Knitting on Impulse

Resolved: A Year of Small Things

It was a good year, 2008.  There were some curve balls, and times of worry, but so many good things, too.  My daughter was granted the diagnosis that has opened doors and smoothed her path through school, my baby boy is thriving in kindergarten, and... I opened a yarn business!  Seven skeins back in the spring, and look at it now.  Life is good.

As 2008 winds down, I've been giving considerable thought to the matter of resolutions (the kids, on the other hand, have been giving considerable thought to strategies for staying up 'til midnight.)

My 2009 resolution has been percolating insistently for some time, yet I'm finding it unusually difficult to articulate.  I'm not sure even now that it makes sense to anyone but myself, but I think it's coming around close to what I mean, and it boils down to this: Making the world a better place by giving myself permission to focus on small things.

A little background: Coming from multiple generations of "world savers," I grew up immersed in the belief (both implied and explicit) that one must do great deeds at a vast distance from one's culture of origin in order to be truly Good Enough.  "Charity begins at home" was a platitude for cop-outs, a convenient excuse for those too attached to worldly comforts to make a contribution of any real substance.  From my earliest recollection, I knew I would dedicate my life to "real helping," medicine being the obvious choice.  I soon discovered though, that the easily dispensed nuts and bolts of medical care were frequently the least of my patients' needs, and more often than not what they truly craved, what would make a real and substantive difference to their suffering, were things like hope, dignity, comfort, wisdom, companionship, and self esteem. As a dedicated helper, I did my best: time (and more and more time), words of comfort and earnest advice, hope and belief willed into them with every fibre of my being.  It would be wrong to say that it was all ineffectual, but as the years went by and burnout set in, I found I was increasingly speaking words I no longer believed, trying to bestow things I didn't possess, and the moral hypocrisy of that discrepancy became intolerable. I was left hollow and exhausted, with a guilty sense of failure: still wanting to make a difference but no longer sure I had anything of substance to contribute.

Which is all a rather dark and heavy way of explaining why I'm finally ready to start over, why I need to think so hard about such a simple idea: that beginning with me, doing small things, could be a valid way to make a positive difference in the world. I suppose it could be like an experiment, a hypothesis: what would happen if these were my only resolutions? 

• I resolve to stay centred in the very smallest moment of all: the present.
• I resolve to practice contagious happiness, particularly when the obstacles to such are trivial.  There is time enough for real loss and sorrow - I resolve not to fritter away opportunities for joy.
• I resolve to practice personal optimism - to choose not to propogate the present insidious climate of gloom. 
• I resolve to be patient (especially with my kids) - not by gritting my teeth, but by choosing to be at peace.
• I resolve to stand up straight, dress with care and attention and smile in public.  (Perhaps even on camera.) 

There are larger lists and plans, of course - things I'd like to learn and do this year, strategies for parenting, goals for business - all of which will ebb and flow and reconfigure around the bumps and obstacles of daily life .... but these resolutions are what I truly hope to hold fast to. 

Happy New Year's, everyone!

    

Happily Doing Nothing Much

So what does it mean when a short blog break feels like a guilty pleasure?  Probably only that I was extremely tired by the time December 22nd came along and I've spent the last few days in a badly needed haze of sleeping in and doing nothing much (except wrapping.... endless midnight wrapping) in no particular order.  But as the 31st approaches, I feel the faint stirrings of that annual urge to organize, summarize and plan... so I suppose I might as well try to write something as my brain flickers back online.

Here's a (randomish) sampling of what we've been up to:

 

 

 

 

 

Eh - it was Christmas morning.  Then we gave him catnip.

I've got lots of resolutions slowly taking shape... I'll tell you about those another day.

Midwinter

The last three weeks have truly been a marathon, focused on maintaining the pace at all costs, keeping the packages flowing, the gifts steadily accumulating and distributing, deadlines met, shows ticked off one after another, sleep deferred, focus narrowing to the last. few. commitments. 

Done!  Sunday was an excellent market, both for sales and a general sense of peace and celebration.  I came home, had a bite to eat, went to bed and slept for 12 hours straight.  And now it's time to breathe and indulge in our own traditions and simple joys:

Food & drink: Mandarin oranges :: fresh baked bread :: mulled wine :: home-baked croissants with Nutella :: fine cheese & excellent salami :: mimosas for breakfast :: culinary delights of every kind.

 

Secrets: hard to achieve in a tiny space, but we do, plotting in careful whispers to sustain these last fragile years of belief.

Light: pale and pink tinged above the peaks :: twinkling among branches :: flickering in the hearth. 

 

Reading: The Dark Is Rising (because this is the exactly right time of year to reread it, and the story somehow reconnects me with the dark and wildness that gives meaning and context to these celebrations of Light.)  A Child's Christmas in Wales: annually for the last decade or so, and always reminded of that first hearing: dear friends (some now departed) around a live tree with real candles, Peter's resonant, thoughtful voice: wonder, love, and magic.

Reflecting: Love and Family and Gratitude :: taking stock of the year past :: plans and dreams for the year to come.

 

There's more to say another day of a functional and business nature, but right now I shall simply leave you with my heartfelt wishes for Peace, Love, Light, and Abundant Blessings.

Sometimes It's Hard to Get Good Models (Oh, and there's yarn up)

But first:

WARNING! DANGER! IMMINENT

 DOOM!

IF YOU ARE RELATED TO ME,

AVERT YOUR EYES AND STOP

READING NOW!

There.  That should do the trick.  Now, here's what happens when you finish knitting a pair of gifts late on a Friday night, and you intend to wrap them immediately so as to be able to post them the very instant the post office opens in the morning, but you remember that it would be nice to have actual knitting content on the blog, not to mention FO's.  Especially since you gave away the teacher gifts yesterday before photographing them for posterity.

 

 

 

Wine may have been a factor.  On the left, modelled by the lovely and talented man of my dreams, is my father's felted silk/wool hat - which, fortuitously, is now exactly the right size (for my father, that is - way too big for hubby), extraordinarily weatherproof (a requested feature) and more silky to touch than it was pre-felting.  Phew.  (My father is pretty sensitive, so I'm not out of woods yet, but there's a reasonable chance of success, which, if you have ever had the misfortune opportunity of choosing a gift for the man, is all you can really hope for.)  On the right, modelled by yours truly, is my mother's hat, knit up from some elsbeth lavold Silky Cashmere that I scored on Elann ages ago and have been hoarding for just this purpose.  I am debating whether to actually reveal the fibre content, for fear she will deem it "too special" and never wear it.  Both hats were worked up rather spontaneously, using my own earflap hat recipe, although I wasn't sure how far the Silky Cashmere would go, so I worked that one top down.  (Earflaps were specifically requested by both, BTW.)

Oh, and I put up a bit of yarn.  Once the special request dust settled, I was left with four new Leafy Mitt kits in three different colourways, and a bunch of Woolly Moguls.  (I'm usually a crusader for fine gauge yarn, but this stuff is such fun to dye - I think because the width of the thick sections allows for a truly "painted" effect, which looks amazing knitted up.)  I also dyed some 2 skein gradients in BFL for the upcoming Andromeda kits, but the patterns have yet to arrive, and I still have to work out a proper box size for the kit, and besides, they really deserve a more coherent post of their own.  (They came out beautifully, though.)  Oh, and once I have a bit of sleep, I want to tell you about the new yarns I have planned for the New Year - I took the sweater poll results to heart, had a wee chat with the mill, and have some yummy sample skeins in my hot little hands....

Thursday Morning

Four knitted teacher gifts (finished in the wee hours last night) - wrapped (creatively, due to unforseen absence of Christmas paper), carded (paper cut to the tongue during hasty envelope licking debacle), and handed off to hubby for afternoon delivery. 

Three Wooly Moguls hat kits reskeined, tagged, and organized for customer rendezvous (be outside the school office at 12:30 sharp.  Look for the mustached man carrying yarn.) 

Two orders packed up, labelled, handed off for postal run en route to school.

One super-secret envelope negotiated and stuffed for drop-off in town.

The child home sick wants to know why all I EVER do is work.  Explain (again) where money comes from, and its correlation to the existence of presents under the tree.

Next..... more reskeining.  Photos.  Website.  I'll let you know when it's ready.

I did leave the house the other day long enough to take these:

 

 

It's still cold cold cold up here, but a half frozen river is awfully pretty.

Requests?

Well, it's a fine day for indoor pursuits - bitterly cold with a howling wind (very unusual for Whistler).

That haze around the mountain peaks?

 

Would be the snow flying off at high speed. 

So, while I spend the next couple of days splattering about in my increasingly colourful kitchen, this week's plan, in lieu of a single colourway, is to do up a bunch more superwash merino for Leafy Mitt kits, and catch up on a few special requests, as well as start on the kits (BFL) for Miriam Felton's new Andromeda shawl (presently winging its way to me in pattern form.)  Which is to say, if anyone has some colourways they would urgently like to see in either kit, now would be the time to mention it!

I don't plan to dye during the holidays (ie. Dec. 22 - Jan. 2), which should give me time to catch my breath and start the New Year full of renewed creative vigor.  (I keep writing down the goal of only working until the kids get home from school, and never on Saturdays.  Which lately gets blown off to work every waking hour of every day, and not nearly enough sleep to boot.  Definitely time to stop and refocus.) I plan to sleep, eat, walk, take pictures, and thoroughly "waste" time.  I might even knit! 

Speaking of knitting, what do you think the odds are of shrinking a hat that is 1 1/2 inches too big around... if it's 50/50 wool/silk?  'Cause I'm rapidly running out of time for do-overs.

Aubergine

So much nicer than "eggplant", don't you think?

 

Just look at the blue reflecting off that inky purple surface... so smooth, so velvety, so delicious roasted until black and blistered, the tender flesh mashed with olive oil, crushed garlic, and a pinch of coarse salt.... Ahem.  The colour.  Seriously, one of my favorite veggies (I know, I know, fruits) ever, because of that luscious colour.

The merino-silk does it justice rather nicely:

  

And I'm pretty pleased with the sock, as well:

 

The BFL never disappoints (yes, I still want to marry the stuff):

 

And there's the Silken Mist - you just can't go wrong with the sheen of silk when you're talking about aubergines.

 

There's also some Woolly Moguls, a selection of gradient and striping yarns, the Silken Mist and the sock yarn from last week that is now a yummy blend of woodsy greens, transmogrifying to red through a rich and subtle palette of brown. 

That's what I neglected to do last week - explain Almost Holly.  Remember that embarassing (to me, anyway) little faux pas with the Holly that wasn't?  Well, 'tis the season, and it's the closest thing to holly we're likely to see up here, and I wondered if the greens and the reds would do what Nature does if I put them together... and they do.  I don't often stick complementary colours right over top of each other, dreading that bane of dyeing known as MUD, but I am learning not to fear The Brown.  Turns out Nature knows a thing or two about colour.

 

See?  Makes me think of cedar boughs and holly wreaths, hot cocoa laced with rum and cinammon...

Oh, and the mohair-silk:

 

It is a challenge to dye, and yet has such intriguing possibilities for layering rich and saturated colours underneath a halo of highlights.  I inevitably fall in love with it.

One last thing: there have been some emails over the last couple of days intimating that my restocking of the Leafy Mitt kits has been woefully inadequate. Consequently, only one new kit made it as far as the website today, but I have a bunch more skeins soaking as we speak.  Somehow I imagined I would dye them tonight, but as it's now 10:00 PM, perhaps not. Soon, though. Really soon.   

Yarn's Up

Aubergine..... yum.  There's BFL, Superwash Merino-Silk, Summit Sock, Silken Mist, Glowing Hearts (mohair-silk), and a sweater pack tonight. 

Tomorrow I’ll put up a selection of gradient and self-striping skeins, a couple of new Leafy Mitt kits, as well as last week’s colourway (Almost Holly) in the sock yarn, Silken Mist & mohair/silk ('cause I wasn't happy with them first time around, but now I am.... a lot.)

 

Better

Thanks for the words of care and wisdom.  I had a long overdue cry, did a bit of knitting, and got back to work.  And this morning it hit me all at once that this situation is really the timely push I've been needing to put on my big girl panties (love that phrase), and take charge of my own well-being.  Stop being afraid to succeed, quit shuffling around the self-effacing terrain of "small potatoes," and take a bunch of my eggs out of their volatile (albeit cozy) basket.  Funny how dysfunctional families show up in all sorts of ways, isn't it?

Here's how my mood looks today:

 

 

And a GIP:

 

Like I said.... Xpress post.

Let It Snow

I'm having a difficult time posting these days.  Normally I try to stay all upbeat and happy, but I'm feeling tired to the core of my being and having a hard time thinking of things to say beyond the purely functional announcement stuff.  It doesn't help that there is some heartbreakingly nasty politics brewing in a circle of people (not family) of whom I am exceptionally fond.  I've thus far tried to stay out of it, but I don't have the option of non-presence, and I have never managed to develop a robust personal filtre for other people's extreme emotion. Hate in particular, makes me feel like I'm choking on a cloud of poison gas... who knows, maybe that's why I still can't breathe properly since I first started coughing two months ago.

I did carve out a space for joy yesterday, though.  Until now, I've been doing my dyeing under cover on the patio - rain or shine, cold or hot, but it was well below freezing yesterday, and I just couldn't face it.

 

So I cleared the counters, coated the kitchen in newspaper, put on some Strauss waltzes and a pot of tea and had a lovely day.  There's a couple of surfaces that look like I put a clown through a wood chipper, but they don't show.... much.  I didn't quite finish by bedtime, so I should really get to work on that and a thousand other things, but maybe I'll indulge in a few minutes of knitting first. The gifting list is less than half done... but that's what Xpress Post is for, right?