You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2011.
When we confuse desiring with having or attaining something, we move away from ourselves, away from listening-flowing-feeling-creating and into the pushing, striving, teeth-gritting, forcing way of being….Desire becomes a place to get to rather than a vital energy to feel, experience, and ride.
Jennifer Louden
She hates choosing between options. “What was your favourite part of the day/movie/trip?” always elicits a look of mild panic and an: “All of it.”
This summer’s project in homeschooling, Career Prep we’re calling it, is forcing her to choose. What Color is Your Parachute for Teens makes her list, then order the lists, then write only the top three. Here she’s ordering her Top 10 skills.
It’s good for her. She’s learning a lot about herself, and a lot about her process.
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Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp
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How do you escape in your own space?
Pattern: Drifting
Yarn: Aslan Trends, colour 1321, 4.8 skeins
You can see in this shot that the back has extra fabric and billows a little. I did knit it longer than called for. 12.25” instead of 10.75”, which actually reduced the look of billowing since it was no longer at my waist but the wider area of the upper hips. I’ve got a long torso.
I love having a draping, open, short-sleeved sweater in this weight of yarn, though. I finished it in time to wear in the AC of the movie theater while watching the last Harry Potter movie.
I really dig the diagonal lines of the front, but I’m a little uncertain about the amount of fabric in the armpit. Yet I don’t know how I’d change that if I were to try it again. I followed the pattern recommendations and knit it with a bit of ease. Maybe no ease would have been better? Sleeves fit perfectly though, so since this has only whetted my appetite for fingering weight sweaters, I plan to use the pattern’s figures for a more traditional raglan cardigan.
This took me over 3km for the Stash Dash 5K. Knitting on…
Let’s do this. Really. Let’s work hard and make lives softer, warmer, better.
AIDS orphans touch me in a way that seems to transcend the distance. These kids, these beings, they need. And what they need is us.
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“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Edmund Burke
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Let’s Knit-a-Squillion. It’s a big, outrageous goal in some ways. In others, it’s just a matter of all of us being awesome and I know we’re all awesome. We already do fabulous and interesting things. So this isn’t a stretch.
The goal is to send 1,2 million squares to South Africa by July 10, 2012. Knit. Crochet. Felt.
Can’t do any of those? Learn.
Or donate money to cover postage costs.
Download the flyer. Pass it out.
Blog it.Email it. Write to your grandma.
Comment and keep commenting as I write about this over the next year. Let’s share the energy.
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“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
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They are partnering with prison inmates and have the capacity to sew 100,000 squares per month. Let’s keep them busy.
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“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” Helen Keller
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today’s photos from Knit-a-Square’s Flickr stream
freeze water in a bottle
roll along arch
massage + ice = awesome
(injury optional)
why did I wait til I had plantar faciitis to learn this? how many times have I had tired, hot, achy feet?
tip: put it on a towel to keep it from shooting off across the room, porch, etc.
I’m trying to spin every day during the Tour de France as part of the giggle-inducing ‘Tour de Fleece’.
Spinning and World Cup: happy companions, as long as you’re not an avid fan of a team playing, and as Canada and Germany are both out, that’s the case for me. sigh.
Rather astonishingly, the pile on the right will spin into the amount on the left. After hours of work.
I can even teach Sandra to graph linear equations while spinning.
I’m not a superhero, but I play one in real life.
Woolly Wormhead’s new book Bambeanies is now available for preorder, and I am happy that I can talk about one of the hats I test knit. I can only talk about one, since she’s releasing the patterns at a rate of 3 per week. I love it when designers do that. It lets me look at patterns and appreciate them, and it builds excitement.
Queenie is simple but delightful with slipped stitches and garter ridges. It’s not quite a beret, not just a beanie. A really cool hat. Check out that link for a better view of the shape from the side. And a super-dee-dooper cute model.
The hats in this book are wonderful, and the size range means these aren’t just for kids. Queenie is certainly one I can see a lot of women wearing well. I knit the smallest size, which means I can’t wear it and my photos lack that certain something that a human model gives a photo. But a baby will be found, I’ve no doubt.
I over-dyed some Knit Picks Swish DK so that the garter and the slipped stitches could really play around. The colour was tricky to capture, but I wanted to show you the clever crown shaping.
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“Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.”
Heinrich Heine
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Who is your favourite biographer?
