ashes and roses

Today is rising bright and cool...all the colours outside my front room window seem sharper after the haze of those 100 degree days we had last week!

I'm planning a quiet day today, as I'm feeling a little poorly. A trip to the local yarn store may cheer me up. I want to score a skein of Seacoast Handpaints sock yarn in Ashes and Roses:



for a sock pattern called "Ashes"

I never used to like pinks of any kind. But just about a year ago, I started being drawn to different shades of pink and rose. It started with a very pale pink kid mohair & silk Kid Silk Haze yarn, that I used with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino baby yarn for a pair of spiral stitch bed socks...so sweet. Then I started noticing the pale shades of pink in nature - the blush on the edge of a purple iris, the edge of a seashell, a streak in the granite foundation....Its not all kool-aid hot pink, sometimes it's more pink lemonaide...The subtle pinks in nature are like the promise of affection in creation, the assurance that this world was made with love.

This is how the Ashes and Roses yarn looks when it is knit up, subtle and soft:



Just like wearing matching underwear, matching your yarn to your sock pattern is a secret pleasure...who will ever know that the Ashes and Roses yarn is knit into a pattern called "Ashes", or that the Snake Poison yarn is knit in a pattern called "Snakes on a Sock" or that the deep marine blues of the Subterranian Mermaid yarn is knit into a sock with a lace pattern called "Fish Scales Lace"? Little things like this make me happy.

While at the yarn store, I'll also look for an orange yarn, as my little sister's new boyfriend is said to like orange *and* handknits. Can you imagine? Orange - the colour of optimists! I interrupt this sock knitting to bring you The Orange Hat for Brodie. I feel a new original pattern coming on, like a pearl forming in its solitary shell.....

During my early morning blog rolling this morning, I found a few more sock patterns:

Red Dwarf

Dragonfly

Rayne's socks

A visit to the local quilt shop is also in my plans, I think. I contemplated driving to the coast and visiting the Portsmouth Fabric Company, but given my low energy, staying in town is a better idea. The Quilt store here has wonderful fabric and I feel like sewing. I want to make bags (knitting bags of course!) - like the bags I see all over Etsy. First, I want to make a square bag and put the embroidered sheep on the sides that Nadine's mother made for me: pine cone sheep and violets sheep. This bag will be big enough to hold more than one project and will have a sturdy lining, with pockets! And then I want to make a little rectangular bag with a zipper - just the right size to hold whatever the current sock project is, with its DPNS... Nice old-fashioned fabrics, like 1930's or 40's...

For anyone who is planning to stay in quietly and knit today, there is both a Britain's Next Top Model (VH1) and a Top Chef (Bravo) marathon going on all afternoon....

morningtide

Sometimes you are just going along and something happens to pull you up short and remind you of the transience of this life. I just made a donation to Annie Modsitte's multiple myeloma fund for her husband. Annie is the wonderful knit designer who brought us Knitted Millinery. Her website and blog tells the whole story... http://www.anniemodesitt.com/patterns/rcc.html

I'm afraid my journal-writing has been sparse and inconsequential lately because I am so busy with the summer teaching for the college. I have been on the computer so much that my wrists hurt! I have to wear my little spandex wrist thingies... so not much knitting until the hands feel better....

wishes arrive on the doorstep...

I have the most beautiful knitting book in the world!



I really believe that's true. This volume seems - although I don't read German - to have everything: the History of a particular older knitter - perhaps the woman who developed this stitch or these patterns; an explanation of various stitches and grafts and ways to make the actual lily (with some explanations in English!); lots and lots of garment patterns - far more than most US pattern books; with descriptions, and notes, and lace graphs, and written pattern directions for each one, and a short biography, with photos, of every person who had anything to do with the book.

And.....
and...
...AND......

The. Most. Incredibly. Beautiful. Sock patterns I have ever seen! Imagine - lily of the valley on your socks!



Thank you Nad, for your generosity. You are amazing.

This box from Germany also came with Hello Kitty, tea sugar, tea, a French knitting magazine, a mini Opal skein (so cute!), absolutely gorgeous mohair for lace, and a pin that says: "I'm a knitaholic and proud of it! Passionate Sock Knitter. hee hee

Apparently, The Post Office was also interested in this package, because once again, it had a hole busted in it, even though the customs slip listed the contents as quite innocent! I was angry, because the little things could easiy have fallen out of the hole, which was the length of my finger and looked quite deliberate - just big enough to peek inside and check the contents! Now, I don't mind if they feel they have to check, but why don't they seal it back up again? I almost feel like they're trying to pretend that they *don't* check the mail....

Well, my boyfriend is complaining that he's getting no attention (I'm blogging, watching the Red Sox/Mariners game. and eating pizza) so I'd better go. Socks. Must knit more socks! Oh, did I tell you that this book also has a pattern for a tiny, tiny lily of the valley sock? Small enough for a keychain!
Now you know what you're all getting for Christmas! ;)