100Words
This was a quick knit-up I did at work. It’s a mistake. There were supposed to be four sides. However, my fertile mind has already found a use for the shape. Once I work it out, I’ll share.
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Archive for the Ravelry CategoryI decided that I would post the text of the Cast On essay, today, my birthday.
Today, I darned a sock and made a bed… This is a line from a poem, written by my grandmother, Mae V. Cowdery. It is from a slim volume of poems– We Lift Our Voices. — she published in 1936. Whenever I spent time with my mother in Philadelphia, I would search out the volume and leaf through the pages until drawn to one title or another.
I’m an occasional poetry lover, preferring science fiction and fantasy, my mother’s entertainments. And yet, for some reason, this line lingers, still, creating a ghost image of what my grandmother must have felt about the minutiae of keeping house. Looking around at the chaos I call home I wonder what she would really think of it.
Not one bed made. Not only unmade, but covered in unfolded laundry. I don’t even know where I would find the makings even if I chose to make any one of them. As for socks. I’d rather make one than darn one. In fact, when I recite the words in my head it’s usually, “today I made a sock and darned a bed”. Except I don’t make socks. And I like bed too much for even such a mild swearing as “darn”.
All that being said, there is still something that lingers, that calls to me from those words. It came to me while I was working on a piece of lace knitting. Nothing special. Just a collection of thread and holes to find out how this stuff works. Of all the knitting I’ve done, knitting lace is the most satisfying. I only discovered that last month with my first lace knitting project, finished. It satisfies me with its requirement for focus on making each stitch. Even the plain rows require attention lest I miss one of the yarn-overs of the previous row.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been reacquainted with my grandmother within the same month, that I’ve come to associate lace knitting with poetry. Over the last five years or so, I’ve found references to her and her poetry on the internet. And last month I made contact with a woman who is writing about her for an anthology of Harlem Renaissance poets. The image I have of her now, wearing a suit and tie, emphasizes my imagined inheritance of housekeeping ennui. And yet…
For all the chaos, I have friends that would rather be here than at home. They say, it looks like me. The walls are painted the color of sunlight through leaves and glow and move with leaf shadow in sunlight. The walls are hung with quilt explorations. The windows are edged with tiny Buddhas among even smaller animal totems: horses, rabbits, rhinos. A small blue glass holds three coccoons. When the fan is on the flat rings with the chimes of an Em7th chord.
Ok. So I’ve decided we don’t like housework. There is more to keeping a home, a home where poetry grows anyway. And I realized, sitting and knitting lace, that this is a home for poetry and other makings. Lingering after all the other voices on proper living have had their say, the poet’s voice prevails.
As for me…today, I leave a sink full of dishes and the eggshells unmulched. I’m rushing to catch the cone of gold cotton, to photograph it glowing in that deep sunlight way it does, nestled there between the bookshelves, against the green wall. And then, I write how knitting lace is making poetry, and how making poetry remakes the world.
Leaving the dishes may not be a kind of home keeping that Mae Cowdery would fully approve of, yet, it could be one that she would recognize as right and good.
The poem:
 From xkcd. It’s a web comic I found a couple of Raveleryers talking about in one of the groups. And… the blog is acting strangely, so I’m gonna get in and get out before I break something. I think I spent nearly all of the day on Ravelry. Yes, it was somehow productive. I may have answered one question. I know I wrote a little about Margaret Stove’s Creating Original Hand-knitted Lace. This was recommended to me in the Lace Tech group. Specifically I was sent to David Reidy’s Sticks and Strings podcast to hear his interview with Margaret herself. I was inspired and nearly willing to send to Australia for the book. Fortunately, Mum, a deft hand at both knitting and the internet, suggested I do a little searching first–past Amazon. I found a listing for the book in a library catalog in Oregon. The publisher? Lacis. Yes, the same Lacis that I have been to on a couple of occasions and the source of Evelyn Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles I wrote about earlier. I ordered the book and received it within a couple of days, weekend notwithstanding. So, as a kind of thank you to the existence of Ravelry, I spent a lot of time there. I have got some knitting done. Done, not just started and understood. I finished a square that will be a stroller blanket of sorts. I’m trying it out tomorrow to see how I feel about it. Meanwhile, I’m looking to use the same brand of yarn to make scarves for people. Still a good way to practice lace knitting. One good edging will make a nice looking scarf. And because it is a fluffy yarn, it should be cozy without being bulky. Something to tuck inside the collar of a coat. Not good for keeping the rain off. Taking a break from anything even remotely serious… Eddie Izzard’s Darth Vader in the Canteen. There’s an Eddie Izzard group on Ravelry. Shoulda known. The wedding was lovely. Nothing so beautiful as the ringing laughter of the bride-to-be and her maids while they are having their pre-wedding photos taken. My people. I put the gifts down for a little while as I put other things onto and off the needles. Swatching, testing, and learning are taking up just a little time away from the navy blue. I’ve finished a scarf. Nothing I would give for a wedding present but definitely for a holiday gift. I have access to a pair of US19 needles and had a skein or two of Mohair to play with. So, I put on some stitches, broke up a Shetland spider pattern after three rows, and using one row of it for a border, knit a garter stitch scarf. In two days. Actually, in less than two work shifts. (I have long periods of napping to watch). I don’t generally like large gauge needles, so it took me a while to forget that and just get into the rhythm. I like how it feels and looks. It’s not quite long enough, though. I hedged a bit because I didn’t know how much yarn I would have left to finish with a second border. I don’t even remember if I bought one or two skeins! I had two cakes of the stuff but that doesn’t mean anything since I get two cakes when one of them spins itself off the ball winder. I also don’t like this brand of yarn. It sheds much too easily for my taste. I do like the speed of finishing, and the texture of the finished fabric. Meanwhile, NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. I’ve been visiting with the NaKniSweMo group on Ravelry torturing myself with the idea of knitting something as well. I want a twin set. I’ve never had one and I’ve wanted one since I was little. My mother had at least one, a baby blue set, if I remember correctly. I don’t want anything that twee, though. What I see is a stockinette cardi in Lamb’s Pride, black, and a t-shirt in a sheer garter stitch, sport or lace weight. Also black. Or bright red. To that end, one of my practice pieces is a top-down raglan. I’ve never made a raglan before, so I’m putting at least enough time into this to get it to the underarm before November. Since I want to wear it when I’m done, I’ve still got to make design decisions. For some reason I started it in a bright gold color. I’m not sure that would look good on my body as the only color in the piece. I have a couple of skeins of a burgundy and a dark pink (for lack of a better description) that I am considering using for the body of the sweater. I haven’t made a proper sweater in a long time. The last one I made is still a hit with my adoring public. Those few who haven’t seen it already, that is. I think I was still living in San Francisco when I made it, which would make this its twenty-third anniversary. It’s big, fluffy and cozy. Just like me! Ok. I’ve got a couple more things going on and I’ll tell them later. Want to get some writing assignments done and paper for work finished. Photos to follow, also.
I was glad to have been there. It was a ritual I’ve never experienced before. Food and friends were my experience. I found that one of the gang is the daughter of Babetta’s Yarn shop. We spent the few minutes we were allowed by the other women at our table deep into our love of lace knitting. The experience was unifying… I’ve been away from the gang for a while. Babies are born. Other weddings constructed and expressed. I got to take photos of the photos being taken. I also got to put my gift on the table among the more elaborate ones, the gifts in fluffy bags. I am happy, now. These are my other family, the younger people in my life. I am grateful for being included, remembered, and making myself felt among the others, the women the bride believed would be her blessings. She is right. The women she chose are her guides and angels. The women who love her and wish her the best life possible. I was on the groom’s side. I prefer the company of the boys, the conversations of theories and techniques. It was the groom’s invitation that reached me first. Although AI knitted her scarf first, it would not be a complete gift without his. There will be more to tell about the gifts. Photos and all. Until then, congratulations Jon and Amy. You have made the first steps. And love is your path. I hate it when I can’t see the post I’ve just made. Especially when I’ve got something technical on it. The last post is supposed to have a satellite image of my grandmother’s house on it. There is, at the moment a big blank space. I can’t even re-load the post to edit it. Another huge blank space. Yes, I like WordPress. No, I don’t like the technical difficulties. I did manage to fix the lace photo so that one is not so huge. yay. I am learning to take things a little bit at a time, not changing four pieces at once and messing up everything. OK. Back to work. Have the scarf half done, exactly. I’ve decided that I will be using two balls of yarn since the length of one seems to be plenty for half way. I’ve also started his scarf. It’s one of the “two trees” patterns from Barbara Walker. I used the other one a while ago and I especially like the symbolism. His is in Lamb’s Pride, navy of course. I’m taking the official pictures, the one I’m giving as the placeholder for the actual gift, tomorrow. Went shopping for decent going to wedding stuff today. Ended up with a T-shirt. Don’t ask. Ok. Early to work tomorrow. Write 100Words tonight. Listen to the end of The Amber Spyglass somewhere in between. Maybe the blog fairies will come tonight. I got an email today, from Brenda Dayne of Cast On. She wants to use an audio essay I sent her. The essay was inspired by her Summer Camp series, and wasn’t about summer camp. It was about my grandmother and my approach to housekeeping. I think of this present as being from both of them. Mostly from my grandmother, though. I never got birthday presents from her, my mother’s mother, Mae. I got birthday cards with crisp five dollar bills in them from my father’s mother, Bertha. All I’ve ever had of Mae, or Roachie as I was tole she’d been called, was her only daughter and through her, part of my life. And the knitting. Bertha didn’t knit, wasn’t a maker. She was a missionary wife and mother. I knew her as someone who managed on her own, in her own house, on an artificial leg. Yes, she fell from time to time and I was there sometimes to help her up. Mostly, though, she did everything herself. I spent part of the year that my grandfather, Sam, died, living with her. She’d wash my hair in the kitchen sink, first covering the burners on the stove before having me lie down under the tap water. She gave me my first taste of cake batter. And my love for big, bright, open kitchens as well a longing for a real chest freezer. And rolling down lawns and sunbathing. (this should have been a Google map of Bertha’s house, now my stepMom’s) Mae only left me poetry. It was a slim volume of her poems that she had published. I have a photocopy of it. I didn’t take the one my mother had and when my grandfather called and asked if there was anything of my mother’s I wanted, I didn’t think to ask for the book. Or the knitting things. Or her science fiction collection. Or the chairs I sat in while I figured out how to knit, that first sweater. Today, though, I feel I got that birthday present Roachie never sent me. Finally figured out how to add a button or badge to the sidebar when the image in on my local server and not the originators. Had to have me a Ravelry button. Now if I can just figure out how to add the Huna button and get things to show when I’m done. Oh, well. Gave myself some boundaries for the wedding present. So many inches of the scarf each day and a day to finish by. This is such a new process for me. It allows me to take the time I’d be using to get more frustrated and apply it to being more productive. I swatched some yarn I had in the house to get a feeling for what happens when I use needles larger than recommended for knitting lace. I also don’t know what the yarn weight designations mean in relation to knitting lace. I get tired of the really fine lace weight knitting. I want to have something more substantial that I can use to get experience with the stitches and how they interact. And yet, I want to have finished pieces and fun. I like the sock yarns that are out there. I like some of the hand paints that are out there. It would be nice to play in those while working on my skills. The more time I spend with a single project, the more questions I have about knitting in general and the construction of lace in particular. |
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MOOD
I’ve never been to a wedding before. I left my simple gift on the table with the rest of the more elaborate ones. Amy, the bride, was excited to see me there. Jon, her husband, less so.
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