lifelong knitter

THINK on this....

"Peace cannot be kept by force,
it can only be acheived by understanding...."

Happy Birthday Albert Einstein!

It's a Wrap

or maybe it's a shrug...dunno zactly...
but it's FINISHED.
I've had these six skeins of Colinette Point Five,
colorway Florentine,
for AGES.
Long enough for it to count as
Free Knitting,
as per Wendy's Rules.
On size 15US bamboo circulars,
it was Fast but Painful
knitting.
I basically knit the sleeves as rectangles
(as for klaralund...)
picked up around the um,
bodice,
and knit until I ran out.
Which is what I need to do now...
things to DO, places to GO,
people to See....
Hope your weekend is
HAPPY and filled with KNITTING!
mwah!

I can see CLEARLY now...

the RAIN is gone....
Daughter called me from the College pictured above to say she had Bad News.
My heart cracked open.
I held my breath.
I stood perfectly still.
I LISTENED.
She was teary and talking in that high pitched voice
so much of what I heard was *garbled* at first.
She slowed down a little and EXPLAINED...
the gist of which was
she got a BAD grade on a Literature paper.
I calmly asked her if she knew WHY
this happened...
"YES" she wailed
"I'm IMPATIENT!"
and went on for another couple of minute about how she had rushed
writing the paper and not followed all of the directions and now she was really
REALLY sorry about that, but "MOM?"
"Yes?"
"I went in to my professor's office and confessed my Impatience and
she told me I had Passed the Class anyway..."
"SWEETHEART?"
"Yes, Mom?"
"I'm really proud of you. It isn't the grades that matter about College, it's what you
LEARN about yourself and how to deal with what Life is all about.
I LOVE YOU and I'm really, REALLY Proud of you!"
silence, and then some unidentifiable noise...
"See, I called my Mom
and she is Proud of me and what I'm LEARNING. She's NOT MAD!"
Someone else is speaking in the background, but I cannot make it out...
"Mom?"
"YES."
"I'll try not to be so Impatient. I feel so much better, now."
"me, too...."
More than you will ever KNOW, dear Daughter, more than you will ever know....
thanks for the LESSON.
"LOVE YOU, bye!"
"Love you too, mwah!"

This afternoon I get to hug my Boy bird as we do the Bagels and Bookstore run....
I'll be practicing my Patience....
and grinning, wildly.

Pictures tomorrow of the finished
Colinette Florentine wrap....

No Static at All...

(hum along all you Steely Dan fans....)

Now that I have purchased a new keyboard (sigh) I can show you
The Red Scarf in Yummy soft ALPACA. Sending this off today to Lisa, before I talk myself in to Needing it. Did I mention that it is amazingly SOFT? I keep swooning over the Inca Alpaca and making gifts out of it. Perhaps the next Alpaca item will be for ME.

I'm needing something soft, as I went yesterday for the initial interview of something I had THOUGHT would be the Next Big Project in my life, and was profoundly disappointed. Oh, alright. I cried all afternoon. Not that I don't have plenty of projects on my plate already.....

Never mind. I heard on the radio that it happens this time of year, every year. It is the angle of the sun, interfering with the reception. Things just aren't clear.

I finished the second sleeve of the Colinette Florentine wrap

and felt a little better.

Curled up with my latest read, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,
on the couch....

sigh.
A good book and some knitting is the Best Medicine
for this kind of heartache.

Diss Claimer

No body doubles are used on the blog, nor do I *retouch* any photos...
whatcha see is pretty much what's happening around here
in Real Time.
I'm blogging from the APPLE store right now because I did something
So Stoopid last night I'm almost too embarassed to admit it...
While knitting and talking on the cell phone and googling,
I took a sip of something and OOOOOOOOPS,
spilled it all over my keyboard.
Rendering it, USELESS.
So, while I had hoped to post pictures of the Red Scarf
and the Colinette wrap,
instead I'm waiting my turn for the Genius Bar....
to see if they can fix it.
sigh.
In the How Weird is the WEATHER department,
yesterday afternoon I was outside in a tee shirt, happily
working in the garden, where it was 70 degrees F.
Today it is thundering and lightning and hailing
to beat the band. I'm wearing three layers of woolies...
According to the local Old Wives Weather forecasting,
this means ten days from now we'll have SNOW.
sigh.
The Ides of MARCH, they are upon us....

Klaralund goes to College...

I am heels over head in LOVE with this sweater!
I have to confess that the *balanced* striping is the result of careful
cut and paste knitting....
in which I took two different colorways of Silk Garden
(08 and 50) plus some MSWF handspun and made sure I had my love
of all things stripey (but not all matchy matchy.....)
Satisfied!

These pictures crack me up....I was going to crop them and try to edit out the
Very Obvious Pink Jigglypuff jacket that my College Girl photographer is wearing....
but, hey, where's the fun in THAT?

Speaking of FUN....here's the RACHAEL shot...teehee.

Back to School

Here's what I'll be wearing to take dear Daughter Bird back to school after our wonderful
Spring Break!  Hopefully tomorrow I'll have pictures from the campus....

In the meantime, I'd like you to meet my friend,
Mary Ann.....

Real Spinners

Maggi asked about Mary Anne, so on the way to pick up the boybird for our usual THursday afternoon, I stopped by to see her.
She was spinning what appeared to be COTTON CANDY, with bright bits of pink and blue curly locks blended in ever so artfully. She and her daughter were chatting about Maryland with another Knitter.
SHE GOT IN!
We giggled about how she's SOMEBODY now, with her name right there on the vendor list, in the Main exhibition Hall.
I watched her double treadle in some amazing handknit socks from her own handspun....and I remembered that time, ten years or so ago, when I was just DETERMINED to retire to a farm and raise animals and spin and knit and be totally self sufficient....a horse for the Boy bird to ride, chickens for the daughter bird to gather eggs from and bake cakes....while I spun angora and alpaca and wool....
It makes a lovely narrative for children's books. I read LOTS of them.
The reality of that life is that very, very few people can actually eke out a living
without Other Sources of Income any more.
I am thrilled beyond measure that Mary Anne is making her dream come true, and hope to see you at her booth in May at Maryland Sheep and Wool.
I've checked both the birds schedules, and it looks like I'm free to go!
Woohoo!
Hope your weekend is filled with LOVE.

Second Verse, same as the first....

I shant show you the second sleeve, as it looks nearly identical to yesterday's picture, only, you know, it's the Other One.

Instead, I will show you what came in the mail from Jimmy Beans Wool:

I was delighted, because it came with the corners all carefully wrapped in Bubble Wrap, and it came QUICKLY.

Now, the backstory....

I've only taken a couple of workshops along my fiber filled journey. One of them was a class with Anna Z, with a local Spinning Guild.  I was in WAAAAY over my head with the whole spinning thing, as I could barely make *string* with my spindle (emphasis on DROP, if you know what I mean....) and the few encounters I'd had with the wheel were beginners luck, with inconsisent, unrepeatable results.  So why I joined a Guild, where most of the women not only raised the animals, spun amazing, COPIOUS amounts of gorgeous fiber in addition to the full time jobs of homeschooling five or six children and brought fabulous homebaked goodies to every meeting...
well, let's just face it...I wanted to be one of THEM!
I guess I hoped the Osmosis factor would kick in and I'd be a Real Spinner.

I had all of Anna's earlier books, and was fascinated with her writing *voice*. I knit her designs for socks and hats and thought she was Brilliant, someone I'd really like to get to know....I was CURIOUS, dontcha know.
The workshop with the spinning guild was part of her tour to launch the Mitten book, so I eagerly signed up.
Didn't sleep a wink the night before...wondering what it would be LIKE to meet a Famous Knitter with published books and a Following....and fretting over what to Bring to the Potluck event.

It was an amazing workshop...so much information it made my head (and my hands) SPIN, and she was Exactly as I pictured her, only more so. I never expected to sit with her at lunch and tell her all about my children and ask her advice and have her Pray for me....with Miraculous results.

She said something to me that day that completely changed my life. She said a LOT of things that pop into my head when I'm trying to remember that being alone and being lonely are two entirely different states of being, never to be confused.  The best thing she told me though, was that KNITTING was her prayer life made visible. Her WORK in the world.

I am forever in her debt, and so was ecstatic to find a copy of this, the only one of her books I didn't yet own.

Thanks, AZ, so lovely to hear your VOICE again!  Just when I needed it MOST.

Silk Garden, Sleeve ONE

Here we have the soothing, swedish Klaralund sleeve, reclining....

It is absolutely amazing how knitting from the Noro stash on size8US needles just FLIES along
after all of that teeny tiny two by two rib in Koigu....

I'm trying to get caught up on all of the projects from the *alongs* I could not resist....
so first up is Klaralund,
then the red scarf project,
then Mittens for the Dulaan box....

The Mommymobile is going in to have her tires rotated and balanced,
an oil change and a much needed bath
today, so I'll be knitting with NORO
in the waiting room!