Tuesday 13 November 2007

Long Awaited Shawl picture

OK, no one is really waiting for this shawl, though I sure am. It is odd to say that I've a hunger to wear it. I love these colours that much. The pattern is just simple yarn overs and stockinette, but the simplicity is showing off the shades and tones without allowing them to be too much.


I did like the yarn with the green, and may still have to go that way, but well, I'll do this a while longer. Even if I do have to go back to garter stitch with the green, I will be re-knitting. I'm discontented with the quality of the work and I know I can do better.

Yesterdays post really makes me want to take out the current hardanger project again. I am drawn to it deeply.

There is a regularity to hardanger stitches that charms me. The handwork things I deeply enjoy doing are like that. Controlled, regulated, measured. Cross stitch, blackwork and all the counted thread work surely follows that. Crochet and knitting too. Both are just variations on simple basic stitches, but within those 2 or 3 stitches, there is endless variations.

The same thing appeals to me in music. Bach and his genius inside the tight confines of the rules of music of his day, Telemann and Handel too. I am a musical neophyte, but I do have an affinity for the baroque. I don't know if these things speak to an un-daring mind, or just a fundamental need for order.

My family is likely laughing now at the thought of me being orderly. My sisters with whom I shared rooms at various times in our youths surely are. They would be correct and incorrect at the same time.

Hidden within me is a deep love of order, regularity and the sureness of time, of patterns in sound, patterns in things I enjoy doing. Maybe patterns is the heart of it, that I am intrigued by things with distinct, strong patterning. The older I get the more clearly I see how the things I am drawn too are ordered and how much they soothe my soul. The more clearly I can see this passion for ordered things, the more I am astounded by the other side of me which has a seemingly endless ability to ignore untidiness and clutter.

I have yet to see that doing dishes ever fed my soul.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Can I leave a comment on yesterday's post? We sisters all have our hidden desire for order. That was always the attraction of bookkeeping for me. All those nice columns and rows. And numbers that behave themselves so much better than people. See - now you've got order in your stitching and in your work.

Are you convinced yet?

GD