Category: Uncategorized

It’s a happy day here in Birmingham. Hope everyone else is having a good day too!

Sometimes, I think I knit in a big black hole.  I'm knitting forever and ever and not making any progress.  It's like knitting in a dream where no matter how much you knit, whatever you are knitting refuses to grow.

Usually that happens with something big — a dress or the back or a sweater.  Or maybe a huge tote you are knitting to felt.  But for the last 10 days, it has been happening to me with a sleeve – not even a full length sleeve mind you — one that just goes done past the elbow.

The sad thing is that this is sleeve one for my beloved Manos Silk Shrug, which I am really looking forward to finishing and wearing soon.  Sleeve one!  That means there is a whole 'nother freaking sleeve to go after this.  I knit in the carpool line, at morning coffee, during ballet rehearsals.  I knit, knit, knit.  K3 M1 Knit until 3 stitches remain M1 K3.  Knit 5 more rows.  Then increase again.  It goes on forever.

In hopes the black hole would dissolve if I put it aside for awhile, I spent most of yesterday afternoon and this morning stash tossing.  I had to do this, because I spent most of Friday afternoon home sick and therefore reduced to sitting in bed looking through knitting books and magazines.  I ended up with a list of projects I HAVE to make.  Hence the stash toss, in the vain hope that there will be yarn for all of those projects in the stash.

Needless to say, there was not.  But, the project at the top of my list is Belinda, the new shawl in the new Mason Dixon Knitting book.  This is the picture in the book, which I found to be irresistable.

It's two layers of Mohair, and vaguely reminds me of a cardigan I bought at Anthropologie the year it opened.  My version is going to be blue and brown.  The brown is some of the incredibly wonderful whisper soft peruvian alpaca my cousin Ann sent me.  It has been sitting on top of my yarn basket, waiting for the perfect pattern.  I knew I wanted to knit with it right away the minute I saw it.  The Blue is a Rowan Kidsilk Haze, the yarn the pattern is written for.

They look fabulous together and I can't wait to cast on.  I'm hoping for a positive synergy between the lacy, airy shawl and the big black hole of tiny silk sleeves.

Oh my but it has been busy around here!  Five days a week of Nutcracker Ballet rehearsals are kicking my bu**.  So far, homework is getting done — more or less — but getting into the routine of grabbing take-out for dinner as I leave work and meeting Ellie at the studio so she can scarf down dinner between classes and rehearsal has been tough!

Knitting time is good — I should have more progress pictures of the Manos Silk Shrug over the weekend.  I'm also taking conveniently scheduled Pilates and Ballet (for the first time in a decade – ouch) classes, which, while cutting into said knitting time feel healthy and strong and wonderful.

Pssst…..Wanna see some sock porn?

Remember a couple of weeks ago at my Thursday yarn stocking, I also offered a couple of slots for sock yarn purchasers to have their socks custom knit by Renate of Nana's Woolies?  Renate just sent me this photo of the first pair she knit up — this is the Swedish Fish colorway on a Bamboo/Merino blend.  Renate is fast!

I've finally managed to get caught up on some dyeing and have stocked lots of new sock yarn at Elliebelly, including some seawool (seacell meets merino) in the Tree Frog colorway, which is available in stock for the first time — no stalking necessary!  Organic Merino and the pretty twisted-ply Merlin Merino will be stocked Thursday at noon, just in case you don't already have enough yarn sitting in your house and need more.  (Just face it, you need more). 

Is anyone else old enough to have seen A Chorus Line on Broadway?  Do you remember that line?  "Everything was beautiful at the Ballet."

It was true at our house today.  This is Ellie, opening the card that let her know the results of the Alabama Ballet's Nutcracker auditions.  Ellie is dancing the role of Marie — Balanchine's Clara.  Alabama Ballet is one of six companies in the country authorized to perform his choreography.  It is a beautiful ballet.

Congratulations Sweetheart!

And just think of the rehearsal knitting time.  Oh my.  The knitting time.

Sometimes I wonder how it can be that everything goes on like normal on September 11, but then I realize that is the point.  The point is to honor the lives of normal people, going about their business when an unspeakable tragedy struck them and their loved ones by doing the simple things, the normal things.  Kissing your children good by.  Holding them close.

In that spirit, I'm up early making breakfast.  It's nothing special — fruit shakes and cereal.  But it is done with love and intention.  I'm going to work hard at work today.  I'm going to knit.  I'm going to laugh with my husband.  I'm going to honor them.

I remember leaving work and meeting my husband to walk to the children's school at 3:00 so we could pick them up and talk with them, even though we knew the school had already begun to tell them.  It's the only time I can remember both of us walking over together to pick them up.  And I spent countless moments trying to give our daughter, who had just had her third birthday, some sense of why everyone was so upset, why there were phone calls to make sure cousins in New York were all safe.

Ellie and I used to watch a video over and over, we did it for a long time afterwards, and she would talk about "her people" and "her buildings."  She has a clear vision of that day, unlike her brother, who wasn't born until the following year.

I haven't watched that video in a long time, but I hunted it down to share with you all today.  It's worth taking some time to do simple things to honor them.

Tribute

My yarn is going some place I've never gone: SAFF.  That's the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair.  It takes place just outside of Asheville, North Carolina every fall.  I've always wanted to go, but the timing is bad with children in school and all.

This year, though, some of my yarn is going!  Some of my sock yarn is going with the very lovely Brittany from Knitwitch.

If you get up there (October 24 to 26), make sure you stop by the booth and say hi to my yarn.  I hope it won't be lonely without me!

Knitwitch makes some fabulous yarn bowls too — pretty little hand thrown pottery bowls that keep your yarn from tangling while you're knitting.

I bet it's going to be a lot of fun!  I wish I could go along with my yarn!

As many of you guessed in the last post comments, we've been off on vacation.  (More on the winner when we get settled back in — I liked the comments so much I thought I would send something to the most accurate poster  and the most fun one as well).

I thought that despite the absence of internet coverage in our cottage, I could post using my Iphone — it seems to access the net no matter where I am.  And, I thought I was posting while we were gone.  Apparently though, the posts hung up somewhere in never never land.  I'll have to try to recapture them and show you vacation knitting later this week.

In the meantime, here is a bit of what we did — probably my favorite part of our trip.

This is what a giraffe looks like, coming in through the sunroof on a minivan.

Here is the Judge, having a close encounter with a steer.

And, rare vacation pictures of me, here feeding a llama (and wondering if he would let me stroke his coat — he didn't).  Below, I'm feeding a buffalo.  Can you believe that tongue?  And wow, can they drool!

The kids absolutely adore this last-day-of-vacation ritual.  They love feeding the deer, seeing the tiny baby warthogs, and they particularly enjoy their dad clowning around.

Thanks for indulging me with this splurge of family photos.  Back to knitting (I made progress on Juliet and the Debbie Bliss Shrug, and cast on another baby sweater) and art later this week.