2nd lesson in 2 days about knitting – i feel like such a grownup!
Well, aren’t I glad I did this – I dutifully completed my (first) swatch for my beautiful new Peasy sweater. Last night I wet blocked the swatch, and I just unpinned it, got out my measuring tape, and checked my gauge. Using a 3.5mm needle, my gauge should have been 22 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. But I got 23.5 and 31 rows = 4 inches. Here are my lessons learned:
1) because I now know from my Wowie Zowie sock lesson that what seems like a small difference can actually be a very large difference,
2) I need to go down a needle size, and
3) the fabric is going to be absolutely gorgeous, with the most lovely hand and drape ever.
Madelinetosh is not in danger of being toppled from the top of my favorite- yarn- ever list — especially not with tosh merino light in this world — but Rowan Tweed has scootched immediately to a close second. I think I’ll knit a Manu with Rowan Tweed after I finish my beautiful Peasy and an Austin Hoodie with TML. I also have enough yarn for an Inaugural sweater.
Oh dear. I think I’ve just become a sweater knitter.* Good thing I live in a place with a long cold winter. 
With a nice long weekend coming up, I have knitting plans that include finishing Marnie’s wedding shawl and getting it blocked, doing some work (you know, instead of saying work I’d rather say ‘fun’) doing some fun on my Wowie Zowie socks, and maybe I’m just sayin maybe getting going on my Peasy. Last night was the first major festivity associated with leaving my job; 20 people I work with came to a little party for me, and it was quite amazing. Much toasting and fete-ing and love; hugs and kisses from each one at the end. Tonight is a drinks farewell with my boss’s boss and my best work friend, Thursday night is my writing group. Not much will happen until the weekend but it’s all going to be fun. When it’s good, life can be really, really good, you know?
*disclaimer and acknowledgment: knitting a swatch does not guarantee becoming a sweater knitter…there is still the ability to be in it for the long haul, the perseverance to finish all the fiddly bits, and (for some sweaters) the ability to assemble pieces. The jury is still out on me with these parts!
coming back to a much-loved pattern, the wowie-zowie sock!
If I haven’t said this lately: Ravelry is awesome. Right? Not only are most of the people wonderful, the resource itself is amazing. I find a pattern I like, then I look at the photos and project notes of everyone who made it – look for people my size and shape, how does it look on them? See how it looks made with a variety of different yarns – and with the yarn I’m considering. I learn about the modifications people made to it, the problems they ran into and how they got out of them. Just amazing. How did we ever knit before Ravelry? I guess we were just all alone and knitting in the dark. Much less fun.
So, one of my ravelry friends (hi Margaret!) gave me some sock knitting tips for my Wowie Zowie sock since she’s knitting them too (and using the same yarn, but a different colorway, so very lucky for me), and tonight I’m going to cast on again with the same yarn. I was making new-knitter mistakes, misunderstanding just how much yarn 8 extra stitches per row can consume, and underestimating how much yarn my few rows of ribbing were taking up. It’s a close fit, anyway; the pattern uses 460 yards per sock, and the balls contain 480 yards. Not a lot of room for adding to the pattern. In addition to my newbie errors, I’d somehow missed the close fit which would’ve made me much more cautious with my modifications. I’ll also try to lighten up a bit and not knit so tightly, for heaven’s sake.
I’m thrilled! I particularly loved that yarn with that pattern, and was entirely smitten with the interaction between pattern and color changes. In fact, I was thinking about how much I’d like to wear them with a skirt so they’d be visible to everyone. Show them off a little. Feel happy when people say “hey, where did you get those amazing socks!” because I expect people would actually ask me. That kind of thing happens to me.
come back to me, lover sock....
Isn’t it great when you’re in love with the things you’re knitting?
another adorable subway story – I’m not kidding!
Another subway story – this one really made me happy. It’s another hot and muggy day, even early in the morning, and we’ve got a long holiday weekend ahead. I think people (especially the early morning commuters) are all a bit dazed – at least, they were in my subway car this morning. Since I’m coming up to my last day at this job, I’m not killing myself to get in so early so I was traveling during more regular rush hour than usual, which meant I didn’t get to sit. No matter; the train wasn’t densely crowded so it was just fine. I stood next to a pole in the center of the car, in case the conductor was one of those kinds of drivers, and pulled out my knitting.
this isn't the actual swatch, but it IS this yarn
[sidebar announcement! I am knitting a swatch! I KNOW! Kelly is a good influence on me, plus I really want to make a beautiful sweater that fits me.]
So there I was, a bit dazed myself, listening to the new RadioLab podcast and knitting my swatch. At some point I finally glanced up and all the people sitting in front of me – and I mean very literally all the people, each one in the entire row – were gazing up at me with slight smiles and big eyes. You know how it is when you’re kind of out of it, and something captures your attention, that kind of dopey unfixed smile you get? Well, it was like that. All these people gazing up at me with slight dopey smiles. In their dazed state, seeing someone do something a little unusual must have been just enough to capture their unfocused attention. I felt like the mother, or the teacher, and it was really charming. I wish I’d had a hidden camera so I could’ve captured it for you.
At the next major stop, most of the people on that row shook themselves a little and got up to leave the train, but a couple of guys stayed. And for the entire trip, they held that expression on their faces.
Tonight I’ll wet block my swatch; I feel like such a responsible grown-up!
too bad I had to frog my wonderful socks. 
Yesterday I got a lot of knitting done. I worked on my great-looking sock and got into the heel flap. I adore the pattern; it’s so thick and squishy, so 3-dimensional in a cool way, architectural, even. The socks must be warm, warm, warm.
And the yarn – I totally love the yarn. I love the shifts in color, and the particular colors themselves….that brilliant turquoise, a deep olive, dark reds, light purples, rich browns. And this variegated yarn works great with this pattern, because the color contrasts are so interesting.
BUT. Oh, how there is a but. As Pee-Wee Herman said to Simone, sitting in the dinosaur’s head, “everyone I know has a big but.”*** For some reason I wasn’t going to have nearly enough yarn! After only 3 pattern repeats, I was more than halfway finished with one ball of yarn. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and they always listed 2 balls of yarn for a pair of socks. And the pattern makes these 3D squishy socks….but mine were stiff like heavy cardboard. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and my needles were the same size as theirs. I must have been knitting very tightly. I know I was, actually, because I was fighting the needles.
Desperately I decided oh what the hell, I’ll just make the tops kind of short. Three pattern repeats, that’ll be ok, right? But what if I still run out of yarn, and end up needing to buy another ball or two? Then I’d have too-short socks for no good reason. I forged ahead, trusting – other people got one sock out of one ball of yarn, other people used these needles, it all worked out, other times and other projects I thought it’s not going to work but then it did so just keep going, trust the project.
Two-thirds of the way down the heel flap I finally threw in the towel. I pulled the sock off the needles and pulled it on my foot, just to see. Yeah, it was stiff and cardboardey. I had clung too tightly to the yarn and needles. Kind of like life, during hard times – clinging too tightly is not going to help. I love it when knitting reinforces a life lesson.
***here’s that clip from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, where he says that hilarious line to Simone:
i thought Tom Wolfe made it up!
Am I the only person who didn’t know this? The origin of the phrase “bonfire of the vanities?” WOW I just learned something so interesting. I’m watching a PBS series (Empires: The Medici, Godfathers of the Renaissance); it’s a period I’ve always been fascinated by. I got kind of fixated on Michelangelo as a young girl and read everything I could get my hands on about him. Collected giant art books of his paintings. Etc. It’s truly an amazing period – Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Dante for heaven’s sake, Galileo (for a different kind of heaven’s sake). What an amazing time and place to live.
Savonarola - executed in 1498. Good riddance.
But when Lorenzo (“The Magnificent”) Medici died, this crazy monk Savonarola took over. He’d foreseen damnation and downfall from the indulgent and decadent lifestyle the Medicis brought to Florence, so at Lorenzo’s death Savonarola took over. He had the gay people burned to death. Prostitutes were savagely beaten. And one night, in 1497, he created an enormous bonfire and everyone had to bring their jewels, their make-up, their paintings (Botticelli threw his on the flames), everything Savonarola deemed decadent. It was such a big thing, it was called the bonfire of the vanities.
I had no idea – I thought it was just the cool title of a Tom Wolfe book (and title of a really terrible movie).
If you have Netflix, you can watch the series on streaming – it’s a great program, highly recommended. (And good if you want to get some knitting done at the same time!)
who doesn’t love a laughing baby??
And also – Chicago weather!
Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.
loving this pair of socks!
Since I finished Marnie’s Minkeys, I need another small project on the needles. Right? Right? You always need a small project on the needles, can I get a yeah sistah? At the top of my Ravelry queue – small project edition – was Anne Campbell’s Circle Socks (public rav link here), which I’d decided to knit with my colorful balls of Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett. (I have no idea how to say any of those words except design and line, and maybe Regia.)
Last night I cast on and it was such fun knitting, I just kept saying “Just let me finish this needle” “After this row I’ll be ready for bed” “Let me finish this pattern repeat.” YOU know how that goes.
circle socks - incredibly fun to knit, and fast!
I added a short section of ribbing at the top, just because I always like ribbing on my socks. Want to see that cool section up close?
whoa. that is REALLY cool.
I’ve decided to name this pair of socks Wowie Zowie, for the most obvious of reasons.
I hope to get something done today besides knitting. Wait. Do I really?! Or is that just what we say because we know we’re supposed to do something besides knitting. I think that’s it – I would actually love nothing more than to sit in my cozy little spot, with endless cups of mint tea, good movies on Netflix, and to knit the whole day, until it’s time for sleep again. Too bad I need sleep.
the noro has left the building!
After a rapid flurry of comments all at once – and thank you for them! – I just crossed the 500th comment marker that triggered the giveaway. It was a little plea for rain that yielded a lovely ball of Noro Bonbori for ………
Thanks to everyone who posts comments on this little blog. You help me feel so much less alone.
And for everyone else, I wish I had Bonbori to spare so I send each of you a little gift to show my gratitude that you share my online world. Your comments always make me smile, often make me laugh, and always help me feel connected.
help me swatchers, help help me swatchers
There are some things we all know we should do – flossing our teeth at least twice a day, weight-bearing exercise as we age – and swatching, if we knit. I confess that I have never swatched, and I know I should but I don’t quite get it.
I understand the need to make a swatch if I’m making a garment that needs to fit in a particular way. Scarves don’t have to be swatched, I get that. Sweaters do. Yep, I get it. I know how to change needles to get stitch gauge but I don’t know what to do if my row gauge is off, even if the stitch gauge is right. Basically I just kind of do a bit of ostrich-dealing, pretend I don’t know anything about row gauge, and sally forth. It hasn’t been a problem, since I’ve frogged every sweater I started.
This time, though, I want to really make a sweater. Finish it, block it, take it to the end and end up with something I love to wear. So I know I need to learn more about swatching. When I’ve got spilkes, or when I’m not going to get to use a new yarn for a while and I’m just dying to do more than touch it, I’ll cast on 20-30 stitches and just knit a few rows in stockinette, to try to get it out of my system. Hardly swatching, but still, it’s a little fun.
I couldn't leave that Rowan Felted Tweed alone....
But there’s another thing about swatching I really don’t understand. I’ll read people’s posts describing swatching all the new yarn they get. Or they’ll say things like “my binders full of swatches were taking over the library!” and I just don’t know what that means. Even if I pretend I know what it’s like to design a sweater, I can imagine making very specific swatches to figure out the yarn and needle combination to get drape; the yarn and needle combination for different weights of yarn if I want to provide alternatives; and the gauge issues for pattern knitting. I get that. Is there some other use for swatching that I just don’t understand? Swatchers? (and I’m serious: how do you change needle sizes to hit row gauge, when the stitch gauge is right?!)
I finished a project! I finished a project! SOCKS!
Finally! Finally! A finished object I can share! Yippee!! This is, after all, my knitting blog. I can knit this pattern in my sleep, and the yarn is great fun for socks, but I started them during an extremely busy time so several days would pass without a single stitch. The bulk of my knitting time for these socks was subway commuting, so a row here, a row there, you know how that goes.
Anyway. I proudly introduce you to the Minkeys …. pink monkeys, get it? (the word minkeys makes me giggle because I hear it as Inspector Clouseau — Chief Inspector Clouseau — would say it.)
the top/left sock hasn't been blocked yet - the other one has
oh, you minkeys
i love socks.......
The yarn is the incredibly soft Felici, from KnitPicks. The first pair of socks I knit with this yarn still looks great, after a couple years’ washing. They get a lofty halo, but they’re very hard-wearing. And they don’t need any special care at all, double good for busy people.
These socks are for the bride-to-be, my daughter Marnie. When my older daughter Katie got married, she gave Marnie a t-shirt that said “I’m a worm farmin’ power liftin’ bad ass” and that really says it all. Since Marnie has this photo in her Facebook photo album (and therefore it’s public) I don’t think she’d mind my posting it here.
Marnie and Tom, getting married in a few weeks - taken at Katie's wedding rehearsal
It’s such fun finishing something, if only because I feel a little less guilty about casting on a new project.
it’s RAINING SIDEWAYS
So I’m just sitting on the couch, working, and all of a sudden I smell it – I smell the rain. And it’s blowing SIDEWAYS, at great force. And it’s thundering. Perhaps even lightning? So of course what does anyone think at that moment:
You’re welcome. I’m always doing this for you.
p.s. edit: the intense storm lasted for 2.5 minutes. it was an hour’s worth of storm squeezed into 2.5 minutes, i kid you not!
in which I enhance my stash, one more time
Gosh – where to start. Maybe the color — they called it Avocado, I call it lush and gorgeous. The softness? OH yeah, it’s soft. The depth, those little flecks of yellow and red and navy? Oh so beautiful. [click the photos to biggify]
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- oh so tweedy
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- s-o-f-t
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- in a Peruvian reed boat
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- lotsa balls
I bought it to make a Peasy sweater [rav link here] – the very first time I ever bought the specified yarn for a project. Usually I don’t think that far in advance; I just get an itching to make something, I pick a pattern and check what weight yarn is specified, then see what I have in that weight. But I saw Saffron‘s Peasy, on her fabulous blog Mooncalfmakes, and she uses a lot of Rowan, so I was hooked.
I couldn't leave that Rowan Felted Tweed alone....
Not that I’ll be starting the sweater any time soon, unfortunately. For now I’ll have to comfort myself by petting the yarn a lot. You know what that’s like, I’m sure.
walking around my blogs – don’t neglect the pickles on Luscious!
It’s a taxonomical question, of sorts: does your blog just include everything, or do you specialize? Are you a lumper, or a splitter? I’ve been blogging for years, and I’ve tried both approaches. I started with a blog that just had everything – book reviews, movie reviews, handwork, food, life, photography – and then I decided to split them off into different single-focus blogs. I had a cloud blog, a dream blog, a book blog, a photography blog, a food blog, a NY Stories blog, and a personal blog. That got to be a LOT of work, man. And not only that, it left me feeling as fragmented as it sounds. Plus, most visitors just read one of the blogs, and I’d want to share something special but it was on one of the other blogs. So back I went to a single blog. [note: this is all a very silly problem, really.]
This blog originated as a knitting blog, exclusively. But as a very busy person, with limited knitting time, weeks might pass without something knitting-related to say, so I started filling in with other things. Now, even though it has a knitting-themed title, and I do try to focus on handwork whenever possible, it has a bit of everything…..and I like it that way. I hope you do too.
The only exception to “everything” is that I decided to reanimate my old food blog, Luscious. I wrote a post about this a couple of weeks ago. I don’t post on Luscious as often as I post here, on Thrums, but whenever I do, oh how I want you to see it! This morning, for instance, I made a big batch of pickles, as I do9 every summer, and so I posted it on Luscious.
- At the top is a counter – remember, the person who leaves the 500th comment will win a skein of Noro, brought directly from Tokyo. (I hope it’s you!)
- Next down is the little “welcome to my blog” widget
- And underneath that is an RSS feed for my food blog. And right there, the top link is to the pickles post. I’m excited about that one because (1) I adore pickles, (2) especially homemade pickles, (3) the photographs are great simply because how could they not be, given the dark green of the cucumbers and the bright red of the hot cherry peppers, and (4) it’s so easy to make pickles, and they’re so incredibly wonderful, I want to encourage you to make them too.
So anyway, this post is a long, roundabout way of saying that I hope you glance over at that little widget now and then, and head over to Luscious if the subject of a link is interesting.
AND! The wedding dress arrived safely in Chicago, and *wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles* the dress fits Marnie beautifully, and she looks absolutely amazing in it. I don’t want to post the quickie photo that she sent, for any of a million reasons, but I will post a photo after the wedding. I was really sweating bullets over the fit of the dress, so what a relief.
Eddie Izzard + legos = brilliance.
Oh, Eddie Izzard, you make me so happy.
being good ambassadors for knitting in public!
I’ve written before about knitting in the subway – it has been an important part of my knitting time, time I get several rows done on whatever socks are on my needles. A few rows en route to work in the mornings, and a few on the way home. I usually get a seat in the morning, since I go to work so early, but coming home is another story – I usually have to stand. As long as I have a little space in front of me, I’ll haul out the needles and squeeze out a few rows. I don’t need to be near a pole, because I’ve developed my subway legs.
knitting the 2nd minkey
So last night, I had to head down to the Wall Street area to have dinner with an author whose work was partly responsible for my becoming a social psychologist. There were still crowds of tourists – many in town for the day celebrating their own husbands and dads, from the look and sound of it. I took my place, standing in the middle of the car, and pulled out my knitting. Like I do. A couple of stops later, much of the crowd exited the train, and a new crowd entered. An older woman with very obvious false teeth sat down facing me, and started grinning and chattering about the sock I was knitting. She has a friend back home who makes socks, she couldn’t wait to tell her about seeing me standing up knitting something with all those stripes (self-striping yarn, ma’am), and all the holes (it’s lace, ma’am), on all those needles (we call them double-pointed needles, ma’am).
Her warm friendliness seemed to open the door for conversation with me about what I was doing, because all of a sudden everyone around me started asking questions, wanting to see what I was making – how do you do that standing up? It was nice, and I enjoyed telling people all about it. That crowd left, and I took a seat.
The man I was sitting next to just kept up the conversation. He was curious about using 4 needles – oh, that’s how you knit in a circle! He realized I was knitting a sock and asked how I made it smaller to get to the toe. Oh, that makes sense! It made me laugh, and remember the days when my kids were young, and I used to take my spinning wheel to their classrooms for a demonstration of spinning – usually during the “let’s learn about the farm” week in the spring. The girls always wanted to touch the wool to their cheeks, and they asked where Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger. The boys just wanted to know how the wheel worked.
I guess those tendencies remain even in adults. It made me very happy, the whole thing.
now and then, the music is a perfect fit to your moment.
There are moments in life when the soundtrack syncs perfectly. Do you know what I mean? One very hot summer night a couple of years ago, I went out for a walk around 10pm, headed toward the Columbia University campus, which is just a couple of blocks up Broadway from my apartment. I walked to the corner of Broadway, and just as I turned left to head toward campus, someone somewhere started playing Summertime on a trumpet. It was haunting, and perfect, and such an incredible New York moment. The living did feel easy; it was a sultry night, the music was perfectly suited and played by someone who had much more emotion than skill, which made it even better, and I was walking in my beloved city. I got goose bumps then, and I always get them when I recall that moment, like I’m doing now. Perfect, and magical.
blue skies and puffy clouds
And today, just now, another moment like that. It’s the first day of summer, the light is dazzling, the sky is blue, the air smells sweet (so far….check back with me later when the air reeks of trash and urine), shopkeepers are spraying their sidewalks so there is a cool mist in the air all along the sidewalk, and I was walking to the UPS shop with my beloved daughter’s wedding dress in my arms, ready to send her.
As always, I was listening to music. As I turned the corner onto Broadway, a string of absolutely PERFECT songs came on my ipod: Beautiful Day, by U2; Feels So Good, by Chuck Mangione; and Boogie Shoes, by who else – K.C. and the Sunshine Band. I felt my feet leave the ground. And, of course, I cried. That’s so me. You can’t give someone else your synchronicity, but in case you also like these songs, and they fit your day, here they are:
Also: yodeling, banjo music, and laughter in a lot of different languages. Things that add to my feeling that it is fine to be a human being in this world.
help me choose!
SO! Freedom is coming, along with more time to knit. Halle-freakin-lujah, that’s all I have to say. My last day at work will be July 7 (or sooner, if I get everything done). Marnie’s wedding is July 17 (but I’m heading up there on the 15th). In the short run, here are my deadlines:
- finish all my work stuff
- finish knitting Marnie’s wedding shawl
- finish an online course (6-weeks in length, week 3 begins today, which means it ends on Marnie’s wedding day)
So everything is coming to a head on July 17, and after that? Complete and total freedom, for a while, anyway. I’ll have to be scurrying around trying to line up work, and I need to do some deep house cleaning, but relatively speaking, I’ll have the luxury of some free time, which I haven’t had in …. um …. oh, since 1994, more or less.
green ishbel
My first goals will be to finish my Mondo Cable Cardigan and my lettuce green Ishbel. And whatever small sock-ish project I’ve got going, too.
I recently realized that all the projects I’ve been knitting I rate as “piece of cake” or “easy” when I complete the rav project page, so I want to challenge myself. Of course there is more than one way to challenge yourself – choose a technique you haven’t tried, a more complicated pattern than you’ve tried, or a larger project that requires stick-to-it-iveness. And here’s where you come in.
So many of my best rav friends make sweaters – lots of sweaters (I’m looking at you, Kelly and Jocelyn, among others). I’ve started several sweaters but never even finish the back, or up to the sleeves (until now with the Mondo cardigan). I start thinking it’s going to look dumb, or homemade, or that it won’t be flattering. And then I frog. So I want to commit myself to starting and finishing a sweater, but I want to give myself the best shot at sticking with it and ending up with something I love.
If you are on ravelry, here is my sweater queue (though obviously I’m not committed to the order, at all!). I have sweater quantities of Classic Elite Princess, KnitPicks Shine Sport, Madelinetosh Pashmina and TML, and Valley Yarns Sheffield. Have you made any of the sweaters in my queue? Or another sweater that you truly, truly love and wear a lot?
I’m inclined toward these – one you’d vote for?
[poll id="2"]
OR, of course, just tell me your fave!
Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks
Trapped mouse update: Silence from the ceiling. This is such terrible news, you have no idea. I see face masks and gagging in our olfactory futures. In response to Pip‘s comment on my building a better mousetrap post below, in which she reminded me of Tom and Jerry, I (being a very old person) remembered Pixie and Dixie, a pair of mice who were always outsmarting Jinx the Cat – featured regularly on the old Huckleberry Hound Show. Even though they always got away from him, Jinx always said “I love meeces to pieces.”
I searched YouTube and found this cartoon…..perfectly perfect for me and this blog, because it’s about Cousin Tex coming to visit.
Happy Father’s Day to anyone with a dad, or a husband who’s a dad!
perspective sure makes a difference.
I was sitting here thinking about this moment in my life – leaving a secure (though terribly stressful) job without anything specific lined up – and thinking that I feel happy, and full of hope and possibility. This wasn’t always true; in fact, for most of the 6 months I’ve been considering this move, I have instead been terrified, imagining that I am too old, at 51, to start something new. That nothing would happen for me, that I’d fall into poverty and death. (dramatic, I know, but you know how fear can do that to you!)
Then a line from a wonderful old song popped into my head: What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours… But instead I thought, What a difference a mood makes. “Mood” isn’t quite right – it’s much deeper and more pervasive than a simple mood, but it fit the lyric rhythm.
Perspective. What a difference perspective makes. Perhaps it matters whether you’re looking at your feet or at the horizon. Truth is a raspberry, not a piece of sand – bulbous, multifaceted, multicolored, round, bumpy. The truth is that I am 51, and have started over so often I have a patchwork resume. But the truth is also that I can do a lot of things, and am flexible. I cannot be a lady of leisure (though I’d be so great at it!). I need an income, but for the first time in my life, I am not the sole or primary support of 4 people. For the first time in my life, I have the freedom to at least take the leap and see what happens, and that’s a pretty lucky thing.
Here – pick a version of that great song and give a listen. I recommend that you start with Dinah.
i gave notice at work, and guess what happened….
So. On Monday I gave notice at my job, and I didn’t know what to expect. I knew they would be surprised – and they were – but beyond that I just didn’t know. I was prepared for everything except what happened.
They cried. They really did. My boss cried when I told her, and came into my office the next day, sat down, and did it again. Colleagues said the most incredible things, things that were hard to take in. Inside, I imagine myself as just slinking around the perimeter, and not registering with people. I imagined that I’d just quietly slip out the door and no one would even know I left for a while. But that’s not what happened, and it has blown me back off my feet. It’s hard to take in, hearing people tell me what they think of me, what I mean to them. (Remember when you were about 12 years old, and you’d get mad at your mom for something and imagine that you died, and everyone was at your funeral, and they were all so sad, they’d all be so sorry then? This has been something like that, but without the death part!)
They immediately started listing freelance work they want me to do, so they can keep me around and also to help me, which is kind. My authors have wailed, and sent me the most amazing letters that I will absolutely cherish.
I think this is true for most people, and we just don’t realize it. We make an impression, we have an impact on people, people in our lives feel all kinds of things that they don’t ever say, because they think they don’t need to, or they’re shy, or they’ll just tell you tomorrow. I think you’re a very lucky person if something happens while you’re alive and you get the chance to hear it – especially if it’s all at once. So maybe the other side of that is that we should actually tell people these good things we feel about them.
One thing nearly every person said in their little lists referred to my sense of humor. Well, I am a dramatic person, I do have a quick and dry sense of humor, and my reactions can be large and hilarious. For example (you can see that I like you, I’m willing to be ugly in front of you), someone snapped this shot at a birthday party they gave me. I was responding to something someone said. Oh the humiliation….
silly, dramatic me
So anyway, I’ve been silent because I’ve been silenced by all this. Plus I’ve been insanely busy. I did finish the wedding dress and today I bought beautiful little Italian mother-of-pearl buttons from Tender Buttons, which is such a cool store. Only in New York, man. We have a button district, yes we do. In the morning I’ll take it to the cleaners for a good pressing, then get it off to my girl, the bride-to-be.
I promise knitting content will return soon. I’m dying to return to knitting…
the wedding dress is nearly done!
marnie and tom, so cute
It’s getting close, Marnie’s and Tom’s wedding – July 17. A number of weeks. They’re really adorable, peas in a pod, and their wedding is going to be fun. They asked me to make the wedding dress, which really delighted me…..even if it also terrified me. I haven’t done any sewing to speak of in years. Little quilt blocks here or there, straight seams and who cares if they’re ready for others to see them. But I haven’t made clothing since my kids were young.
When they were here over the Christmas break, we went down to the garment district to search for just the right fabric. Marnie had already picked out a pattern, and given the setting of their wedding, we thought a nice green linen would be great. Here’s the pattern she selected – a vintage Vogue 1954 cocktail dress:
this, minus the gloves
It’s a simple dress, but since it’s Vogue and vintage, it’s not as simple as you’d think. There are bound buttonholes, a strange way of doing the straps, and darts and pleats deluxe….which means it’s got a lot of room for fitting it to her perfectly, and a lot of room for error. Since she lives in Chicago, the fitting part was tricky. She came here for a weekend so we could do a rough fitting, and it’s a good thing she did.
So I got it largely done, then hit a spot that totally intimidated me. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me, and I so want this to look beautiful, not home-made. So many weekends, I’d say and write “and today I’m going to work on the wedding dress” but the fear and intimidation made me think “well…..I’ll do it tomorrow/next weekend, today I’ll knit.”
She needs it quickly, though, so my mission this weekend was to get it done. And except for some handwork, and making the self-covered buttons, it is done.
just a view of the back
I’m going to get it professionally pressed; we chose a relatively heavy Italian linen, and my little old iron, my no-ironing-board set-up, and my lack of proper pressing tools means it needs to have a professional press. Then I’ll put it in a large box and send it off to Marnie, with my fingers crossed for a good fit.
my kind of town, NYCity is…
Let’s take a little walk around my neighborhood, it’s a beautiful day. I live on the Upper West Side – Morningside Heights, to specific. Doesn’t that sound lovely, “Morningside Heights”? I’ll walk to the corner of 112th and Broadway, to start:
recognize this place?
Tom’s – the famous exterior shot of the diner on Seinfeld, and the eponymous place for Suzanne Vega’s song, “Tom’s Diner.” She apparently wrote the song in the restaurant. I must say, though, the inside does not look like the inside of the Seinfeld diner. That was a set. But this was the exterior shot. It’s fun to walk around that area and hear people say “…hey! Isn’t that….”
Turn your head and look toward Amsterdam:
St John the Divine
Right at the end of the street, there it is. The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. It was begun in 1892. Bishop Henry Codman Potter bought the site of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, and organized an architectural competition. By 1911, the Bishop and the architect had died, and a new architect was hired. The result is something of a mishmash of styles: Byzantine-Romanesque, French Gothic, and other versions of Gothic architecture. By 1942, only the great nave and west front were finished. They stopped because of WWII. Over time, others worked on it, but it’s still incomplete. Here, I’ll show you around the exterior:
a partial view of the front
a partial view of the right side
another partial view of the right side, toward the front
higgledy piggledy frankenbuilding - near the back
We walked behind the church, down into Morningside Park. It used to be a dangerous place to go, but now it’s filled with parents and kids, playgrounds, all the usual characters you’d find in a neighborhood park:
baseball games
waterfalls
lots of flowers
And now we’ve come up 110th St and we’re back at St John the Divine. It’s the Peace Fountain, and it’s super freaky. It’s meant to show the battle of good and evil, but it’s an acid vision weirdo thing:
Peace Fountain
Yeah, that’s a seemingly-random LOBSTER CLAW hanging there. Here, I’ll show you a close-up:
it's holding Satan's head, upside down and maybe decapitated?
Yeah. Weird. It used to have water, like a real fountain, but it doesn’t, right now. So that’s a little piece of my neighborhood. I like to show you around, because New York is so many things, you have to see more than Times Square or the Statue of Liberty, or even the Empire State Building. It’s neighborhoods, like mine.
creativity boot camp word of the day: flying. i fly…
When I saw today’s word for the Creativity Boot Camp project – fly - I blinked a couple of times because I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my eyes, I shook my head a little bit, I moved closer to the computer screen. Flying. It really says flying.
All night long I dreamed I was flying. In the gauzy period when I was just closing my eyes – not quite awake and not quite asleep – I dreamed I was floating, floating, dreamy floating, lying in the soft air as if I were in a Chagall painting.
I floated a lot in my sleep. And there were times I was flying, pushing off from the ground with my right foot, soaring, wheeling, swooping. Flying. As flying usually does, it felt like complete freedom.
Who knows why we dream what we do, but I suspect I dreamed of flying all night because of an enormous change that’s about to happen. I’ve alluded to it a lot, the incredible stress and frequent misery of my job. I love the work itself, I love my authors, I love the books I acquire, I love the publisher I acquire them for, I just don’t love the terrible pressures. Monday I am giving my notice, my last day will be the end of this month.
The sky is vast when the chains fall away – everything is possible. What will I do? I hope to do some writing, helping authors improve their manuscripts (if you know anyone who needs the help of a writer, think of me!). I will do some teaching. I have a lot of possibilities: my graduate minor is statistics and I love to analyze data; I love to write; I have done a lot of qualitative research, focus groups and the like; I am a social psychologist which means among other things that I know how to research literatures and synthesize them, and I know how to think about why people do what they do.
the sky is upside down in a reflection here - the world does that sometimes, too
Flying is thrilling, flying is scary, there is danger in flying, crashing lives in the shadows, but what are we here for? To stand on the ground our whole lives and just look at the sky?
a real show of hands
Six days ago, I wrote a post about how much I love to see hands. At the end of the post, I asked you to show me yours, since I showed you mine. Then I went to a Ravelry forum and asked for a show of hands. Here’s what I got – hand prOn, if you’re into that kind of thing:
- See Sarah’s hands at the bottom of this post
- Hayley often shows her hands as she’s pointing out knitting specifics, as in this post
- Two pairs of hands here, on Melissa’s blog
- Get ready to smile, as Gibknitty adores her dog
- Anna-Lisa loves to see hands too – check out the slideshow widget in her blog!
- Jolene’s beautiful hand on a beautiful shawl
- Trish’s hands are in her masthead!
- Valerie’s hands are in an adorable flickr photo
- Abigail’s blog is all about tutorials – with videos – so her hands are everywhere, as in this video about magic loop knitting
Thanks for sharing your hands, particularly when they’re doing something like knitting or petting a dog or showing off great fingernail polish. They all made me smile!
even though I’m exhausted, funny things ARE all around me.
The heaviness and exhaustion of my previous post is true, and so are a couple other things, to wit:
* I swear to all that is holy and funny, you have to click this link and watch this video. I promise you’ll roll on the floor and have to hold your sides from the laughter. It’s always funny.
* And this isn’t funny, but one of those “awwww….” deals. One of my authors wrote a great little book. It’s a smashing success, and we enjoyed working together very much. We became friends, he calls me Sis. The other day, this arrived in my office, with a note I’ll cherish:
click to enlarge so you can see it better
It’s a print from the April 24, 1880 edition of Harper’s Weekly, drawn by Granville Perkins – “View in Riverside Park, New York.” Weeks before, he’d written me asking for my associations with Central Park. A weird question, I thought, but what the hell. I answered, and concluded with a comment that Riverside Park is my favorite, even more than Central Park, because it’s my backyard, I spend a lot of time there, I love it very much. Pretty sneaky of him.
And now, to knit.
too tired to grow……..
When I saw today’s word this morning, my heart sank. I could tell it’s an easy word, a potent word, a word that could go in a lot of directions. At least, I could tell that those things were true for other people, today.
I dressed, left for work, stood numbly in the subway, unable to understand what I was reading – reading and re-reading and re-reading, trying to make my exhausted brain get it this time. I trudged from Penn Station to my office, my feet heavy, my bags heavy, my head heavy.
I worked, hard hard work all day, never even turning around once to see that it was a sunny day out my window. Never getting up to go to the bathroom. Work work work. Intellectual and creative work today, editing a manuscript, wanting to give my dear author my best work for his own best work. Other manuscripts waiting, other authors writing and calling, other problems all around, no time to stop for anything work work work. My forehead aches from the frowning of hard thinking, and from the pressures of things I did not get to today.
I let this word lie in the back of my mind, hoping something would emerge, some way of dealing with this word, but nothing came. I thought today would just be a pass – I’m not whipping myself, this is an enjoyable and challenging project, if I just can’t do it today I just can’t do it.
And then I realized that this day taught me something about growth. Nothing can grow without space to grow in. A seed from an enormous tree might sprout and grow in a very small pot, but it will never be big, it will always be stunted; nothing wrong with the seed, everything wrong with the pot. Growth needs sleep, rest, food, space.
no growing today
If I want to commit myself to nurturing my own creativity, to growing, something has to change. And change is a-coming.
Yikes! This morning at 7, I’d completely forgotten that it’s Wednesday, and I was going to select the winner of the giveaway. I just noticed, but I’m at work so I can’t copy and paste the actual image of the random number generated by Random.org……..you’ll just have to trust me on this: it’s #6. And #6 is Noreen. I’ll be contacting you in just a sec for shipping information.
Continue Reading–5 words totally
Yikes! This morning at 7, I’d completely forgotten that it’s Wednesday, and I was going to select the winner of the giveaway. I just noticed, but I’m at work so I can’t copy and paste the actual image of the random number generated by Random.org……..you’ll just have to trust me on this: it’s #6. And #6 is Noreen. I’ll be contacting you in just a sec for shipping information.
Thank you all for leaving such nice comments on that post. And for reading my blog, and commenting whenever you do. I wish I had stash to spare to send each of you a lovely little gift.
beautiful beautiful yarn
So I really liked the madelinetosh eyre light that I received – the reddish orangish skein called jodhpur. But I wasn’t loving it. It didn’t go with anything in my life (except for my memories of Texas dirt). I couldn’t see it on me. I tried it here I tried it there. I tried it in a box. I tried it with a fox. I tried it in my hair. I tried it in my chair.
Nope.
Luckily, there are madelinetosh forums on ravelry, which include destash/trade threads. Within a couple of minutes of posting, I found someone who wanted to trade her skein for mine, in the colorway I wanted – cousteau. Here it is:
cousteau - madelinetosh eyre light
GORGEOUS. And it relates to other yarns in my stash, and to things I wear. Once I’m out of this very intense crunch I can’t wait to get back to madelinetosh knitting. In addition to my more-than-fulltime job, I am trying to finish the wedding dress and shawl, doing the Creativity Boot Camp daily exercises, and taking an online course in preparation for teaching online courses in psychology. And racing to finish my bookclub book (which is amazing). And trying to finish reading 3 manuscripts. And trying to sleep and eat.
So yeah, madelinetosh is waiting for me, and I can’t wait to get back to her.
a multilayered story of experience, recorded for creativity boot camp
This word was challenging, as Maegan said it would be. I let it percolate in the back of my mind all day at work. I thought of one direction I’d go, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. Then, sitting here with my fingers poised over my keyboard, it hit me.
In 1988, my baby, my son, was failing to thrive. We’d moved from Texas to Connecticut. I didn’t know anyone. I was still hemorrhaging from his birth, the previous May. I had a 5-year old daughter, a 2-year old daughter, and an infant. I didn’t know it, but he was simply allergic to the corn syrup in his formula – but his pediatrician told me a devastating story of a failed life for my most precious little boy.
So, in the deep dark middle of the nights, I sat in my chair and pieced a quilt. Each little diamond, each stitch, soaked in my tears, dyed with my heartsick worry. I stitched and stitched, night after night.
Months passed, I figured out the corn syrup connection and changed his formula. We moved to Virginia, to Fredericksburg. He caught up, he ran and laughed. He lay under my quilting hoop and laughed when the quilting needle poked through the quilt. He laughed, my son laughed, and so did I.
my tear- and laughter-soaked quilt
It’s the first quilt I ever made, and I have layers of thoughts and feelings when I look at it – pride, and memories of the dark and the terror, joyful memories of his laughter. It’s impossible to feel just one thing when I look at it. The making of it is layered and complex. And now it lives in my oldest daughter’s home, in the first home she bought with her husband.
Meagan provided this perfect poem – so perfect I include it here, so it’s forever linked with my story.
The Journey, by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
What you had to do, and began,
Though the voices around you
Kept shouting
Their bad advice—
Though the whole house
Began to tremble
And you felt the old tug
At your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
Each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do
Though the wind pried
With its stiff fingers
At the very foundations
Though their melancholy
Was terrible.
It was already late
Enough, and a wild night,
And the road full of fallen
Branches and stones.
But little by little
As you left their voices behind,
The stars began to burn
Through the sheets of clouds,
And there was a new voice
Which you slowly recognized as you own,
That kept you company
As you strode deeper and deeper
Into the world,
Determined to do
The only thing you could do—
Determined to save
The only life that you could save.
beautiful blog award, from me to 10 others
Gibknitty, at Urban Muser, passed along this award to me yesterday….thank you! I enjoy these blog awards primarily because it gives me a chance to highlight other bloggers whose writing and photography I enjoy. I’m supposed to tell you 10 things you don’t know about me. I don’t know how interesting this will be, but here goes:
1) I have moved 80 times in my life. I won’t be moving again, thank heavens – the 80th time was the charm!
2) I played the flute and piccolo for several years, and played the flute at a couple of weddings….both of which ended in divorce. I decided not to play flute at weddings after that.
3) My grandfather, Big Daddy, was also my great uncle. I’ll leave you to puzzle that one out.
4) I have had 8 names. My initials are LDPSGASH. Now I just use LDH.
5) I have a total of 17 tattoos, all but one of which are along my spine. I got them when I was 40 years old, in the middle of graduate school.
6) I used to do a bit of catering; my business was called Morninglori.
7) I used to own a desktop publishing business called Back in A Flash.
8 ) I used to be VP of a consulting firm; we did OSHA compliance consulting to industry, such as American Maize.
9) My childhood best friend was murdered during her first year in college.
10) The best time of my life is right now, and tomorrow.
AND NOW! The best part of this is directing you to blogs that may be new to you. I subscribe to 254 knitting blogs (but I’m currently on a blog reading diet, I’m sad to say); here are 10 that I really enjoy. Thanks again, Gibknitty, for passing the baton. I pass it along to:
two and six – a blogger on the beautiful NW coast of Tasmania
know time for knitting – a beautiful life in Utah
weheartyarn – and they really, really do!
fabric n fiber fanatic – no kidding, and in NH to boot
knitterly anne – always good for a thoughtful post
perches in the soul – an artful life in VA
pirtti – big, gorgeous photos
flying pig knits – funny appreciation of the process
turtle girl’s bloggy thing – knitting and beautiful (edit: handsome!) cats
knitting linguist – she’s a professor, she knits, she smiles
You may know some of these already, but if any are new, click over and check them out!
creativity boot camp, day 2
What a challenge, today’s word picnic, since it’s a work day, I live in the manmade canyons of Manhattan, and I won’t get home until nearly 9pm.
Or so you would think.
Manhattan is lush, full of flowers and trees and bushes and color. Benches and paths, winding brick roads. It may not be what you call to mind, but it is so intertwined in the city that I cannot think of it otherwise. Central Park, you probably thought of that one already, huge and filling the heart of this city. But there’s also Riverside Park, a place I document in this blog again and again in every season, because it’s effectively my back yard. I never get tired of walking in Riverside Park. I walk past joggers, and dog walkers, and parents following toddlers, and parents following new bike riders, and lovers, and friends, and young people, and older people, and people sitting on benches in the sun, or reading the newspaper, or eating.
Those are some of the big parks, but certainly not the only ones. There are smaller parks everywhere. Actual parks, and nearly-hidden lots that have been turned into a small community garden, or park, we all crave that kind of space. I work on Madison Avenue, in the heart of midtown. There are churches in the neighborhood, and bodegas, and diners, but it’s primarily business business business.
Ten blocks south of my office is Madison Square Park, which has been a shared urban space since 1686. In 1870, it was landscaped when the city formed its first Department of Public Parks. Every summer there is a huge BBQ cook-off in the park; in a corner of the park there’s a locally famous joint called Shake Shack, which is so popular they have a Shake Shack cam so you can check how long the line is before heading over. I had no plans to eat a greasy hamburger and fries, or to savor the heavy ice cream concoction they call a concrete. Instead, my missions were two: to get out of the office and into this beautiful day, and to illustrate the urban picnic.
breakfast picnic, on Broadway in front of Macy's
what do we do during our urban picnics? We lounge and soak up sun. We eat salads.
we eat salads and sushi in the company of strangers
sometimes we dress in a twee and precious way, read a bit of Proust while not wearing socks, and munch delicately on a classy subway sandwich, while being exquisitely aware of our own cool sartorial splendor
On the way back to the office from my picnic observing, I spotted a few things I wanted to share with you:
sunlight reflecting off one building onto another
a great horned restaurant right next to the Museum of Sex. Horns? Horned? And what *are* those things above the horns?
it's an upright town - you've gotta look straight up to see the sky now and then
happy hour at the Macy's picnic tables on Broadway
[edit: That building with horns? Turns out it's the Gershwin Hotel. In addition to regular suites and rooms, they have dorm rooms with bunk beds! You can stay there for $49 a night, in the 6-bed room room, or $39 a night in the 10-bed room. Or you could get the suite for $275/night. It's an interesting space, full of art. ]
This poem about a picnic doesn’t start off sounding like the Manhattan version, but by the end I can totally see it, can you?
Picnic on the Shore (Lois Jenkins)
Shore grass growing
among the big rocks
enduring year after year.
This is the way to live.
A simple life,
the proper arrangement
of a few elements.
But here you are
standing on slippery stone,
trying to balance
a full plate and a cup.
What with the wrappers,
the flies and the wind,
already things have gotten out of hand.
madelinetosh tosh merino light! glory!
Isn’t it funny that we have to use a euphemism for that word, that p-oh-r-n word? But it’s all I could think of when I looked at the photos I just took of my new yarn, scored from a raveler who wanted to divest herself of a bit of madelinetosh’s elusive tosh merino light. The colorway is porcelain, and it’s just the most subtle, pale pink. It shades to tan, here and there, but the palest tan. Here, take a look:
tosh merino light, in porcelain. Actually, I have 6 skeins...
and now for the closeup
I’ll have today’s Creativity Boot Camp post later this evening…..
schizophrenia is not always fun for people in the subway. take my word for it.
Maybe you live in a smaller city, or a town somewhere – maybe you don’t live in a teeming city like New York. Teeming is a good word for us, it means abundantly filled with especially living things. Boy is that ever New York City. “Abundantly,” yes. “Filled,” oh yes. “Especially living” – yowza. So anything that teems can have a wide variety of things in it; I’m sure in a teeming ant hill, there are a couple of wacked-out insane ants here or there.
one of my friendlier neighborhood schizophrenics
So if you don’t live in a teeming place, you may not have the same kind of casual acquaintance with schizophrenics. You may not casually note ‘oh, there’s that schizophrenic dude again’ and just keep walking. You may not pass the enormous fungal-smelling homeless schizophrenic guy who lives by the front door of your office with the same breath-holding ease, you may not even take a second glance when you see he’s standing up peeing in his pants. Again.
I was walking on Broadway one evening last week, and a very tall woman passed by, then stopped in the middle of the street and was having an extremely vigorous conversation with someone that only she could see. There’s something very unsettling about it, if you stop to think about it. And if you think about it a little longer, it can start to goof with your ideas about reality, the philosophy of what is. By now you may be feeling sorry that you don’t have the same opportunities I have. Well, let me balance the scales.
This morning, as I was entering my subway station, there was a guy just behind me on the street, and he stopped at the top of the stairs and started raging, which impelled me to race down the stairs to get away from him. His voice was roaring, it had a growl edge, he was absolutely terrifying. And he was speaking a secret language that perhaps he could understand, but the words themselves were unintelligible, even if the feeling and power were not. But now and then, regular English words came out – kind of startling, like when you hear English pop up in a French sentence — ‘allons au picnic’ or something. His version:
crazy crazy crazy MOTHERFUCKER crazy crazy WEST SIDE STORY!!! CRAZY crazy fucking crazy WEST SIDE STORY!!! crazy CRAZY crazy crazy!
Well, that’s fine I guess. I may have a mixed review of West Side Story myself, but to each his own. But he was truly terrifying. He was pure terrifying rage, roaring in an inhuman way, but with a very human capacity. For a long time, he was stuck at the turnstile and I was anxious, wishing a train would hurry up and come before he got through. He made it through, and was rampaging up and down the platform, coming nearer to me at the end, then turning around, then coming back, roaring and shouting. I was terrified that he’d get into my car – I’d have jumped out before the doors closed, if that happened. Of course, if he got on the train, he could just walk from one car to the next. I felt terrible for anyone in a car with him.
The train came, finally, and he was mid-platform. Far from me, at the very end of the train. When we got to the next stop, 7 blocks away, the doors opened and I could hear his roaring, pouring out of the car and resonating in the tunnel.
So “teeming” can be a mixed blessing. That’s my take on it.
pondering the meaning of ivory
Today is the first day of creativity boot camp, and the assignment is ivory. One of my primary — and most difficult — tasks will be to be kind to myself and just follow what happens without being mean and critical. That’s hard for most people, I think, and if you have a cruel and hateful inner voice, as I do, it’s just shy of impossible. But I am going to try – to step out and be daring, and just follow myself without offering explanation and apology.
high school graduation, 1977
Ivory is pale skin, skin that is lit from the inside, skin that is soft and beautiful. I have ivory skin; I always have.
me and my camera
Ivory skin is one ideal, peaches and cream, pale and beautiful. There are other ideals, too – tan and bronze and cafe au lait and olive and honey. But those beautiful colors do not make ivory their opposite, ugly – ivory is another beautiful way of being in this world.
Ivory is cream.
Ivory is precious.
I am ivory.
My hands are ivory. My hands are MY hands, they resemble the hands of my father, and my grandmother, but these are my hands.
my hands
Throughout my life, other people have commented on my skin – my lovely complexion – and I insisted on belittling it. I can’t tan, I’m pale and ugly, your skin is honey but mine is putty. But I was wrong, every time. I am beautiful ivory.
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
living in an apartment in NYC does NOT mean you’re too poor to buy a house!
TRANSLATION
If you live outside the greater NYC area, the words probably have a different meaning – they did for me, anyway, before I moved here. People live in apartments because they can’t afford to buy a house. There’s a kind of implied social class aspect to it. A co-op is some collection of resources: an electric co-op, for rural electricity; a financial co-op; a grocery cooperative, etc.
But here, people live in apartments that they rent, or that they buy. A co-op is a legal structure in which residents of a building own shares in the building – it’s kind of like owning your apartment. But it does involve ownership, even if it’s not exactly like buying a house. I live in an apartment in a co-op building that’s pre-war (i.e. built before WWII, but ours was built in 1900). Our building was built before there was a subway. I live on the Upper West Side, which has a particular flavor like all the neighborhoods in NY do – the UWS is the literary, arty neighborhood. Upper East – richie riches, ladies who lunch.
So it sounds pretty fancy! But this is NY, where real estate and space are at a premium, even in these difficult financial times. Except for the upper-est echelons, apartments are small. Space is minimal. Older buildings – the cool ones, like mine – are old! (obvious, but true) This morning, I looked out our bathroom window and thought there had been a dusting of snow, for a minute, until I realized it’s just the general layer of soot and grime that coats everything here. That’s the view from my bathroom, just below. It’s hard to see, but the railing and the steps have a layer of white-ish crap on them, and it’s not paint, and it’s not snow.
The image on the bottom is the view from my kitchen. I’m always struck by how it looks like a prison yard. Our building is shaped like a U, with the bottom facing the street and a kind of courtyard between the two ‘arms.’ It’s not a fancy courtyard that people use, it’s just a space for getting between the buildings. But that door, at the bottom left; the barbed wire; the general gloominess; it always screams prison yard to me.
But our building is absolutely wonderful, and so is our neighborhood, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere other than Manhattan (though I might consider Hanoi, Paris, or Cusco…). We’re very lucky.
100 posts + a giveaway
This morning I happened upon Anne’s 100th post (congrats, Anne!). In celebration, she is offering a giveaway — so hop over and leave a comment. Reading her post caused me to look at my dashboard and what do you know: I was at 99, so my next post would be my 100th post! Coincidence. So in the same spirit, I thought I’d do a little giveaway. I’ll give two skeins of Berroco Jasper, in a beautiful brown color that variegates to an orange-brown:
Berroco Jasper - 2 skeins just for you!
To enter the giveaway, just leave me a comment. On Wednesday, June 9, I’ll do a random drawing at 7am, and send the skeins to the winner. When you leave a comment, the form asks for your email address, which does not show. Be sure to enter it, so I can contact you.
Of course I’d love it if you looked around the blog and subscribed, but that’s not required. Feel free to forward the post to friends, for the giveaway. If you tweet it or repost on your blog, let me know and you’ll get an extra entry.
It’s a good place to pause for a minute and say that I am glad you read, and leave comments. Have a wonderful Sunday!
Cooking with the anal-retentive chef was always a clean experience.
Do you remember this? I always loved the character. I tried to post it on Luscious, but it’s a wordpress.com account so this doesn’t work. I’ll just share it here:
So funny! It was so sad when and how he died. My day will be full of thinking about my daughter Marnie, because I’m trying to finish her wedding dress, and work on her shawl. But that doesn’t mean I’m not also thinking about my other daughter Katie, my other daughter Anna, and my darling son Will. Hi y’all.
show me your hands!
I have a thing for hands – lots of people do, I think. I’ve never really liked my hands because they look just like my dad’s and grandmother’s hands, which is weird because I always loved my dad’s hands. They were not always kind hands, but I still thought they were beautiful. Recently I’ve started thinking differently about my own hands, because my daughter casually mentioned – in passing – something about my beautiful hands. It was the casual in passing part that produced the shift; she said it as if it were obvious.
I also realized, when looking at a couple of blog posts this morning, that when I see a knitter’s hands I feel like I know her better. In fact, I feel like I know her differently when I see her hands, as opposed to when I see her face. So I got this idea for a show of hands. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? I’ve pulled a couple of photos I already have, and then I took some while I was kneading bread for a how-to-make-bread tutorial on my other blog, Luscious.
pay no attention to the face - i was trying to explain SOMETHING but i don't remember what. i like my hand, it does look graceful.
waiting to board the flight to Zagreb - Newark Airport is boring, unless you have your knitting with you. Ishbel plus leaving for vacation = happy me! But I like my hands here.
This one’s blurry because it’s an action shot, but I love seeing hands making things:
kneading bread
SO again, I don’t mean you need to show your whole self, just your hands. If you show them in a post on your own blog, leave a comment here with the link so I can go meet you. Whatever – let’s just have a show of hands!
i sell my photos, therefore i am a photographer.
Hi. My name is Lori and I am a photographer. I sell photographs on a stock photo site – fotolia. This is a link to the gallery of my photographs.
I haven’t uploaded any new photos in a couple of years; the ones that are in my current gallery were taken before I knew very much about taking pictures. I’d delete some of them now. There’s nothing spectacular about them, but what’s so confusing to me is that 91 people have paid for this image:
It’s a fine picture of red leaves, but (1) photos of red leaves are a dime a dozen and extremely easy to find, (2) for free. I don’t know why 91 people paid for this.
I use stockphoto sites when I’m trying to find images to use on jackets of the books I am publishing, so maybe it’s just people like me, people doing their work and needing a quick and simple resource.
Anyway, I guess this makes me a photographer. After my excessive rumination below, I guess this nagging issue is taken care of.
I just have not had any knitting time for the last couple of weeks; my usually-reliable time (on the subway to/from work) has instead been spent gobbling up the book I’m reading for my book club (Veronica by Mary Gaitskill, quite spectacular). So I’ve been posting all those other things, because (a) I can’t show any photos of the wedding shawl since the bride-to-be reads the blog and I’m surprising her with the specific pattern (hi Marnie!), and (b) how many more posts can I write about the other small things I’m working on, for heaven’s sake!
Continue Reading–28 words totally
I just have not had any knitting time for the last couple of weeks; my usually-reliable time (on the subway to/from work) has instead been spent gobbling up the book I’m reading for my book club (Veronica by Mary Gaitskill, quite spectacular). So I’ve been posting all those other things, because (a) I can’t show any photos of the wedding shawl since the bride-to-be reads the blog and I’m surprising her with the specific pattern (hi Marnie!), and (b) how many more posts can I write about the other small things I’m working on, for heaven’s sake!
But finally, I have a post that’s related to the ostensible theme of this blog. A woman on ravelry was selling a bunch of her yarn and fiber, and I scored this:
color: 'tobacco'
It’s 70% merino, 20% cashmere, and 10% silk, and the combination of colors is really beautiful. The photo above is pretty plain and straightforward because I wanted to show all the colors it contains. She originally bought it from Pigeonroof Studios, and my fingers are itching to spin it. Not literally, of course, because this is incredibly soft and lofty fiber.
The next time this appears on my blog, it’ll be yarn. I hope that happens soon.
a sneaky little idea just came to me
a funny little giveaway!
I was just on my wordpress dashboard, deleting the inevitable spam comments, when I noticed that I have 401 comments so far. I had such fun with the 100th post giveaway, so it hit me. I’ll do another giveaway for my 500th comment! This one’s a little trickier, since you won’t know when it happens, but this is what I’ll give the person who leaves the 500th comment: a gorgeous little ball of Noro Bonbori, which a friend of mine brought me from Tokyo:
squishy and soft, blues and purples, enough for a hat
Just between you and me, I hope you are the one who gets it. Shhh…
I put a little widget at the very top of the sidebar – it lists the current comment count, so you’ll know when we’re getting close to 500.