Knitting on Impulse

Water's Mesmerizing Lens

 

I love the forest in any weather, but it seems more vividly alive in the rain, as if the veil between spirit and substance were rendered translucent by the dripping, rippling mist.

Inside and Out (Courtesy of the Girl Child)

 

Above: found in the yard and gifted to me by the girl. Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket? Speaking of lotteries - we very rarely indulge in a 649 ticket, but a few weeks ago, the prize was over 18 million, so Rob picked one up. Just in case, you understand. As invariably happens, I couldn't help pondering what we'd do with the winnings, and felt a sudden surge of anxiety as to whether I'd have to quite dyeing yarn or could simply justify getting a really nice studio. Which I suppose means I've done a pretty OK job of choosing my second career. (We didn't win, so I was spared the agony of indecision.)

Below: I'm not entirely sure what inspired it, though our dog is obsessed with creating craters in the flower garden, and our cat is most definitely the boss of the dog, Perhaps Basil is simply graphically demonstrating the horror experienced by my poor bulbs - like a sort of an empathy exercise.

Indoors and Out: WIP edition

Above: the indoor knitting, a "class project" of sorts, requiring considerable math and calculation. But with any luck, my first real triumph of sweater fit, though I don't want to jinx it just yet.

Below: sunny patio knitting - a large swatch of BFL worsted in Blue Lupin, part of a project for the website I've been meaning to get around to for months. (Quite possibly a year or more, actually.) I thought it might be helpful to have standardized photos of every yarn base, knit to a couple (or more) different gauges, as well as some before and after blocking photos to illustrate the ones that bloom, the potential for hard blocking, etc. Maybe even a cabled swatch as well as a stockinette one to show motif definition, plus some helpful description and illustration of its properties and best uses. As I get each yarn documented to my satisfaction, I'll post the results in the blog, as well as adding it to the webpage for that particular yarn.

Inside and Out: Mother's day edition

Above: one of five lovely Gerbera daisies which Liam and Rob bought to replace the one from the Mother's day tea. The original was indoors for all of five minutes before the dog snuck off to dismember it on the bed. She'd make a great pick-pocket, that one - swift and silent as a shadow when she's sneaking off with illicit goods.

Below: the brand new, weather and puppy-resistant push broom with which I made our patio slightly more presentable this afternoon. Mother's day or not, it was long overdue.

As for last night's photos, the girl apparently flung one of her shoes in the air in a fit of ice-cream induced exuberance. It landed on the ledge of a skylight, beyond the reach of ladders, hence the cherry-picker. Can I say how impressed I am that a 5-star hotel (Fairmont-Chateau Whistler) has
cherry-pickers readily at hand to retrieve little girls' shoes from ceilings? Unfortunately, even the heroic efforts of hotel staff failed to rescue the shoe, and while she was dancing about watching the proceedings, the other shoe went missing (which may or may not have been perpetrated by the other girls gathered about teasing her.) And then she wore holes in the heels of her brand new tights and things began to morph rapidly from funny to tragic, at least in her mind, and I was summoned to come down with a spare pair of shoes so that she didn't have to walk home barefoot. 

Oh - and in case the grandparents are wondering, she wasn't even close to being the wildest child at the party. For starters, there was a gaggle of early teen-aged girls in fancy cocktail dresses free-climbing the vertical rock face next to the hotel's back entrance as I arrived. We are a bit of an extreme-sporting community, after all.

 
On a completely unrelated note, there's new yarn up. Details are in the newsletter, if you don't already get it.

Indoors and Out: knitting edition

 
 
Above: knitting and beer on a (briefly) warm and sunny patio, for the first time this season.

Below: part of the almost-but-not-quite-entirely-completely finished store update.  (Though if you really wanted to, you could peek at the bottom of the homepage to see what I've done so far....) 

Indoors and Out: sunshine edition

 
Above: the Kindies and Grade 1's held their Mother's Day Tea this morning. (Due to spillage issues in past years, juice was substituted for the hot caffeinated beverages that used to accompany the mounds of home-baked sweets.) It is a heart-breakingly lovely affair, put on annually by the two teachers, though this year was a little bittersweet, being my third and last. There's something especially special about the little boys, fairly bursting with chivalrous fervor on top of their usual bubbling mischief.

I do have pictures of me, but let's just say that compared with the candid flashbulb-under-fluorescent effect, Liam's rendering above is extremely flattering. And that's what you're getting.

Below: new leaves, backlit by a gloriously sunny sky.

Reskeining: is 3/4 done. Progress has been slowed somewhat by Rob's back injury, incurred while transferring a 25 kg (50 lbs or so) sack of citric acid crystals from post office to car. (On a happier note, the house won't stink of hot vinegar any more.) Still hoping for a Saturday update.

Indoors and Out: beer and boughs

Above: golden fingertips of a cedar bough, the waxy overlapping scales giving it a bit of a reptilian look.

Below: lime wedges in beer, which was an excellent accompaniment to fish tacos. 

As for the geometry of plants, the leads were great - thanks everyone. I am cautiously giving my curious brain a bit of leash to run amok, so I hope you don't mind coming along for the ride.  I'll try not to fall too far down the rabbit hole - the time is long gone that I could forget to eat, sleep and dress for days in a white heat of inspiration. Sometimes I miss that freedom, though I wouldn't trade my family for anything.

By the way, the store update will be a wee bit late this week - it has been very humid and the yarn isn't quite dry. (Really - I wasn't just goofing off googling phyllotaxis.) Should be Saturday morning at the latest (we've still got to do all the reskeining.)

Meditation: Inside and Outside

Below: the lid on a jar of no-additive organic peanut butter, the wonder food of Mr. Fussy Eater. He's a little stuck for school lunches though, what with the allergy-driven school peanut ban. If only the oceans weren't contaminated with mercury, he could have his other protein source, tuna (only the best stuff, packed in extra virgin olive oil) a little more often.

Above: a tulip bud. Molli, a Waldorf teacher, wrote to remind me of the 3 part symmetry of bananas after my first Meditation post, and I couldn't help noticing the same in the tulip. Which rekindled my math geek interest in stuff like this, a burning desire to find more natural geometry with the camera and the urgent need to dig up some quality literature on the subject (as opposed to fuzzy New Age conjecture.) Suggestions? I know there are math people out there reading the blog!

Meditation: Inside and Out

To clarify (slightly sheepishly): the meditation series isn't technically part of macro May (mostly because I discovered the Flickr group too late to join.)

I simply chose macro photography as a tool for refocusing (so to speak) that has served me well in the past. Somehow, when you look closely at a thing, you see more deeply into its true nature, see the magic behind the weary veil of over-familiar contempt. This series is a loosely defined and completely open-ended personal goal to look closely and mindfully at something in my indoor and outdoor environments each day; to rediscover rhythm and pattern and extraordinary beauty in ordinary things.

 

Meditation: Inside and Out

Yesterday: rain on the arm of a patio chair, end-on view of an over-ripe banana.