Knitting Almanac, January
Thank you for all of your kind words about the vest. Bryan loves it. He loves it so much and it looks so good with so many of his shirts that he’s already worn it three times this week. Fortunately, he wasn’t at the same place all three days so no one saw him wear it twice.
Now to January. It was a month of high goals.
I completely underestimated the time that the Cider House Rules vest’s button-band would take. If the first incarnation would have worked, then it would have been completed around January 10 but it just wasn’t meant to be. Finally, around January 15 after fiddling with it for a while, I had an ah-ha moment and the button-band finally came together. It looks wonderful. My only complaint is that it felt like it took a lot of time away from my other sweater knitting. I know I could have stopped at any time and focused on the Martha sweater but I wanted to get the silly button-band done and out of my knitting bag. My plan was to finish it by the time we left for Seattle, but that just wasn’t meant to be.
In the last week, I’ve made significant progress on Martha. I’m about 20 rows from shaping the armhole. This is definitely another project that I underestimated the time it would take. It’s a fun sweater to make and it’s definitely keeping my interest. My two hopes are that it doesn’t sit in my knitting bag too long without being worked on and that it doesn’t detract too much from my February knitting in sock month.
Of course, my first month of my Knitting Almanac wouldn’t have been complete without one project gone awry. My attempt at the Bianca jacket wasn’t meant to be and looking back, I’m really glad that I didn’t go any further with it. I’ve learned that when I’m making a cardigan sweater to always start with one of the front pieces just in case it needs to be ripped out for whatever reason. This was definitely a case where I was glad that I only worked part of one of the front pieces.
I also had to stray a bit from the planned projects to work a sample for my lace class in March. The sample was worked in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport weight and it knitted up so lovely that I think I may have to knit another sample and eventually make a scarf out of the two pieces by grafting them together.
February is another month of high goals. I think they are a bit more attainable but we shall see. My goals for February are:
To finish the Go With The Flow socks, the first of which is already finished and the second one is about 1/8 finished.- To start and finish another pair of socks.
- Fix a few of my socks that either need reinforcing in the toe and heel or possibly even reknitting of the foot. Not let the fixing of socks completely overwhelm my whole month of knitting socks.
- To enjoy the act of knitting socks and if I get frustrated or tired of them to knit on the Martha sweater.
For the Second Annual Bloggers Silent Poetry Reading, in celebration of Imbolc, the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day, I’m posting a poem written by Bryan. It’s a poem that he wrote for me and it’s wonderful.
Homily on the Crawling-Down-Mountains Beauty of Things
For Erica
The crawling-down-mountains
Beauty of things
Like the calm a behemoth brings
Is delirious leisure—
I wrap my feelers
Around my wife,
Thankful inside, still warm
From breakfast,
And set out in snowshoes
So easily
Across suburban glaciers,
Deliberately
Despite satellite
Images of the blaze,
The expletives
And gruntwork
accumulating around us,
And bask in that
Sent-down stuff
Beefheart or Orpheus
Described with howling innards
Still warm from breakfast—
My wife in the Holies
With Metric and Eisley
And socks for the betterment
Of the feet that alone
Are allowed to wear them,
She plies for hours,
The roving
Through the mother-of-all
Is yarn human red
That will soon be worn
Worn by a child
Whose delicate
Art of accidentally
Breaking things,
Like the calm a behemoth brings,
Crawling down mountains,
His beauty
Will topple the globe,
Becalming
The heart between two lungs,
Fit with fissure,
You should favor
Mornings that come to rest
In flavored skillets.
–Bryan Voell (completed around July 2005)
Did you know that last night/early this morning was the Full Snow Moon. Today marks the exact middle of the winter season, we’re the same distance from the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox!
