Nobody Will Ever Knit This. Ever.

This is from the January 2004 Sandra Knitting Magazine. I have several old Sandra issues. It's such an odd publication! There are often a few really nice pieces, some of which I have knit in the past. Then there are horrors like this two piece monstrosity. What the...?
The funniest part of the bad patterns is usually the badly translated description. This one reads:

From top to toe wrapped warmly: the figure-friendly ensemble, consisting of slender skirt and hip-long sweater is ideal for extended walks in nature.

Figure-friendly? And what nature, may I ask, is this ideal for?

A Sunny Cat

Someone found the footstool in the sun spot. Commence Royal posing.

Knitting Through It

Today I am sad, sad, sad. So sad that saying the word once is not enough. Sometimes a person is sad for no reason. Sometimes, shitty things happen that make you feel that way. Sometimes several shitty things happen in succession because life is like that. And sometimes it happens all at once and you cry every day for weeks because your heart is just broken.

But I can do this. I can take pretty silver-gray plied wool and pointy sticks and manipulate them into designs. I can soak and pin out the resulting lace and hang it in my window. This is permanent. I made it and it is very beautiful.

Bookish

Somebody recently called me a Luddite. Yes, it is true, I don't own a great deal of technology. My computer is a desktop and my phone has no Internet. At knit night, I am one of the few knitters with her pattern on paper instead of a tablet. My camera is no big deal. It's not that I hate technology. Much of my lack of it is simply due to economics. Also, my needs are simple and I get by with what I have. (Though I would love a better camera!)

There is one area, however where I have consciously decided to reject technological advance. People keep telling me that since I read so much, I should get an E-reader. They describe how the device can carry so many books, and is very portable. I understand.

Yet, I am one of those readers who just loves paper. I love turning pages, flipping back and forth, spreading 2 or 3 books on the same subject on the table in front of me and reading them simultaneously. I spend many Saturdays at the Reference Library, sitting on the floor of my favourite sections, dipping in and out of the contents of an entire shelf. Or I call up old volumes from the stacks.  This one, A Few Figs From Thistles is available on line. I could have read it on my screen at home. Had I done so, I would have missed the thrill of reading about the events of it's 1922 printing in Edna St. Vincent Millay's biography, while holding one of those actual volumes in my other hand. I never would have known that this particular edition was withdrawn from the holdings of The Kirksville MO State Teacher's College for unknown reasons and then somehow made its way to Toronto in 1981 when TPL was still called Metropolitan Toronto Library. This is exciting stuff, right? 
Yes, I am cool.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning: but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, 
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

    

Edna St. Vincent Millay            

Fashionably Late

She may have arrived late but what an entrance. My new Hetty went out for its first wear yesterday and I felt great in it all day. It fits beautifully (except for an odd bunchy bit under the arms where I picked up awkwardly) and looks so cute with a dress.

Also, thank goodness for the quality of Cascade 220 yarn. It's not the most glamorous yarn on the market but the sturdy highland wool is very reliable. In my enthusiasm, I overblocked. The poor sweater came off the mats looking limp and misshapen. I thought I had ruined it but a quick dampening and reshaping without pins, and it sprung right back to where it needed to be. Love the shape. Love the colour. Love the lace. I will be wearing this cardigan a lot!