six and a half stitches

FLOWERS ON HER LAPEL

What better way to finish off a little one button cardigan than with a vintage timber and bakelite [?] button. I've been wanting to use this button ever since I got it, and it's taken far too long to actually put it on something. This little Rowan Lottie cardigan is just the right thing for it. Nestled up against Pia's neck, it is like a wonderful flower on her lapel. The wool - The Knittery wool cashmere, is just lovely for baby knits. I went up a few needle sizes and made up the 6 month size and it's turned out well for an 18 month child. She'll get the winter out of it, but not much more. And it only used a skein. I have some more of this colourway, and I've cast on for a little scarf to match, maybe even a little hat and some mittens....

ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE

There is nothing nicer, than a freshly finished pair of socks, on your feet, as the afternoon draws to a close, and the sun dissappears, and you can snuggle on the couch, feet up, warm and toasty in their beautiful pinkness. To be fair, there is some light green, yellow, and some peach colours in there too. This is a great sock yarn - the weight is oh so right for me, now that I've worked out I don't like heavy weight, or even medium weight, sock yarns. And the yardage has gone on, and on, and on. I've used nowhere near a ball of yarn, and there is still plenty to do something else small with. The pattern, Pearl's Diamond Socks, is a really wonderful one - with enough detail to keep you interested, and a lovely strong pattern to wind up the leg.

Pia is sleeping after a morning walking through petals lying on the pavements, watching Max's school assembly, shopping for jeans (me) and making biscuits because the ones on Kirsten's site looked so so good and I've obsessed about them since. Now I must wind some more wool, so I can finish Pia's little cardigan - almost an item [finished] a day, but not quite...

SILVERED GOSSAMER WINGS

Gossamer glimpses of silvered light, bouncing, reflecting, catching.

Combining, with soft translucency.

One of my favourite children's books right now is Kaito's Cloth. A beautiful poetic story of finding, capturing, creating and releasing beauty onto the world through the delicate impermanence of butterfly wings. Kaito sews a cloth shot with silver thread to create her own wings - capturing forever the beauty they have. This is my butterfly wing - a soft delicate weaving of textures into lightweight lace, shot through with some Habu stainless steel thread (raw thread, unwrapped) - silvered glimpes - so that when it moves, the fabric catches the light, and has a little bit of structure. The lace, a structured charting akin to lists being made, to try and temper the flippery of forces dancing in my head, taking my energy and enthusiasm. The texture, soft, tickling fluffs to temper the heaviness of winter coats and black outfits. The colour, a murky fine description of green and grey, deep, and enveloping. The entire thing born to show a beautiful tortoiseshell scarf pin - a dragonfly - for their wings have an equally fine display of beauty, intricacy and translucency, veining and detail.

"She took a silver needle, as fine as a hair. She threaded it with spiders' silk, as strong as love and as soft as eiderdown"

EASY

Conversations with an 18month old.

Me: Pia, you're getting a little cardigan made for you, ok? It'll go with your new shoes...

Pia: shoooshhh? shooosh? shoooosh! shoooosh! shoooosh!

NEARLY A RAINBOW

Last week it turned cold - fingers and hands turning orange before turning purple kind of cold. And then it got warmer, but that ruins the post. The fact it turned cold - albeit briefly, meant Max and I had the following conversation after an afternoon at the playground which ended with me, Max, a box of wool, some needles, and a pattern being spread out.

Me: So Max it was very cold out there today wasn't it?

Max: Yes, it was so cold.

Me: Would you like me to knit you something, like, say, a scarf?

Max: A scarf? For me? Yes. And what sort of scarf would it be?

Me: Well what sort of scarf do you want?

Max: A rainbow scarf!

Me: Right....well, the thing is, I don't make rainbow scarves, and, well, unfortunately we don't have rainbow coloured wool here, and, well, here's what I was thinking...

Max: ...that you could buy some rainbow coloured wool...?

Me: No, not quite, but, well, umm, green! green is your favourite colour, what about a green scarf? That could be nice couldn't it?

Max: yay! a green scarf!

half an hour later: is it finished yet?

PRACTISING TO DRESS

I am not a dress person. Really I'm not. I don't have the body, or the stature to carry dresses off. Give me a skirt anyday. Skirts, I can do, without thinking. Dresses - well, they require thinking. And coordination. And possibly heels. Or they do with my legs anyway. But I so did want to try a dress, and just see, for once if I could do it....

And I can. Just. I think. A beautiful soft very fine grey worsted wool, and a pattern from Robe Rouge. The hem refuses to iron flat - it will have to wear itself flat. It is very comfortable, and warm, and looks fabulous with one of Martha's volumetric scarves. I'll have to practise wearing it. Around the house maybe. Before going out in it. It seems terribly grown up. And I'm not sure I'm ready to be that grown up.

Piccolo Coniglio

Piccola 70.

A little Kit70 in Lamb Linen for Pia using leftovers from the short pullover. The perfect left over* yarn project. It is finished with 2 little black rabbit buttons made of horn (decorative only) from Linnet, and large press studs inside holding it together. The neck, Oh God! the neckfold is just beautiful on her little soft neck, and the fabric is so soft. Every time the Short Pullover comes out, Pia wraps herself in it and pretends to put herself to sleep with it over her, or to do the same to her dolls, so I hope she'll like this just as much. Worn with a dark denim skirt, or with the grey (or grape for that matter) linen circle skirt, and her new black shoes and cream cable wool socks, this is going to be one stylish girl. If I do say so myself.

* This would have been the perfect left over yarn project except I ran out of left over yarn, so ordered more 'left over' yarn. And over ordered beyond belief, so now have even more 'left over' yarn than when I began....

TOTALITIES

Slow waves of rustling paper, whispering gently as you knit. A field of wheat laid before you with a gentle breeze blowing through. A blank piece of paper, waiting for the brush of ink against it, for text, letters, words, numerals to be drawn across it, and a manuscript of the garment written. A weight, barely perceptible, but there none the less. A colour, rich in depth, drawing into it's deepness through simple textures, shadows which are cast, the void spaces between stitches, the light which falls through it.

I am getting to know this piece (Chinese Pullover in Shosenshi linen paper) very, very well. I've started it. And started it again. And started it again, not quite getting the width right, faltering between two ideals of how it should look and it's shape. In the end I've stopped trying to 'make' it and have tried to let it make itself. I wont even pretend I am being successful at that, but I'm trying. The quintessential philosophy for dealing with Habu. Let it guide and let it become what it needs to become. I've been thinking about this all morning, after reading Jane's post about her fledgling Habu affair. I have paraphrased some of my comment on that post in parts here, because she got me thinking, and today, apparently, I am verbose. Jane mentions hysteria - hysterical calmness which envelopes and I think one of the things I love about knitting with Habu (perhaps we can make that a verb - to habu) is it's effect on how you knit. There is a slightly hysterical trance of 'oneness' when you habu, a connection to the fibre and the process of creating another fabric with it as you knit, how it feels and moves, what it sounds like, and what the final piece might feel like on, wear like, or behave once movement is applied to it. It is totality of project - sensory in every respect, and one which, from past experience with both lamb linen and stainless steel, continues well past the knit experience. You can't not delve within it's depths and be carried away with it. You can't not become absorbed with the play of material, and the feel of each stitch through your fingers.

Once again I am loving this process of making. So totally opposite to some of the other things I am doing - my dichotomous affair with texture continues.

TIME

I've been staring at the computer all morning willing a post to arrive with eloquance and flourish. And it hasn't. So I think I will take that as a neat little message to stop, relax, enjoy the silence of children away, and have some time to myself to finish sewing, finish knitting, and enjoy new fabric purchases.

And because it is Vessel Wednesday, A small, delicate, fine porcelain bowl by Mud, against Nani Iro fabric, soon to be a dress for myself.

BACK TO MY CHILDHOOD

Welcome to my childhood. The one of living between two cultures. The one where I was different in small ways - some of my language was different, my pronounciation was different. My clothes were different and my toys were different. No doubt there were many times I wished I was just like my friends, and had the same toys as them. But I didn't. And oh how grateful am I for that now as an adult and looking around at what is avialable for my children. I have been surprised through my journey as a mother, what I find most compelling from my childhood. There is so much I would like to re-create, and if I can, then I will. Not to try and capture something which no longer exists, but because I agree with how they were done, what they stood for, the meaning they had in our lives, or the enjoyment we got from them.

There are a number of toys and clothes items which I would love to have again for my children. Some of them no longer exist, but occasionally I come across something and leap across and get it. I grew up in Clothkits - that epinonymous british company selling clothes and accessories for the whole family in kit form - beautifully screenprinted fabrics ready to cut and sew together, the pattern pieces part of the screenprint and often with smaller scaled version of the clothes printed in left over space for dolls clothes (I mean, how wonderful a thought is that!! I used to love it, I can tell you, to have doll clothes that matched mine). I can remember pouring over the catalogues. It seemed an incredibly tangible connection back to a land I no longer lived in. It seemed also to stand for everything I understood England to be, and to a large extent still is. It is a country which nurtures small business, particularly those businesses steeped in traditional craft based industries. Clothkits was born out of the same stable which produced Designers Guild, Habitat, Heals, The Body Shop. A love of crafted items and a chance to mass produce but retain a sense of compassion and design aesthetic and quality. Clothkits as it was went out of business in the lat 80's....

But it has been reborn. And thanks to the kindness of one person who let me know about it, I can now have some of these pieces for my own children. They have just relaunched and their collection is very small and nowhere near as detailed as it used to be. I am unsure at this point how their business has launched, and what ties they have to the old Clothkits. I am wary, I have to say, about expectations of living up to what Clothkits used to be. But in the meantime we are enjoying the pieces we have ordered. Skirts, a dress, and, of course, the staple, a Cloth Kitty Kiki doll and kimono top. I will in due course go forth and buy all the outfits as they become available. It is the only decent thing to do really. For Kiki. She needs clothes. And for Pia. Who likes to take them off.