purlsandmurmers

New Season

The leaves are starting to turn; it must be fall.

We noted these first signs of fall at the end of our driveway as we headed north to the Berkshires for the first of the September chamber music series at South Mountain.  The weather was cool, and having seen the first glimmer of color, we enjoyed looking for scattered signs.  By the time we got to Pittsfield, the signs were not longer scattered, but obvious everywhere.

It was the first concert we had been to in months and I was eager and filled with anticipation and the concert did not disappoint.  The first work, Mozart's Adagio & Fugue in C minor, K 546, was lovely and graceful, a wonderful opening piece.

I think my concert ears were rusty because I was not completely in tune with the Beethoven Quartet #3. The second movement seemed to drag a little to me, although the performance actually did make me think of the piece in a slightly different light, something I tend to think is always a good thing.  But my mind wandered after that, perhaps not due so much to the performance as my own lack of listening skills and a mid-afternoon slump following the drive.   No mind.  By the final movement they had my attention again.  It was a magnificent conclusion and obviously the musicians were having a great time playing.  It was then that I noticed how the Peter Zazofsky, the first violinist, would be so seriously involved in the music and then at the end of a particularly beautiful note he would get a little smile of complete satisfaction.  It was just a glimmer, but it was a joy to watch.

After the intermission we heard the Brahms Quintent in B minor with a fabulous young clarinetist, Alexander Fiterstein.  Any lingering fuzz was quickly dispelled from my brain as I listened, and watched, with rapt attention.   It was an excellent first concert.  I am filled with relief because we actually attended something.  I am filled with anticipation for the experiences ahead.

Knitting Progress

If I can't knit in the evenings due to kitten interference, it finally dawned on me  that I could knit during the day.  The days have been slightly cooler, with a lovely breeze, so I have spent some time out on the deck knitting. The back of Sheelagh is almost done.

I am still not knitting a lot, but more than in the recent past.  And I am still wrapped up in decluttering and organizing my own space as well as everything else.  The general chaos was more of  strain than anything else, and in the end I could only fool myself that I was able to ignore it for so long.

Here is my little yarn thief, in his favorite sleeping place.  This basket is used to store folded up sheets of tissue paper that I insert in tees and fine-gauge sweaters when I fold them and put them on the shelf.  Surprisingly Moisés does not shred this tissue or attempt to steal it, but is content to use it as a mattress.   Since he is playing so nicely with his little bed, I have left it out for him to use, rather than returning it to the closet.  He will outgrow it soon enough.

I almost cried: sewing room reorganization

It began with the lace weight.

I would walk into my sewing room and see a tangled up ball of yarn and wonder where it came from.  I knew the culprit had to be Moisés but I couldn't figure out where he was getting the yarn,  Then while I was working at my desk I saw him climbing up the shelving unit and squeezing himself into the tiny opening at top of the basket that held the lace weight and sock yarn.  

There was a little closet reconfiguration and I left it that.  In retrospect I see that I was far too complacent.  Moises noticed the knitting bags and plastic bags of yarn, piled in plain sight on one side of the sewing room, while I worked through UFOs and planned future projects.  He learned how to worm his way into bags that weren't closed tightly, or knitting bags that did not zip closed, like this lovely Rowan Bag.  I found this tangle of yarn wrapped around the furniture in three rooms.  

I almost cried.  This was an Anny Blatt project, Vancouver, I had started back in 2007.   Granted I hadn't gotten far, as it was too complicated for my limited attention span and lack of uninterrupted time back then.  It is not actually a difficult pattern, but complicated, and it took me more than 10 minutes to finish a row, difficult when G's attention span wasn't quite 10 minutes.

I had hoped to get back to this project this fall.  I really do want to knit this sweater.  I suppose however that it is no longer a UFO, as Moisés completely unravelled it from the needles.  Once I get the yarn back in order, probably after several hours of work, I can start over.   It is the untangling that will slow me down, and trigger my inner procrastinator as well.  I am sure that Moisés will think it is his duty to "help".  It may have to wait until he is a little older and, hopefully, a little calmer.  Right now we have wild manic kitten activity.

I didn't cry.  I got right to work moving things out of the path of little kitten claws.  The projects aren't sorted, they have just been shoved into the fabric/yarn closet, and I still have to finish that project.  I am getting tired of things that just get shoved aside until "later".  I had two years of that, and I am trying to deal with a lot of this backlog now as I just can't take it anymore.

The yarn incident was enough to make me tackle a bit more of my sewing room.  I had many patterns I had purchased in the last two years piled up in stacks along the perimeter of the room, and my old pattern boxes, those little blue cardboard boxes you buy at Joann Fabrics stacked up too. Since Moisés next favorite activity, after stealing yarn, was knocking over piles of patterns, it seemed like it was time to deal with the piles.  I have file cabinets to put them in, I just hadn't gotten around to the actual filing.  Somehow I always put my stuff off, leaving it to to spend time on more "important" things.

I also had three separate pattern indexes.  My oldest patterns are indexed in my old Filofax on onionskin pages where I traced all the pattern line drawings and wrote down the yardage information.  This was back before computers.  My second index, my favorite, is in two small notebooks that hold A5 paper.  But they are full.  I would scan in the pattern envelope, print it on the A5 paper and file it in the notebook.  I love the size of A5 paper.  It is my preferred size for notepads and books and I find it far more portable and easier to use than standard letter-size paper.  But my notebooks are the European 4-ring variety.  When I do find 4-ring European style binders, they are all for the larger A4 paper.  Since I no longer travel to Europe, I have no opportunity to pick up small 4-ring binders that hold A5 paper, and I haven't found a way to economically buy them and ship them to the US.

So I broke down and started using a standard letter-size 3 ring binder.  Admittedly it is easier. I can just put the pattern in a sheet protector and file it in the binder: no drawing, scanning, printing etc.  Besides, I don't carry the index around with me anymore so I don't need small, portable notebooks.  I have almost filled one file drawer.  I had to stop because I am out of sheet protectors for the index.  My local Staples and Office Depot only have sheet protectors in tiny little packages of 25 which becomes prohibitively expensive, so I ordered a larger box.  It should be here by tomorrow.

I rearranged the east side of my sewing room and the new layout works much much better for me.  I even have a place for Matilda to stand now, and I can use that corner for photographs on dark days as I have light here.  The ironing board used to be along the south wall, under the little shelf below the window.  It was a terrible place as the ironing board took up the entire wall between the corner and the cutting table.  I had to move the ironing board to get in the file drawers and I didn't really have enough room to manipulate anything to iron it.  I will not move the shelf.  It is fine where it is.  Now, with the iron and the press next to each other I have a nice place to work, and I can even look out the window at the front yard and see anyone who drives up.  The south window has no view even though it offers dappled light.  It is completely blocked by a large maple tree, whose shade is much appreciated.

The hose for the water bottle that feeds the iron is hanging from the hook that used to be a hanging hammock chair, which was meant to be a place for G to sit.  He never uses the chair.  I put it in at his request, and I even put it there, in the middle of the room at his request although I had wanted it near one of the corners, where I could work around it.  Instead, it was always in the way, and now it is gone. 

My sewing room is small and tightly furnished.  But it works, and it is working even better as I refine the details.  I still need to repaint the window sills.  A new cover for the ironing board might be nice too, not necessary, but nice.