Home...

Coming home after a long time away, unlock the door, put down the luggage, and see familiar things. The place is a bit dusty, quiet in the way that places that have not been inhabited are. Things are both familiar and foreign, at once known but from before, like a familiar memory. Returning to this blog feels a bit like that. Mid 2017 my father passed away, after a very short and intense battle with cancer - it affected me in ways I am only now realizing. I knit through his treatment, a cowl for Bear and a jersey for me - I've knit quite a bit since but something seems different.

Off piste Decennium Reworked

Decennium by Vintage Purls in Skeinz Silver Lining

Tirilunge Newborneonsie by Shja

Since then my knitting has been slow and mindful, using up soft and lovely yarns to make things that are useful, that are easy, that use my mind but not too much.

In 2018 I kept knitting, I also dabbled in botanical water colour and spent time drawing and painting. Those new things gave me a clear focus, things I had to find out, to learn, goals to achieve.  But at night - there was always knitting. Something to keep my hands busy.




Vintage Purls has a lovely hat pattern, Decennium, which allows for exploration of colours. I had a a mix of Skeins Silver Lining yarns, a light fingering (or three-ply), and I made three hats. Each one worked in a different way, switching backgrounds, playing with combinations and even monochrome. The last, a fourth based on the pattern but knit in an invented colour work repeat,  was designed to use up the last of the darker blue and grey shades of yarn. This soft play provided a neutral space for my head. This went along side long overdue renovations of our home, extensive to the point we moved out for 3 months, put our lives in storage and were nomads for a significant part of 2018. There is something both liberating  and unsettling about having to choose a few things to keep close, and more unsettling about returning home to change, and to re-establish a way of living. We tore down walls, we moved doors, we changed exits, and we then had to learn to work in the new spaces together. It took longer and cost more than we anticipated - even though we knew it would. The changes are good and for the better, our house was original 1939 so long overdue for an upgrade, but the changes were still major and disruptive. Shortly after we moved home, eldest cub went flatting, so now we are three, that also is a change, exciting to see him 'successfully adulating', and yet a sense of loss - setting the table for three reminds me daily he is no longer here.

Recently I knit a lovely soft baby thing, for a long time knit friend who is having a baby. I used Silk Alpaca yarn, from Tria Fata Fibre Arts, bought a long time ago when we used to knit together in Dunedin. I know its not the most practical but it is luxury and soft and not everything has to be the most sensible. Something luxurious reminds us that we have choices and we can use the 'best china' or 'wear the best dress' or 'use the nicest yarn', we don't have to wait.

I took time to get my loom up and working, something simple so I could focus on the loom and not on the making.
I made six cotton tea towels/dish towels, and this provided  space to evaluate my loom. I had bought a new stainless steel reed and spools of 8-2 and 12-2 cotton in April 2017 - just as Dad was diagnosed. My intention at the time was to spend the next holiday setting up my loom and weaving - but the next two holidays were spent care-giving and then dealing with Dads death. There was a sense of the unfinished every time I passed the loom or moved the tub of cotton thread so I could reach a book, a clear memory of why I had not made use of the new reed and the new cotton yarn. This past summer things got moved around in our house, there is more room and the loom finally found a place in my week - I warped, adjusted, I wove, I invested in new Texsolv to make the tie up more regular and easy to modify and I finished the cloth - finally things are settling into place.

It is a little bit like the sun is out, or the clouds have lifted or there is a spark of interest. Before I knew I liked these things, knitting, and drawing and painting and weaving so I did them- but I didn't seem to feel the same sense of excitement as I once had. The haze has lifted and I feel calmer, able to do things that I enjoy instead of things I think I enjoy. These past few months I have shifted my stash, and matched yarns to patterns and made plans ---- and this marks my return to the world of Blogging. There are things to share.
na Stella