Life and knitting

For no particular reason, my life recently feels a bit muddled. I've been rather disorganised - losing things (thank you to all those who expressed sympathy for the loss of the frilled cardi), forgetting things, and generally feeling indecisive and a bit at a loss.

As with life, so with knitting. Bits and pieces. Minor chaos.

I started work on Evelyn Clark's pattern 'Wildflower'. Essentially, this is the generic stretched garter stitch triangle that characterises the 'Baktus' design, but with an edge of daisy-shaped lace.



I like the surprise and unexpectedness of the geometry of the garter-stitch combined with the floral lace edge. It also seemed especially suited to the spring-green of the Socks That Rock yarn that was a birthday gift from jpofoz. I love knitting this (being such an admirer of garter-stitch), but I've let myself become distracted.

With the loss of the frilled cardi, I decided the dotee just had to have a summer cardigan. I've just sent off to her the cute pink version of 'Fiona's Top', but that's not a cardi. So I bought some of my very favourite cotton yarn - Lana Gatto's Jaipur in bright lipstick pink, and set about the search for a suitable pattern.



I think I've found the pattern - Cecily Glowik MacDonald's 'Provence Baby Cardigan'(ravlink). I'll have to adjust it a bit for a two-and-a-half year old, but I think that's within my capabilities. I notice Bells has queued this pattern in Ravelry - the knitting pattern zeitgeist at work again - but I can't imagine she'd mind if I also knit it.

Have I cast on for 'Provence'? No. That would be too organised. That's still to be done. In the search for a pattern for the Jaipur I was distracted by 'Chloe' by Alana Dakos. It's Lee's fault (ravlink). Lee favorited this pattern on Ravelry and I loved it. I had to cast on immediately and the only Aran weight cotton or summery yarn I had was some light navy and white Jo Sharp Aran Cotton (that's actually a cotton/microfibre mix).



Because of the frill on the bottom, 'Chloe' is really suited to light summery colours, but I seem to have embarked on a sporty Breton-influenced colour combination with an unexpected frill. We'll see how it goes. By the way, after knitting a succession of projects in finer yarn on smaller needles, the Aran weight yarn with 5mm needles seems clumsy and uncomfortable, though the rate of progress is some consolation.

And then there's the socks. I think they're the real reason I can't take a sensible approach to my knitting. I just can't seem to finish them, and I don't know why they are taking so long. I love the yarn, love the colour and love the pattern (ravlink)



They're part of my 2009 Personal Sock Club and were due to be finished on 27 July! I'm now more than a sock 'shipment' behind. I'm halfway along the foot of the second sock, so a good burst of knitting would see them finished. Then I know I'd feel better. Will I then cast on for the next Sock Club sock? (I'll have to watch these rhetorical questions - I'm beginning to sound a bit Kevin Rudd-ish). I don't know (see what I mean about being indecisive?) I can't even decide if it's these particular socks that are making me feel so grumpy, or knitting socks in general.

I know from past experience that this phase of disjointedness will pass. I'll either re-organise myself, or decide some things don't matter and just organise the remainder. And I'll finish some knitting projects, or put them aside for later. Or abandon them. Things will eventually fall back into place.

New for old(ish)

I've finished a new top for the dotee.



It's the nth degree of cuteness - some lace, some gathers, and a rather old-fashioned candy pink. It has stripes of colour on the yoke and at the hem to slightly offset the sweetness of the top.

The pattern is 'Fiona's Top' by Sanne Bjerregaard and the yarn is Morris and Sons' Empire 4 ply trimmed with Knitabulous's sock yarn.

I'm hoping it will go some way towards replacing the frilled cardi (ravlink) that I'd knitted for the dotee, but that I lost in Brisbane when visiting her the weekend before last! I managed to leave the cardigan in a taxi, and despite several phone calls to try to trace it, was unsuccessful in finding it.

So, Ana Maria's new top is off to Brisbane. I've also bought some bright lipstick pink Jaipur cotton to make a summer cardigan for her, so I'm seeking suggestions for suitable patterns for a cardi for a two to three year old.

Nostalgic tastes

Today I made cupcakes to take for morning tea at the Inner-City branch meeting of the NSW Knitters' Guild.



I made chocolate, lemon poppy seed and plain cupcakes with caramel icing.

I don't bake very often, but when I do I almost always use my mother's or grand-mother's recipes. They have few ingredients, very sketchy instructions, and are absolutely unsuited to anyone watching their waistline or cholesterol levels. The cupcakes gave me an excuse to resurrect my mother's caramel icing recipe I'd not made for years. It's sweet, rich, fudge-like and very simple.

My mother's caramel icing
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup milk
Put all ingredients in a saucepan and gently bring the mixture to the boil, stirring occasionally. Simmer for around 10 minutes, stirring from time to time. Remove the saucepan from the stove and place it in a sink or bowl of cold water to cool it quickly, meanwhile beating it till it thickens. I found a hand-held electric beater is ideal, as it takes longer for it to thicken than you think it should.

Yum

There and here

I've been to Brisbane for a long weekend to visit my grand-daughter and her parents. Ana Maria (the dotee) is almost two-and-a-half and at this age children are learning so much - every day brings new developments and achievements. It's breathtaking.






(For those of you in the know - presumably parents and grand-parents - these photos were an impromptu performance of Justine Clark's song 'Dancing Face'. Such fun.)

We had a busy time, with lunches and dinners out, a particularly pleasant visit to the University of Queensland with its beautiful gardens and lakes and ducks and geese and sleepy lizards, and some shopping.

Some yarn shopping at 'Tangled Yarns' in Newstead.

This is such a beautiful shop. It's probably good that I was accompanied by a small child and that we were hungry. Otherwise I might have spent much longer and much more money during my visit. The yarns are a highly desirable selection, temptingly arranged by brand and colour. There's a small but exquisite range of buttons. There is space to move, and space to linger with chairs at a table and squishy sofas around a coffee table piled with knitting books and magazines.

I was restrained and bought only two yarns that are destined for specific projects.



Some Malabrigo sock yarn in Botticelli Red for a Damson shawl (I'd intended to buy a dark colour but this red is saturated and rich and was impossible to resist) and some Cascade 220 in a soft jade-turquoise colour to make a Sage Remedy jumper for my daughter. The yarn's a perfect choice for this pattern and I was pleased she was with me to choose the colour.

Family, good food, knitting, yarn shopping. What more could I ask for?

Sixty-five

Today I had my sixty-fifth birthday.

I've had a good birthday with phone calls, text messages, cards and gifts from family and friends today, and an afternoon tea with knitting friends and knitting yesterday.

I was overwhelmed - there were flowers, beautiful cards, enviable yarn, a project bag, and Veuve Clicquot



...and there were gift shawls



If you thought you recognised the shawl de jour - the Aestlight - you're correct. Beautifully soft in a subtle oyster grey yarn dyed by Knitabulous. The other rich graphite coloured small shawl is a mystery for now - a new design of which I am now wearing the prototype! I wore it to work today and loved it.

My knitting friends know my tastes well - and they are generous.

I hate coyness about age. Aging is natural - something we all come to experience, if we're fortunate. Even so I found it hard to write that I'm sixty-five. This is definitely 'old' territory. Getting older is strange. It's not like there's a specific point at which you stop being 'younger' and become 'older'. You gradually become the person you are, and I imagine (and hope) the process of growing and developing continues indefinitely. But others often treat you differently as you age, and it's hard not to be affected by that.

I've been fortunate so far - enjoying family and friends, having good health, and being able to afford to do many of the things I wish to do - at least the more sensible ones! So, today, I'm wishing myself continuing good fortune beyond sixty-five.

Blogging and social change

A couple of years ago, when I would have thought it impossible that I would ever have a blog, my daughter recommended that I read Sweet Juniper. It was love at first read. Sweet Juniper started as a parenting blog written by a father, but over time has become a more general reflection of Dutch's passions ('Dutch' is the blogger's nom de keyboard).

He lives with his family in Detroit, Michigan in the USA. He has chosen to live in this city - more generally a site of avoidance. The part of his blog I really like, apart from his photographs which are beyond wonderful, is his commentary on living in a once-grand industrial city that has become a reject of the post-industrial world.

But to get to the point of this entry. The Sweet Juniper blog and Dutch's photographs are now quite famous and from time to time he's asked to speak to groups about his work. I was catching up with his blog and read a post from April this year when he was asked to be part of a panel in Ann Arbor (I'll tell you my Ann Arbor/Detroit story another time) talking with a non-profit organisation that was considering integrating blogging into their outreach and fund-raising efforts. This is how he tells the story (forgive the long quote):

During my presentation, I showed them the photo of the tree growing from the books to explain how social bookmarking sites like digg and reddit can help reach beyond a particular audience or region to attract potential readers from all over the world. During the questions afterward, a member of a group of Detroit community activists stood up and angrily accused me of distorting the image of the city to the world, portraying only its ugliness, and she told me I should be ashamed. She had never read this website; she had only seen a few photos during the presentation.

After the room cleared, I tried to initiate a dialogue with these activists. The argument they posed was that there are many people working very hard to do positive things in Detroit and they have been doing so for many years before I arrived (I was called a carpetbagger, and replied that Detroit needs more carpetbaggers: about a million of them). To those working hard for positive change, any media attention perceived as negative (be it about crime or failing city schools or neighborhoods turning to prairie), is somehow a rebuke of their good deeds. These people attacking me were good people. But they were, in a sense, no different from the right-wing ideologues shouting endlessly during the worst days of the Iraq War that "the media never reports the good news in Iraq." I suppose I sympathize with any journalist unable to see past the dismembered corpses of suicide bombers and their victims to write only positive news.

I told these angry activists that I am not a reporter. I am just one man telling his story. If you don't like the story I'm telling, start your own blog and tell yours. That's how this works.

This post echoes, much more eloquently than I could manage, several conversations and discussions I've had recently - at work, with my friends, and within knitting circles. The way we spread information about our lives and our world is changing. We can't control the spread of information - even if we wanted to do so. We also can't control how people read and interpret the information we make available. What we can do is contribute a point of view and make sure that it is as interesting and engaging as possible. As Dutch says - that's how it works.

Hats and more hats

I've knitted some hats for the WinterWarm project that sends woollen clothes to children in Afghanistan.



The pattern is 'Kim's Hats' by Kim Hamlin from Joelle Hoverson's 'Last Minute Knitted Gifts'. I've found this book a most useful source of ideas and patterns for quick, simple, but stylish projects - though not nearly as quick as the hypothesised times for the projects! I've knitted these in some yarn that's aptly named Mondial Bizarre that I bought in a sale (only the colour and colour sequences are bizarre, the quality of the yarn is lovely) and some remnants of Happy Spider 12 ply. I hadn't made pom-poms since I was in school decades and decades ago and their quality leaves much to be desired.

I also made some garter stitch border hats following Mustaa Villaa's recipe that I've blogged about before. I ended up with 5 of these which I really enjoyed making. I find repetition strangely pleasurable.



Yesterday I took them with me to the Stitches and Craft Show to join the other knitted garments being so admirably collected by Sally. She has an account of just how much was contributed this year.

I always feel a bit uncomfortable about charity knitting - I sometimes think the recipients might prefer a polar fleece hat with a 'name' label. But in this case I do know that warm clothes are needed for the bitter winter in Afghanistan, I do know that WinterWarm will ensure the garments go where they are needed, and I've set myself a rule that I will only knit things I'd be happy to wear myself or give as gifts to friends and family. I sometimes overthink such matters!