Here in Sockland ...why yes, I am pretty busy knitting socks.
I spent the morning yesterday doing errands, and the afternoon with my knit groups. As ever, knitting in a group means sock knitting for me. I debated about tossing in the yellow stripey sock, but I stood my ground with myself and worked on the green and orange pair.
I doubled the second sock in length. They have decided to be fraternal socks though I was kind of looking forward to being all matchy matchy like the black pair. There were two knots in the yarn, about 5 metres apart, that took out a rust coloured section and a large part of the green section. I was surprised on finding knots. That has been pretty rare in my experience with sock yarn, with all yarn really, but c'est le vie. I knew the game was up and I am just knitting and not worrying about what is coming next. Fraternal is good too. I am going to focus on getting this sock done today.
I also realized that I have to deal with this.
For the life of me, I cannot say why I did not weave the ends in as I worked. I did on the green pair. Kind of stupid if I may say so myself.
So there is progress on the sock front here in Sockland, but I am ever watchful for the stupid. This is me, and oh, it regularly rears it goofy head.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Ever have a day where you knew you really had to get some stuff done but would rather do almost anything but that...so you spent you time on Ravelry and other places looking at Nieblings?
Yeah. I have to go digging in my book boxes. I miss my knitting books.
In the meantime, check out these. (A non Ravelry link for those who are non ravelrs like my sisters.)
See what I mean. Couldn't stop looking could you.
I get that. I get the pictures from blogs, from lace websites, from places all over the world.
What I don't get is the 70s Tigerbeat Spectacular with David Cassidy on the cover.
After Fridays busy news, what is a person to do? I did this.
I started a sweater in Red Briggs and Little Regal. We shall see how far we get before it is time to go do normal things.
Then when my hands got tired of that, I did a little of this. This is a monstersock usng some blue from the big bag of bits and a single yellow skein from the one skein bin.
It would have made more sense to go finish the green and orange one rather than start a new one but this
wasn't right there when I needed to do something with my hands and the pretty yellow yarn and needles were.
If I can reach it, it gets knit. Sometimes that is the way we roll.
I really did forget this morning. I made coffee, like I usually do. Then I went to the computer, like I usually do, and I have no idea what the heck happened after that. And then it was time to play with baby, and then I got a job...
YUP! After several many interviews, well not really that many, 4 with the actual employer, I landed a nice job and I am thrilled. Unfortunately, it is on the far side of the city so it will be a long commute for a few months, but I know how it goes. That long commute never really is that long in the end. There are always books on cd to listen to and podcasts to download and hear.
And then 10 minutes after that, news that my mortgage is almost resolved!
It was a very very good day, even if I did start a little sluggish in the memory department.
Remember that long cast one I did? I haven't knit on it in a while. It still is only an inch long and an inch isn't going to cut it. Part of the reason I have been avoiding it is that it has a problem. It is at that stage and after all that hard work...I hate this part of knitting.
Because I wanted a bottom hem to match the finishing on the neckline and wrists, and because the finish is i cord which is perpendicular to the rest of the stitches, row gauge is a problem. And I did not make an allowance for it.
It blouses. It blouses and poufs even with one measly inch of knitting. Imagine this once 6 inches is knit, once the body is knit. Imagine that sad little too short row of i cord pulling everything in right where it absolutely must flow and drape.
Yeah. You know what I am doing this morning. Ripping back. We will see about restarting. I might just work on a different sweater.
It sure was a nice i cord. I will always have that.
Please note:
The blog title is stolen directly from the source, the Knitmore Girls Podcast, which if you still have not listened to, you ought.
I was chilled yesterday, to the bone cold and I could not seem to warm up. I was sitting in front of a heater at the time, but it didn't seem to help. On the shelf in front of me was this sweater.
Brian wore it a few times watching TV. He said it was too hot for anything else. He took it camping and a large spark flew to where it lay on a chair, and burned through it in several spots. It lay on the shelf waiting for repair ever since.
I debated tossing it, but it, oy, all that work. That seemed like such a waste. I thought about recovering what good wool I could. The arms, the body below the armpits. These were good. It was only the top that would have been scrappy and largely unrecoverable. I just never got round to that. It stayed on the shelf and waited.
I was cold, so I put it on. It became apparent pretty fast, that if I was going to wear it even a little, I had to do something. The holes made the knitting very unstable.
So I pulled out the left over yarn from making the sweater and did some quick and dirty repairs.
The two spots which were just singed were repaired with a little judicious duplicate stitch. I can see one more row needs work in the second picture.
The other two were big. Great big.
Like I said. Big.
I was never sure what I was going to do with those. I often thought the only repair would have been to knit a patch leaving long ends at the end of each row, that could be woven into the fabric. And yes that would work, but the idea seems pretty daunting.
And that is why it sat on the shelf.
Anyway, after repairing the socks, I thought in for a penny, in for a pound and did these.
The first, fell conveniently between two sections of garter stitch and the patch fit comfortably along the edge of the sleeve seam. It fits pretty well and I am, more or less pleased with it.
the garter stitch patch worked less well. I needed to pick up stitches to start a row lower than I did so that the garter stitch worked better on the right side, and I needed to do and extra row of garter stitch. Plus, I forgot to do a purl rather than a knit two together at the one side for those garter rows. And then to finish off, I made the graft too tight.
So many flaws, but the knitting is stable and the sweater is once again, usable.
I am warm and am cozy wrapped in the memories of summer camping. That counts for something in the middle of a Canadian winter.
It never seems to matter how big a project is, there is always that space after you finished that feels empty. It isn't that there are not dozens of things ongoing, but you sit there for a moment and you have to decide what your fingers feel like working on.
Mine decided to play and if you go back, you will see what I was playing with on Saturday.
Sunday morning, I realized that there I sat,
two socks but no new pair in sight.
I have been there before but this just doesn't make sense when I think about the state of my sock drawer. I could really use a few pairs of socks.
Sunday I addressed that.
Sock two, well under way, almost to the cuff. I do have a fair bit of the striped yarn left but am just going to have enough of the black to finish the cuff.
After I get done the red section knit on sock two, I think I am going to pull the rest of the striped ball apart and see if there are two sections of of any one colour remaining. I normally wouldn't worry about that, but up until now, the universe has decided that these socks will match. If the universe is unfolding that way, who am I to make waves? The cuffs are tennis cuff short right now and it would be a waste not to make them longer if I can.
Besides, after playing in the bag of bits, why add back into it?
Became an inspired by interpretation of the original and honour must go to the lady who thought up, Teri Frid and her 'Even Big Guys Love Spidey Socks' pattern. Without these, it wouldn't have happened.
Because I wasn't keen on stranding and the extra warmth that usually means, for hot sticky little boy feet, I choose to do duplicate stitch. While it wasn't a bad idea, there were moments where I questioned my sanity. It took much longer to get into the rhythm of the embroidery than I thought.
I started with the long uprights.
That gave me a nice clear picture of what I was working the rest of the design into. I did not duplicate stitch these, but choose to crochet up the foot around a stitch from the knitted fabric.
Then, it was a matter of embroidering the swags between the uprights, following Terri's charts. Well, almost following the charts. My stitch count was different.
And voila. A practically perfect pair of Spidey socks.
With a single imperfect spider like creature on the back. Good to go.
I am so very pleased with these. Perfect for my special little boy.
It's funny the way the world works, how one thing leads seamlessly into another and the hints and flavours of everything that has gone before is to be found within it.
I've been feeling a little down lately. That is nothing new. Some of it is the place of life, the place of grief that I am in and some is just the stress from searching for work. These are all to be expected.
As I was driving home today, I caught the end of Ben Heppner's Opera Gems on CBC Radio 2. (Not a big opera fan, but probably because I am not familiar with the genre but I digress) It just happened to be what was playing on the radio. I caught the tail of something pretty and then heard what I have always felt is the loveliest of songs.
Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort
It is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home
I felt better. It cannot be that bad because I have the memories and they will carry me, if I let them. When I got home, I sat down to knit.
I am having such a good time with the black and mixed colours socks. I am really, really enjoying knitting that way, putting colours in here and there, punching up what is already a very nice colour mix.
It made me wonder what magic could be had in my big bag of bits.
One great big bag. Did I mention how big it is? It is so big that it doesn't want to fit anything and I don't want to give it the dignity of its own private stash box just yet. I pulled out the bag and the boxes and decided to see what treasures I could find among them.
It is a really big bag. I pulled out a few and laid them out along with a few skeins of yarn that work with them.
It is lovely and I am having just the best time.
As I knit, I started thinking about how much I needed to hear that song and how glad I was that it just popped up when I so needed it. It struck me that these socks are the perfect knitting for this time in my world.
They are made of bits and pieces of sock knitting from long ago socks. There isn't enough there to make a pair from any one of them, but mixed together they make a pair and a darn good looking pair too. Good looking yet serviceable, plain stockinette socks. Eminently ordinary and more glorious because of it.
I suspect this part of life is going to be like that. Taking strands from the past, where there isn't enough of any one to make something, and weaving them into my future, making an eminently ordinary but I hope very good life.
I have duplicate stitch to do on a pair of Spidy socks. I have my newly minted, purchased before Christmas dvd, Season 4 of Downton Abbey at hand. I have no where to go today (that I know of yet) and a fresh supply of coffee.
The only really significant knitting thing is that today, I will be on the west side of the city and will have time to stop in and visit at my west side LYS.
It is a while since I have been there and though I have been at their south side store lately, seeing everything in a different space makes everything look different. sometimes you find yarns that did not catch your attention before, standing front and center, looking just smashing!
I have a limited budget though, so I have to be very careful. Still it will be nice to see and touch a bunch of different yarn and to sit and knit for a bit in that lovely atmosphere.
I have finished the knitting of the Spiderman socks and have only the duplicate stitch to do. it commences tonight, and almost all of the cuffs of the first of my pretty mixed striped socks is almost done. Sock two will then commence.
This black addition to a really nice yarn, makes me want to knit Monstersocks, or at the very least play among those who take sock yarn mangling to new heights. Go through the projects and you will see some masterful funky wild things and some, like my socks that are just meant to be.
We shall see if the day brings good things (within the budget). If the world goes even close to my way, the answer to will it, is going to be yes. May the sock knitting commence and may all the decisions of the day go my way.
When you cannot sleep, what do you do? I do stuff. I always have. It just seems to me that if you lay in bed and worry about not sleeping, all you do is work yourself into a good sturdy case of anxiety and I get enough of that in the waking world. I do stuff.
The other day, I woke at 2:30 a.m. and just could not fall back to sleep. I read for a bit, but I was antsy. I couldn't seem to sit still, so I folded my laundry. To you causal non laundry folders, this means from last week. Hah. I am a non laundry folder of Olympian proportions. I had not folded or sorted my laundry since just before Christmas. I had all the laundry baskets in my room full of un-sorted goods and I could no longer safely get to the door in the dark for my nightly trips down the hall. So I, Queen of the laundry folding avoiders, folded my laundry. Then I tried to put away my things.
I had to clean out my drawers.
As previously mentioned, my sock drawer is getting pretty sparse. All my favourites are getting holes in the heels and I am going to have to do some serious work to get back to having enough socks so I do not run out all the time. As I was sorting socks, and pairing them up, I came across one of my favourite pairs, shown here under construction,
with a huge hole in one heel.
So I decided to un-pick the heel and reknit it.
I opted for a plane Jane afterthought heel. I debated about re-knitting the garter stitch heel but 2:30 in the morning is no time to face the long graft you would have to do, so afterthought it was. I cheated and did a three needle bind off. 2:30 in the morning makes it seem like the perfect decision. I might as well try it and see of my usually sturdy feet will notice it.
The heel of the other sock is thin but has no holes yet. I am going to do some duplicate stitch and see if that will hold off the eventual hole. Garter stitch duplicate isn't something I wanted to try at 2:30 in the morning either.
By this time I was totally energized. The next one that came along I tried something a little different.
While playing around with the Anna Zilbourg video last week, it struck me how very like a perpendicular join her technique is. So I tried that for this sock. I am very very pleased. This is way more sensible than darning. It gives you a much tidier finish and for finicky feet, you could pick up and knit right across the whole heel to put the join on the sides.
The pick up won't be felt at all and though I used a three needle type bind off at the join, a properly thinking person would graft it.
It was 2:30 in the morning and even after coffee, I never quite got past that early start time. This one will probably be replaced with a good graft before I wear it but not right now.
Right now, I am going to go make myself a cup of coffee, because even if it isn't 2:30 in the morning, it is time for a good cup of coffee.
Sometimes when I am buying sock yarn, I buy a yarn because there is only enough for one sock. Having only 1 skein forces you to use your wits.
That is what happened when I bought this yarn.
I loved the colours. They are just so me. That soft brown, the mottled grays. Just perfect even if there was only one ball. It would be perfect with some black.
And so it is.
See? Just perfect.
I really love how these are coming out. I don't know if your monitor is really capturing it, but mine sure isn't. The black is just the perfect foil and brings out the black undertones in each of the other colours. All I am doing is adding a few rows of black when the colours change.
Perfectly pleasing wouldn't you say? Sigh. I am in love with these socks.
As usual for me lately, make a plan and that isn't the way things went. Things went OK though and I had a lot of fun.
I knit on the little red sock. That needs to be done for this weekend. It is upstairs right now so I can't show you, but it is long enough for his foot. Not a lot of knitting left and soon enough, it will be time to start the duplicate stitch.
I did not knit on the green sweater, but that was OK. What I did right after picking up the sweater was just fine with me.
A couple weeks ago, I knit a hot water bottle cosy. If you recall, I started to use some Zara but there wasn't enough and I had to find other yarn. In order to get to the green sweater, I had to pick up the Zara and that is where my fingers stopped.
To be specific, my finger stopped on the dark green and the pretty print.
When I originally purchased these yarns, I was thinking mittens or wristwarmers. The colours were just perfect for two row stripes. (I must have been knitting two row scarves right about then, because the red and brown Zara were bought for the same thing.) One touch and I thought, 'This was so pretty and the yarn was fun to work with...I should play with a mitten.' What needles size would be right? I found some 3.5 mm needles right there by me on the table so away I went.
Almost before I knew it,
this happened. I didn't have a pattern. I wasn't thinking of knitting a pattern really. I just wanted to see if I enjoyed knitting mittens as much as I do socks.
I know a couple of ladies who love to knit mittens. One loves to knit them because it is hard to find mittens that fit her long slender hands. That is where it started anyway, but she knits them for her whole family and she makesthe mostfantasticthings.
The other loves to knit the complex wonderful mittens that Latvia and Estonia and other knitting cultures have made but she is not about the product at all. She loves the process of learning and reproducing. The pair is not so important as the understanding of how it was made. She almost always ends up with only a single mitten or glove but what a mitten!
And the answer for me? Not really.
I did knit the complete mitten, and I can see me doing it again sometime, but not this mitten. Two row glove stripes drove me batty and I really only finished because I promised myself that I wouldn't have to knit a second glove.
The exercise was fun though. And that was enough to be getting on with.
By the end of yesterday, the only knitting I did was about a half inch of the red sock. I had really hoped for more.
When I got home from my errands, I was wiped out. What I needed was a nice session in my good old knitting chair, and a new movie, or something to really catch my thinking and slow it down. A nice cup of tea would have been lovely too. A hot tub with a really lovely glass of wine would have been another way to go.
It didn't quite go like that either.
I fell asleep in my chair and that was kind of the way the day ended.
Today I will do better. I think I am going to go for a good long soak with my mid morning coffee and then I am going to go sort my bedroom, and I will knit on that pretty green sweater for my daughter in law ( I would really like to finish this one and I am only a third of the way done) and a very pleasing sock that I am working on for myself. I might even fold my laundry. And iron. Now that is a challenge I ought to aim to accomplish.
Tomorrow is soon enough for red socks and other knitting.
Yaaaaaaay, there has been actual knitting on the spidey socks.
It looks powerfully red here. In life it is much richer.
I have opted for doing the colourwork as duplicate stitch. I know I am weeny-ing out here but I don't want to do the colourwork on the soles, and for this design to look really nice, the colour work on the foot is important. I wasn't sure if he would like the feel of the colourwork on the soles.
It is his first pair of handknit socks and they have been told that wool is so itchy. Since I don't know his feet and they may be the sweaty kind of feet, I want to be safe and make them as light as possible. It helps that the red yarn is a cotton, wool and nylon blend.
But there is also the thought that I did not want to have my first socks for him be such a challenge. I am not really into big challenges right now. It seems I have enough of a challenge just making it out of bed most days! And I didn't want something I have so long admired to be something knit when I am under such stress.
I have been thinking for a long time, to the point of doing a lot of sock yarn purchasing aimed right at colourwork socks. I have books just for the colourwork socks in them.
and
and
that is a lot of sock books devoted to following patterns for somebody who doesn't follow patterns at all. I also have this book,
which I bought specifically to help me get over the sock patterning issue. To date, other than the one pattern I knit from this book, monkey socks are still the only pattern socks I have made. Even on this one sock, I did the toe and heel my way.
What really started it all was this book,
and all the fabulous colourwork mittens out there. I don't have this book (how that is is beyond me) but I have a deep and abiding passion for these socks.
which have tiny birds going up the front of your calf. I am certainly going to get the book once I have a little more fiscal stability. In fact, this book may very well be a sign that this blog is once again fiscally stable!
Till I saw this book and these birds socks, I didn't think I would knit colourwork socks. Admire them, yes, Knit them, no.
And yet I will knit some. Oh yes they will be mine. At some far off future date, though.
And for Christine, the Noro in the Shalom is 214 Kureyon and looks even better in real life. I am so pleased with it.
I'm running late this morning. In a lot of ways running late is old hat and yet it all feels very very new. For the last 30 years I have sort of prided myself on not being late and now that I am on my own, I seem to be late for everything. I just run late.
Mr. Needles used to get irritated that I asked over and over again what time it was. I would ask 3 or four times in a row and even when I knew I asked before, I had to ask again. Perhaps this need to ask, is inversely proportional to being late.
Anyway, I take it back. Pride goeth before the fall and well, I have fallen. It wasn't me not being late, it was him making me not late. I am sure that up in heaven he is laughing about this. Sigh. I hate wearing watches.
I have completed the forever cast on and have knit a few rows. I hope this works out because I loved the way it all happened. The corners are perfectly rounded and are just so, and it forms such a lovely little edge.
In much bigger news, there were two sweaters sitting around here waiting for the finishing touches. I am blocking both and they soon will be ready to wear. To refresh your memory and mine, A Shalom in some very pleasing colours,
and a knit based very loosely on a Jane Ellison design, but winged in every way shape and form.
These are pictures in their unfinished state, one completed just before Christmas and one just after. They both need ends woven in and they need buttons and closures, which I have but they are substantially complete, and that is what counts here at Chez Needles.
I usually get photos of the finished items in their rough state the day the knitting is finished, but as you see, the pictures of the finished articles are late.
Honestly the i-cord cast on is the nicest cast on in very many ways
but it takes forever.
I actually was stuck with my nose in a book yesterday. I honestly don't remember when the last time was that I got so deep into a book, that i could not put it down.
Friends suggested the mysteries written by C J Sansom, a series of 5 novels I believe, which takes place in the time of Henry VIII. I ended up buying the first, Dissolution, and will probably buy them all on paper because I cannot imagine not owning these books, not rereading these books.
Wow. Just wow. My battery died on my tablet and I had to stop for a recharge and I can only say that was the longest two hours of my life. I had to wait because I couldn't find the cord and the only recharger I had available to me was the stand charger that I have by my bedside.
I have read 5 new novels so far this year, in the National Just Read More Novels Month thing that I do, and this one blows even the redoubtable Miss Silver to the winds.
So, if you are, like me, stuck in a forever cast on, consider reading Dissolution. Or any of the other 4. Really great reads.
I knit a lot this weekend. And have absolutely nothing to show for it. Sort of.
Friday morning I did this:
I feel like sweater knitting so I swatched this yarn, Alpine from Naturally out of New Zealand. It feels a lot like Cascade Eco, though I think it is spun more firmly and will wear a bit better. It has fantastic yarndage and I have about 2500 metres. Why I have 2500 metres, I do not understand, but well, there are a lot of things about the stash that I don't really understand.
I want a nice heavy between seasons sweater, and I am sure I have the yardage I would need to double strand it. 13 stitches on 5 mm needles. But I don't know what to knit with it.
There was another yarn in the same box that just will not leave my mind, a marvelous black based taupe in Donna from Sheepjes. I swatched that too.
I am thinking of knitting Coraline out of this yarn. I have had the pattern for ages and Donna would be a great yarn for it. It has lovely drape and the top patterning would look wonderful with the very round well defined character of this yarn.
I have always felt that this sweater ought to have an i-cord cast on. All the other edges use i-cord for finishing and it just seems right. It may want to roll and if that happens, I will add a second row of i-cord to give the hem the weight it needs. The sweater is knit from the bottom up and with no seaming, so that first cast on row, mostly i-cord, is a killer. I have devoted a couple episodes of Netflix to it and am only halfway through it.
In between times, I also did this:
This is a sample sock from the tutorial video by Interweave and Anna Zilborg, Knit Free Sole Socks . I bought this to see if I would like the technique to knit more easily replaceable heels. And now that I have gone through most of the video, while knitting I can safely say, Maybe.
It is a very fussy beginning, and there are many more ends that a normal sock if you start from the toe, but I really won't know till I use the heel part only on an actual pair of socks. Just a quick word to say that there are so many errors in that sample sockie as to make me nuts, and I will be working another following the bonus pdf instructions before I give the method a pass or fail.
I couldn't seem to sit still. Or sit. Or anything for long this weekend. I should have been working on these,
and as you can see, I did but this is still sock one and I really ought to be on sock two by now, if I plan to get them to Son3's house this week. Sigh
I guess I am running from the must do to the maybe wants. Not even running to anything, just running from. That happens sometimes in knitting. It is why I have such a large WIP pile and why it takes so long the last while to get anything done.
I am antsy and I do not like it. I hope I settle down soon.
As nice as the pile looks, I would love to have something more than 'tids and bits' (from The Other Sister).
I had a really long post written on a topic that was so odd , so weird that I can still hardly believe it happened. I decided that it wasn't really for public consumption and that if I tell you what I said on Ravelry, it is enough. I said:
"You know how people sometimes say a thing is quite beyond them, meaning they take great exception to it? Sometimes I am quite the stinker and I agree with them, 'Why yes. Yes it is quite beyond you.' "
That is it. I am going to hell in a handbasket. It will be lined with wool so it will probably be ok.
The next thing up in the list of things I wanted to knit and never started till now, is some Spiderman socks.
I saw these on Ravelry, for the big guys who are Spiderman fans but my fan is a small boy, so, adapt adapt, adapt. It is the idea that I really needed, so thank you to Rosemary Chapman for making this pair free.
I have no desire to knit colourwork for the small bit of black webbing so I am knitting a plain blue and red sock and will duplicate stitch the webs later. I may wish I had done it the other way, but I shall leave that particular angst for another day. I didn't even read the pattern to find out if this is what she does. It doesn't really matter once you have set your path in motion and your mind made up. That is how I get into trouble though, isn't it?
So, by the end of tomorrow I will have a bunch of things ready for the house on the other side of the city (Son 3 and family) and will have some pictures ready for you.
If at first you don't succeed, keep looking for the right yarn.
I kept digging in the stash in the boxes I knew contained superwash yarns, and after a good search, still had nothing. It took going to the box of things that were more than just bits and pieces, to find exactly the right thing. I found some Cascade 220 Superwash.
I only had 1 part ball each of green, ecru and burgundy red, so I picked one up and started to knit. I cast on 36, because the first pattern I worked off of said to cast 40 in a dk weight yarn, and this is just slightly heavier than a dk weight. (If you wanted to follow this, it was a 3.5 mm needle)
And then I just kept knitting till I felt like adding a little colour. I did that for a while and then knit some lice, and then another perrie pattern. By the time I got to the second peerie pattern and I was worried about running out of the ecru, plus I was starting to be concerned about the decreases.
Turns out that winging it and knitting blind worked! I did not run out of yarn, and the 10 centered double decreases I used every row, perfectly mimic the shape of the hot water bottle. I knit a little ribbing for a collar on the remaining stitches and voila. There you have it.
1 hot water bottle cozy in a good sturdy soft superwash yarn for Daughter3, whose back hurts pretty steady with the babe.
That could sound ominous couldn't it but I don't mean it that way.
If I tell you that my relationship to things has changed over the last few months, I am sure you would understand.
One of the hardest parts of this process is that there are so many things to deal with. Everybody has things that they would hate to part with. That picture, that lock of hair, those tiny little remnants of a corsage from long ago. I had the sad duty to go through those things for my Brian and I came to realize that all the little things that were kept by one person, usually won't mean much to another no matter how close we were or how long we lived together. I have a surfeit of things.
And yet in the oddest way, as I rebuild a life alone, I am faced with the desire to gather the things from my own past, from our shared past, his and mine, ever closer.
If it wasn't for that desire, I am just not sure that I could explain my desire for this thing. No, not a shared thing. hahaha.
This is another volume, Volume 8, of doily designs by Elizabeth Hiddleson, a prolific crochet designer from the 50s and 60s to her passing at 101.
My grandmother had a bunch of these volumes and over the years, I made many many of her doilies. My cousins wanted the books a few years ago and since they have as much right to them as I do, I sent them on their merry way, knowing that they will be used and loved. That did not mean that I have not missed them. Makes no sense I know. I have not crocheted a doily in a very long while, but...
I watch for these on ebay and Etsy and buy one once in a while. I pick them up if I see them at the used bookstore or the Sally Ann store.
I am really thrilled to have this volume though. This volume was one of my favourites. All small doilies and one that I remember (second from the top, underneath, with the interesting points) making. It was unusual in its construction. I gave the one I made to one of my very good friends for a graduation gift.
I have the strongest urge to get out my crochet hooks and find the box of very fine threads and make one of them again. Very very strong urge.
A doily is a thing out of time in the modern world and yet..., oh how I want to make some. Maybe they will come into fashion and be necessary again? Maybe then they wouldn't be just yet another thing? Till then I will admire the work of her lifetime and be glad for the memory.
