Unbowed despite the rain

I no longer have 'flu, thank goodness. I've been dashing around again as usual. There has been activity, but the likelihood of good-quality daylight + camera + me all converging in the same place at the same time this winter remains small. So, here's something someone else prepared earlier to brighten things up.

Your rainbow is shaded red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a passionate person. You appreciate energetic people. You get bored easily and want friends who will keep up with you.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

A strange-looking rainbow, if you ask me, but bizarrely accurate in certain ways. Except the boredom bit. On the one hand, life might be easier if I did get bored more quickly. On the other hand, if I anthropomorphised balls of wool it would explain my severe case of knitting Startitis.

Influenza

Two types of painkiller. One type of antibiotic. Lots of soothing tissues. Many glasses of water.

Don't even think about picking up a knitting needle until Day 8. You won't remember what it's for until then.

Primavera mitts

Just before Christmas, while thinking about Secret Christmas knitting, I went to the Rothko: The Late Series exhibition at the Tate Modern. I had not been expecting to think of wool when in the third room, filled with large canvases from the Seagram murals. However, all the paintings were composed of shades so similar to the yarn I was using at home that it made me wonder if Sundara derives some of her inspiration from Rothko's art.

Primavera Mitts
inspired by the beautiful Primavera Socks by S(t)ockinette
Yarn: Sundara Sock Yarn, burgundy over apricot (half a skein)
Needles: 2.75 mm
I borrowed the thumb gusset pattern from Javajem's Merletto Fingerless Mitts.

Does anyone want the pattern? If so, let me know and I'll write it up.

Shafts of light

Wow - what a sky.

If only I could speak or read Norwegian then I'd know where it was.

It seems an apt picture for the first day of the new year.

Out with the old, in with the new...

I'm looking forward to 2009. I'm hoping for many eccentric, funny and improbable moments. Parts of this year have been unexpectedly and discombobulatingly grim, thanks to the hand that fate deals sometimes. I'm determined that the new year will be lighter, more frivolous and without too many sideswiping events directed by chance and the inevitable vagaries of life and death.

People here have been invaluable in providing a gentle cushion during the grimmer moments, but it's been those who are far, far away who have touched and moved me with their consistent good humour, optimism, conversation and friendship. They have provided a greatly appreciated counterpoint, probably without knowing just how much they have helped.

I have various existential resolutions but they are works in progress. It is for the moment far easier to consider some knitting resolutions:

• to learn how to do a provisional cast on
• to stop being stubborn about avoiding charts (I can use them, I just remain fixed in my preference for letters and numbers over squiggles)
• to practise kitchener stitch from the right side (though doing it inside out is working for me at the moment)
• to reduce my stash (or find a way to make it invisible and to take up a third of its volume)

Overall, I could do with being less impatient with my knitting, and less patient in non-knitting matters. Patience is not always a virtue. Here's to frivolity, excitement, novelty and adventure, whether in knitting or other matters.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Resolutions little by little

Today I'm sure various resolutions for the New Year will occur to me. I may drip feed them as they occur.

I woke up thinking of some, and then I read the latest entry from the incomparable Nothing to See Here. Now that is a blog I wish I had thought of doing, and indeed wish I had the time to follow in person instead of in the ether.

In 2009 I will resolve to visit Postman's Park. I used to work nearby and didn't know it was there. I am kicking myself for not knowing, but only slightly for I can go anyway, and pay it justice instead of a snatched few minutes in a lunchbreak.

Mystery Outing

I was taken on a mystery outing this evening, a late extra birthday present from my mother and sisters. First there was supper cooked by my sisters, then off we went past the Christmas lights in the trees along the streets of Camden, Islington, Farringdon, Blackfriars and Waterloo to the surprise destination. I love surprises (well, nice ones), and this was a good one.



They kept me guessing until we turned on to the South Bank. Somehow my sister had bought tickets to the sell-out production at the Lyttelton Theatre of August: Osage County. I had tried to buy tickets earlier this month but they are sold out for the entire run of the play. My sister remains enigmatic on how she acquired the seats. My mother had even brought chocolate ginger and Christmas cake for the (two) intervals. I wore my new Hourglass sweater, which I finished yesterday (and which I am loathe to take off).


Photograph: Karen Robinson (borrowed from The Guardian)

I should, I realise, say something learned and wittily critical about the play, but I tend to think that people far better at reviewing have already said much on the topic. It's won myriad awards, as have the cast members, and deservedly so.