Finally

There are no words.

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It's a very long time since I've knit, and more importantly finished, a garment for myself. Mittens, hats, Twists etc have flown off the needles, but not a garment.

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I've barely taken this off since it was finished. And ok, so it's too big and it droops a little in the front, and the sleeves don't match.....but it's sooo soft and creamy.

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That's funny. 'Magine that. I managed to find some words after all.

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Holiday Report

Starting at the beginning. No, we did NOT get a smooth crossing from Ireland to France. There was a storm at sea and we had a very rough crossing indeed.

So bad, in fact that on a visit to the Irish Seal Sanctury this weekend we met some baby seal pups who had been separated from their mothers and rescued the morning after the storm. Poor little things. Such cuteness. BTW, they will be released into the wild at 3 months old when they can catch their own nourishment. But. I digress.

Fortunately, due to a comfortable cabin and liberal doses of anti-travel sickness medication, nobody was actually ill or felt too rotten. This is a minor miracle and I thank heaven for modern medicine. My childhood method of sitting out on deck, clenching my teeth and staring at the horizon would not have been much use to me this time.

It was bliss. For 2 weeks we swam, cycled, ate, knitted (well that was just me actually) and rested. The weather was mixed, but overall it was good and we split the time between the pool, the beach and the deck.

On the less-than-sunny days we had trips to the circus, Sealand, a lovely zoo and some high adventure at the Feeling Forest where we swung, crawled, clamboured and zipped between pine trees at a great height and got some great thrills and many interesting bruises. (Well, again, that was just me.)

Fearless Little Monkey in action

And oh yes, there was knitting. More on that anon.

Perfect Love

I know it might seem odd, but something has been haunting me.

After the previous post, I remembered that years ago I used to play a game of words with poetry which distilled the rhythm and words of a poem further than the original.

I'm sure I thought it was very clever at the time tho' I wouldn't have been able to describe it in any way.

Therefore I give you:

sweater,
nubs,
been.
machine
think
breathe
knuckles
knit
exhale,
perfect,
love.


Try it out yourself. Sometimes of course the meaning and tone of the original poem is completely altered - but that just makes it more interesting!

There's something about that 'perfect love' that gets to me.

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When You Knit My Sweater

Home at last. We had a really great holiday and there was lots of knitting done, tho' Iced isn't quite finished.

Photos and more details in a few days.

In the meantime, look what I found on the ever-entertaining blog of Sheknitupthatball.

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by Gayle Brandeis

When you knit my sweater,
leave some holes, some knobbly nubs,
I want to see where your hands have been.
I don't want anyone to think a machine
has knit this, don't want anyone to think
it came from a store. I want you to breathe
through the gaps in the wool, want your knuckles
to bulge at the collar, the hem. I want to feel
your knit and purl like an inhale and exhale,
surrounding me like a fly in the perfect,
imperfect, spiderweb silk of your love.

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Isn't that just wonderful? I defy anyone not to be moved by that, and especially knitters.

You already know that I'm very sentimental so I'll freely admit that I got a lump in my throat.

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