two knits of ivory

The funneh is missing in action at chez yarn. At least we have yarn, though. I bought some new-to-me yarn from a couple of Ravelers last week: Bugga . The dusty coloring reminds me of Dream in Color's yarn. In fact, the top skein, Orchid Mantis, is near identical to a skein I have of Smooshy in the Butter Peeps colorway. The Bugga, being 20% cashmere, is deadly soft. It is going to make some fabulous scarves. So where the heck is the funneh? Well, a weekful of documentaries on American industry, and my continued ignorance of the BP situation, have been leaching all of my joy. I'm back to morose seriousness as I come to terms with some conflicting beliefs. The theme this month can be summed up in dialogue from Cold Mountain (the movie, I never read the book). Renee Zellweger's character, Ruby, is up to her eyeballs in the hellhole of a life of a woman in a rural mountain town during the Civil War: "They call this war a cloud over the land. But they...

I don't know about the rest of the raglan sweater knitters out there, but when I knit a top down sweater, there is always a lull in the knitting when I get near the point at which a) I want to take the armholes off the needles or b) the armholes need to be removed from the needles. After stewing in my knit bin for a month, I finally got up the chutzpah to go forward, knitting a few more rows before taking the arms off. After that the knitting has been full steam ahead. I love this Madtosh DK colorway, Terrarium - even more than I love her DK colorway, Cove. The yarn itself has a wonderful, plushy texture, preferable to Sundara's much sturdier, more tightly spun, sport weight. But for colors both companies have stolen equal parts of my heart. Even though Neil Young is heading into the desert (on a horse with no name) when he sings "It felt good to get out of the rain...," the phrase has married itself to this project. The colorway name, Terrarium, reach...

is much preferable to the sound of me whining about my failure to mitigate my stress. Blah blah blah. It goes on and on in my head. Blech. I have my health, food on my table, a wonderful husbeast, a tidy roof over my head. I need to get over the rest.

When I was a young'un I was entranced by multiple personality disorders. Where most children spend their time learning gender and societal normative behaviors, I was drawn to all that was non-normative. Now that I've come to see my past and present through the prism of post-trauma, I am realizing that multiple personalities are the sign of a healthy mind, not just a mental illness caused by abuse, as immortalized in popular culture by the books and movies about Sybil and Eve . I think I shall call my inner berator Mrs. Norris, after Jane's uber-bossy, illiberal, and admirably indefatigable Mansfield Park character. She thinks she knows what is best for me and up until this year, I've ceded to her all too often. When Mrs. Norris says "Complete this knitting project; you started it - now finish it." I have the good sense to question her admonition. No longer do I obey, meekly and miserably, or rebel, just as miserably. Case in point, I began a new s...

I think my subconscious is telling me to pick up some old Judy Blume books. That's the second time this spring my muse called forth a title punned from "Are you there God, it's me Margaret." So I bought more yarn. Who'd a thunk? This most recent acquisition is filed under retail therapy. I was in need and it did the trick. Five months ago I darkened my hair considerably. When I was going more natural with the color, my clothes color range was as narrow as my palate: green to blue to beige to white. These colors have been my steady companion for at least 10 years. A couple of years ago I bought my first non-blue coat, and it's just been chaos at chez yarn. Absolute chaos. Now I'm wearing PINK. Me in pink. But you know, I think pink goes great with my hair. So, I'm trying not to let ms. inner kool kat laugh in that snide, condescending way she has, making me feel 12 and inadequate, and clutching for the fortification of an all black w...

In the flush of first love my husband told me he would bring me the jewels of the world. He's fabulously corny like that. He means it from the depths of his unironic, romantic soul. Of course, I'm a cynic. I smiled at him, most likely batting my eyes, and thought to myself, oh yeah, I'll hold my breath for that. Not. Other than requiring a big fat engagement ring to satisfy the poor girl chip on my shoulder, I have very little interest in jewels or jewelry. This weekend, though, I realized that my husband has been keeping his word. The skein of yarn above is Sundara sock in the Candle to the Sun colorway. (I'm not sure if it was a limited edition or one-off colorway). When I was sick a few weeks ago, my hunny offered to buy me yarn to help me feel better. This skein was one of three colorways I purchased under this directive. Almost all the yarn I've been stashing lately has been purchased by the hubster. Who knew when he promised me the jewels of ...

Sometimes I'm mortified by what I write here. Mortification. Shame. Self-loathing. Part of me tells me that's the lesson. Be you. Expose yourself. It's the only way to build armor against a world that is designed to dislike you. Or should I say a species built entirely different than you and designed to dislike you. The snark is just armor too. Yeah it's learning to be funny and quick and highly intellectualized, but it's still fucking armor. I was beginning to fool myself that it was something else. And I'm scared and proud to have derailed that subterfuge. So what interesting thing has derailed me this week? Jane fuckin' Austen. Last week I read a few chapters of Mansfield Park and the world was right again. Light, crisp snark. Every sentence a gem. As I read I let the precise perfection of her prose envelope me. Until it abruptly stopped and I was unwittingly unmoored (why is this not an antonym of moored?), untethered, disjointed...

OMG do I need to get that self important drama llama ding dong from Tuesday off the top shelf! It hurts to look at it, but look at I do and do and do. I'm obsessed with my own experiences. I'm obsessed with squeezing every fucking drop of meaning out of every gosh darn thing. Hello, calling Mrs. M. Umm, that's how you roll. So deal. And deal I do. But today (yeah!) I am beginning to grasp at the fringes of self mockery and it feels awesomesauce. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.S.A.U.C.E. Ring around the drama llama. I've decided to blame Wharton for this recent setback. I finally took out a book and used my eyes to read it and it wasn't about Bella fuckin' Swan. Miracle of miracles! (OMG! what's that song?!? - "vanity of vanities the whole thing is a vain parade" - Hand of God, Soundgarten.) (Yes, welcome to two knits, the home of the vain parade. Snerk.) I haven't picked up Wharton in many years and my perspective on her writings has cha...

It is the fate of a sarcastic bitch to be, well, considered just a plain old coldhearted bitch. Our humor is dark and oftentimes inappropriate; inappropriate in pitch and inappropriate in content. I've changed a great deal in the past year. I feel I am both a better me to me and a more selfish me to everyone else. And I'm happy about that. But there remains a part of me that feels responsible for everyone and everything. If someone hurts, I need to make that hurt go away. Even if it is my enemies' hurt. I want to snark and cut things down to size but then I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Politically correct and snark spells o.x.y.m.o.r.o.n. Or just plain moron. This morning I followed my heart down a road it's been too timid to travel for two decades or more.. I drove past a cat that had been run over and I did not keep driving. I sated my impulse to care and to be responsible for this helpless creature. I cried at the trauma drama t...

New interim look. Not finished but at this point so preferable to the old look. Went to the movies, saw Ridley Scott's Robin Hood . WTF was Scott thinking with this reimagining of the Robin Hood myth? I haven't wanted to walk out of a movie since 1999. The penultimate mis en scène: It's aproximately 1199 AD and it been hours since the movie started and Robin has yet to take to the wood. That's because: 1) The French are storming the cliffs of Dover in transport boats , a la Omaha Beach, aka D-Day . Look at the picture in the link and then watch the movie. I am not shitting you. It was D-Day in the theatre tonight! 2) William Wallace Robin preHood, a commoner, and an archer in the crusades, (an infantry position that lacks swordsmanship and horse riding skills) astride deceased King Richard the Lionhearted's snow white steed (which he has been in possession of for at least an hour and yet no one seems to notice the horse is bedecked in ye Plantagenet...

Does fiber have a sound? No, but I swear it vibrates. Hmmm...now that I ponder on this, it's me that vibrates, not the yarn. The yarn just sits there all stuck up and aloof and perfect and je ne sais quoi. I turn to mush and worship at its feet. I went to the NH Sheep & Wool fest on Saturday and I bought only three skeins of yarn and three buttons. I was good. Very good. And not in a deprivation kinda way at all. In fact, I have become such a narrowly oriented yarn stasher, there were very few things there that sang to me. (Oh yes, I went to Volterra this weekend, why do you ask?) For yarn only one vendor stopped my breath, Mocha's Fiber Connection . She had a lovely two plied fingering silky merino, as well as some worsted or aran singles, in the same vein as Sundara's FSM and ASM. The pic above is the one purchase I made of the FSM in a colorway called Ashes of Roses. The yarn base on the tag says Kizzie's Toes/sock. This base of theirs isn't ...