Tree is Up

We raised the tree this past Saturday - a few days earlier than usual but The Daughter was returning to her Dad's the next day so it was either Saturday or just two days before Christmas.  We chose to buy from one of the local fruit markets that sells trees from their side patio where they sell plants and veggies in the summer. Standing between two rows trying to choose, we suddenly heard a soft "Hello, Hello."  It felt briefly like a Christmas miracle with talking trees until we noticed the proprietor emerging from the shadows.  He's a small, pleasant, Asian man. Soft spoken and shorter than me, he hoisted our chosen evergreen onto our cart as if was no heavier than a feather.


Arriving home we discovered that the lower trunk of our pretty Christmas tree was misshapen and had a lumpy bit sticking out of one side.  No way would it fit into our stand!  I made a quick trip down to the Landlord's garage and came back with a saw and a big pair of tree branch pruners.  We would not be defeated! I sawed and The Daughter clipped and soon we had a sawdust strewn carpet and a gorgeous upright Christmas tree. Boy did we feel robust and accomplished!
Our tree is beautiful indeed.  Every year I say it's better than last year's and every year that's true.  However, I'm getting an extra little kick this year from our dining table centre piece.  Recently, a neighbour was throwing out some  slightly faded vintage ornaments. We pocketed the nicest ones and brought them home.  They don't really match our other tree ornaments, being too large and the wrong colours.  So, I arranged them in a salad bowl and placed them on the table.  Ooo Shiny.

Dreamwood

In the old, scratched, cheap wood of the typing stand
there is a landscape, veined, which only a child can see
or the child's older self, a woman dreaming when she should be typing
the last report of the day.   If this were a map, 
she thinks, a map laid down to memorize
because she might be walking it, it shows
ridge upon ridge fading into hazed desert,
here and there a sign of aquifers
and one possible watering-hole.   If this were a map
it would be the map of the last age of her life,
not a map of choices but a map of variations 
on the one great choice.  It would be the map by which
she could see the end of touristic choices,
of distances blued and purpled by romance, 
by which she would recognize that poetry
isn't revolution but a way of knowing
why it must come.   If this cheap, massproduced
wooden stand from the Brooklyn Union Gas Co.,
massproduced yet durable, being here now,
is what it is yet a dream-map
so obdurate, so plain,
she thinks, the material and the dream can join
and that is the poem and that is the late report.


Adrienne Rich
Time's Power, 1987

Friday Night Knitting

That's right.  It's Friday and I turned down all those fabulous invitations so I could stay home and knit.  Sexy and in demand am I. Thank goodness for Drunken Knitting next week so I can have a small social life.
Above is the progress on the entrelac scarf.  As a non-Christmas gift, it's been temporarily laid aside so more pressing projects can get completed.

Eastward Ho

I took the long, long, (for me) streetcar ride east to the The Purple Purl today.  I was in search of gifting yarn.  A few months back I purchased some lovely Malabrigo Sock in the colour Archangel because it reminde me of a friend and I thought it would make a lovely shawl for her. I soon discovered that I had once again fallen victim to the Siren call of the handpaint.  Looks great on the skein, horrible as a shawl.  The colour repeats are just too short and the changes too abrupt for this dye lot to look good in any type of side to side knitting.  So, I'm doing an entrelac scarf and it looks fine.  It just no longer reminds me of my friend.  So today I purchased the much more tonal Stonechat colourway.  I'm thinking it will be either another Damson or a Shetland Triangle.  Whatever I decide, I'd better hurry.  Christmas approaches and I haven't even completed The Daughter's cardigan yet!

Problem Solved

I clipped the Koigu girl from the ad inside and pasted her over the offending cover.  She's a lovely girl and the red shawl is much more "holiday." Inside, I pasted pretty pictures from the Anthropologie catalogue over the article.  My daughter often accuses me of over reacting, getting too bothered by silly things.  This is perhaps one of those cases but I just couldn't let it go. I keep my knitting magazines forever and could not bear the thought of looking at that face every time I pulled this issue off the shelf.

Working Cuts Into My Knitting Time

Yes, it's been a long absence. I started a new job (finally!) and have been engulfed in all that that entails.  There's the new schedule to which I have had to adjust not to mention all the emotional conflict.  I've been really struggling with the the dichotomy of being grateful to finally have a job and the disappointment of having had to take work in the same old industry where the hours are crappy, the pay is low, you are always overworked and absolutely everybody craps on you all the time.  I'm making less money now than I was making ten years ago and it sure doesn't help when family tries to placate with empty expressions like, "A job's a job", or "Oh well, it's the economy."  Anyway, my co-workers are nice and my immediate boss is great.  That goes a long way in the adjustment process.

So, basically, I just haven't felt much like blogging.  Until today.  I picked up the latest Vogue Knitting on my lunch break.  Let me start by saying that the patterns in the issue are stellar.  A particular favourite is the V for Vintage  lace blouse.  It's a re-working of a 1965 pattern and I can totally see myself both knitting and wearing this beautiful garment.

However.  I cannot let the cover go un-remarked upon.  Martha fucking Stewart?  On the cover of Vogue Knitting?  What the hell is going on?  I see from the two page ad inside that she is launching a line of ugly craft yarn with Lion Brand (ugh).  Is that any reason for VK to sell it's soul to this corporate meanie?  She has nothing to do with either being Vogue or knit fashion.  I am so offended by her smirking face that I considered not buying the issue.  I may still cut off the cover.  I'm definitely removing the article about her.  Come on VK!  Isn't this your holiday issue?  Where's the beautifully styled and photographed unknown model wearing irresistible knitwear? This gal above would have made a great cover.