Mossy Cottage Knits

How did I End Up Talking About Mongolia and Borneo in the Same Entry?!

Progress is being made on High Mesa. At least I haven’t had to change the name to High Mess. After a week of knitting, it’s now 16” long and 4 acres wide. Most importantly, though, I haven’t gotten in the slightest bored with it—my biggest fear. In fact, I’ve grabbed it at every possible opportunity and churned out a hectare or two. This sweater may actually happen!

(I also just realized that being able to do this sweater is a direct, yet subtle, side benefit of Dulaan. The only reason I can even contemplate a project of this magnitude is because I’ve done the insane left-shoulder-right-shoulder-armhole-neck-decrease-increase-seaming-and-buttonhole dance many times but on a smaller scale for "my" Mongolian ragamuffins. The Dulaan goodness just keeps on coming!)

Knitting this sweater for myself has made me think a lot about a very special sweater sitting on the top shelf of my closet. It doesn’t fit me anymore, hasn’t for years, thanks to a diet of buttered noodles and chocolate cake, but I will never get rid of it. It’s acrylic, horizontally striped, and pastel-colored, and was knit for me by my mother when she and my father were living in Borneo. My mother was not the warm, skwoodgy, jolly, plump, pink-cheeked, knitting type—quite the opposite: a brilliant, witty, high strung, temperamental and often cold Smithie—so for her to have made this sweater was entirely out of character and makes it one of my most cherished possessions. When she gave it to me, my mother told me that she had had so much trouble doing the seaming and getting the stripes to match up that she had finally thrown up her hands and asked a native Bornean woman to do it for her. Which, of course, the lady did, quietly, quickly and perfectly. This makes me the proud owner of probably the only hand-knit sweater in the United States mattress-stitched together by a native Bornean. Would you be able to throw the sweater away?

So that today's entry isn’t completely devoid of pictures, take a gander at this:

This beaut is a Conroy rhododendron. When TMK bought it, it was drenched in beautiful saffron and coral blossoms, and we both completely lost our hearts to it, so much so that we would get up from our perfectly comfortable living-room chairs strictly to go outside, gaze upon the Conroy, stroke it and whisper sweet nothings to it...and then go back inside, only to repeat the whole slightly loco process an hour later. If plants didn’t, by their very nature, stay in one place, we would have stalked it. (Stalk. Heh. Bad pun.) However, the ungrateful, spiteful shrub then went all diva on us. The spring after we bought it, it produced no flowers and, last year, it produced one measly cluster. Which means that now, if there is anything at TMK’s house that is spoiled more than Frankie, it’s the Conroy. Mid-fall it’s covered in floating row cover, late fall it’s taken into the garage. It’s visited and checked regularly throughout the cold season, given just the right amount of water, not too much, not too little; it's given chocolate bon bons if it wants them; it's hardened off in the spring, and every every swelling growth, every sprig, every bud, is counted, poked, prodded and greatly discussed. And it’s worth every second of the clucking and mother-henning because, this year, success! Another spring of sick fawning and idolizing! (All that being said, this plant is also a little odd because the flowers feel just like wax. If the blossoms were warm, they'd feel like human skin. Euw.)

A big Mossy Cottage welcome to Traci who is the latest to join the ranks of those who’ve gone back and read every single blog entry. This always humbles and amazes me although why, I'm not sure, since you can be damn sure I've read every entry of every year of every blog on my blogroll. Thank you, Traci!

And, Ruth, the yarn the moose threw was meh. We ain't talkin' Koigu. Or this (take a gander at the price!).

Local knitters, be sure to tune in Monday when I announce a big, fun Dulaan blowout event. For now, just two tantalizing links: This and this.

Posted by Ryan at April 27, 2007 11:17 AM