A package arrived at my doorstep yesterday morning, and inside it was this:
A jar of honey from the bees that work the garden of my sweet friends Margene and Smith, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
A more meaningful and thoughtful gift I cannot imagine. I can't wait to have some in my pre-run breakfast drink this morning -- sweet and natural fuel for my run from across the miles.
Thank you, my dear Margene and Smith!
Holy handspun, Batman! Look what arrived in my mailbox on Friday, just in time for sub-sub-zero weather this weekend. (Yesterday morning when I woke up, the Weatherbug app on my Blackberry told me it was -0F and it was flashing. NEGATIVE ZERO. That has to be bad, I'm thinking.)
Please to excuse the unattractive background in these photos. I was going for the light, and do you know how hard it is to photograph your own feet in socks? It involves a bit of yoga maneuvering, bending at the waist, maintaining your balance while shooting your own feet backwards, and then turning the photos over in the software once they are loaded. It ain't easy. But please also notice that I shaved my legs and put on lotion for the occasion ... and there is a teeny bit of Jamaican tan left on my legs. I think that makes up for all the bad background of worn door threshold, don't you?
And I had me a little bit o' help too, dontcha know. Someone was trying to steal the show. And I think we know who that someone is.
"Oh! Camera pointing in this direction! Must be I'm spoze-a sit HERE! Yeah, that's it!"
These gorgeous thick and cushy socks are a gift from Cookie. She knit them from the three-ply sock yarn that she spun from fiber from Joan's sweet new fiber business, Cupcake Fiber Company. (Get a load of the clever packaging!)
And they are some of the most splendid, thick, delicious, best-fitting hand-knit socks I have ever had.
The uber-talented and generous Cookie did her usual toe-up sock, with the ribbing from the Harris Tweed Sock pattern, and she managed to fit my foot exactly.
The fiber was custom-dyed by Joan with me in mind, and Cookie told me on the phone that I am free to name it whatever I want. And of course, given my focus lately, I'm naming it Raspberry Smoothie.
Below is a fun photo that I did for Cookie. Me wearing the newest socks she knitted for me, with a different pair she made for me at some time in the past, just ever so casually placed on the doormat.
After a while, the socks got sick of these shenanigans and decided to go outside and start to make snow angels. I did not join them -- Too blinkin' cold. So they were totally on their own for that one.
Well, ya know, it's one thing for someone to knit you socks. It's quite another for them to knit you several pairs of socks, not to mention lace shawls and more lace shawls. It's even MORE for them to spin the yarn by hand and THEN knit you socks.
That Cookie. She is some kind of amazing.
And so is Joan. I wish you the best of luck in your new venture, Joan!
For those who are interested in more colors and more inventory, please check back to Joan's Etsy store later today (Sunday). We are expecting an update to the shop with more beautiful cupcake packages of sock fiber. And here is a link to her website if you want more info.
Thank you, Joan and Cookie, for the joint venture that created my new warm feet!
Even after 27 years (today), we're still a good team. The romantic dinner for two will have to wait till the campaign is over. Instead, there will be a very unromantic roast beef dinner at a school, but you know, that's just how it goes sometimes.
After weeks of what can only be characterized as unsubtle hinting (heh), and with the not-so-evil assistance of Jim and Ellen at Yellow Dog Farm, David presented me this morning with a gorgeous Vermont maple yarn bowl, hand-turned by Jim.
Stunning! And very special.
The campaigning is stressful and annoying and should not be necessary in a fair world, BUT our best qualities as a couple are coming to bear. We truly are a good team, and if we remember to parse it out from the stress, we are having a great deal of fun, too. My creative energies are being challenged in ways they've never been challenged before (that's a good thing), and we are meeting lots of great new people, reacquainting ourselves with others, and finding strong support in places we never expected.
It's all good. Well, you know, except for the BAD. But today we won't go there.
David's gift is [read this as "the check is in the mail"] in the bowl. I had hoped to have his sweater done by now, but I'm making slow progress. Still, when it's done it's going to be gorgeous. I can't recommend Father's Grey sportweight Peace Fleece yarn enough. It is just so gorgeous and unique: Charcoal grey with the most subtle flecks of a surprise color -- forest green! -- and some off-white and a tiny bit of brown. I just love it, and you know how I love Peace Fleece just in general anyway.
This morning we joked that we may have to hold up David's funeral so that I can finish the sweater so we can bury him in it. "Wait, wait. I'm just about done with the sleeves!" All of a sudden, we've got an image of the perfect Irish-Jewish funeral.
Dark Humor R Us. Another reason we're a good team.
And now that I have this beautiful work of art in which to put my yarn as I'm working, maybe I'll get the sweater done even before the funeral.
I am quite pleased at the way this is turning out. My plan is to add a finishing detail at the neck edge -- perhaps a knitted-on i-cord edge, which should firm it up so it won't sag and pull all out of shape. This yarn has elasticity in it, so it probably won't sag anyway. I secretly wish that that nicely defining ridge extended all the way around, but I lacked the technical knowledge to accomplish that, and I'll be damned if I'm going back to that now. I think I like it well enough as it is.
I tried it on and it fits so well I'm thinking of turning it into a tank instead of doing sleeves. But I know that sleeves will make it more practical and wearable for me, so I expect I'll soldier on.
I'm not convinced that it's the best color for me, though. The color seems to turn dead when I have it on me. But we shall see. I have to next finish the back (it's completed up to the armholes), and then make the decision about sleeves.
And perhaps all it will need to look great is a nifty outfit with lots of browns in it, and a fabulous new accessory, like, oh I don't know, perhaps this incredible new bag that Elaine C. sent me with the note, "I couldn't let all that lovely paisley fabric go to waste." (Please note, the same blue is in the paisley lining.)
Thanks a million AGAIN, Elaine!
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P.S. I'd like to draw your attention to some new buttons at the bottoms of my posts -- "favorite," "reblog," "Tweet this." I think you prolly know what to do with those buttons. I especially like "favorite," which will give me feedback that you liked the post, as well as (I am told -- I have not tried it yet) giving you the chance to "collect" posts that you might want to look back at at some future time.
1. I have developed what is known as a trigger thumb. It's not debilitating or seriously limiting or anything, but I am still not amused.
2. I have to do a little bit of reading this semester:
I don't have to read these cover to cover if I don't want to, but who wouldn't want to, especially if one is rather underemployed and can't knit due to injuries (see below) I've read The Handmaid's Tale previously, though I don't remember a thing about it, and there are a couple more I need to get that had not yet made their way into the bookstore. The courses: "Theory of Lyric" and "Canadian Postmodern." Fun Fact: UVM has a pretty impressive Canadian Studies Department, and one of the few in the country, I'm led to believe.
3. Last night I brought home a nice new soft and snuggly dog bed for Mr. Jefferies to sleep in on the floor in my office. He was thoroughly confused. He thought it was another minion. He tugged it, he chewed on it, he rolled it over, he even humped it (bad Mr. Jefferies!). Stupid me. Because you see: "Bed" means where Alpha Alpha's sleeping or sitting, stupid! And my office means that the definition of "bed" changes to "my lap, forearm, and with his nose firmly tucked inside my elbow while I knit or type."
Here is a picture of said soft, comfy, snuggly bed:
Please note that said bed is very lonely for lack of Yorkie companionship.
4. I have determined that the medical name for the condition I am suffering in my wrist, elbow & shoulder is: Mr. Jefferies Elbow Syndrome. It's sort of like thoracic outlet syndrome, but it's slightly different in that it is caused by the prolonged sleeping of a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier on one's arm.
5. Thus the misplaced gift of a new bed for the office, which is like, you might say, the latest medical treatment for Mr. Jefferies syndrome.
6. Said medical treatment is not working very well.
This arm is mine, all mine.
7. After a long day at work yesterday, I came home to a delightful surprise! Elaine had turned my old ripped skirt into something fantastically fantastic:
Look at the cute beach stone buttons, and the lining inside with an amazing array of pockets -- even one for a water bottle!
I don't know. Some people have more talent in their little fingernail than I'll ever hope to have in my entire body. I swear, it's embarrassing. I'm so excited about this bag, I can't tell you! My wonderful skirt is turned into my wonderful bag! I love it love it love it.
8. But wait. It was a bit like those Russian nesting dolls. Inside was ANOTHER bag!
9. As I was unwrapping this wonderful object with the dog-print lining, and with a card addressed to none other than Mr. Jefferies himself, I suddenly realized that the adoration that Mr. Jefferies was showering me with after my long day away at work was COMPLETELY SUPERFICIAL, the little ingrate! All that excitement to "see me" was not intended for me at ALL, but for what was in this package. His superior canine nose had already told him that there was SOMETHING INSIDE THIS BAG THAT WAS MUCH, MUCH BETTER than a stupid new dog bed or even Alpha-Alpha coming home from a long day at work.
Oh yes, there certainly was.
10. A big big huge bag of homemade dog treats, and bowWOW, are they delicious. Well, I can't testify to that; I didn't have any. I'm on a low-carb diet, ya know. But according to Mr. Jefferies, they are the bestest treats he's ever had IN.HIS.LIFE.
11. He spent the rest of the evening trying to trick me into giving him more, more, more. Well, when he wasn't doing this.
12. This is a little-known move in Ultimate Yorkie Wrestling circles called The Pin. It's very easy. You just plant your body weight on your opponent's elbow. It eliminates any weight advantage of the opponent, and totally incapacitates and immobilizes them. If they try to move, you do this:
...place your paws more firmly down on the elbow and give 'em the Sad Eyes. In the unlikely event that the Sad Eyes do not work, you should pull out the ultimate weapon: the Adoring Eyes.
Completely foolproof.
The best kind of gift is the unique, the original, the unexpected, and the kind that keeps on giving.
A while ago, I received an email from Mike Strauss, saying, "I hope you don't mind, but I used one of your photos as the inspiration for a painting." He attached a few images, and he was requesting permission to blog about it.
This is the original photo that appeared on my blog:
And here are the images of the painting in ink wash that Mike sent:
Would I mind?! Would I MIND!?
I was surprised and thrilled and excited, and I hoped that Mike would allow me to buy the original from him so that I could give it to Ryan for Christmas, thereby solving my gift-buying dilemma for the hand model who has everything. I fear a case of Lubriderm and cotton bed gloves just doesn't have the same kind of impact as an original painting of one's beloved little Yorkie, even if he is fostered out for the time being to the grandparents in Siberia Vermont.
Damn.
Mike wouldn't sell it to me.
****************
I-n-s-t-e-a-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d,
he sent it to me as a gift. Not only the original, but two prints as well.
::stunned::
I've been busting my buttons because I could not put this in the blog until the kids had received their gifts. But now they have, to much glee, and I can safely share it with you. Mike blogged about it at the time here, and I could not link to his post then, but now I can.
I can also take this opportunity to share with you a nice review of Mike's current show, ongoing until January 17, 2010, at the Emile A. Gruppe Gallery in Jericho, Vermont.
I took the original painting and two prints (one for Abigail to have in her law school digs, and one for me as well) to my frame shop and chose mats and frames for them. Good framing and matting and UV-blocking glass and the whole nine yards is a rather spendy proposition, but so worth it. They turned out just gorgeous!
It was a real learning experience, too. I'm very glad I did not just hand the prints to David, as was my original plan, and ask him to just get them unthoughtfully double-matted with black and white, and plain black frames. I told Norm at the Champlain Collection that if that ever happens, he WILL know to call me first, right? We now have a pact.
Because when I got in there to work with him -- I've worked with him for framing my prints for years -- it was clear that that would have been wrong, wrong, wrong. The original watercolor greatly benefited from a purply-charcoal grey mat, a super-white mat, and black frame to go with Ryan's decor. And the other two prints had some purply-browny-sepia-and creamy-white tones to pick up in their mats, and Norm helped me choose a fabulous metal frame that is bronzy and has some texture that echoes the curly movement of Mr. Jefferies' hair.
This is the one that is about to be hung in my living room. I was a dope and did not photograph the original ink wash piece before it was sent off to New York, but trust me -- it's beautiful.
I fear this may be the pinnacle of my gift-giving to Abigail and Ryan, though. How can I ever top this?
So soft.
So pretty.
So warm.
Pattern: Palindrome, with extra cable panel added to width,
and with cables crossed every 8th row instead of every 5th
Yarn: Swans Island Organic Merino Worsted
Dyed in Natural Indigo
2 full skeins - I literally used every inch. It made a scarf just barely 60 inches long before blocking. After blocking, I know it grew quite a lot to make the perfect-length scarf, in my opinion, but I failed to measure it before I sent it out.
This was pure pleasure to knit, from beginning to end, and it was made for someone very special.
When I first saw this yarn on my yarn crawl (abbreviated though it was) in New York City a few weeks ago, I just knew it was the perfect yarn for Ally. It's a blue that is gorgeous under anyone's interpretation, but it goes with her eyes. It's from Maine, and so is she. And it's super-soft and warm -- all the best qualities for a scarf for a very special person. I initially had some fears that it might pill a lot -- fingers crossed!
I didn't want to blog about its completion until I knew it was in her hands, and late Friday I got a very happy text message indicating that it had reached its destination.
Enjoy it, Ally! I certainly enjoyed every aspect of its making -- from the choosing of the yarn to the very fun knitting (again) of the Palindrome (I just love that pattern), and the way it washed up, the way it dried, and the final product. Oy vey, did it ever bleed a lot of blue dye, but I think I got it stabilized finally. It washed out to a very beautiful shade of blue.
Wear it in good health and happiness, my dear!
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If your name is My Mother, please do not read this (or if you know My Mother, please do not tell her about this).
So this is the Fair Isle sweater kit my mom bought for herself, oh, I don't know, at least 20 -- maybe 25 -- years ago, on a vacation to Nova Scotia. She just happened to mention it to me (I did not know of its existence) last spring. She pulled it out to show me, only to discover she had lost the pattern.
With the help of a couple of readers of this blog, I was able to get hold of not one, but two, copies of the pattern. It has sat while the garden and a few other things have taken up my time and attention, until the other night when I took it out, and without much fanfare at all, just went ahead and cast on the back.
It's fingering weight Shetland wool, I love the color and LOVE the fabric in all its sturdy, authentic, wonderful slight (slight? ha!) scritchiness. It will be one of my all-time favorite knits, I am sure, if I ever finish it.
I've got a fondness for Shetland wool garments. I own a dark olive green fine-gauge Shetland wool sweater that I bought on a trip to St. Albans, England, back in '93, that has started to fray a bit around the edges, but they'll be prying that thing from my cold, dying hands, I love it so. It's just a plain ribbed pullover, slightly oversized, but not too bad, and slightly mannish. It was purchased on a day of sightseeing for me that turned cold and sleety, I needed to get warm, and I bought a small man's jumper (pullover sweater) in the shop called Jumpers. It's the perfect tweedy green, and I just adore that thing.
It's too much to hope that I could get this blue sweater for my mom done by Christmas, but if I could, wouldn't that just be the most marvelous thing ever? So I shall try.
Whatever doesn't kill me will make me stronger, right? And I am sorry to you if you were hoping for a holiday or birthday knit from me, as much as I would love to knit for you, because this is going to take up all my knitting time, I am quite sure.
At least it's only stockinette, and once I get past the ribbing and go all the way up to those huge honkin' size US 4 needles, it should fly. For the non-knitting readers, that is SARCASM -- these needles are TINY, and the gauge is 7 stitches to the inch.
Some would say that the "most fun" part is done -- the Fair Isle colorwork -- but me, I'm quite happy just to knit stockinette till I turn blue in the face and leave the colorwork to those more adventurous than I. (EDITED TO ADD: CindyCindy asked if the Fair Isle portion was already done as a part of the kit, or if my mom knit it. Yes, it was done as part of the kit -- can't tell if it's hand- or machine-knit. And another interesting note, the price tag is still on the kit -- way back a quarter of a century ago, the price was $45 Canadian, marked down to $39 when my mom bought it.)
I'm guessing there will be some chiropractic visits, and perhaps some massages, necessary before this is over. But here we go. We're off!
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger.)
Longtime readers will remember the story, but for the casual reader or the new visitor to this blog, when my friend Kristen spent a year in Moscow doing research for her dissertation, she needed warm hands and I sent her some thrummed mittens that I knit. She sent me, among other things, this lovely orange Russian yarn. It is cobweb-weight wool, the kind that is used to knit the famous Orenburg shawls. Kristen has long since been back to the U.S. now, back in Pittsburgh where first she procrastinated on (but not really), and then she recently obtained, her Ph.D.
I bought the pattern for the Faux Russian Stole (in the book A Gathering of Lace) years ago at a sheep & wool festival in Upstate New York, but I am just not much of a lace knitter, and it sat undone for years. So finally this spring I called upon our ever-energetic, ever-talented and giving curmudgeon Cookie in California, who knitted this gorgeous shawl for me in practically no time flat -- and she held the super-skinny yarn TRIPLED in order to do it.
This blog has brought me no end of wondrously warm friendship stories. I met both of these friends through the blog. Wait, did I say "met"? Though Cookie has done many, many lovely things for me and we have a very close relationship, we still have not yet met in person. But now I have this sunshiny orange token of warmth from around the globe.
I am a rich, rich woman indeed.
Thank you, Cookie and Kristen!
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See if you can follow this. I'm kind of fuzzy-brained tonight, so I apologize if it's a bit incoherent.
Back in 2005, my friend Kristen went to Russia for a year to continue her studies in Russian art. She read in the blog that I had purchased the book A Gathering of Lace and some yarn in order to knit the Faux Russian Stole. She thought it was a shame that I might be using non-Russian yarn to knit a Russian stole. She sent me several skeins of authentic Russian yarn with which to knit it.
Here's a photo of the yarn and the chocolate she sent me way back when:
That's gossamer-weight Russian yarn, the kind they use for their lovely Orenburg shawls.
My inability to knit lace is well established. I was going to say "legendary," but that would probably be symptomatic of delusions of grandeur, as if anybody really cares or something, so I'll stick with "well established."
So of course the yarn sat languishing in my stash all these years.
But, as has been well documented in my blog as well as her own and several others, Cookie's ability to knit lace IS legendary. After she completed the last gorgeous lace thing for me, she said something to the effect of "What do you want next." The woman is a crazy machine, honestly! I feel quite certain that if any of us were to meet her in person, we would actually find a robot and not a sentient being, but that is neither here nor there. She knits lace. A lot. And faster than a speeding bullet! Who am I to argue? Ya know? I mean, yeah, I'll take it off her hands -- or her needles, if you will. I have no qualms. I feel I'm doing her a service, really: It gives her something to kvetch about, ya know? (Stop repeating "delusions of grandeur." Or was that another voice in my head?)
Anyhoo, Cookie has this intractable and unmitigated love of pink, which I try not to hold against her too much, and I'm not so sure how she feels about orange in general. I don't think her opinion of orange is so high. So I pussyfoot around her for a bit and I say, "Would it make you retch too much if you had to knit -- orange? And lots of it?" I tried to soften the idea by suggesting that perhaps I will overdye it to become a richer shade of orange or red afterward, not that this would help her gag reflex much during the knitting, but I thought it might palliate the pain.
Imagine my surprise when she immediately accepted! She asked what pattern. I said I already had the pattern -- the Faux Russian Stole -- and I explained to her the provenance of the yarn. She was all over it.
Look what arrived in the mail yesterday:
Highly orange. (The color in this photo is quite spot-on accurate)
The photos below don't show the color well, but show some of the stinkingly gorgeous Russian-style garter lace that that girl (or robot or whatever she is) just whipped right out in no time flat.
Cookie held the yarn TRIPLED -- yes, I said tripled -- to knit this stole. Can you believe that? I can't.
As for the orange, I am pretty steadfast in my love of orange, but I still felt certain that when I received it I would want to overdye it to tone it down somehow. However, at least in the evening light in which I see it right now, I LOVE it. I'm wearing it as I type this, and it seems to look very nice against my skin tones. The color makes me happy, as orange often does.
The fourth friend in this story is Joan. She did a knitalong with Cookie of the same stole, but hers is in blue. I really doubt that Cookie needed any help, but I thank you anyway, Joan, for being her knit buddy in this project.
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