Making a list…

The winter holidays always bring out the list-making, goal -oriented part of my personality.  Here is this year’s list of goals, all unrealistically slated to be accomplished during the week between Christmas and New Year!

1.  Texsolv tie-ups to be applied to my 60” Toika loom

2.  Choose pattern for napkins which will be woven as test samples for future tablecloth project on the Toika . Warp the loom!

2.  Taka dai to be made by Bob according to Rodrick’s plans.  Naturally I will be turning out my first braid within hours of the taka dai’s completion.

3. Dyeing with my avocado pit brew which has been steeping for almost 3 months now. This means spinning some white wool to dye.

4.  Weave the small test tapestry for the medieval spinner with the wonderful wools that have arrived from Renaissance Dyeing in France.

Won’t I have a busy week!  And somehow I imagine myself sharing delicious meals with my visiting family, lounging on the sofa reading all the fiber magazines that never got opened during the course of this year, continuing to knit my handspun Fair Isle sweater project, and starting a new baby sweater for the upcoming Feb. birth. 

I need a dose of reality!…but then dreaming is so much more fun!

Christmas Cheer to all

…or what happens when the 20-somethings outnumber the 50-somethings at the family Christmas celebration.

Buy Handmade

Goodbye funk….

I regret that I am posting this so late in advent.  It’s dangerous to look at too many of these at once because your laughing fit may cause accelerated heart rate, inability to breathe, and severe stomach ache.  You’ve been warned!

www.regretsy.com

 

This is as good as You Knit What? that I’ve sorely missed!
Thank you, Helen Killer!

Ah, December…

It seems every holiday is balanced with a share of grief.  Perhaps winter celebrations were established to balance our sufferings through these dark months.

This is a study for a larger tapestry I still haven’t made.  The bigger idea is not ready yet, but at the time of the study I made a list of mothers I know who had lost their children.  I just added one more name to that list.

And yesterday I found this poem mixed in with my cache of knitting patterns:

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called.  This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours though

the open living room windows because the heat's on too high in here, and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking:  This is what the living do.  And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush:  This is it.
Parking.  Slamming the car door shut in the cold.  What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up.  We want the spring to come and the winter to pass.  We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living.  I remember you.

--Marie Howe

I promise to be more upbeat for the rest of the month…