Yarn

It's everywhere.

It peeks out of baskets all over my apartment.

It takes the form of three quarters done socks.

It's a barely begun cardigan.

It's in bags and plastic storage tubs and half finished shawls.  There's no seeming end to the possible projects that could be worked on this Saturday, my first day off in a while.  Or I could sort that cupboard I've been meaning to get to.  Or hem that skirt.  Or clean the unpleasantness from the bathroom. Yet I suspect I'll work on none of these things.  Here it is, nearly noon and  here I sit at the computer, still wearing my robe. All I've managed this morning is to take a few stash photos and drink two cups of coffee.   I am deep in a February funk my friends - listless and exhausted. I've just been reading some of your wonderful blogs and pondering with vague jealousy, where anyone finds the energy to accomplish all that?  
So, despite the presence of all this yarn and all these unfinished tasks, I'll probably just watch past episodes of Gray's Anatomy on line and wait for this to pass.

Very Lovely

The internet is truly the gift that keeps on giving
I discovered the Poetry Foundation website a while back and have casually dipped in and out of its archive since,  Yet it's only recently that I've paid serious attention to their podcast "Poetry Off the Shelf"  I download several at a time onto my tiny Creative Zen mp3 player and take them with me onto the oppressively crowded mid-winter streetcars and subways.  Thus it was that I sat, stuck in traffic this morning, knitting a sock, listening to Gertrude Stein's own voice reading in 1934 from Tender Buttons,
"She is sweetly here and I am very near and that is very lovely"
Priceless.

Here I am hanging with Gertrude in Bryant Park NYC in 2006

A Gift and A Goodbye

I finished this Damson in December as a gift for a friend.  This woman is the mother of one of my daughter's best friends.  We've known each other since out girls were four years old and in juniour kindergarten.  She's a teacher, a dancer, a mother.  Our kids have slept at each others homes countless times.  They've shared classrooms and milestones.  Together our families have shared many meals and celebrated many birthdays, Halloweens and graduations.  Who better to knit a gift for?  So, when I saw my friend yesterday at our dance class I gave her this gift.


Tomorrow, I will see her again, along with many other parents and children, under much sadder circumstances.  One of our own has died.  Chris, one of the mothers from that juniour kindergarten class, lost her life last week while driving on an icy dark road in the Western province where she moved two years ago. Tomorrow is her Toronto memorial service.  
Our children attended a small, closely knit, primary school and though our group has spread somewhat, its members moving on to different high schools, universities and cities, we still consider ourselves to be family.  We still keep contact with each other.  I last spoke to Chris last spring at a school concert she was in town attending.  She was happy, enjoying her new city but glad, at the same time, to be visiting old friends. I was looking forward to the next time I might see her but now that next time will never come.  It's remarkable how fast a person can just be gone.  This is my first experience of such sudden loss.  For my daughter and many of the young people, this is their first experience of loss of any kind.  I worry about how that will affect them tomorrow. 
Much of this weekend has been spent phoning and emailing among ourselves, making sure everyone knows what happened and where to be.  So many of us mothers seem to have the same instinct - to gather our babies to us and go support Chris' babies and her husband tomorrow.  She was a glorious woman and mother (wise and loving as they wrote in her obit) and they loved her so much  At times like this I realize that, no matter how else I define myself as a woman, an artsworker, a knitter or whatever, it is as a mother that I am in my heart's true community.
Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.

The Big Reveal

The specifics have been up on Ravelry for a while but here is the blog reveal of The Daughter's Christmas gift cardigan.  Yes, I think it looks smashing on her but the real proof of its success is demonstrated by the fact that she wears it all the time.  That and the frequent compliments she receives when doing so.  I get that knitterly thrill every time I hear that upon being told that her mother made it as a gift, the person often replies,
"She made it?"
Proud I am.

  

Happy New Year

Happy 2012 everyone.  I realize I haven't yet made a proper new year post.  You know.  A ringing in of  the year in a bloggy fashion?
So what will it bring? I, for one, am certainly ready for the "New" portion of the year.  I've been feeling a sameness in my life of late and a desire for new adventures, new people, new learning.  At the same time, in my tradition of no resolutions but rather, remembering intentions, I feel a need to get back to some of my old ways. There needs to be more emphasis on gratitude and joy and less worry about simple survival and productivity.  My astrology prediction for the upcoming year states "If you look hard and keep an open mind, you will eventually recover lost riches or a disappeared prize in the least likely of places."  
I like that.  What I may have lost, I haven't got a clue. Some of my spark perhaps? But I do appreciate the reminder to actually look hard.  Really see what's around me.  Keep my eyes open.  That disappeared prize sounds awfully intriguing. 

Where's The Doggie?

Can you see the dog in this?

Greyhound Portrait Dishcloth  by  Evelyn A. Clark