six and a half stitches

MIRROR ME

I've had such a lovely social week - lots of walking in the sunshine, feeling the warmth on my back, meeting up with friends, shopping, buying fabric, buying letters, buying cards, buying clothes, playing, running, opening and shutting gates, listening to music from my past running through my head like a soundtrack for my days. Little things, little pieces of nothingness which add up to something intangible, and delicate, and beautiful - little thoughts of a daily life, able to be put on a shelf, or photographed, as a glimpse into my little world. I love that. I love I can show you that. I have a growing collection of letters, which spell out different things - names, words, titles, and now some letterpress letters and numbers for 6.5st. I am always attentive to fonts - it used to be something I would spend hours tracing and copying when I was a child. The best part of assignments was choosing the title font. And not forgetting the colour pen or pencil one might use to colour that font. That is especially important. And now as a grown up - I look at details as versions of font and colour. I look at pieces of vintage kimono fabric, circles, and new scarves, ready and hanging, waiting for final touches. I look at the lines they make, the circles converging and concertinering back out, and I craft that post, for later, in my head [a nice big font in red, I think, to introduce that one]

And I realise that if we really look at what we see before us, and question it, flip it, turn it, mirror it, we can interpret things in a very different context.

TO BE CAUGHT UP WITHIN HIS WORLD

Max's scarf - a lightweight, fine stitched Bainbridge Scarf, from Crazy4dying sock wool, fixed with a large round horn button, that Max chose himself. And he looks so gorgeous in it. Max is such a wonderful child at the moment, I wish I had much more time just with him. He is funny, and bright, attentive, respectfull of, and to, everyone, and sees amazing things when we go for walks. He has a brilliant imagination and desire to build the things he sees and dreams about. He's settled down so well now at school, and has a thirst for learning new things. Counting is his absolute favourite right now, but writing comes a close second. Tomorrow it might be a different order. It doesn't matter - his imagination and enthusiasm has been caught.

And I in turn, want to be caught up within his world.

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?