Mossy Cottage Knits

Lost and Found

We are huge Cirque Du Soleil fans so this weekend we hied ourselves off to see “Alegría,” the latest of their shows to come to Seattle. Because the aisle in front of the seats is narrow, I stored my sweater underneath my seat. About half-way through the show, I gently felt around with my foot to verify where my sweater was. And felt around. And felt around. And felt around, a little less gently now, pounding my toe quite smartly into the flooring, in fact. No sweater. Unbeknownst to me, there was a gap all along the front of the risers and, sure enough, my sweater had fallen through that gap. I spent the rest of the show fully expecting to see a vibrant, athletic trapeze artist plunge to an untimely death because some vital member of the safety crew was staggering blindly around under the flooring with my sweater draped on his head. (Didn’t happen. Furthermore, this Spontaneous Disappearance of Patrons' Things seems to be a common occurrence because when we went to the security station after the show, there was Sweater, waiting patiently for Mommy to take it home.)

Despite the sweater mishap, I actually left the Cirque with more items than I arrived with. (Neat trick, eh?) We took two friends to the Cirque with us as a treat, so, by way of a thank you, they gave us books which they had carefully selected with each of our lifestyles and interests in mind. My book? "The Zen of Knitting!"

Religion-wise, I'm sort of a mutt, thanks to a confused upbringing which included a half-Episcopalian/half-atheist mother who still made us say grace "just in case" (her words), a Catholic father who was semi-excommunicated because he married a half-Episcopalian/half-atheist woman who still made us say grace "just in case," a "born again" stint in high school, and a plethora of theology classes in college. So now I'm an adult who doesn't have a clue what role religion, Episcopalian, Catholic, Zenish, or otherwise, plays in one's day-to-day life. However, I am conscious of that "special place"—which is indeed Zenish—that you go to when you've found the perfect project; you've bought the perfect yarn; your gauge is spot on; the pattern is beautiful, just challenging enough, and accurate; you're listening to an interesting show on TV; a warm critter is lying by your side; and you're having good thoughts about the person for whom you're knitting the sock/sweater/vest/scarf/dischloth/(fill in the blank). I suspect I will approach the book with a certain scepticism but I am looking forward to reading it.

Knitting Knews
Below, two pictures of a swatch from this baby blanket. Mind you, I have no intention of knitting the baby blanket itself since I'd die of complete and utter ennui after the fifth row, but the pattern is so charming it just cried out to be swatched. The yarn I'm using, a Pingouin DK weight acrylic-wool blend which is a refugee from Sheila's "Bag of Balls," is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, truly the color of a teal ocean on a stormy day.

Now that I've completed the swatch, I'm rubbing my chin and thinking, "Hmmm...Maybe I've finally found my sock pattern for the Guild's October SockFest." Yes, Dear Readers, I've given up on the Acoma Sock, at least for now. Janine from Guild very patiently looked at my work and gave me some helpful advice, especially about the lumpy seam up the back, but the enthusiasm for and interest in the pattern still slowly leaked away, like the air in an inflatable mattress. You know how that is, don't you?

Dye Garden Dyegest
A respite from dyeing, and another look at the Greenhouse Project. Here, a picture of the base for the greenhouse which K constructed and which she and I installed on Sunday. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a manual-labor-type girl, quite the opposite, in fact. So you can imagine my foot-stamping petulance when I jammed my shovel into the ground and nothing happened except a huge vibration boi-oi-oi-oi-oi-nged itself up the shovel, into my hands, up through my body and out my head, very much like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. K came to my rescue and used her Mantis tiller to dig the ground up first. Then we dug out all the required trenches, put the base pieces in, she fiddled around all kinda butch with her level until everything was Just Right, we screwed the pieces together with The World's Longest Screws, backfilled all around, and put the greenhouse on the base. Uh, we won't talk about the fact that the greenhouse appears to be a little larger than the base and is falling off on one side...

Posted by Ryan at September 17, 2003 10:59 AM