Moth Heaven

Letting it Go

My Zephrystyle Tree Jacket, in Dream in Color China Apple, coming along steadily.

The assistant minister at my UU church sent out an email this week asking for us to think about our year, to look back and maybe send her something to be read aloud during the service this Sunday: the passings, the arrivals, the goals achieved and perhaps even those that eluded us. I deleted it as a matter of course, dismissing any notion that really I have anything to add to such a busy life as my church community must have. There are teenagers and aging parents and new jobs a plenty to fill that part of the service I was certain. But the idea took root in spite of myself, and I have been thinking about what's worth the inventory.

1. I didn't get nearly the amount of things done that I wanted to. I wanted to have more writing to show for my work, more sweaters knit, a more organized house, and more time spent with friends than I got to spend. I wanted to have PS136 finished for Holda's sake. But all said, I managed to cram business into every day, and how I could have gotten more done, I don't know short of giving up sleep. So really, the problem lies not with my work but with my goals. It is possible for me to knit a sweater in two weeks, but it isn't possible for me to do that twice in a row. Next year, and forever after, I'll try to be easier on myself, and to be more realistic about how many hours there are in a day.

2. My oldest, The Teenager, turned 18 a few days ago. I have been his step mom now for almost 13 years. He isn't around much these days, spending much of his non-school time at his job, or hanging out with his friends (where he works). He's a good kid with a puritanical streak, which helps me relax about how much we don't see him. He comes in late, lobs a snide comment on the state of the world over his leather jacketted shoulder, and disappears into his room from where we can hear music until the wee hours of the night. He has a marvellous and dark sense of humour, a passion for politics, and is applying to five universities. I miss him, but I worry about him only a little because his father, The Mister, says that The Teenager is very much like he was when he was that age: not much direction yet, not a lot of interest in the parents, but generally okay if a little confused about how unpleasant the world turned out to be after his sheltered childhood. I trust that The Teenager is going in the right direction, and I know he's a good person. Meanwhile, The Mister is a little freaked about having a son who just turned 18.

3. I went to SOAR. More than anything else this year, SOAR served to legitimize my investment in the fiber arts. I still feel a little shy about the time I spend with the wool. You who read knitblogs certainly understand, but not being "a designer" or an employee of a yarn company, or having really any "label" to slap on the wool thing, after SOAR, I laid claim to "fiber artist." A not particularly productive one (see item #1), but still. It feels right.

4. It just is. I finally learned through many small lessons this year that things are what they are, and that most of what happens is utterly out of my control. Call it god, call it luck, call it other's people's crap, but taking things as they come, not taking it as any kind of evaluation of how good or bad a person I am, and letting it go gently was a big lesson for me this year. I'm not always in that quiet place of acceptance, but it seems the gift of age and experience, and I am in touch with it more and more. Don't get me wrong; I'm still trying like hell to crank out a sweater in a fortnight, and there's way too much in my queue. But that's just who I am.

In the spirit of the year's end I'll ask you, what are the things you noticed in your life? Anything you want to have noted? We're a nice little group here, the comment section of Moth Heaven. Take the mic and share. In the meantime, a Happy New Year wish for you: as my five year old said the other night, may you have love, the spirit of Santa, and Polar Bears for ever and ever.

Great Wheels and Sunrooms and Mittens: Oh My

In the computer frenzy, I lost Photoshop, and so currently I can't adjust the enormous files that my camera makes into a webfriendly size. As a intermediate solution, I am currently posting from flickr, which is a little alien, but still, mightly cordial of them to offer the service

How was your Christmas? Did you get something in the way of the wool? Me? I was bracing myself yesterday for what I thought was coming, by way of Santa. The Mister had a particularly good run at the flea markets this summer, as you may recall. He had brought home one terrific circular sock machine which I have been keeping busy ever since, and one not so terrific Norwegian style spinning wheel, which is currently decorating the stair landing. Over the summer, he often asked about Great Wheels because he saw them on the flea market field. By way of forbidding that such things as a mangy old Great Wheel coming home with him, I explained about what there had to be present to make the wheel work, about the finer points of the miner's head, and about the pieces and bits that all serve to make yarn in the old way. Then sometime in November, I overheard him say to the phone that I was getting the best present ever for Christmas. Suddenly, I was scared. Had he actually found one with all the parts?

It's not that I don't want a Great Wheel, it's just that I have several wheels already, and I have a Watson coming in the spring (Huh? When did that happen? you wonder. At SOAR, of course. Oh, I forgot to tell you that bit, didn't I? Sorry. A girl has to keep some secrets for later).

But a Great Wheel would be too much. Where would I put it? The Mister was getting positively giddy about bringing home the part about the wool that is almost as cumbersome as the stuff he collects. The gadget part of my hobby has him sillified. I was worried. I held my breath, and on Christmas morning, as is customary around here, when everyone had everything open, happy with their giving and getting, The Mister turned to me, as he usually does when the dust in almost settled and said "I bet you wonder what I got you."

"No." I said. "I like my present. Isn't this everything?"

"Well, I wanted to get you something really special, but you're so difficult. So I got you what you have been asking for for the last three Christmases."

"You mean the sunroom? I can have my sunroom back?"

The sunroom. Oh bliss, the sunroom. It's been a storage locker for The Mister's cardboard boxes and styrofoam peanuts for over ten years. He has a lot of ebay activity, that stuff is the flotsam and jetsom of doing business via the USPS. He's been cleaning the place out for weeks. It may not sound like much, but to me, it may be the best present ever. On sunny days even in the dead of winter, it is a warm and lovely room made of windows, perfect for knitting or spinning, and drinking tea. I'll put comfy chairs out there, and a rug, start my indigo and tomato seeds in March, and revel in the sunlight all winter long. What better present could there be but that?

Now as for where all the cardboard and styrofoam peanuts are going to go, I don't know.

My Car Leaks Wool

Saturday morning, The Mister said "I think your car is leaking."

What?

"Either that, or it's laid an egg."

Again with the "What?" ::dash to the window::

Yep, a round furry pink egg of the Rowan Big Wool. See it? Right in the middle of the photo under the rear bumper?

Oh that my car could do such things -- make yarn -- but no. It's just dribbling stash.

I know a woman who has more yarn in her car than I have in my stash room. For those of you have seen my stash room, you probably wonder if I speak of a Bradley Assault Vehicle or a School Bus, but no, it's a Cadillac with a very very big trunk. And it's full of wool. She needs it to be there.

How does that happen to someone, even to an avowed yarn freak? Having recently had yarn leak out of my car, I think I now know. It starts out with taking a few bags to contribute to a women's shelter knitting program, but then the person who was to collect it never shows up. You keep it in there, just in case you run into her. It's already been painfully extracted from the native habitat of the stash room. To reintroduce it now would be unnatural. After that first pile, the build-up in the trunk is incremental: the crazy splurge at Webs never quite makes it into the house ; the waiting room knit-bag never leaves the passenger seat again; and then the regular hits from the LYS just take up residence in the way back. Before you know it, you can't see out the rear-view mirror, you rehearse the explanation to the police officer in case you get stopped, and anytime someone catches a ride with you, you have to apologize for the Cashmerino. "But it's a great way to heat treat the new yarn for moths," you tell your passenger (a rationalization which some time in November just morphs into cold treating the same balls), "and who needs air bags when there's mohair?"

But when the Big Wool tries to make a run for, it may be time for an intervention. I cleared out the car Sunday. I'm good. I can drive without the hazards blinking for the first time in weeks.

10 Favorites for December

Happy Solstice!

I have my computer back, and all feels right with my little corner of the world. I hope to catch up with email and blogs this weekend. Doing my part to keep the lines open, I'm doing a little catching up blogwise myself. First, in honour of my happy restoration to the web, I'd like to record some of the things that have made me smile in the last few weeks.

1. The Genius Bar at my local Apple Store. I have a 3 year old Powerbook G4, and it has never given me a problem, but when the logic board (for you pc types, that's Apple-speak for the computer's motherboard) went down, it went down in flames. I won't get into it, but the Geniuses at the Genius Bar (that's Apple-speak for the back of the shop where everything is made to work again) stuck it out over three afternoon's worth of my knitting time (and I did knit, much to their amusement) and learned a few fun new ways that Macs can go wrong. So this week, Mike, Pat, and the Unix guy (every Apple store needs one) are my favorite 20-somethings in red shirts.

2. Top Gear. I had caught a few episodes of this show on BBC America over the summer, but thanks to the aforementioned 20-somethings, I have a new appreciation for the semiotics of Jeremy and his gang. Where else can you see Soccer played polo-style with a fleet of Fiats? Or wonder if it's possible for a trio of rollicking British lads to survive a road trip across the deep American South in a pick-up truck with "Hilary for President" scrawled on the back panels? Or count the profanity bleeps of Gordon Ramsay as he races the clock in the "sensibly priced car"? You don't need to be a car freak to love it, but you may become one in the process. That's your last warning before the checkered flag, friends.

3. I love that during the holidays, sometimes it all gets to be so much that the only solution is nothing at all. As in: just making a small pot of tea, curling up on the couch with the little ones and a blanket, and staring out at the snow together. The sweetest things get said at such moments, and it is my dearest hope that someday, when all it would be the best antidote no matter what time of year it may be, that the memory of this little nothing comes back to us.

4. Knit Stamps.

If only for the appropriateness of knitting for this time of year. Any excuse for the wool, I say.  I may stock up for a whole year's worth, December be damned.

5.Charleston House, the historical residence of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, artists and members of the Bloomsbury Group. I have several books on the place, including one about the needlework lying about as cushions and fireplace screens. Now it has been beautifully photographed as the setting for Kaffe Fassett's new book. I love Kaffe's work in any setting, but this is the crown for the jewel of his work.  Suddenly, I want a poppy throw, and a Dark Poppy sweater.  It's gratifying to see the knitting again, both old favorites, and new designs too. And it's always great to see Duncan Grant's work, whatever the context.

6. This shawl by Karen Noe, which can really only be appreciated by looking at  how Laila finished the latice border recently. I am sad that it is only available as a kit, but I may cave anyway, thanks to how easy such things are to buy over the internet. I did hear a rumour that Cyndy over at Yarn and Fiber might be carrying the kit soon, so maybe I'll hold out a wee bit longer.

7. The Decemberists.  I just love their creepy syphillitic barrow-boy accordian ballads about dying words, marauding butchers, and shipwrecked maidens.  It's perfect for my unseasonal mood lately.  Stamps notwithstanding.

8. Lolly's photography pointers. 

9. Sheep mugs by Jennie the Potter.

I know I should have told you about them sooner. Ah well: there's always Valentine's.

10. The new Sony Bravia television campaign. I have no idea if the tvs they advertise are any good, but I think I am in love with the creative director of their ad agency. Here's my favorite of the four I've seen.

That's a good start back at it, I think. I feel so much better.

Of Computers That Go Crunch

My computer has been acting like a rabid ferret lately: lively as usual, but likely to bite at any minute. So I've been off-line mostly. I can't show you pictures of knitting progress: Arwen waiting for a hood; a Bird-in-Hand mitten needing a thumb, or of the deliciously darker than usual Chinatown Apple colourway of Dream in Colour Classy with which I started a Zephyrstyle Tree Jacket. Also, the email is absolutely gone, so my apologies to anyone trying to get in touch with me in the last few days. I am here during a moment of silicon sanity (she uttered, tempting the law of Murphy) to tell the blog that I have a Bird in Hand KAL running on Ravelry if you're so inclined to company, or mere mitten spectatorship. I am also knitting a pair of fingerless Twining Root mittens as a TNNA sample for Jade Sapphire. It's the real world incentive I needed to shock me off my non-pattern-writing butt. And besides that, I get to knit with Cashmere for the first time. There will be more to share once my computer's logic board problems are figured out; sooner if I can get The Mister off of his computer.

Riihivilla Mittens

Question:  What's better than Yarn mail?

Yarn Mail from Finland!

Even better?

A mitten kit from Leena, for these:

Willow Herb mittens, in Finn wool, dyed by hand with things in the woods like mushrooms, roots, and whatnot.  Lots of whatnot.  The woman is a Shaman with the roots and berries and the colour.  She makes me believe in fairies.  Her blog (which I cannot pronounce) is a mystic cookbook of such things, and now I own some of her work.  I am not ready to cast on.  I must purify myself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka* first, or at least complete one of the other things I have on the needles.  But I am excited.

*Purple Rain reference anyone?

Bird In Hand Mittens

I'm working through the second sleeve on Arwen, (I. so. want. to. wear. that. sweater) and I've knit a little more on the Bird in Hand mitten. I like the clarity of white and plum (Cascade 220 #8885, for those who had to know.  Purple can get to you like that.  I understand.), but thought I'd take this opportunity to try out intarsia in the round with one of the flowers.  It's a bit fussy, carrying the other two yarns behind and all, but I like the result very much.  I am planning on knitting the second flower in the white, but then reversing the order for the second mitten.  It's a lovely pattern, and Kate has them up for sale already.  Care to join me?