesla in the lower right corner.  I am still plugging away.  All the other gray yarn is Tahki’s Donegal Tweed, which I was planning to use to start (and finish) Rogue.  Of course I knew that even if I started Rogue I would not finish it but I had to take ALL the yarn just in case.  Ahh how naive the crazed knitter!

Of course, as I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car knitting Tesla as we drove up the Taconic Parkway, I realized that Tesla was progressing at the amazingly fast slow rate of 2 1/2 rows an hour, and that I was bored to tears knitting 300 plus stitch garter stitch rows, so that I could not knit for endless hours on this project without distractions and breaks.  I love the sweater.  I want to wear it.  At this point I really can’t wait to be done with it.

At the end of the weekend I have 40 more rows to go, more or less, depending on the vagaries of neckline width and final desired fit.  I think the real Christmas miracle will be finishing it in 2005.

Distractions abound however, although I am limiting them to small projects.  I know deep in my heart that if I start something like Rogue Tesla will be tossed aside to gather dust.

I started this sock earlier last week, when I needed a project in a hurry for the train into NYC:

The yarn is KnitPicks Simiple Stripes.  I ordered it to try another basic sock when I wasn’t sure what I thought of the first one.  When I actually started it though, I needed a project in a hurry and I didn’t have time to try anything new.  I knew I didn’t like the ribbed top on the stockingette cuff of the first sock, but did not have time to figure out a picot edge.  Although a long-tail cast on in K1P1 rib was plenty stretchy for the first sock, I was not sure it would be stretchy enough for K2P2 and I am not yet adept enough at tubular cast on for K2P2 to do it on the fly without a book.  I haven’t learned how to cast on for a toe up sock and wasn’t about to figure it out on the train.

So, having just read Annie Modesit, I used her technique for casting on with waste yarn and knitting a tube from the base of the toes up, adding waste yarn for an afterthought heel as well.  This is a great mindless project when you just need something to carry along and not think.  Picking up the stitches at the toe to knit down was a little fiddly, but not a problem.  I knit the toe in garter stitch which I may like better. All that is left is the heel, picked up and ready to go, and then to graft heel and toe.  I thought grafting was best not done on the bumpy, windy Taconic Parkway yesterday afternoon.

Look!

The Japanese knitting book arrived!  And I think I want to knit every item!

Actually all the instructions are mostly graphs, which was also true of the two older Japanese knitting magazines I have.  I dont’ think it will be that difficult to figure out.

Here is a page for a gorgeous cabled cardigan for which  Cara is starting a knitalong.

I signed up even though I am terrible, just terrible, about doing things on other people’s schedules.  I figured that if it was more complicated than I expected there would be help.  I can’t wait to start this sweater, but then I have been saying that about a couple of other sweaters for a couple of months now while I slogged away on my WIPs.

On that front, Tesla is progressing, albeit slowly now.  Those 344 (current count) rows seem to go on FOREVER.  Thank goodness for those 8 decreases every 4th row.  I’m taking it with me to Boston this weekend and I hope to finish (and start something else but that is probably naive).  If we leave early enough I will get some knitting done in the car, but it is not an after dark project.  I have a simple pair of plain socks on size 2 for the late night in the car knitting.

No computer is going with me, so I will catch you up when I get back.

November is date season, a heady indulgence which appeals to my sweet tooth. Dates, after all are like candy masquerading as fruit.  No other treat is really necessary.

Of course, then Thanksgiving rolls around, and Texas girl that I still am, I cannot imagine making a Thanksgiving dinner without pecan pie, even though I no longer have those hard shell native Texas pecans.

No traditional pecan pie maker I.  The pecan topping was always my favorite part, so years ago I started making this all-pecan version.  The pecans are wrapped in a rich sweet caramel.  Candy masquerading as Pie.

Which to choose?

Superhuman brain power, huh.  Well it’s not superhuman enough to keep that old boredom problem from surfacing and letting my dig myself into bigger and bigger holes. 

I’ve just started the second sleeve of Tesla and the old bored brain is already thinking about at least 4 other projects, and that is only knitting projects.

Your Birthdate: July 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others. Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you’re just too likeable to elicit jealousy. Progressive and original, you’re usually thinking up cutting edge ideas. Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges. Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom Your power color: Tangerine Your power symbol: Ace Your power month: May

Hi Ho! Hey Hey!
I’m off to the CIA
I’ll eat cookies, cakes, and pastries
All Day!

Baking class at the CIA today.

I wound some Manos  and some lovely gray Tahki Donegal Tweed up into balls yesterday so I can start swatching for the next projects. 

Tabasco helped:

Oh, watch that flash, woman!