life

Moving Back In

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Hello!

As you can see, my knitting baskets are back where they belong – next to my knitting chair in the living room. This means that all the repair work to the house is finished, the paint is dry, the heating is back on and we’ve moved everything back to its rightful place.

I’m so glad that it’s all behind us now. And I’m particularly glad that I’m surrounded by books again. Moving back in, I came across one that I thought might be interesting to discuss here:

Kari Cornell (ed.), For the Love of Knitting, Stillwater (MN): Voyageur Press, 2004.

For the Love of Knitting is different from most other knitting books in that it doesn’t contain any patterns. It is filled with stories and essays about all kinds of aspects of knitting, and illustrated with many interesting pictures.

The book’s subtitle is: A Celebration of the Knitter’s Art. That’s interesting, because knitting is usually considered a craft. In an essay with the title: ‘The Search for a Proper Place among the Arts’ Teva Durham tries to answer the question ‘Why is knitting considered less of an art than painting, sculpting, or weaving?’ That’s an interesting question, and the essay contains interesting thoughts. A quote (p. 109): ‘For the proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement it was enough for a work of art to be “a well-made thing” where “design interpenetrates the workmanship,” showing it was “made by a human being for a human being.” […] What could be more applicable to this than knitting?’

What indeed? Still, I wouldn’t call the things I knit art. But does it really matter whether something is considered art or craft? Hmm, it’s mainly a matter of status, I think. And the price people are willing to pay for one or the other will differ a lot. So, yes, perhaps it does matter.

The things I knit are usually of the useful and wearable kind. This book shows many other applications of the art/craft of knitting, including knitted chairs, a knitted boat (yes, really, it even floats), and these two ladies.

This work of knitting art made by Karen Searle is called Prime of Life. According to the caption, the artist ‘wanted to illustrate the beauty of the aging female body.’ If you’re as intrigued by this as I am, there is an article with more pictures of Searle’s work here.

I just have to show you this gem, with the caption: ‘A young Dutch maiden knits contently by the sea in this vintage, hand-colored postcard.’ It could be me! (Just kiddin’.)

One thing in the book that makes me laugh out loud, is ‘Lily Chin’s Top 10 Ways to Hide the Stash’. One of her fun yarn storage tips is ‘Put a slipcover over a bag of yarn, stick it on the couch, call it a pillow.’ And why not? Another one is, ‘Never cook, only order take-out or go to restaurants. You’ve now got the whole oven!’

Haha, nooo, storing yarn in the oven would never work for me. We just LOVE,

LOVE,

LOVE

our oven and use it almost every day.

Something else I came across while moving back in was my collection of straight knitting needles. My needle cases for these are getting rather ratty, splintering or falling completely apart.

I knit almost everything on circulars nowadays. Apart from the double-pointed ones, I hardly use straights anymore. But I’m still attached to them, so what shall I do? Give them away? Invest in new needle cases? And where am I going to find those?

Here are several special pairs/sets – from top to bottom:

  • My thickest knitting needles (15 mm)
  • My thinnest knitting needles (1.5 mm)
  • Some of my Mum’s old, slightly rusty steel knitting needles

After moving back in, I’m trying to rest and relax as much as possible this week. I’ve had my first dose of vaccine. Apart from a sore arm and a slight headache that may have had different causes, I haven’t felt sick from it at all, but I thought it might be a good idea to take it easy anyway.

I’m really surprised at how happy I feel that is now my turn to be vaccinated. Apparently, I’ve felt more oppressed by the whole situation than I realized. It also feels as a relief that we’re able to do something to protect ourselves and others apart from keeping ourselves to ourselves. I feel very privileged and hope that everybody around the world will get the opportunity to get vaccinated soon.

Besides unpacking, I’ve been knitting, pottering in the garden…

… airing my husband’s best suit (can’t remember the last time I saw him wearing a suit)…

… and washing and ironing my new dress for a very special occasion in the near future.

More about that soon, I hope. Bye for now and enjoy your weekend!

Fragmented

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Hello!

My days and weeks are very fragmented at the moment, and the only thing I can think of to do here this week, is post a few of those fragments.

Sunday
No workmen today. Ah, sigh of relief. I’m very grateful to them for all the work they are doing, and they are really nice guys, but I’m also grateful for a day without them. It isn’t just the upheaval. It’s also having to dance the distancing dance that we have been performing in shops and in the street this past year at home now, too, that is stressful.

After breakfast we’re escaping the house for a walk in the wood. Many trees are still bare, and in some places it still looks very wintry, but the amelanchiers are in bloom. Although torrential rain on Friday has made them look slightly dishevelled, they’re still worth photographing.

The fresh young leaves of the beeches make other parts of the wood look really springlike.

A couple of hours in the wood erase a week’s worth of stress.

Monday
Today the walls are painted. It feels like a luxury that somebody else is doing this for us – we have always done jobs like these ourselves in the past. Choosing paint colours was fun. There were so many colours to choose from…

… but in the end we chose more or less the same ones as before. We didn’t want to redecorate, after all.

For the living room we chose white with a hint of pink in it, like the blossom on our apple tree. Not like the buds, but like the petals of the fully opened flowers.

And we chose a pale yellow for one wall in the kitchen. Similar to these daffodils that are now flowering, only slightly less lemony.

The rest of the walls and the ceilings are simply painted white.

We’re suddenly without electricity and internet for part of the day, so no computer work for a while. When I head outside to do some jobs in the garden, it starts to rain. The only thing I can do now is retreat to our bedroom and knit.

Tuesday
This was the day the central heating radiators were going be re-installed, but alas… change of plan, it is now going to be Thursday (we hope). Changes of plans are not my forte. The weather is dismal (stormy view from our bedroom window).

Everything is covered in white dust again. I resist the urge to get back into bed and start cleaning again.

Flags are at half-mast around the village (and everywhere else in the country). On the 4th of May we commemorate those fallen during wars and peacekeeping missions since the beginning of WWII. At 8 pm we observe two minutes of silence and watch the ceremony on an almost empty Dam Square. The stories told by survivors and their children and grandchildren are deeply moving.

Wednesday
On May 5th we celebrate the end of WWII as well as freedom, democracy and human rights in general. Normally, there are all kinds of festivities. This year again only the flags show that it’s a special day.

I’m becoming more and more aware of how fragile these values are. We have a mini celebration at home with some sweet treats hot from the baker’s oven.

The June issue of Country Living magazine lands in our letterbox. I don’t think I’ll be visiting the UK any time soon, and it is a real treat to look at some lovely pictures of British wildlife. With phone calls with our daughter and a dear friend added in, this was, all in all a festive day in a small way.

Thursday
Hurray! I have an appointment for my first vaccine jab. And very soon, too. Can’t wait!

Hurray 2! The radiators have been re-installed! We have the house to ourselves again, and can start moving back in. This whole episode, with the semi-earthquake and the cracks in our walls, has taken up so much time and energy. I’m glad the end is in sight. I sympathize with all those people in the north of the country with far more serious cracks in their houses caused by real earth quakes due to gas extractions and fervently hope they will finally be compensated soon.

Hurray 3! The blue tits’ eggs in one of our nesting boxes have hatched. The parents are flying on and off with food. They refuse to be photographed, so here is just the nesting box and you’ll have to take my word for it.

Hope all is well with you and yours, hope to be less fragmented next week, and hope to see you again then. Bye!

Upheaval

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Hello again!

Last time I was here on my blog, I told you that I have a lot on my plate at the moment. The picture of our hallway above gives an indication of one of the things on it. No, we’re not moving house. Let’s take a look at our living room for further clues.

Redecorating? Nope, not redecorating either. Or sort of, but not voluntarily. Actually, it’s more restoring than redecorating.

Last autumn, a concrete sheet pile wall was hammered into the soil a little ways away from our house with so much force that it felt like a minor earthquake and cracks appeared in our walls.

This is just a small, elegant crack that only needs some filler. In other places the plaster needs to be hacked away and restored entirely. Fortunately the #@*&%#! company that caused the damage is insured, but for us it’s still a lot of upheaval, noise, dust etc.

Just like the house, I’m thoroughly shaken, but trying to be philosophical about it. Compared to the bombed houses in Syria or Iraq we sometimes see on the news, this is absolutely nothing. Besides, we’re lucky that our bedroom was left unscathed. I’m acting as if it’s a room in a boutique hotel. Room service is lacking, but unlike the rest of the house, it is warm. It also has a good bed and exactly the books I love beside it, as well as a perfect knitting chair where I can spend the evenings knitting.

During the daytime, I can also sit outside if I have a few moments to spare. It’s still rather chilly, but the back of the cardigan I’m knitting has grown so fast that it’s like a small, cosy lap blanket.

The pattern I’m using is Modern Wrapper Fine. I’ve made one before and knew that it would be perfect comfort knitting during this period of upheaval.

The garden is also giving me some solace. The pear tree and the Amelanchier are opening their first blossoms, and the wood anemones and wild garlic are lighting up a slightly shady area.

Another project that is growing, albeit more slowly than the cardi, is my linen stitch wrap in Felted Tweed. I love the way linen stitch always blends colours together. (The white row at the bottom is a provisional cast-on I’ll write more about when I can find the time.)

Knit, yarn forward, slip, yarn backward. Knit, yarn forward, slip, yarn backward… A great way to meditate.

One of the books beside my bed in the ‘boutique hotel room’ is brand new – Mine Strikkede Favoritter by Norwegian designer Sidsel Høivik.

From the foreword I gather that, as well as new designs, it contains several re-knits from her other books. I don’t have any of her other books, so that’s fine. If you do, check if you still need this one. The difference with her other books is that they are entirely in Norwegian and this one is bilingual (Norwegian and English).

Sidsel’s signature style is traditional Norwegian with a twist. She uses lots of embellishments on her designs, like embroidery, beads, sequins and ribbons. The book contains patterns for sweaters, cardigans and several accessories. My favourite design is a long cardigan with traditional Setesdal patterns on the upper part of the body and the sleeves, with embroidery on the star motifs, a nice length, pockets and a cosy collar.

All of the yarns used in the book are from Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk, the small Norwegian family-run spinning mill I visited years ago and wrote about in this blog post. I bought my copy from a small yarn shop 20 minutes cycling from here. It is also available from Sidsel Høiviks own website, which offers kits for her lovely designs as well.

Well, that’s all from me for now. The builders will still be here next week and the week after, but I hope that I’ll become used to all the upheaval (and also that the other things on my plate will shrink) soon, so that I’ll be able to go back to blogging as usual. Maybe I’ll even be able to finish and publish my new pattern! Or am I now being too optimistic?

Anyhow, I hope you’re safe and well. Take care! xxx

Knit on, with Confidence and Hope

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Hello! And how are you all doing? It’s always slightly frustrating to me that a blog is mainly one-way traffic. I hear a little about some of you from your own blogs, through comments, or via other channels, but on the whole it’s well-nigh impossible to have a real two-way conversation here. I just want to let you know that it isn’t because I’m not interested.

Over here, in the Netherlands, there are more and more signs of spring. The scillas in our garden are flowering profusely, and we only ever planted 1 single scilla bulb about two decades ago. The trees are still bare, but a few branches blown from our pear tree in a storm and brought indoors are delighting us with their delicate flowers.

And the daffodils on a roundabout I often pass are a cheering sight.

On a different note, we’ve just had another press conference from our (outgoing) Prime Minister and our Minister of Health about the Covid situation, and the national elections are behind us. Both have left me worried. But I refuse to despair and, as always, am living by Elizabeth Zimmermann’s motto:

“Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises.”
(Wool Gathering #10, 1974)

I am making good progress on the fingerless mittens I’m designing myself…

… and am hoping they’ll turn out the way they look in my mind’s eye. Designing something is exciting and fun, but for me also surrounded with doubt and uncertainty.

It’s different with sock knitting. After knitting innumerable pairs, I’m entirely confident that they’ll turn out right. I’ve just finished a pair in a stripe sequence designed by Arne and Carlos, and am now knitting a pair in a subtly striped yarn with cashmere in shades of red, pink and orange.

I’m keeping the Arne & Carlos socks. The luxurious red ones are for a friend.

Speaking of socks and friends, I’ve been to see our daughter’s dear friend Silver. She has just moved to a new stables and was having a manicure while I visited.

Silver has magnificent (if slightly dirty) socks.

You may have met her in a blog post long ago, but if you haven’t, here she is:

Silver is whitish, has one blue and one brown eye, and hails from Ireland. She shares her new stables with black, brown and beige horses, with Norwegian, Arab, and I-don’t-know-what-kind-of roots. After a few initial bickerings, they have settled down peacefully together. Watching them makes me hum,

“Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
Yoo, hoo, ooh-ooh
You may say I’m a dreamer…”

Well, back to knitting. It’s also time to start a few new projects. First of all, I dug out the yarn I bought at a crafts fair in February 2020.

This is going to be a new in-between-projects project – a huge wrap in linen stitch. I expect it’ll take me about two years to knit, and that’s exactly the idea. A project I can always pick up when I’ve finished something and am about to start something else, or just feel like knitting long rows of soothing simple stitches.

I’ve also ordered yarn for an oversized cardigan. Two different lace-weights in a tealy colour that will be held together, one a blend of alpaca and merino, the other mohair and silk.

I’m soooo looking forward to collecting the yarn from the shop and starting this.

That’s all about my knitting for now. I hope you have something on your needles to lift your spirits too, and I’d love to hear about it.

Thinking about Flow

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Hello!

(Because I think it would interrupt the flow of this blog post too much to insert links into the actual text, I’ve added a list at the bottom.)

It was yarn that first made me think about flow. Two skeins of a beautiful blue-green yarn hand dyed by Catharina at Wolverhalen. I chose this colour first of all because it caught my eye. The name – Flow – was of secondary importance, but it did catch my attention.

I asked Catharina about it, and she told me that she dyes a whole series of colours named for states of mind. Flow is one of them. Others are Positivity, Wisdom, Joy, Passion, Faith, and Stillness.

Flow… What exactly is it? It makes me think of water.

It also makes me think of  somebody with the unpronounceable name Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In my previous life as a translator, I’ve translated many psychology books and articles. During my background reading, I repeatedly came across his research.

In his famous book Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (that I haven’t read), he defines flow as: ‘…the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter…’ It is a particular kind of focus that seems to lead to intense feelings of happiness.

Am I ever in a state of flow? I don’t really know.

I used the flow yarn to knit another Thús 2 – a design I published in November last year.

Am I in flow when I’m knitting? Or when I’m designing a pattern?

Or when I’m faffing about with photography?

Or when I’m writing? Or when I’m doing other things entirely? Yes, no, well, maybe, sometimes…

Flow as a yarn colour is something that makes me happy. Flow as a state of mind is something I’d like to know more about. Are people generally aware of being in this flow state? What does it take to get there?

Flow is also a Dutch magazine that I sometimes buy. In the editors’ words, it is about ‘Celebrating creativity, imperfection and life’s little pleasures’. This is the first issue of 2021.

There used to be and English edition as well, but they’ve recently stopped publishing that. They do still have an interesting English-language website, and back issues and specials are still available.

My favourite articles in the latest issue are about navigating life in uncertain times and about tools for people working from home. And the item about Aheneah, a Portuguese artist who does cross stitch on a large scale, made me smile.

The message Aheneah gives off with her installations is to think outside the box and look at one’s roots and traditional techniques as things that can be transformed in unexpected ways and so given a new lease of life.

I’m ending today’s post with a poem by Wilder Poetry that really spoke to me. It comes from the Flow ‘Calm Down’ special.

Thank you for reading!

If you’d like to read more (or knit your own Thús 2), here is a list of links:

To Focus or not to Focus

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Hello! This has become rather a long and complicated blog post, I’m afraid. I hope you’ll forgive me. Why not make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee before you dive in?

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To focus or not to focus, that is the question I am asking myself this year. Would a little (or a lot) more focus be a good thing in my knitting/life? (And if so, how?) Or would it suck the joy out of it?

I don’t think anyone would call me scatterbrained, but I often feel drawn in many directions and (except in my job) have a hard time deciding what to do first, last, or not at all. Never being bored and always having many projects on the go can be fun, but it can also lead to overwhelm, fatigue and UFOs – UnFinished (knitting) Objects.

I know I’m not the only one with difficulty focusing, so I thought I’d share some of my journey here, always focusing on knitting. To my mind, what goes for knitting goes for most things in life.

To find answers, I started as I often do – by reading a book.

(Daniel Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, paperback edition New York: Harper, 2014)

I chose this book because, well, it’s Goleman. And also because one of the chapters bears the intriguing title ‘The Value of a Mind Adrift’.

So what can this book teach a knitter (or anybody else)?

Uhm… that’s not so easy to say. Ironically, I think it’s a rather unfocused essay, without even a definition of the word focus. Still, for me, 5 things jumped out.

1 – Anxiety is detrimental to focus

In fact all emotional turmoil disrupts focus, but Goleman specifically mentions the detrimental effects of anxiety in relation to focus and performance. Small wonder that people are having difficulty focusing on all kinds of things, and can’t even focus on their knitting, in this anxiety-inducing time we find ourselves in.

It also explains why there is still no progress on this project of mine.

I still think it is beautiful and I still want to knit it, but I can’t seem to focus on it. In the past I would have set a deadline, made a plan and told myself to just get on with it. But I don’t want to force myself to focus in that way anymore. Least of all in my knitting.

Knowing that our inability to focus can be caused by anxiety, I think we need compassion. And also strategies for reducing such emotional turmoil.

2 – Different tasks use different parts of the brain

I have always felt that, say, knitting a simple sock takes a different kind of energy from knitting a complicated Fair Isle pattern, adapting a pattern for a better fit, or blocking a lace shawl. Goleman explains that it is not just about energy, but that different parts of the brain are involved in different tasks.

What he calls the ‘bottom-up’ brain takes care of more automatic and intuitive tasks. In knitting terms this would be knitting long stretches of stocking stitch, or simple socks (at least for an experienced knitter). The ‘top-down’ part of the brain is needed for tasks that take active cognitive effort, like Fair Isle, learning new techniques, doing maths or finishing a knit. ‘Top-down’ tasks also take more energy.

Let’s take my knitting as an example. I’m currently working on a reconstruction of my inherited knitting sampler.

Figuring out each stitch pattern is a job for the ‘top-down’ part of the brain. But once I’ve worked it out, the ‘bottom-up’ part can take over.

And knitting the long stretches of my Panel Debate cardigan was pure ‘bottom-up’ knitting. But now that I’ve adapted the armholes for a better fit and am at a loss how to adapt the sleeve cap, the ‘top-down’ part of the brain needs to come to the rescue.

Most of my knitting time is in the evenings. The top-down part of my brain is often depleted in the evenings. Ergo, to prevent this cardigan from ending up as a UFO I need to solve that puzzle at a different time of the day, when my ‘top-down’ circuits can deliver the right kind of focus.

3 – Knitting can help us focus

Goleman explains that tight focus leads to fatigue of the top-down part of the brain, ‘much like an overworked muscle…’ (p. 56)  And just like an overworked muscle, that part of the brain needs rest to recover. But how?

According to research by the University of Michigan, spending time in nature is one of the best ways to do that.

But according to Goleman, an even better way is ‘full focus on something relaxing’. What better way to recharge our ability to focus than some simple knitting?

4 – Creativity needs unfocused time

I was so glad to read that goal-driven focus is not the be-all and end-all. For creativity it is absolutely necessary to let our minds drift. According to Goleman, we do need a goal, but once we have that, it is crucial to have ‘protected time – enough to really think freely. A creative cocoon.’ (p. 46)

For me, being in this ‘creative cocoon’ is one of the best things in life. But I find it very hard to take the time for it. That is something to look into.

5 – We need positive AND negative focus

Most of the news we read and watch has a negative focus. Some people say that we should purely focus on positives. Just focusing on positives is certainly very tempting, but somehow it doesn’t feel right.

Goleman has something to say about that, too. Or rather, he quotes someone who has something interesting to say about that – psychologist and researcher Richard Boyatzis. ‘“You need the negative focus to survive, but a positive one to thrive”, says Boyatzis, “You need both, but in the right ratio.”’ (p. 172 ) Turns out every negative needs 2.9 positives for the right balance.

Looking at my current sock knitting, I tend to agree. Starting on the foot of the second sock, I noticed that there was something wrong with the yarn. At first I focused on the positives (‘the colours are still sort of similar’), but…

… after a while I could no longer ignore the negatives. The colours really were very different from the first sock. And it was not just the colours – there were also irregularities in the yarn, and later on a knot followed by a complete break in the colour sequence.

So, I sighed a deep sigh and rrrrrrrip, there it went. All the way back to just before the heel.

That was a bit of a negative experience. But I’m glad I didn’t bury my head in the sand. All in all, with 1 part negative focus and 2.9 parts positive focus, I got a well-balanced pair of socks. Knitting as a metaphor for life. 😉

This book wasn’t an easy read. I struggled with all the talk about ‘leaders’ (mostly CEOs of big tech companies), as if we should all emulate them. Somewhere Goleman says that we are, in a sense, all leaders, but imho most of us do not lead anything but our own lives.

Having said that, it did give me food for thought. And applying some of the ideas to humbler and more personal pursuits has made reading it worthwhile.

Golemans book was a good start, but it doesn’t give us any ‘How-Tos’. I’m left with questions like: How to decide what to focus on? How to find focus when you’re procrastinating? How to stay focused until something is finished? And how about people with multiple interests or roles in life? I think I need another book for those.

Take care! Xxx

PS. In case you are wondering what my camera was focusing on in the picture at the top and during the rest of the walk – it was frozen moss:

Word of the Year

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Hello again!

It’s good to be back here after a 2-week break. I hope that, in spite of everything, you’ve had an enjoyable festive season and a good start to the New Year.

We had a quiet and pleasant time, and on New Year’s eve I baked a big batch of knieperties. These very thin wafers are a traditional end-of-the-year treat in this part of the country. I always make more than enough to share with several neighbouring families.

This year’s conundrum was how to hand them over at a safe distance? It didn’t feel right to place them on people’s doorsteps. I came up with this solution:

Loops of silver ribbons tied to the bags to hang them from the hooked stick we otherwise use to open our attic hatch. It was great fun, really, and brought smiles to everybody’s faces, including my own. The anderhalvemetersamenleving in action.

Anderhalvemetersamenleving (1.5-meter-society) was chosen as Word of the Year 2020 in the campaign organized by our leading Dutch dictionary Van Dale.

A word that sums up a lot about the past year, and also a word that we will not be leaving behind us soon, I fear. (As a former translator, I have a thing for words. Although I worked with digital dictionaries for years, I still treasure my paper ones.)

My knitting during the Christmas break was entirely in the spirit of the Word of the Year 2020. It’s an exactly 1.5 meter long scarf for my brother who lives in Germany.

Knit in 2-by-2 ribbing it is very tight and narrow now. It will need some TLC (a bubble bath, some steam, and an acupuncture treatment) to relax.

More about that and the matching hat soon.

I have very little knitting to show today, but there will be more over the coming months. Lots more, I hope. Looking back at 2020, I realized that I haven’t finished those UFOs that I planned to turn into FOs. Not nearly all of them. Am I beating myself up over that? No, I don’t think that will help. But their state of unfinishedness did set me thinking. It’s not just those UFOs. I currently also have 4 WIPs as well as loads and loads of plans for new knits. What might help, is a personal word for the year 2021 to give me some direction.

At first I thought of ‘limits’, but on second thoughts that sounded too bleak. There are so many outside limits already. (Our present lockdown lasts until January 19 and we don’t need a crystal ball to predict that it will be prolonged.)

A word with a similar meaning that sounds much friendlier is ‘focus’. Maybe more focus is what I need. Or maybe not. During the past year I’ve become a very focused grocery shopper.

On the left an old-style shopping list with everything in no particular order and room for browsing around. On the right my new-style shopping list with everything neatly arranged along the supermarket aisles. Pro: More focus makes for very fast shopping and I’m not in anybody’s way for long. Con: It sucks all the joy out of shopping.

But still, I have a feeling that the word ‘focus’ may help me in my knitting as well as in other areas of life. At least it is something to explore. I don’t know if it’ll be worth writing about here, but we’ll see.

Now for something completely different. Spring is still a long way away, but even at this time of year there are a few bright and flowery spots in our garden. There’s the Viburnum tinus (top) that gives us flowers for a long, long time and provides a great hiding place for the sparrow family. The hazel shrubs already have catkins…

… and for the first time this year the Cyclamen coum is flowering. Its bright pink flowers are only about 7 cm (3”) high, but they cheer me up no end every time I look out the kitchen window.

Focusing on things like this really helps in a world in turmoil. Yes, Focus seems like a good word for 2021. Hope, too, by the way. And Peace.

Comfort and Joy

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It’s Christmas Eve, and we’re nearing the end of a challenging year. Thinking about writing this post beforehand, I felt that I should say something Profound and Meaningful, but what? I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’m not some kind of oracle or Wise Woman, after all. I’m just an ordinary person muddling along like everybody else.

In the end, I’ve gone back to what this blog is basically about and decided to share a few of the things that have given me comfort and joy over the past weeks, hoping they’ll do the same for you.

The front door with the lovely garland at the top of this post isn’t ours. It belongs to a house further down the street.

Every time I pass this house, looking at these neighbours’ stylish grey-and-white decorations brings me joy.

Our style is more traditional, mainly red, green and silver. It’s comforting to take the same old Christmas baubles from their box every year. This one symbolizes 2020 for me.

White hyacinths opening their flowers at exactly the right time scent our living room.

The upstairs Advent calendar has now opened its last door. And I put the star on the top of the downstairs one this morning. One of the first creatures I placed on this cardboard fir tree was a woodpecker.

It looks just like the great spotted woodpeckers that visit our garden. They’ve been away for a while, retreating to the wood during their moulting period, but are back in full force now. Sometimes there are four of them at the same time, looking for insects on the branches of our old pear tree and fighting for a place on the peanut feeder.

Watching these beautiful birds always brings me joy. They are fairly shy, but if I’m very quiet and patient, they allow me to take a picture now and then.

Something that always brings me a lot of comfort is knitting. It is the feeling of the yarn in my hands combined with the rhythmic movement that makes it so. And what’s more, knitting things for others makes me feel connected with them during a time we are unable to meet. That’s also a comfort.

Apart from knitting several pairs of socks, a scarf and a hat to give away, I’ve treated myself to two skeins of exquisitely soft yarn for a hat and a cowl.

The hat pattern was a freebie from Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. They have a very active and friendly knitting group on Ravelry that I’ve enjoyed being a part of for years. The moment I saw this simple hat and read that the yarn they used for it was a sustainable cashmere, I knew that this was going to be my special December knit for me this year.

I was not just going to knit the hat, but also a matching cowl. Although I could have finished each of these projects in an evening, I decided to take it slow and enjoy every minute of the process, including winding the yarn and taking photos along the way.

I limited myself to knitting no more than a few rows a day. During these quiet, contemplative moments, I first saw my hat grow.

And then my cowl.

Knitting a pattern thought out by someone else is especially comforting – no stress about how many stitches to cast on, getting the right size, what decreases to use, and whether there will be enough yarn. I’ve given my own twist to it by adding a bit of contrasting colour to the rim of the hat, making a matching cowl, and finally duplicate stitching hearts onto both.

For the duplicate stitching I’ve tried out a new (to me) type of needle, with a bent tip. I’ve laid my ordinary darning needles and the new ones out on the finished cowl to show the difference.

The new ones are officially called tapestry needles, and they are a real improvement for duplicate stitching, I have to say. The bent tip slides easily between the knit stitches and is really nice to work with. (I’ll keep using the regular straight ones for darning in yarn ends, though.)

And here are my hat and cowl all finished.

They were a joy to knit, and I know they’ll be a joy to wear for a long time to come.

Now there is just one last thing I’d like to share with you – a gift we received on Tuesday. This year the organic farm that delivers groceries to our door, gave all their customers a bag of organic daffodil bulbs. It came with a message on a bit of sunny yellow paper. Translated it said:

When all of a sudden ordinary things
Can no longer be taken for granted
We realize how extraordinary
Ordinary things really are

Such a lovely gift – a ray of sunshine and hope during these dark days.

Thank you so much for reading my blog over the past year, and leaving a comment now and then. These small virtual moments of contact mean a lot to me. I’m taking a break now and hope to be back here somewhere in the course of January. I’m looking forward to ‘seeing’ you again then.

I wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas and the very best for 2021!

Slowing Down and Tidying Up

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Hello!

The title of today’s blog post – ‘Slowing Down and Tidying Up’ – may sound terribly Zen and Organised, but that’s not how I’m feeling at all.

The slowing-down part is my left foot speaking. I’ve injured it during a recent walk. Nothing serious, and I hope it will heal soon, but for the time being I need to listen to my foot and walk slowly and mindfully. Because whenever I ignore it, it sends a stab of pain to my brain.

I think my left foot is a rather sadistic Zen master, and I can’t say that I’m grateful to it. But I am grateful that it isn’t my left hand that’s injured. At least I can still knit, and that’s what I’m doing a lot.

There is some gift knitting going on that I can’t show you, but I’m also knitting something for myself that I can show – a cashmere cap and matching cowl in charcoal and red. Pure comfort knitting.

More about that when I’ve finished it. The novel next to my knitting is from the series of Jane Austen mysteries by Stephanie Barron that I’m re-reading. Highly recommended!

While the slowing-down bit from this blogpost’s title is dictated by my left foot, the tidying-up bit is dictated by the state of some parts of our house. You probably know what it’s like if you have many interests: notes, patterns, newspaper clippings, recipes and other papers pile up until there comes a moment when they take up so much space that tidying-up becomes unavoidable.

And for a knitter, there are all the things left after a knitting project is finished: pattern print-outs, notes, swatches, scraps of yarn. After finishing my Monogrammed Guest Towels I am left with all this:

A folder full of notes and charts, left-over yarn, yarn labels, the towels and face cloths themselves, and swatches. Lots of swatches of the monograms – many knit-in versions, one in duplicate stitch, and even one in cross stitch on a knit swatch (not a success).

And there’s also a small bouquet of loops:

Shall I keep them for future reference? I have difficulty tidying up, because I keep thinking that things may come in handy later. But no, they’ll have to go or we’ll get snowed under in stuff. If I’m ever going to make something with loops or monograms again, I’ll knit new swatches. That’s part of the fun anyway.

Speaking of new swatches, I paid a visit to Wolverhalen to get some materials and needles for them. Maybe you remember the shop? I wrote about it before here.

My tactic at a time we need to avoid crowds is to shop as little as possible, and when I really need something, to go at a quiet moment. So last Wednesday I arrived at Wolverhalen when Catharina was just about to open up. While she was placing a last little Christmas tree in the shop window, I looked at the things on display and put on my face mask.

I had taken a good look at her website beforehand and made a shopping list. One of the things on my list was two balls of this squishy yarn.

Something to play/knit swatches/cuddle with during the Christmas holiday.

Also on my list was some of Catharina’s own handpainted yarn for another Thús 2. On my way to Wolverhalen, I dropped the original version off at a friend’s house, and now I’d like to make another one. I chose a deep teal merino singles yarn (2nd from left in photo below).

While I was choosing my yarns, another customer came into the shop. She was wearing a very special sweater, and when I asked her about it, she told me she’d bought it during a month-long stay in the Faroe Islands. Oh my, an entire month in that beautiful place!

I asked her if I might take a picture of her lovely sweater for my blog and she said that was fine, so here it is – Thank you, unknown knitter!

Chance meetings like these are what make visits to a brick-and-mortar yarn shop extra special. I don’t know if I’d recognize her in the street or she me, large parts of our faces being covered in masks, but from her story about the Faroe Islands, the pattern she was choosing yarn for and her remark that’s she’s a bird watcher, I did recognize a kindred spirit.

Well, let’s browse around a little more before leaving for home. Apart from her own gorgeous hand dyed yarns…

… Catharina also stocks a selection of yarns from other companies, like Danish CaMaRose.

And then there are plants in lovely pots everywhere…

… books…

… and magazines.

Ah, it’s been so good to not be at home for a while. And to meet other knitters and yarn lovers, even if it was only briefly, in small numbers, at a safe distance, and partly hidden by masks.

Well, that’s all for today. I’m hurrying back (slowly) to my tidying up. Wherever you are in the world, and whether you are slowing down (of your own free will or not) or are extra busy at work or at home, I hope that you are okay. Thank you for reading and see you again soon!

More or Less

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Hello! And how are things going in your part of the world?

Over here, not particularly well. From the day before yesterday, 10 pm, our country is more or less in a lockdown again. A ‘partial lockdown’ our Prime Minister calls it. The door is still slightly ajar, so to speak.

I’ve been feeling very angry about the whole situation. It isn’t the lockdown itself that bothers me – I can handle that and even think it’s a good idea. It’s the large number of hospital admissions that keeps me awake, the pressure on our care workers, the loneliness among vulnerable people… Again!

In spring the virus took us by surprise, but this time around we knew what we were dealing with. And yet, the numbers of cases have rocketed over the past month. We are now one of the countries with the highest numbers in the world! Why haven’t we been able to prevent this?

Anger isn’t going to help, I know that. But I’m having a hard time getting to grips with it. I’ve been pouring my anger out on paper, been mulling things over during sleepless nights, and been for walks around the village muttering to myself (well, not aloud, but inside). What I’ve come up with is a question, and an answer of sorts, too:

Q: What do I need in order to come to grips with my anger and be able to contribute to society in a positive way again?
A: I think I need more of some things and less of others. Here is a quick list.

LESS news. Over the coming weeks I’ll just read the morning paper and watch the evening news. That’s MORE than enough.

MORE walks.

I need to breathe in MORE fresh air and listen MORE to the wind soughing through the tree tops.

LESS time gazing at screens.

MORE time gazing at the sky and the beauty of nature. (Fortunately we can still do that during our partial lockdown, as long as we don’t do it in groups.)

And MORE time to enjoy small natural wonders.

LESS fuming and ruminating.

MORE pottering around the garden.

LESS worrying.

MORE making.

The latest issue of Making Magazine landed in our letter box on the very Wednesday the lockdown started. The cheerful, sunny picture on the front cover is a close-up of a pair of mittens inside.

I also have two great books about MORE and LESS.

Less: Accomplishing More by doing Less was written by someone with the amazingly appropriate name Marc LESSER.

For me, this is a very helpful book, because I tend to get very (too) busy from time to time. The whole book is about that, and especially the last chapter, Busyness, or Finding the One Who is not Busy. But this time, I leafed to the chapter about resistance. It starts with a quote from Rilke:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
And try to love the questions themselves.

Finally, a very entertaining and also helpful book about MORE.

It tells us how to tell a good joke, conduct a Japanese tea ceremony, get custody of your pet in a divorce, mend a broken economy and save the world from climate change, just to name a few random examples. The book doesn’t tell us how to deal with a pandemic, but it does tell us how to cope with anger in 4 steps.

Leafing through this book has at least made me feel a little LESS irritable and MORE cheerful.

I fear that we’ll all be faced with partial or complete lockdowns for some time to come. We’ll have to find ways to keep our spirits up and help each other along. I hope you’re more or less okay, wherever you are in the world. What do you need more or less of?

A final remark about my need for MORE making: I’m working on a small project that I hope to share with you in my next post. It isn’t a knitting project, but it does have something to do with knitting. Hope to see you here again next week!