On Thieves, Thievery, and Letting Go

A couple of weeks ago, as you've read below, I went on a trip to New York City. I told you about the city and about the schools, and about the yarn, but I didn't tell you about... the not so happy times...

I stayed at the Bentley, a small but tall place just across the highway from the water...



The day before we left to return home, I got food poisoning in a most dramatic way. I was so ill that my co-workers were checking on me every hour to see if it was time for me to go to the Emergency Room. I couldn't walk due to the vertigo and nausea - not that you need the details but I want to give a picture of how very unable I was to tend to anything during those two days.

On the second day of sickness when it was time to leave, a coworker came to my room and helped me pack up by tossing my things into my suitcase. I was so grateful. I wasn't able to even move my head to look around the room. Two coworkers walked me to the car to keep me upright.

Once we were about 100 miles out of town, I realized that I didn't have my raincoat. My raincoat, that had - in the pockets - my handknitted cashmere Veyla gloves - the ones with the antique jet and silver buttons...



The buttons were given to me by a dear elderly friend at work when she retired. They had been her grandmother's. I made the gloves especially to showcase the buttons and I wore them all the time. The yarn was from Mackintosh Yarns - a beautiful cashmere in a deep oceany teal and black...

Of course my first step was to call the Bentley as soon as I was able. Yes, they had my coat and yes they had secured it in the housekeeping lost-and-found area. Yes they would mail it to me - for $75(!!). I chose an alternative solution and a friend of mine stopped by the hotel to pick it up and bring it here, where she was visiting her parents.

Guess what? You guessed it! The coat was there, but the pockets were empty. No gloves. Furious is too mild a word for my mood when my friend told me about this.

I am heartbroken. My bf snickered when I told him how upset I was. He doesn't understand that things like this are irreplaceable. Sure, I can make another pair of gloves. But I can never make that pair of gloves, nor an I ever find that particular hand-dyed yarn in that particular colour, nor will I ever have those very precious jet mourning buttons from my friend's grandmother - ever again.

But he did his best to console me tonight:



And my friend did her best to get the hotel to actively try to retrieve these gloves from the only person who might have had access to them on their trip from my room to the housekeeping locker, but to no avail. They couldn't be bothered to even inquire of the staff involved.

I wanted to rage. I wanted to lodge a police report or call the press or both. I wanted that manager to realize that these gloves had involved a considerable amount my heart and soul, not to mention time, expense, and precious antique mementos. But I had to let go.

The fact is, that someone at the Bentley has stolen something from someone else. They will carry that dark cloud every time they wear those gloves, or when they sell those gloves on eBay, or when they give them as a gift that is not theirs to give. It is actually their loss. Because they will never be same, though they may not realize it at first. Their heart will be a little darker, their prospects a little less bright, and their hopes and dreams a little further away from being realized.

And me.... I need to learn to let the world relieve me of some of the beautiful things I carry with me. If I open my fingers, they can drift away to a new owner. They can be a gift, not a theft.

As Valerie said to Miracle Max in The Princess Bride,
Let them steal what they want; what do we have worth fighting over?

Not for Christmas

I don't have much to report on this first Sunday of Advent, except that I've finished another pair of Veylas and a small cap to go with it. They were made on request and what a fun and fast knit! These were made with Indigo Moon sock yarn, in Midnight (black).



The buttons are vintage glass from a closed Czechoslovakian button factory, so they're what antique dealers call "old stock" - never used stock from an old store. I'm not sure how the photos will show them, as they have both brown and black swirling through the glass.



In other news, we had our first snow (a little flurry) and the world is cold and stark, suddenly, without warning. I'm almost prepared for winter, so its fairly cosy here and a fire in the fireplace with a cup of mulled cider or spiced tea is just what I need!

The Art of Knitting

Strange things happen around my old New England farmhouse sometimes. Things disappear. Sometimes I think that I am living with The Borrowers, or that the field mice are lining their winter nests with my knitting! The most recent things to go missing are all my fingerless mitts (I would call them gloves, except they don't have fingers). I've had a couple of pairs of my own Koigu Gloves pattern - one was my favorite green Broccoli mitts - and use them every fall before the weather gets cold enough for really serious gloves. But when I cleaned out and organized the coats, jackets, and accessories they were nowhere to be found - nowhere! Borrowers, indeed.

So...here are my quickly knitted replacements: Veyla, from Ysolda.



I can't say enough about this pattern. The finished gloves are so lovely and with their lace and details they look like a complicated knitting project - but they're not. The pattern is clear and very fast. I made this pair in three days, just working on them in the evenings while watching Rubicon.

My yarn is the wonderful MacKintosh Yarns in the Iona Fingering, which is a merino-cashmere blend, with a little nylon for durability. It's so soft and her colours are stunning in person. This colourway is a deep blend of dark teal blue and black - very "ocean-depths" coloured!



The buttons are antique faceted and silvered black glass. They were a gift from a friend and, I wanted to use them on something where I would see them often. I have enough for a sweater, though, so if I make something else that they would be good with, I might switch these up and use smaller ones on the Veylas.

These mitts fit perfectly and I'll use them on those early frosty Fall mornings we are having. (like today - 39 degrees Fahrenheit right now, although later today, it will be closer to 70!) I see more pairs of Veylas in my future!



The book in these photos is a precious antique volume of The Art of Knitting, 1902, published by The Butterick Publishing Co [Limited], London and New York, Price: fifty-cents or two shillings.



This incredible original came to me as a gift from my friend Marky in Australia - its a real treasure! This was obviously a well-used volume over the past 110 years, as the pages are filled with faded photographs of mysterious people, patterns cut out of other magazines of the day, and hints on cleaning felted hats and pressing silk sash ribbons between muslin... This photo is the beautiful "Maggie" holding a garland in her lap and perhaps dressed for a wedding with her deep V-necked gown and dainty button-up shoes.



The frontispiece is a very familiar one - a scene that I've found in several of my old knitting and crochet volumes from the mid and late 1800s, that of a grandmother teaching her granddaughter to knit, and leads me to believe that in a publication from 1902, at least some of the patterns have their origin in an earlier century. Perhaps this picture is meant to indicate that the patterns span generations?



The patterns are quaint, like this simple and quick pattern for sleeping socks:



Its heelless design and openwork pattern would make it a very easy pattern to work up in a bit of leftover wool or silk.

I particularly like this pattern for a cuff, with it's scalloped design and think I might make a pair to peek out from the slightly-too-short sleeves of my brown jacket:



And, of course, these beautiful mittens will have to find their way into my wardrobe this year. I don't really wear mittens much, so I'll probably re-design these to have open fingers.





On the very last page of this fragile booklet, the previous owner has pasted a pattern article from a 1915 newspaper - the WWI years. It is "A Cap Comforter for Tommy" - a hat and neck-cowl combination for a soldier in winter. With it's ingenious design and historical significance, I think it deserves it's own post, so plan to put that up in the future.