Bags, Shawls, Freeform Musings

Fiber and Artish Notes

I’ve been busy winding some Blossom yarn into balls so I can make the Kemp bag from Jane Ellison’s Simply Noro pattern book. Here's a nice one to look at from the knittivist glittyknittykitty's blog.

I’ve finished the knitting of another Lotorp bag from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton’s Noro Revisited pattern book. Here are the ones I did last fall:

Lotorp bag in Cherry Tree Hill potluck worsted

Lotorp bag in Noro Kureyon

On both of those bags, I added a needlefelted embellishment because I just didn't like the way it looked sort of unfinished where the pieces come together in the center.

I've changed the pattern just a bit and made my new one extra-large in Cherry Tree Hill potluck worsted (maybe bulky, I’m not sure) because I thought I’d like to felt it. Here it is knitted, but not yet sewn up:


I’ve also finished Shawl #5 in this pattern:
this one in SWTC Oasis soy silk along with Rowan Kidsilk Haze in the deep purple called Dewberry. I loved knitting it and it’s a joy to wear.

And I’ve started #6:
in my favorite Kujaku color (#22) with Rowan Kidsilk Haze in a deep rose called Blushes ( I think.)

How many of these shawls am I going to make? Who knows? I may always have one of them on the needles. Certainly at some point I will have enough of them for myself and begin to give them away!

Am once again poring over modular knitting books - Ginger Luters, Horst Schulz - and the freeform crochet/knitting work of Prudence Mapstone and Jenny Dowde, among others. I have been doing a lot of freeform in my hats, but I’d definitely like to do other projects - shawls, of course, and vests - utilizing these techniques. It’s certainly not as easy as following a pattern, even one I make up, but it’s what I really feel drawn to do.

I’ve been shying away from it....for a lot of reasons. Paradoxically, I’m drawn to this way of working with fiber because it is so open and free and allows for spontaneity and creativity - yet I’m wary of it because I have a terrible time making decisions, so many choices can imprison me, freeze me in a state of inertia. And I don’t care to count how many freeform projects languish unfinished...

I’m thinking it’s a good time for me to tackle freeform and modular work again. To be brave and bold and remember ‘it’s only yarn’ and just....just DO IT.

Grief and Grace Notes

The weekends seem to be the hardest. It was Friday 11 weeks ago that we last saw Patrick alive and Saturday when he died and the wee hours of Sunday morning when the police came knocking with their terrible burden of news and Sunday morning when we went to see our son for the last time. And it was a Saturday when Patrick’s friend came rushing to tell us he was having a seizure last year. And it was a weekend when Patrick had his accident in ‘04 and again the wee hours of Sunday morning when a policeman came to tell us he was critically injured. And when Paul’s twin was killed, again it was in the wee hours of Sunday we got the awful phone call.

So the weekends are very difficult. Every car sound I hear outside at night sends my heart racing and my stomach flipping around. Every phone call or knock at the door, too. I remember reading that Dorothy Parker used to say “What fresh hell is this?” when the phone rang (and that actually became the title of a biography of Parker) and that she meant it, too. Well, I can relate....

The journey through this grief is a healing journey like none I’ve experienced. There are some incredibly peaceful days, days when I feel absolutely connected to Patrick-in-spirit and feel I can live on, even find joy in living again.
Days when the hollow space around my heart feels full.
And that feeling can evaporate in one instant and crushing sorrow returns. And once again my heart is surrounded by an emptiness that threatens to be there forever...

Well, that's it from the Heartland today.
Love to all,
'Zann