You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2009.
I can’t believe I didn’t post this when we first finished the project in the spring. On the bright side, it’s that sort of a November day when celebrating the change of a room with an explosion of colour is a good thing.
The whole house was painted grey when we bought it. Pale, chilly grey. If you’ve seen glimpses of our walls in photos, you’ll know that colour makes our world go round. When we were walking through the house considering a purchase, it seemed to ask me to buy it so that we could reclaim it and make it homey.
We bought it. We painted it. Room after room, we painted it. Only the bathroom was left. It featured grey wallpaper with pansies, a stained and chipped shell sink, and warm wooden cabinets.
This spring, its time had come. Our first project involving more than just paint. New counter top, new flooring, new low-flow, dual flush toilet.
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BEFORE
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And now, the AFTER:
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We painted out the cabinets and the door, adding to the perceived space of the room. We finally found a place for the beautiful stained glass Rainer’s parents had given us – it makes a lovely privacy screen that plays with the shifting light. To make it even more of a feature, we painted the cupboard below it and the window frame around it a playful mix of blue and green.
Colour: lovely, isn’t it?
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dusty, chilly walk down the gravel lane
green window frames on the neighbours’ fence
a moment to stop and breathe
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a day of cleaning and errands
a card game with the kids
a moment to stop and smile
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looking for a fortune in craft supplies
the thrift store has glitter, ribbon and candles
a moment to stop and be thankful
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children loud and raucous
drawings and paper air planes
a moment to stop and be alive
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Pattern: Boneyard
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Sometimes the urge to be clever with our knitting leads us away from the simple pieces. We think, “Oh, that’s so simple. There’s no challenge in that. No sizzle.” And in the store when we see something simple and striking we think, “Oh, I’m not going to buy that machine knit. I could make it.”
This project completely reinforced a growing sense I have that the really wearable pieces tend to have the littlest amount of flash. It’s the simple things in simple colours that we can throw on with any outfit.
Knitting up this simple, mostly stockinette scarf was wonderful as a process and as a product. I could knit it while reading aloud to the kids or in front of the TV or when I was sick enough I didn’t really want to move. I could put it down anywhere in the row and deal with life and then come back to it and have no problem finding my place. It was companionable.
The 400 yards I had of the Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed made this a pretty small shawl. It really is a scarf. Happily, it is the kind of scarf I have loved wearing for more than a decade, and in a colour that I can wear with nearly everything. The orange and pink flecks make it such a warm black. Tweedy yarns, how you fascinate…
I enjoyed it so much I’d love to cast on for a second. And a third. I’d love to have a few spare balls of dk weight yarn on hand. Maybe I’ll have to get some, especially some City Tweed. Imagine knitting one in Tabby and one in Habenero. They’d make lovely gifts.
What sort of simple and striking pieces have you enjoyed working on? What paths of inspiration can you lead me down?
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Sparse flurries are in the heavy grey clouds blanketing the sky today, but what an autumn we have had! A long, long autumn. Weeks of golds and browns.
We managed a hike last Friday to squeeze in a final day of golden sunlight and leaves crunching underfoot. Four families and we had the world to ourselves, at least as far as we could tell. More homeschool boys than you could shake a stick at, although they were shaking plenty of sticks. More moms talking and laughing. More girls skipping. We weren’t that many and yet we filled the place.
The sun was so low in the sky – reminding us of the lateness of the season. That was a winter sun. Yet there we were in sweaters and hatless.
Not a nature walk. No lesson. No educational objectives attained. Just people being people. Just humans being humans together in the wide world. Just beauty and wind and conversation and sun.
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“Home – there is a magic in that little word. It is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits.”
Robert Southey
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Despite the appearance, I’m not going for sarcasm here. Finding a mental balance between the visual ideal and the human being ideal has been a vital journey for me. Have you found ways to remind yourself that life is “People before Things”?
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Welcome, sun.
When Gudrun Johnston posted a project to her Ravelry page with the title “Not Named Yet”, I fired off a message, certain I had a good name for her. Gudrun is one of my favourite designers. (You’ve probably knit her Crofter’s Cowl and poured over her work in both knitty.com and Twist Collective.) She mixes classic designs with interesting details, turning traditional patterns into fashion-forward must-haves.
Her pattern names have a Scottish flair. I just happen to know one good Scottish name: Kerrera, a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland. Rainer and I spent 10 days hiking in Scotland early in our marriage, having a wee bit of free time in May before we settled into his parents’ house to earn money at our factory summer jobs in Germany. We camped near the shore one night and watched the sun set over Kerrera. The next morning we rode the ferry over and spent the day feeling alone and in love. A long, narrow island with hardly any people to be seen. A ruined tower overlooking the sea. The texture of the hills. A month later we discovered I was pregnant, and it shouldn’t surprise you that we thought the melodic name of “Kerrera” would make an excellent middle name.
And now it is an excellent cardigan.
I love the details on this one…the architectural lines, the mix of simplicity with interest, the slanted pockets. It’s knitted in one piece and in that uber-versatile worsted weight. Clearly I’m knitting it for Sandra; to fail to knit it for its namesake would be egregious. I like it enough to think that I’d want to choose to knit it a second time in a very different yarn for myself.
The connections between Gudrun’s family and mine extend beyond this, in that odd way the internet has of extending lines across geography in our imaginations: she also homeschools; her son also has fabulous, exuberant hair, and I’m reading the excellent novel written by her husband. Acacia is a good read, one I’d describe as mythic rather than as fantasy.
Knit on, friends.
The seasonal shift in the angle which the sun’s path takes through the sky is more noticeable the further north you go. In Saskatoon the difference between summer and winter was more pronounced than here, illustrating just how magnificently varied geography makes our lives.
Each autumn I allow my attention to be caught by the shifting light. The way that dawn’s light is something I awake in advance of, working my way through the darkened house on quiet feet. I sit in front of the powerful glare of the light-box, keeping the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder at bay for another winter.
Slowly this quiet, personal time melts into a more active and public time as the others of the house stir. Dawn’s grey forerunners appear to the east. I cast an eye out the kitchen window, wondering if there will be oranges this time, or perhaps even vibrant purples. Sometimes the sunrise in the east fires up the sky to the west of our yard, transforming the common alleyway and its accompanying wires into something akin to art.
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The sun’s path is low enough to dip into the bathroom mid-morning. A bright, searing light that plays with the stained glass and the paint colours. This morning I was struck by the way that the moment offered up a self-portrait opportunity, highlighting the way that the colours of the day and the emotions of my heart were playing together.
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Some days offer so many opportunities to allow the mind to zoom, zoom, zoom into a moment and freeze it for a time. You know, that way we snapshot our visual delight.
This outfit is my favourite these days, marrying comfort with an urban autumnal look. I found the cardigan for $3 at Value Village and am enjoying the collar and the 3/4 length sleeves enough to think of knitting a version of it. The scarf, yes, a small shawl, is my version of the Baktus/Karius one-skein pattern that is such a delight.
Yarn: Foot Loose, Harlequin colour
Pattern: Baktus/Karius
Shortened days seem to emphasise the truism that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. In summer we take the light for granted while we glory in the heat. In winter, we glory in the light and those things which bring us heat.
May you glory in your light. May you savour that which brings you warmth.
Allow gratitude to soak through you.
The neckerchief, the small shawl worn point forwards, has been much on my mind lately. In fact, if you were to track my internet roamings for patterns and yarns, you would see that I have allowed these little accessories to verge on obsession.
Pattern: Boneyard
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed, 01
Perhaps it’s the fall weather and the hankering I have for the warmth of a neck wrapper. Perhaps it’s that North American women have finally caught the scarf bug and I no longer feel like a lone style wolf. Perhaps it’s that my Minimalist Cardigan’s inexplicable change in gauge between swatch and pattern and the way it sits in pieces waiting for a decision has made me feel more than a little skittish about gauge.
Just before I got sick this week I cast on for the Boneyard Shawl. I love this yarn, now sadly out of production, but didn’t know what to do with it. It’s turning out to be the perfect thing to do with this drapey, dark yarn. The rust and pink flecks of tweed really warm the black and make it flattering for wearing next to the face.
While I’m knitting on it, I continue to think of other little shawls. Would you like to delight in them with me? Here are a few links to follow. They’re Ravelry links, but if you’re knitting and not a member, seriously? Join now and stop the insanity. Even if you only use it to find patterns and then see how they look on real people.
Aestlight – most obsessed over
Springtime Bandit
Baana
Daybreak and Herbivore from the designer of Boneyard. Lovely, architectural.
And I’d love to have a few skeins of the Raven Clan yarn to knit them. Lovely, dusky neutrals just right for throwing on with everything. Sigh. I wonder if there’s a Canadian source for them?
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To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.
Anne-Sophie Swetchine
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What is the magnetic north of your love right now?
