It's the Yarn Talking

I swear I just went to look. Well, perhaps to touch and fantasize a bit, too. It's been about six months since my last trip, and the holiday season is coming, eventually. So I really need to go. In fact, it's more an obligation than... Oh, who am I kidding?

I love yarn shops, but fibers have a way of seducing me to bring them home. To avoid temptation, I only occasionally treat myself to an hour or two wrapped in the sensory indulgence of my favorite local knit shop, Neighborhood Knits. I haven't been there since it changed hands earlier this year, and I'm delighted to see the store maintain its cozy look and intimate feel. New yarns grace the shelves, layed out in a way that I find intuitive (grouped by fiber and weight). Sandy, the new owner, is welcoming and helpful without being at all invasive. For me, yarn shopping is personal. I need some time to see and touch before I can ponder the options aloud.

I came in to look at yarn choices for prairie boots, a pattern I've mulled over for a few months. As the weather cools and the idea of boot-like slippers doesn't make me sweat profusely, I'm ready to consider yarn for the project. After a cruise around the store, I not only find the yarn (Lamb's Pride Bulky, by Brown Sheep) but a pair of the boots knit up in a tweedy brown, my first choice of colors for the project. Before I commit to a color, I take a gamble at finding a pattern I'd considered last visit. It's still there, but picking four colors for it proves a bit more challenging. I tend towards shades of the same color, barely a step beyond my usual monochromatic or monochromatic-with-a-stripe-of-something-else choices.

Enter Sandy. She starts pulling skeins out of the artfully sorted bins, lining them up on the floor, narrating her thought process. At first, I'm only an observer, still overwhelmed by the options in color and texture even within the worsted wool section. Tentatively, I pull one of her selections out and add my own. Hmm. That's not too bad. She continues to demonstrate combinations, and soon, a dozen or more skeins are on the floor and couch, we've arranged in sets designed to complement each other.

Eventually, with much encouragement, I find a combination I like and make my purchase. I thank Sandy both for her help and patience with my indecision and head home new pattern and yarn in tow. I'm happy with my choice and with the comfort of a long project ahead of me and delighted a favorite local business is in such caring and competent hand. Oh, and the boots? I'll save that purchase for my next visit.

Garden On

I'm really ready to be done with the garden and yard. Not ready for the snow to fly, not even ready to rake leaves, but I'm yearning to break up with my reel lawn mower, pruners, and weed picker. Well, at least we need some time off from each other.

I know come February (okay, January)I'll be pining for those implements while I plan the vegetable garden whose bed will be buried under snow, but right now I'm just done. I'm sick of mowing grass that shouldn't be growing so much in September, tired of pulling the same weeds again, and saddened by pruning spent blossoms with no new blooms in the making for months.

Aside from a few beets lining the front of the garden and some volunteer cherry tomatoes that seem ripen way too slowly, there's little left but the herbs for food. The only flowers remaining are the autumn joy sedum. They're a personal favorite, with lovely succulent leaves in spring and summer and pink flowers deepening to russet as summer turns to fall. Along with the petal-free remains of the purple cone flowers and black-eyed susans, they add much-needed winter interest and landing pads for smaller birds. They also will give me hope when winter days drag on - spring will return.

My negative yard maintenance attitude abates a bit once I don my garden gloves and hit the dirt, pulling weeds, beating back the buttercups and bee balm, and removing dead day lillies. Cleaning the vegetable garden remains reminds me of the pesto I plan to make and freeze and the potatoes out of sight but still under the soil. Along with those beets and a few more carrots in my younger's garden, there's still some harvest remaining. After an hour of sweat-producing labor, my attitude about the yard is markedly brighter and my mood is lighter. Guess I'll keep the mower and garden on.

Holy Days

It's the International Day of Peace, one of the only, well, created days that I can get into. Except I forgot it this year. I saw it on the calendar when scheduling an appointment for my younger a few weeks back. It was announced from the pulpit in church yesterday, along with Eid-al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, both actual Holy Days. The real schmeal.

Since becoming a Universalist Unitarian, I feel a bit like a woman without a Holy Day. Our church mentions all the big ones and many I'd never heard of before attending UUCF. Since our congregation's focus has been on the six sources from which we draw our living tradition, I've added Holi, Budda's birthday, and Darwin's birthday to my awareness. Since so many of these are announced at services, along with the more familiar Easter and Christmas, perhaps I'm a woman of many Holy Days.

But I'm not. Those Holy days are not mine. Not as truly holy. My boys and I celebrate Christmas with songs, a tree, and gifts. We talk about the birth of Jesus and the message of love Jesus brought to the world. At Easter, we discuss rebirth and celebrate life, but I know for both we're somewhat co-opting the days, celebrating them in a way that works for us because they're big deals in this country. We celebrate Hanukkah with my mother, a Reformed Jew, the lights of Hanukkah next to the advent candles we still use to mark the coming of Christmas. The boys know the stories of these Holy Days and many others, and while we fall prey to American Holiday Greed disease, I try to balance it with plenty of homemade giving and time with loved ones.

Still, I have my doubts. These aren't my Holy Days, and I'm loathe to misappropriate customs and practices from religions not my own, but I feel a bit short of Holy Days as a Unitarian Universalist. Perhaps this explains my draw to the International Day of Peace. I'm not taking it from anybody, it's celebrated around the world, and it's in concert with my UU belief system. Not a bad Holy Day, in my opinion. I wish I hadn't forgotten this year.

Peace be.

Getting Gauge

Knitting for gauge: Knitting a swatch with the needles and yarn you plan to use for a project to assure you are knitting the same number of stitches per inch as the pattern dictates.

I've never knit for gauge. Not once. I'm not morally opposed or inordinately lucky, just a bit lazy and not that particular. Admittedly, most of my knitting doesn't rely on gauge. Afghans and dish cloths don't need to be precisely sized, and hats and mittens can be sized by regular fitting to a convenient and somewhat-similar sized head or hand. A felted bag (a personal favorite--more on that in another post) reveals its mysteryafter a trip through the washing machine, gauge be damned, and scarves stop when they are scarf-length. Baby sweaters are likely to be grown into, which hopefully happens in season, and the one sweater knitted by me for me could be adjusted as I went. So why knit for gauge?

With this lassez-faire attitude toward knitting precisely, it seems a bit odd how much fuss I've made this year regarding curriculum planning. I spent too much time in July and August searching websites, reading reviews, and ordering books. Creating lesson plans on Homeschool Tracker Plus became my obsession as the fall approached, reducing courses into bites neither too big nor too small. With the parts determined, I attempted scheduling. I soon ditched the idea that certain subjects would happen at predictable times on particular days, instead just assigning a number of days a week for each subject with deadlines for some assignments.

Whew. I'd never attempted that level of homeschooling organization , and I must say I really hated the process. Instead of offering me peace of mind with the certainty I thought a schedule should deliver, I started dreaming about forgetting subjects (Remember those dreams from college -- going to the final exam when you'd forgotten to attend the course? That's the genre.). I woke at 2 am to ponder the necessity of daily Latin -- or of Latin at all. I was a woman possessed by the clock and the calendar, or maybe I was simply possessed.

As our first day of homeschooling for 2009/10 approached, I printed off the boys' schedules. Nice looking product but still, to my highly critical eye, full of inaccuracies. Why Tuesday to start Critical Thinking? That day was far too busy for all but the basics. What math assignment for Friday -- review or a lesson? My mind continued to race. Week two was a bit better. I made a few changes (read: simplified with assignments labeled "math" and "reading" rather than by chapter and page). Week three has been simpler yet. I've left more spots blank and allowed myself to (gasp!) cross things out that aren't happening.

A bit of slacker mom feeling nags at me, but I'm starting to relax. I can see the basic pattern of the year unfolding, but just the rough sketch. I'm altering the pattern as I go, spending longer on the factoring process my younger forgot and eliminating the Latin repetition my older doesn't need. I'm moving back to my more flexible ways, although the boys and I do like the nifty chart from the planning software, since checking off boxes is fun. However, I'm more comfortable just picking up our books and beginning with the end in mind, checking for fit along the way, making changes as we go, and delighting in the wonder of our path while keeping our eyes on our destination.