purlsandmurmers

Orchids

The knitting progress is not very photogenic at the moment, but the orchids are:

It always amazes me how, in the midst of chaos, one small oasis of peace always persists.

House in Turmoil; no knitting

There has been precious little knitting this week, two rows I believe, hard won, as they had to be knitted and re-knitted. Much else has been occupying my time; resorting and rearranging items in the sewing/knitting room; moving cookbooks out of said room to their future home, not yet ready, but future home still. I have also been sorting through old files and materials from G’s old office, only a small portion of which must be saved at this point, with the idea of eventually combining his “den” and my “office” into one room that is actually useable, rather than just a room where things are stored, a combination his and hers office with dual computers.  He has been torn, thinking that the reorganization might mean that his room is no longer actually "his" but also admitting that he has been unable to do anything with it, other than use it as a giant storage recepticle and a never ending source of frustration.

before

The house has been pretty much cut in two during the fireplace rebuilding as it is in the center of one half of the house and the scaffolding severely limits access around the site. The ensuing chaos has only complicated other  takss and added to general exhaustion levels. Kitchen use has also been difficult but I am informed that the kitchen will be returned to me today, the scaffolding will be removed and the stove vent will be reinstalled. I might have to wait for the pot-rack until early next week, as that is being rebuilt. The old one was too small and too low; pots had to be hung just so to avoid having the chef bump her head. 

the view this morning

Last night I did curl up in my chair and watch the women’s figure skating finals, pretty much the extent of my Olympic viewing this year. There was no knitting and it was nice to sit there and watch, glass of wine in hand, abandoning all pretense of productivity. I had put half the pantry back to rights earlier in the evening, along with some re-arranging and was ready for mindless time. The Grgich Hills Chardonnay 1995 was surprisingly still excellent. It had gotten rich and mellow with time, a perfect way to unwind at the end of a busy week.

Tonight we venture into NYC.  I will take the sock; rogue is too bulky to cart around.

Interweave Knits Spring 2006

When we got back from Tucson last week, I noted that the new Interweave knits was in the bucket of mail that greeted me at the post office.  Despite great temptation I managed to put it in the stack with other magazines and catalogs that bore further perusal and set it aside until I dealt with first class matters and various other tasks and duties of the week. 

Then it slipped my mind...until late last night that is, when I pulled it out and browsed before bed.  There are several interesting projects in here and it is going a long way to improve my opinion of the magazine, which it seems, for a long time, dealt in large shapeless sweaters.  This may have been an erroneous perception as it continues to be popular.  Nonetheless I have continued to subscribe as there is always something of interest and I long ago gave up any expectations that the goals of magazine editors should match my own taste, desires and goals. 

My modus operundi concerning knitting is to knit what I like, what intrigues, and usually what will look good on me, although I sometimes forgo that option and knit something that I know will look terrible just because I HAVE TO TRY IT.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I've never had trouble getting rid of nice hand knits.

The knitting magazine editors however have different goals;  they must sell magazines, and even more importantly, they must sell advertising space to the yarn companies that keep the magazine afloat. 

I love knitting ads.  I check out the websites.  I look for info on the yarns or books.  I probably read the mags as much, if not more, for the ads as anything else.  In that sense I may be the ideal knitting magazine customer.  I look at ads, I buy books and yarn, I help keep the industry afloat and help the knitting magazines keep going.

But back to the magazine:  there are actually several designs in here I might knit. 

The Sunrise Circle Jacket is really cool (web pattern).  The Drop Stitch Hoodie is nice but I am undecided as to weather I would wear it, Prairie Tunic is lovely, and I like Aran Rose as well.  Breezy Cables is interesting; I would live in that sweater, although I might modify it a bit and definitely use a different yarn.  I've just not had a lot of luck with Lion Brand.

I love the cover sweater, Bobble Blue, traditional though it is and Caftan Pullover really intrigues me with its pattern but the sweater itself with its deep opening and no closures would drive me batty.  I might have do something incorporating that design. There are others that tempt (including ads -- oh dear). 

It is certainly a source of many hours of happy entertainment when I am too tired to do anything but sit here slumped in my chair looking at pretty pictures.  I often think that what knitting magazines do best is sell dreams.

Trip Knitting

There was substantially less knitting in Tucson than anticipated and as a result I packed too much yarn. The upside that there was substantially more couple-time and that was a joy.

I did work on Rogue while in Tucson and am now near the end of the back shoulders. There has been little progress this week as I have been running around like crazy between work, normal back to life tasks like grocery shopping, taking the car to the shop (3 times, most annoying) and getting materials and plans together for the sewing/knitting den remodel. I am anticipating hoping that the mason and carpenter will be here next week, turning the kitchen and family room into a mess as they rebuild the chimney over the stone fireplace, which acts as a wall between the two aforementioned rooms and have therefore tried to get as much done this week outside the house as possible. 

Airplane knitting consisted of sock-knitting.  The sock is being knit inside out as I feel that the purl side shows this particular yarn best:

New pattern books have been rolling in this week:

and so my head is filled with all kinds of wonderful new ideas.....

But

We leave for Tucson tomorrow.  Everything is packed, including the knitting.  I seriously contemplated taking the portable computer but it is not the lightest and sleekest, weighing in at 5 pounds.  Oh I dream of one of those light babies, 2 1/2 to 3 pounds.  Of course that still doesn't help withe 4 pounds of work I would feel obligated to drag along to justify bringing the computer. 

Increasingly I hate carrying or dragging anything.  Even if I check the damn thing, and I have done so since no computer is worth my lugging it around all day, I still have to get it to and from car to airport and back.  Not me.  Increasingly I feel I must make my way through life as unencumbered as possible.  Difficult, as I like my stuff, and I like options.

I will not be plaguing you with photos of works in progress or tempting you with photos of the desert, mountains, or lovely sunsets. 

Until next week.

Roguish Knitting

The lack of knitting photos of late does not mean that no knitting has been done. Rogue finally got going on the right track, without twists and is progressing nicely. I joined the pocket up to the main body last night while we were watching a wonderful movie, Children of Heaven. The movie was really tender and touching. G was very happy to watch it since we had problems with his wireless headphones and they are off to the shop. If he can read the subtitles it doesn’t matter if he can hear the movie or not. Now he is eager to watch all kinds of foreign films and said he would watch as many as I can bring home.

I do really like the way this is turning out and I like the rustic gray with the nubbly colors. I had envisioned this as a “working about the house and yard” kind of sweater and it looks like it is going to turn out to be just perfect.

 

Except for the side panels, this is not the most photogenic of projects and I promise not to bore you with too many photos. Since I plan to take this with us on our trip to Tucson I hope to get a lot done. I won’t take it on the plane though, just too bulky to have it and a chart out in airplane space. I will probably take the socks or a scarf for the actual travel days.

A Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading

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?

 

Knitting and unknitting

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.