critical mass

last official day of school vacation.

all my kids seem to want to be in the same place:

working at my desk.

here are the younger two ‘sharing’ the space.

IMG_4200ironically, i’d like to be there too,

but i’ll have to wait until after their bedtime tonight.

so much fun to cram into these daylight hours first.

and off we go.

getting out of our pj’s

would be the best way to start, i suppose…

‘daylight’ taken from 10:27 of matthew.

repeat

IMG_4863cropi have friends

with go to patterns.

if they get stuck at

an airport,

or come to a place

that needs some pondering

on whatever

they’re currently working on,

they ‘go to’

their fail safe pattern.

they’ve made

it many times over.

they know it by heartIMG_4859crop

the yarn weight

and needle size

and how many sts

to cast on

are always

on the tip of their minds.

they can merrily

start and work until

something stops them

at any given time.

oh, how i want one of these:

a pattern i get that also gets me.

one that is simple enough to live in my head,

but interesting enough i’d happily knit it over and over again.

IMG_4858cropi am trying

to create one

with the ‘sandstone’ tones

in the mountain colors

hand-painted

new wool 3-ply

that i’ve been swatching.

so far,

the balance between

easy enough to knit

without the pattern

in front of me

and interesting enough to knit more than once

is eluding me.

but, i think it will all come together soon

and this yarn is such a nice way to work through the process.

do you have a go to pattern?

please do share so it can inspire me.

thanks.

‘share’ taken from 4:28 in ephesians.

 

do the twist

any yarn can be cabled,

but not all of them do it well.

with a yarn that is too soft, you loose the crisp detail.

with a yarn too stiff, the gaps from pulling to twist the cables don’t fill in quite right.

IMG_4346cropi adore this simple cable knit up in

mountain colors hand-painted yarns’ ‘3 ply wool’

(shown in the colorway ‘sandstone’).

lots of stitch definition

and enough give to make the cabling look unforced.

today i’m still swatching,

but i feel like the yarn and i have almost

come to an agreement over what it intends to be.

more pics and the inspiration behind the process soon…

‘give’ taken from 18:36 in the psalms.

 

 

here it comes

…and the winner,

of enough of julie asselin’s super bulky ‘yotta’ to knit up the neckwrap

water under the sky‘, is tinerw!

IMG_4491contcongratulations!

or as my cousins said at my graduation,

snoitalutargnoc (in true cousin style, they sang it in harmony)!

and for those who almost won,

julie has plenty of

amazing colors to check out.  enjoy!

‘sang’ taken from 38:6-7 of job.

square metaphorical ripples

i like to believe

that even our smallest actions count,

that they ripple out and affect people and things that we never even know about.

that’s the little stuff.

then there’s the big stuff, like birth.

at first we mostly change those closest to us because our worlds are so small,

but the more we grow, the more distinctive our impact becomes.

my newest pattern, laska, is all about that.IMG_4275shade

i’m told i think to much.

i am often accused of that.

so be it.

feel free to skip the rest

of my explanation

if this being a pretty blanket is enough for you.

each to his or her own.

in my head, the small center of the blanket represents the beginnings of a person.

the bands of stockinette stitch get wider and wider

with each repeat to show that choices

IMG_4279shadebig and small matter.

they matter

our whole lives through.

the final edge is garter stitch,

intentionally a combo of

the stockinette stitch

and reverse stockinette stitch

of all the other square bands.

as life, i think,

is a result of each thing

that we do or don’t do.  symbolism just moves me.

i’m made that way. and i made this.

‘laska’ is polish for ‘grace’.

‘grace’ taken from 22:11 of proverbs.