green.girl knitting: commentary

28 february 2009 recycle

some months are knitting months, some are reading months. this one has been a reading month, with eight novels finished, two more about 3/4 of the way done, and another halfway through. good times, curled on the couch.

there was a mini project in knitting world, however. i was going through my clothes, sending a giant bag of things i no longer wear to goodwill, and in the course of the great purge, i rediscovered a mini scarf i had started for my sister lo these many years ago. i stopped working on it because it was curling and was going to be short and i was generally annoyed with it. so, it was unravelled and wound into a ball and then promptly reknit.

sometimes a scarf is just not quite right for the occasion or the outfit but i still want my neck to be warm. cowls are good, especially shiny, green, happy cowls. and to commemorate its origin, i threw in two of the butterfly motifs. just because i could.

i just realized the first picture makes me look like a giraffe. wow, what a neck on that girl!

15 february 2009 tragedy

my beautiful, slouchy beret? well, no one can call it slouchy any longer...

at least it will go to good use as the small child's uber-warm hat. there is no good explanation for how it ended up in the wash with the darks, the wash that used warm water and heavy agitation and was put through the wash cycle twice, because the clothes were very dirty. nor for how it also made its way into the dryer to be very, very dried. i'm just letting it go. but look! the corrugated ribbing still looks beautiful.

in happier news, i now have a new pair of fingerless mitts! i still need to block them a bit, to see if they will somehow look less 'rustic' but i am afraid that may just be a feature of the handspun wool. regardless, they are both pretty and functional and i don't have two mini skeins of yarn hanging in my bathroom any longer and i almost used up the last of the brown wool/silk. so we are counting this as an all-around win.

i do so love the garter borders, all shiny and bumpy and lovely.

i had promised myself that i would be allowed to indulge in a little retail therapy when the tax refund came, but now that it is here, i find i don't really want to buy any yarn. i think i may have hit my saturation point, so i'd best get going on some projects to clear up a little physical and mental space. although, i might spring for a new skein of silk garden to make another tam, one that will hopefully avoid the laundry room altogether.

2 february 2009 brigid

it's the fourth silent poetry reading, so here is a fourth poem.

man down

the word spreads like wildfire through
phonelines

we practice the phrases and rattle them off
with clinical detachment:

no brain activity. no kidney function. iabp.
(to keep the heart pumping)

we find a strange solace in this litany of
failures, a medical plainsong rings through
our circle -- speaking the names, gaining
power over unknowns

and here is a recycled project. this yarn was from the great stash redistribution project of 2004 -- see here -- and was knit up a few different times before becoming leg/wrist warmers -- see here . then the small child abandoned them, and i wore them as wrist warmers for a while but they were a little small and a little uncomfortable so i finally ripped them out and left the yarn hanging in the bathroom, still kinked up from the unravelling. yesterday, i soaked, and carefully skeined and dried and started a reworked version.

there was still part of the skein of brown wool/silk left from the tam so i knit a border and will most likely pick up and knit a bottom border as well. with just a little effort, these could be ready tomorrow!

january 2009

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