Mossy Cottage Knits

Gift-Giving 101

Despite how I pick on The Mysterious K, let me tell you, the girl knows gift-giving! A couple of years ago she decided, all on her lonesome, to design me my own coat of arms as a birthday gift. She says it was "just" my birthday card, but I say it was a complete and entire gift!

The coat of arms:

First, I suppose I should explain the “Pookessa” banner. Over my lifetime, I’ve had quite a few nicknames, some flattering, some not so much, but the one that stuck and the one immediate family members called me was “Pookie” (on account a’ how I was so small when I was born, thanks to Rh disease ). “Pookessa” is a variation on this given to me by my brother and is a combination of "Pookie", princess, and princesa, Spanish for princess and a reference to the fact that we siblings were all born in Peru. Lest you think it sweet that I was called a "princess," this is actually one of the less-flattering nicknames being, I believe, a nod to the fact that I was considered spoiled. True, Big Sister Wonka? (Speaking of nicknames, anyone want an explanation of that one?) At any rate, "Pookie" and "Pookessa" have stuck with me throughout my adult life, on into my relationships, hence the name atop Le Coat of Arms.

Next, TMK chose graphics to represent my family history and my interests: a globe to represent my childhood spent traveling Da Woild; a cat and a borzoi (my favorite breed of dog) to represent my passion for animals; a book to represent my passion for reading; and some yarn and needles to represent, well, you know, that. To make the coat of arms even more legit and old-worldly, she added a Latin word for each graphic: peragro, creatura, liber, and textor, respectively. TMK ‘llows as how the Latin terms aren’t exact since (a) despite her Catholic upbringing, she doesn't know word one in Latin and (b) even after extensive research, she could find only approximations. For example, textor actually means weaving, not knitting, but, hey, we are talking a dead language here, after all (with apologies to any Latin-speaking readers).

Lastly, she fancied it all up with my favorite color combination, yellow and blue with a little green thrown in for good measure, and added the numbers 2 and 6 to the banner to represent my birthday.

But, wait, there’s more! This birthday I received this, an Official Dyeing Apron with the coat of arms printed on it.

A close-up of the coat of arms on the apron:

I barely want to wear the thing since it's so pretty and already has molto sentimental value, but TMK insists that, by the end of this dyeing season, it be covered with dye stains. (Between you and me, I think she's still recovering from the demise of her favorite shirt of mine during last year's dyeing season.)

Knitting Knews
Lovely Guild meeting, really lovely. I left feeling all charged up and full of positive energy, partly from spending time with my new knitting friends and mischievous and fun Dear Reader Mary, partly from the beautiful things everyone showed at “show and tell” (including the most extraordinary lace shawl knit out of a dark reddish-purpleish berry-colored yarn), and partly from Vivian Hoxbro’s interesting and funny stories, including how she fainted from excitement and anxiety when she led a group of her Danish guild members on a visit to Horst Schultz’s home.

To be honest, domino knitting, Vivian’s specialty, doesn’t much appeal to me. The squares just strike me as being the bastard children of granny squares, so I’ve never understood what all the fuss is about. But as part of her presentation, Vivian donned a domino-knit poncho that was quite dramatic. It was knit entirely in black dominos but the last five rows or so of each domino was knit in a bright, contrasting color, which made for a field of smoky black accented with small, bold neon squares. Really lovely, and a lesson learned for me! (Hey, I just found a picture of the poncho. And, in fact, the top picture shows Vivian herself wearing it! Gotta love that Net...)

I was disappointed that only four or five other Guildettes had made name tags but I think that’s primarily a function of the fact that the newsletter arrived closer than normal to the time of this month's meeting. But Dear Reader Kit had hers (you go, girl!), and Dear Reader Mary had made one, which sounds charming since it's shaped like a sock, but forgot to bring it, but she still gets a Mossy Cottage gold star for her efforts!

Posted by Ryan at February 20, 2004 09:24 AM