Knitting on Impulse

Knitting On Through... Stuff

Thanks to the 2010 Olympics, and beyond that, the now-local world of sliding sports, it looks like I'll be pretty much on my own with the business/household/parenting thing for large chunks of the foreseeable future. Rob does have the odd hour off here and there (oh, how I wish he were being paid for this) and I am proud to report that packages have been streaming out the door Right On Time. Today, however, he reported that the brakes on the car are now minimally functional (and I know it makes me a bad bad wife to say this out loud, but I noticed they were a little mushy three days ago, and it was All In My Head until today when he was driving down the very steep hill from the bobsled track and found the whole stopping thing to be rather fraught. Sigh. Even the most enlightened male....) So there will maybe be a day's delay while we impose on a friend to drive down the highway to the nearest gas station for brake fluid. (I know. A smart, modern woman would have known how to Take Charge and check that herself.) I might just walk to the post office tomorrow, but it will depend on whether the packages will fit in my backpack and how hard it's raining if they won't. It's not quite 500 miles, but the warm, fuzzy thought is there....

It'll be a good opportunity to see if puppykins can behave herself in the post office line-up. She could use a little novelty and it's pretty quiet early in the morning.

How about a wee sneak peek for the week?

 

Coneflower Gloves

Knit to my daughter's exacting specifications and pronounced (by her) to be "way better than I ever imagined," these are basic knit-to-fit stockinette gloves garnished with a smidge of inexpert embroidery and two all-important pom poms.

 
"Knit-to-fit" in this case, incurred a certain degree of whinging about the four zillion fittings required to get the fingers of the first glove exactly right.

I don't think I'll win any prizes for embroidery, but you can make out a general petal-ish impression, right?

Not entirely unlike a Coneflower?

The recipient is thrilled, which in the end, is what really matters.

 
The yarn was a tragically knot-containing skein of Blissful Sock in Echinacea.  (There were actually two more, each with a single knot, that I kept back - I suppose if anyone is so inclined, I could knock off a buck or so for the knot and let them go....) I have to say, I really loved working with this sock yarn - the superwash treatment has done nothing at all to diminish the sheen and wooly softness characteristic of BFL.  Sheer pleasure to knit up.

Echinacea

I did a very subtle semi-solid version of the coneflower last year, but deep down, I've been longing to do this - to celebrate the vibrant contrast of the candy pink petals and the flaming gold/orange/red/brown of the central cone. I think it's a perfect Samhain / Hallowe'en sort of colourway.

Mostly in socks, because it IS an awfully vibrant colourway....

Blissful Sock:

Mere Sock:

 
and Summit Sock:

 
Merino Whisper is a new yarn I've been playing with for a while - a lofty single ply merino that knits around Aran weight but has amazing yardage.  It is deliciously soft and would be the perfect yarn for cowls, scarves, mittens, hats, etc. Despite the soft hand, it is amazingly pill resistant - I ripped and reknit the bulk of one test skein three or four times while coming up with a simple cowl design (I was feeling indecisive) and it looks none the worse for wear!

 
 I did indeed do the sunset colourway, but I'll save that for another post so as not to overdo the images.

Winter-ish Ramblings

The thermometer hasn't changed by more than a degree or two, but overnight the air has transformed from crisp to bitter. 

Snow flurries swirl before a biting wind, stripping the trees of their autumn glory and leaving their winter skeletons in fading rags and tatters.  "Very Hallowe'en-y," my daughter cheerfully noted en route to the bus.

The puppy was shivering a little even with her woolly sweater, and the children reminded me for the hundredth time that new mittens are inexcusably overdue. I may have to stop noodling around on a new cowl and get to work.

After I get the latest stack of orders bundled off to the post office, that is - I haven't had a moment to work on them since the flurry of orders late Friday, (and the post office has been closed the whole time, in any case) but they haunt me with their Not Mailed-ness. I have a fraction of the anxiety I used to endure in the old life, but if anything will wake me up at 2 AM in a cold sweat of fretting it's the feeling of failing a customer committment. (That and the usual nightmares about something happening to one of the kids...)  Nevertheless, neither sleet nor flurries nor nasty winds will stop me from sending the hubby out the door with an armload of packages. 

Lest you think he has the worst of it, I should point out that our present experiment in electrical austerity has our indoors a little on the chilly side, too.  Not sure how long that's going to last (kids aren't buying the "put on a sweater" line) but in the meantime, it's a perfect excuse to appreciate the warming attributes of my lovely new mug:

I rarely ever buy this sort of thing for myself - we have no money, no space (we gave away two thirds of our mug collection when we moved here) and no good practical reason to indulge so.  But it came about that the potters are an older French couple, and we were next to them a couple of markets ago and had a lovely day of conversation and reminiscence about France (I was born in Nice, she in Paris). They engaged our children with the sort of gracious dignity and delight that is rare and lovely and makes me endlessly wistful for more people of that sort in the world. I loved her work, and it embodied for me a whisper of lovely things half remembered from a childhood in Provence, and... I splurged. Just a bit, but it makes my hands, my heart and my eyes very happy.

The Weekly Expedition

It hasn't been all misery around here. Today was gloriously sunny, and we took a couple of hours to wander around the lake to our favorite spot:

I love the quality of light in September. The colours seem richer, more real, kissed with gold rather than washed out by the fierce white of high summer.

Ah, Productivity!

School yesterday was just an hour, during which the parents stood around drinking really bad coffee and catching up on life... so it didn't count. Especially since it was followed by desperately out-of-season shoe shopping for the kids.

Today, however - I was magnificent.  The dye pots went on the stove before the sun came up, I took approximately four thousand yarn photos (some to go out with custom yarn invoices, others for tomorrow's site update), I worked a bit on a new look for the website (at least the homepage) and the blog, got well underway on a new hat design/Christmas gift, rinsed and hung up a million new skeins of yarn (give or take) AND walked the dog. Twice. After school, I even helped the kids start blogs in which to write their own stories (Good Parenting box - check).

Sadly, all that was only about a third of the day's To Do list... but it still felt good.

Better than Eowyn's day anyway:

Not only did she spend her first day ever out of sight of the children (oh, the plaintive crying after they left for school), but it rained buckets. All. Day. The sloping patio created a moat between her and the garden, and there were huge awful globs of water falling out of the sky and her precious princess skin got all cold and splattered when she scooted out to pee.

 

The sun came out just in time to meet the bus, however, and I have no pictures of that because the reunion was a little too jubilant to permit safe camera use. So all is well.

Web update tomorrow (ie. Thursday). For sure. (No exact time promises though.) Also, the copper shawl pin offer resumes at that point... details then (for those who weren't here for the first one.)

Life As Art

 

We inherited the painting from Rob's parents not long ago - I think you can see the attraction, despite the apparent craziness of bringing a sizeable piece of art into an already overcrowded home. 

The painting was purchased by my MIL's parents at the 1965 World Fair in London, Ontario.  I haven't been able to discover much about the artist, William Zierhofer, whether he ever visited the location, or simply painted the scene from a photo.  The fact that my mother spent many years in Morocco in her single days may partially explain why it resonates as though it were a part of my own history, though; I've been irresistably drawn to this image since I first saw it 15 or more years ago, long before I ever began to dye.

Anyway, today seemed like the right day to show you.

Beautiful Things

Have you seen the blog Three Beautiful Things?  The idea has been on my mind lately, because little things keep happening, good things, and I want to name them and share them, but the telling is too short for a post of their own, and they seem too random to tack onto another post.  I know this is a knitting blog, but I don't feel like starting another blog (cough...supposedly daily photo blog...cough), so... maybe I'll just do it.  Would some two-post days be too annoying? Or would it be better to tack them on the end of the knitting content?  For some reason, I am compelled to do this right now.

1. Here's a truly beautiful thing on a 33⁰C day:

This photo was actually taken Friday, with the kids, but the sprinkler is located at the base of Blackcomb, approximately 15 seconds walk from our Market booth.  I made ample use of its cooling delights today.

2. Chewy salty little foccacia breads, laden with fresh organic veggies - Pemberton blue potatoes, crisp red peppers, sweet carmelized onions and fresh basil - and purchased from the adjacent booth (North Arm Farm).

3. Maple pecan tarts, sticky-sweet and also purchased next door. (These are a favorite weekly indulgence.)