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Kisses

My to-do list is filled with mundane things today. Vacuum, change the sheets, get milk, work on the pattern write-ups. Take a walk, make some calls, send those emails.

I'll do all those things, but I have to knit, too. I need to spend some time with garter stitch and silly little edge picots.

You see, I've been standing by as my best friend Judy navigates the process of placing her dear mother in a nursing facility. I'm reminded of my own family's journey through the same maze, led by my siblings and especially my sister Ellen. I'm full of love and admiration for Judy, and I know her mom loves her more than anything in the whole wide world.

I miss my dear Gig, and I wish peace and comfort for Judy's sweet Louise. Kisses to both of them, and to Judy, too.

(And honey, I'm sorry if this makes you cry. You probably need a good one anyway.)

Fresh

I've been making sure I have flowers on my desk. Just a few tulips, usually. I buy them with the groceries, and pretend they are food, which I guess they are — food for my eyes and spirit. I smile whenever I look at them. Tulips don't have much of a scent, but there's a cool freshness that surrounds them like an aura.

Flowers on my desk are such a small way to lift my spirits. Are there little things you do for your Self, too?

Almost

Soon, the buds are telling me, soon. This morning I noticed that the maple branches are beginning to turn red at the tips, and I had to wait for a flock of turkeys to cross Noyac Road. Before long, yellow daffodils will burst open, brown will be replaced by green, and the turkeys will be leading their poults.

Soon.

I hope you have a lovely weekend — eat lots of chocolate, and hug your families!

Overtaken

You know how it is — you're surfing Ravelry, maybe cleaning things up a bit. You come across a pattern you added to your queue a couple of years ago. You click on it, then go take a look at what else the designer has listed. Just casually, you know. Then there it is: the next thing you want to knit.

The pattern is Zephyr Cove by Romi Hill, part of the "Home is Where the Heart Is" collection of small shawls. I wanted to use the same colors she used in the sample — green and blue — so I went into my stash and came up with several possibilities. None of the combinations seemed to be what I wanted, until this: one of my favorite yarns, Brooklyn Tweed LOFT. The green is "Artifact" and the blue is "Old World."

I've been overtaken by a new project, one with a delightful little leaf at the beginning. I think I know how this day is going to go.

In order

I collect bits of knitting things in these books. They are where I write down project notes and design ideas. The pale purple one is where I wrote down all my ideas and little dots and dashes for the Falling Waters shawl. The dark blue one contains notes for my Hickory socks. The big one is where I'm writing my ideas for some new designs. And the little book on the top of the pile has been with me for years and years, ever since I needed a place to write down the formulas for the weaving I used to do.

No matter how often I turn to the Internet for information, or look something up in The Principles of Knitting, I usually end up looking in these books, too. I'm sure I wrote that down, or didn't I use this stitch once before, or for the life of me I can't remember how to Kitchener. It's all scribbled somewhere, in organized disarray — my knitting brain!

Where do you park your knitting brain?

At hand

Knitters have all kinds of tricks. We have ways we like to do things, little rituals that make the time we spend knitting work for us. We have tools that suit us, and we become so used to them that we think we can't knit without them.

One of the things I can't do without is my little toolkit-on-a-keychain. It's not fancy, but it's portable. Over the years I've fine-tuned it until it holds just about everything I need while I'm knitting (except scissors and a tapestry needle). There's a a tape measure, a needle sizer, miscellaneous stitch markers, a rescue crochet hook, a rubber thing to tighten interchangeable needles, and just in case, a little tag with my parents' 1961 Virginia license plate number on it. I never know when I might need the number of that big blue Ford station wagon.

Do you have a little knitting tool kit?

Whatever it wants

There are tiny sprouts of mint leaves in the garden, and I saw an osprey on its nest. Spring must be here somewhere. But today's sky at Long Beach was heavy and dull, as if it is still winter. Even the wind gave up — on my way past the first time, the water was choppy, with little whitecaps hurrying across the surface. Fifteen minutes later, I stopped to see this: calm water, so calm that I could see the bottom yards and yards out.

Back home in the warm house, it's been a good day for quiet. Rosemary is sleeping, and I'm finishing some knitting. There's tea, and Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell are here to sing to me. It can snow if it wants, or rain, or whatever. This is the place to be!

Permission

I could feel it building, deep inside, and in my shoulders. It began to keep me from taking deep breaths. I know myself well, and I saw where I was going.

"I'm on the verge of being too hard on myself," I told a friend. The response: "Give yourself permission to dream. You're right where you're supposed to be."

That's the best advice I could ever ask for.

So today, among the housekeeping and knitting and coming and going, there will be dreaming. I have permission.

Perfectly lovely

It's only taken me a year to finish this Hitchhiker scarf. Simple as it is, it took so long because it kept being pushed aside for other, more "urgent" projects. It's on its way to my sister Sarah (the quilter), and I hope she'll put it aside for next winter, since it wasn't finished in time for this one.

What keeps me from finishing perfectly lovely projects? Distraction, or too many ideas, or deadlines? Sometimes.

It doesn't really matter. Making stitches with beautiful yarn matters. Wrapping my sister in a scarf matters. Discovering the next thing I want to knit matters.

What keeps you from finishing your perfectly lovely projects? What a silly question.

Hitchhiker Scarf, madelinetosh tosh merino light 

Balancing

I am very sure that this moment is about balance. I haven't lost it, not at all. I am in balance, like this day—the first day of Spring.

Because it is a beautiful day (cold and windy, but bright) I'll be able to photograph a project I've designed and plan to publish on Ravelry. And I'll be able to go to Long Beach and take a walk by the water. And then, I'll be able to come home and work on my resumé (and a couple of Great White Bale spreadsheets) in the afternoon sun. All this, because my life really is as it is meant to be.

Being at home

I've been spending almost all of my time at home, for weeks now. First, there was the move that the bookstore was making, and there wasn't going to be a place for me to work until things were settled in the new space, so I brought my office home. That fit the timing for the surgery I was going to have, which meant that I'd need to be home to recuperate.

The surgery (repair to scar tissue left from previous surgeries) went well, but the work did not. I was working on our website as usual, but while I was, the bookstore was making some hard decisions. The website was eliminated, and so was my job.

Losing my job is a subject for another time. What I'm thinking about today is how much I love my home, my tiny space, my little calm place. It was remade by my sister Sarah when she came to be with me for the surgery, and on the final day, just a few hours before she had to leave, we took pictures of the amazing transformation. My mother's dresser, her little overnight case on top; my knitting spot on the couch, the new television. There's much more that you can't see in one photograph.

And there in the middle: the beautiful, beautiful quilt Sarah made for me, which she put the finishing touches on while I was sleeping.

There's no place like home, is there?

Rethinking

Sometimes a knitter has to face facts. Not every project—no matter how well-advised, well-planned, or well-executed—is meant to be. My two skeins of Solitude Wool Border Leicester were well on their way to becoming Weld, but I made so many mistakes along the way (my own fault, not the pattern's) that I quit while I was behind and cast on Dovetail instead.

I love it. It's big and warm and beautiful. It was a joy to knit, and it was just the sort of knitting I've needed. I'm happy that I changed my mind, and I'll knit Weld again, but this Dovetail was meant to be.

What do you do when your knitting is going wrong?

Start fresh

A new notebook, a trusty pen. On with the day. This one is spiral, small, simple. It can be tossed into my bag, or lie open on my desk.

It's not my journal; its purpose is utilitarian. It's where I will park my thoughts and needs and bits of knitting brainstorms, just for the time being. I'm a serious iCal user, and I love my any.DO app, too. But there's always something that needs jotting, isn't there?

Do you have a notebook?

Tiny anchors

There are rituals in knitting. At least there are rituals for me. Small ones — a bit of magic, a little thought, some small comfort. It's the same and different for all of us.

One of mine is the stitch marker. Which tiny anchor will I choose as I begin to knit? If it will serve to signal the beginning of a round, then it must be the right one, the perfect thing to catch my eye as I come to it, then slip it from left needle to right as I move around the circle. It is where I begin and end a piece of the pattern, where I stop to check the instructions or the chart. It is where I hurry to if I'm excited, or what I look longingly at if I'm slogging across hundreds of stitches.

If I need markers to help me count or space the pattern, then I have dozens to choose from. But that first one, the one for the beginning, must be chosen with care. It might have sentiment attached, or it might be practical. It might just "go" with the yarn. But I always choose it carefully, because even small rituals matter. Even tiny anchors have a place.

Do you have a favorite stitch marker, or a small knitting ritual?

Passing time

Rosemary says "It's time to get up."

Oh, this Rosemary is quite a cat. She has me, hook, line, and sinker.

I seem to have been missing again—I'm sorry. The past few months have been so busy, so full of work and knitting and new adventures and yes, a few challenges.

In knitting, there was Rhinebeck—a weekend of new traditions for Rebecca and me, since Rachel and Judy couldn't be there. We had some fun anyway.

Coffee at Gigi's

The beautiful gardens at Bard College

There was the Knitter's Review Retreat, my annual dose of knitter love. It has to last the year.

Inn on the Lake, Canandaigua, NY

And then... there came The Great White Bale. I'll have to write later about the loveliness that is my job as Clara Parkes' Director of Customer Happiness, but let's just say I'm having the time of my life.

And those challenges—well, they're the kind you just rise to meet. My visits to Dr. Pearl continue to be happy ones, although I'm in need of surgery to deal with some scar tissue, and it's scheduled for mid-February. I'll keep you posted.

Being a Jane

Rachel and her Jane (2010)

I had an encounter yesterday that didn’t evaporate during the night, and that is still sitting in my gut. A woman I know fairly well—my age, with grown children, who thinks of herself as a feminist, a forward-thinking and compassionate woman, and a nurturer—made some remarks that astonished me, and left me reeling a bit. I have a few things to say about it.

First, some background: I’m not a mother. I didn’t give birth to or adopt children. Rosemary, as dear as she is to me, is a cat and not a substitute child. 

However, I am a kind of parent. I am a Jane. There are children in my life, all grown now, who have counted on me, come to me, needed me in mundane and extraordinary circumstances. I changed diapers, read bedtime stories, had adventures, dried tears, watched “Milo and Otis” too many times, rocked babies, cooked meals, righted wrongs, gave advice, helped with homework, enforced rules, endured more school plays than any parent I know, gave first aid, made mistakes, played Go Fish, and cheered from the bleachers at little league games. I didn’t want to be a mother to all those children, because what I was and am is as satisfying and just as necessary. I am Jane, their Jane, the one and only.

Those children—the ones going off to college or raising children of their own or venturing out into the great big world—know the difference between their parents and their Jane. The parents—their actual mothers and fathers—have for the most part fostered my relationships with their children. There are benefits to them, too. And being a Jane, like being a mother, is a real job.

So back to the conversation: I was explaining to the woman I know fairly well that I'm going to spend part of Labor Day weekend taking Rachel to college in Maine. I’m one of her parents, I said, and I have the same responsibility to her as you do to your children. Her voice grew so chilly that I’m surprised the phone receiver didn’t ice over. It’s not at all the same as it is for me and my children. Not at all. It’s not as important. 

Where did that come from? I know that she is proud of the children that she and her husband raised, and that she loves them deeply, and that they have grown up well because of that. Somehow I threatened her, and so she tried to obliterate the truth of what I was saying. I began to get angry, really angry. But in a split second I decided to hold tight to what I know—that there is more than one kind of parent—so I waited. She flailed. I don’t know the history of your relationship with Judy’s children, she said.

No, Woman I Know Fairly Well, you don’t, and it’s too bad.

Obviously, her children never had a Jane of their own, poor things. There must have been no room for one, no room for someone else to love them, befriend them, or take care of them. They missed out on the fortune of having an extra parent, the awesomeness of having a Jane.

What does this have to do with knitting? I don't know, but I'm going to knit while I ponder.

Two leaves

Brooklyn Tweed's Wool Leaves Pattern, with leaf appliqués added.

Queensland Collection Kathmandu Chunky Yarn

Rachel and Rebecca

My summer knitting can be revealed: two blankets for the Remarkable R's. I began knitting in early July, and I stitched the leaf on to the second blanket on August 1st. I love this pattern, and I'd like to make it again sometime. It was so comfortable to knit — repetitive enough to be easy but complicated enough to keep me interested.

As I went along, I though about how much the girls love each other, and how they'll miss their sis when they're at college. That's when I decided to make a little leaf for each one's blanket, using the yarn from her sister's. I was very proud to see the grey one folded at the end of Becca's dormitory bed as she unpacked on Saturday!

My second summer project has been a new blog, The 40-Year Round Trip. The R's mother Judy and I met on our first day of college, and here we are forty years later, taking her girls to college — so we decided to write about it. Judy wrote an especially lovely post on Sunday morning, after we'd delivered Becca to her dorm at Bard College. 

We'll be driving to Maine at the end of the month to take Rachel to school. By then I'll have something new on the needles — something for the fall, perhaps, or something to pass the time on the long drive, or maybe something to commemorate all these milestones.

Representing

I can't show you all the knitting and the washing and the blocking that went on here yesterday, so I'll give you this: Clara's biscuit recipe (modified a little) with fresh peaches and sweetened yogurt (because I was too lazy to go out for cream, and besides, it's a little healthier).

The big knitting projects will be revealed before long.

Consumed

Yarn from Appalachian Baby Design

I've been a bit random in my knitting lately. I'm spending most of my time on a couple of secret gifts at the moment, but when I want to take a break from the luxurious Queensland Collection Kathmandu (merino, silk, and cashmere!) I have this wonderful yarn discovery to occupy my hands. It's sport weight organic cotton, loosely plied, and it's making the best washcloths ever.

I came across it near the end of a road trip I took a few weeks ago. I had some time off from work so I went down to the Eastern shore of Maryland to visit my friends Kris and Roy. Kris and I knit our fingers to the bone while the three of us had a wonderful visit. On my first day there we drove to Philadelphia, where I got to go to the incredible wish-it-was-my-LYS, Loop. It was everything I'd dreamed it would be: well-curated, full of natural light, and staffed by people who know their yarn.

Then we went to the Italian Market, where we purchased and consumed lots of things like this:

Cheese!

And this:

Cappuccino!

Back at home, there was lots of this:

Espresso!

And this:

Brunch!

And some of this:

Libby!

Kris and I even managed to start a summer knit along project. We're making Color Affection scarves with my yarn crush, Brooklyn Tweed Loft. Purchased at Loop, of course. He's probably finished his by now, while mine is waiting while I finish those secret gifts.

On the day before I went home, Kris and I went to Chesapeake City, Maryland to visit Vulcan's Rest Fibers, where I found the beautiful yarn at the top of this post. It's a little town on the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, and the yarn shop is lovely, with a good selection and great staff.

Today is one of those Sundays. It's hot, I have things to do at home (not just knitting!) and I'm happy to be here. So, here we are. 

"Why are you taking pictures of a washcloth?"