restingmotion

Summer Blues. A Color, Not a State of Mind

Hello Blog!

In the interim I was plagued with a bad summer cold.  Then I took a driving trip to Texas. No photos or thoughts on that but I have been journaling regularly again, so I remain convinced that blogging will fall into place in its own time.

 

In the meantime, I have finished objects! Two finished objects!

 

First:

 

 

I finally sewed up a sweater I finished in March.  The pattern is called Anise by Katherine Mehls. It was published in Noro knitting magazine #20.  It is just happenstance that I knit this sweater in the exact same color way as is shown in the pattern.  I had originally purchased the yarn, Noro Uchiwa in color Tokyo for another project but did not like the way the yarn was working in that project.  Luckily the store had another skein, giving me enough yarn to make this sweater, which I love.

 

My progress was not a shining example of thoughtful, intelligent knitting however.   The pattern is written as an oversized tee, and although I like the look, it wanted something a little more close-fitting.  So I decided to make a smaller size and did the math to make the sweater work with my own gauge.  Then I started knitting, and started second-guessing myself.  I thought perhaps I had made a mistake and the sweater would be too small.  This probably had nothing to do with my math, or even my initial decision-making process but with some body issue or another I was going through at the time.  So I decided to make the sweater bigger and added extra rows to the sweater as I was knitting the right front.  The sweater is knit from side to side.

 

Unfortunately, after I had done the center shaping and was working on the left front, I 'forgot' that I had added extra rows (even though I had written this down) and continued according to my initial calculations.  I knitted the back as originally calculated.  Only after I finished the knitting did I actually notice that the right front was a good 1 1/2 inches bigger than rest of the sweater.  Not a good look.  But there was no way I was going to rip back almost half the sweater and reknit.  Here the fact that this sweater was knit side-to-side had an advantage.  I could simply cut the sweater, unravel the excess fabric and invisibly join the sweater back together and no one would be the wiser.    I threw the sweater in the bottom of my knitting bag and contemplated this for a week or two before actually undertaking the process.  It all came out fine, and the joining was actually fun, but I like Kitchener stitch.

 

Then I blocked the sweater.  Since it was cool and the yarn is mostly cotton, it took a while to dry.  Big Ears Weekend and Easter Week came and went and I was still tired.  The sweater languished, once again relegated to the bottom of the knitting bag.  I finally sewed it up while I was in Texas.   I like the finished result.  I like the fabric created by the yarn, I like the weight, which is light and drapes for aran-weight.  The only thing I would have done differently is perhaps start and finish the pieces differently, so that rather than seaming the side seams at the cast-on and bind-off edges, I finished with either a (visible) three-needle bind off or kitchenered the pieces together (invisible join), only seaming at the shoulders and the brief underarm/cap sleeve.  Note for future if I ever make this again, although a second iteration would be for the more boxy version.

 

I wore it this week while the weather was bit cooler (70s).  As a more fitted cotton sweater in an aran-weight yarn, this is not a summer sweater for the bulk of the Tennessee (or Texas) summers.  Perhaps it would be more versatile as a boxy layering piece, but I suspect it would then suffer from being too heavy to layer.  The resulting top can be worn as a more fitted vest or as a solo layer under a jacket, and I believe it will see a lot of wear.

 

Second, socks:

 

 

I was given the yarn, Laines du Nord Watercolor Sock, in color 137, for Christmas.  Initially I thought the color was a bit staid, and the beginnings of the first sock felt almost boring.  But things picked up as I progressed through the skein.  In the end I really like the socks, I like the light fingering yarn and the resulting fabric.  These were knit on size 1 needles, using 60 stitches and they fit well.  

 

 

For the sock knitting nerds among us, I used a boomerang heel on these rather than the fish lips kiss heel I used in my last pair of socks.  I think I like both techniques equally, although the fish lips kiss would be more appropriate if I were using a contrasting color for the heel. 

 

 

I also modified the toe shaping from the standard technique, doing one-sided shaping that fits my foot better and creates distinctly right and left-footed socks.  I am trying this because I have had occasional issues with neuropathy in my big toe since chemotherapy and I find that socks pulling across that toe can be particularly painful.  Rather than opting for looser socks, which then bunch up if I wear boots, I thought I would try a more fitted approach.  We will see how it works out.

 

 

A Knitting Update

I promised finished objects.  Finally.

 

 

First something simple:  

 

The headband was started on a whim.  I was attending a brioche workshop.  My single-color brioche swatch was progressing well, and when the instructor mentioned this pattern -- Headband with a Twist -- I just ripped out my swatch and cast on the recommended number of stitches with no thought to gauge or anything else.  It is a pretty simple project, and I am happy with the results, although I do think I could have done this a bit differently.  

My headband is a bit wider than I might prefer.  This headband was knit in Rowan's felted tweed in color Boulder, one of the partial skeins left over from the temperature blanket project.  Although I love felted tweed, and I love this headband, I think I would like a headband in a more tightly spun yarn even better. If I do knit another headband in Felted Tweed, and I might, I also think I would use a smaller needle, and possibly cast on fewer stitches, making it slightly less wide.    I do however love the headband I knit and I will wear it when the weather inevitably cools again.

 

Luckily this is a fast, fun, mindless knit and I can see myself making a few of them.  I wonder if they would be potential gifts.

 

There is one error, shown here, which I noticed a few rows after I had made it.  There is a bar across a column of knit stitches, where I forgot to wrap. It would be more obvious in a less fuzzy yarn. I intentionally decided not to tink back and fix it, decided that one error was itself an important statement, a reminder of the imperfection of life, and it is on the inside of the headband anyway.  I can't say that I made no other errors, but I did fix them all.  This is another reason I like this pattern, it is just enough to use as a practice piece, to master brioche until it becomes like second nature, and short enough that I don't become bored with the process.

 

Second project -- a baby blanket (my last blanket for a while)

 

This is knit in Blue Sky Sweater Worsted yarn in three colors.  It is a gift for my baby brother's first great-grandchild, Sloane.   Here it is spread out to block, with blocking wires running in every direction to make sure the lines and angles are true:

 

 

It is a thicker, more substantial baby blanket, what with a worsted weight yarn and the garter stitch, but I like it anyway and hope it will be received well.   It has a great feel and nice drape, despite its weight and I think it will be sturdy.  One thing I do note is that the yarn created a substantial amount of lint when washed prior to blocking, and upon looking it up on Ravelry I see that others have noted the same thing.   Today I will de-lint, remove the wires and wrap this up for delivery later this month when I will be in Texas.

April Flowers

I have a cold, mostly over the worst part of it, but this post will consist of a photo heavy reminder of April (into early May) garden flowers. Or at least the one's I managed to think to photograph.

 

The daffodils did well, they didn't mind a bit of chill, or a long cool spring.

 

 

 

 

 

It has also been a good year for the Irises.  The first to bloom were the tiny iris cristata:

Then the iris unguicularis

and their neighbors, the iris techtorum:

 

The first of the tall bearded iris started blooming about the same time as the first of my peonies.  This one is an itoh peony, named Clara Louise.

 I have another Clara Louise across the front yard, that gets its sun an hour or so later in the morning, and has perhaps an hour less sun; it blooms about a week later and the flowers are a slightly deeper pink. 

 

The Siberian iris, 'Caesar's Brother' has been blooming, along with the cranesbill geraniums.  The oldest plants, bloomed first, but these iris have been blooming for about 3 weeks now and new buds are still opening.  This bed is hidden from the street by the wall, but it greets me even time I open my front door.  The geraniums will bloom throughout the summer and are guaranteed to make me smile. 

The landscape roses have also burst into bloom in the last week.  Apricot drift.

and white Meidiland

 

The second tall bearded iris has opened, this one a deep red.  Both of these irises were purchased as dried up and shriveled specimens in an end of season deep discount bin.  I didn't know what I was getting, or if they would grow.  Both have become a pleasant surprise.

 

In the back, the peonies and azaleas were earlier in the spring and I did not get photos.  But the fringe tree is looking glorious this year (along with my garden tools and beds in progress).

 

And last but not at all least, also in the backyard near the driveway and the back deck, iris versicolor 'John Wood'.  With Garbo.

 

 

 

Four: A reentry

I'm back!

 

Am I? For real this time?  The difference between saying I will write and actually writing is like a giant chasm, a chasm that must be bridged, that can only be bridged by actually writing. I realize my priorities have shifted. I am not at all certain how that shift will manifest itself.  And yet I can spend time trying to figure it out but not writing, or I can simply hope for the best and toss my words into the void. I'll never start unless I start, as messy as that might prove to be. 

 

Let's begin with three weekends and four events:

 

First there was the Knoxville Symphony's April performance of the Mozart Requiem with the Knoxville Choral Society.  Most of the audience was there for the requiem, and it was indeed beautifully performed, even one of the more enjoyable performances I have heard.  The highlight of the evening, however, for me at least, was a contemporary piece by young American composer T. J. Cole, Death of the Poet.  Cole had been inspired by a painting by Conrad Felixmüller titled Death of the Poet Walter Reiner, which she had seen at the Art Institute of Chicago.   The painting was created as a kind of a requiem of its own, an obituary or memorial for a friend, the expressionist poet, who died of a drug overdose.  The painting is shown below:

 

 

When I looked up the painting after the concert, I felt strongly that I've seen it before, although I don't believe I've ever blogged about it.  Perhaps I should seek the painting out and take another look.  Of course, if I do that I will also want to listen to the music again.  At least there are recordings online, and I will link to one below.  

 

Both pieces, music and painting, seem filled a sense of loss and ascendance, suitable requiem material, as well as confusion and a sense of worlds on the cusp, of one world fading away and a new one being born.  Perhaps it is this overlapping sense of grief and hope, entangled together that has settled into my mind.    The music and the painting seem very dreamlike to me.  In the painting one doesn't really know if the artist is falling or perhaps flying, and I do think that is part of the point, as well as the use of intense colors and cubist images, of a world turned topsy turvy, despair intermingled with homey windows filled with pots of flowers.  The music was very lush and poignant and yet also unsettling. I find it interesting that both works were created by artists in their 20s; both also created at times of political and social upheaval.  I suspect this will be haunting my thoughts for a while.

 

https://soundcloud.com/tjcole/death-of-the-poet?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

The following weekend I went on a knitting retreat.  It was small, we ended up with 14 women, and the focus was on brioche knitting, although I would have gone whatever the focus, as I was mostly just interested in the idea of knitting community.   But I was game to up my brioche knitting skills.  Now I am smitten.  Prior to the retreat I was in a fairly monogamous knitting stage, with 1 project on the needles, 1 project in hibernation, and 1 project waiting to be seamed.  At the end of the weekend, I had four active projects on needles.    Needless to say I've been knitting a lot but nothing has yet been finished.  As I write this I have three projects on the needles and two awaiting finishing.  There will be finished knitting to share soon.

 

The time at the retreat helped me rekindle my focus and refine my priorities, both in terms of giving myself permission to allow hours to be spent exploring process without worrying about having something specific to show for any particular stretch of time, as well as giving myself permission to claim time for solitude.  Yes, I was exhausted after a weekend of music at Big Ears.  I was exhausted after Holy Week, and those all involved too much time spent in public spaces where I was overwhelmed with constant stimulation.  But I was also exhausted by a quiet weekend with 13 other women.  Before the retreat, I did not realize that even in this quiet setting, I would still require significant solitary decompression time.  Although I can, in fact, tune out much of what is going on around me, I cannot block it completely.  Some part of my brain is always watching, feeling, observing the minute changes in energy around me, and I need time to decompress.  Without that time I have no energy for either the social or the creative.  If anything, this retreat was the final seal of approval on accepting the need for not just silence but solitude.

 

After a calming weekend and a few days rest, I was prepared for another weekend feast for the senses.

 

On Friday evening I attended the opening night performance of  Knoxville Opera's The Marriage of Figaro, which I felt was a complete and stunning success.  A friend called it "world class" and I agree if one thinks of the production as a whole.  The company pulled off that almost magical feat of creating a cohesive, emotionally rich, enveloping world within the theater.  The singers were very good, some excellent.  The musicians were good, the acting excellent, but mostly it all just came together in a sparkling and satisfying experience.  Nothing jarred, nothing triggered that critical, comparative part of my brain. That, to my mind is always the difficult part.  The best performances somehow always come together from the heart. The finest orchestra, truly world-class voices, none of this matters if everything doesn't mesh together, and I've attended far to many operas that should have been great, but which have left me bored or disappointed.  Figaro has sometimes become such a part of the common experience that it fails to rise above its own history.  This production rose, it danced and sparkled -- Figaro reborn. I think I would call it a stunning production and one that has me yearning for more.  

 

Then on Sunday I went to the Clarence Brown Theater's production of Hair, which I also thoroughly loved.  I was too young when Hair first came out on Broadway, but I did see an amateur production of it in the mid-seventies, after we had abolished the draft, after we had finally pulled out of Vietnam, after I too had my turn shouting "Hell, no! We won't go!".   Even now I look at how those changes were shaping the world, shaping my own youth, and also the world the youth of today live in and experience.  The youth of  1968, the ones portrayed in this play, are the grandparents of the youth of today, the students who were performing in this play.  But that sense of both harmony and communal safety, as well as connection across generations was infectious.  It seemed to me like this was an apt time to reintroduce this musical to a new generation, even as I am reminded that as much as the linearity of time is a foundational principle of western culture, there is also a cyclical aspect to time and growth and human evolution.  

 

I always want to be enchanted, to be carried away, to be connected to some essential part of human nature; all of these events enchanted me in some sense or another.  In the three performances, there is a common thread, of youth, of age, of love, of loss and hope, or hope and loss (not quite the same but inextricably tied together).  Even in my retreat, in the experience of coming together and later of rest is connected to this cycle.  As the body needs sleep however, so to the heart, the head, the creative and intellectual spirit.   It seems my weekends are not time of rest but of massive input, and when the working world returns to its tasks, I need time to slow down and take it all in. 

 

Perhaps retirement is also a period of turning the world topsy turvy, of the hero coming home from the wars of work and success and rediscovering the simple acts of breath and life which are essential to us all.