See Rain City

I'm delighted that people dig my knitting enough to clamor for more, but the orders keep pouring in and of course I feel obligated to do those before I start on anything for myself... especially since some of the orders are for hats and other wintry wear, and I guess I need to get those done while there's still enough cold weather ahead for them to be useful.

Last night, I was reading a book with the kiddo, and there was a picture of people flying kites. She pointed to one of the wooden sticks with kite twine wrapped around it and then pointed to my yarn and ball winder. It was a proud moment for a knitting mama, my child making a connection with yarn. She also occasionally brings me the Knit Picks catalog and wants to read it like her other story books. It's interesting that she seems to like green yarns the best.

Here are a couple of pictures of my Mom's Xmas Saroyan during blocking... I'll try and post a picture of it in its finished glory when I have a chance to sort through all the holiday snaps we dumped onto the hard drive.

I love how beautiful those leaves are, and they were a lot of fun to make. I'd like to do a whole shawl of just those.

Also a scene from this afternoon, ripping and winding a thrifted sweater. Delicious 100% shetland wool in a dark olive marl. My hand-turned nostepinne. And Ms. Sticky Fingers.



Tonight, for some reason, I feel very lonely for Seattle. We lived there for three years, from 1999-2002, and those were very good years. They were tough, too - I was at the very beginning of my journey through chronic illness and was housebound and homesick for quite a while when we first moved there, but life went on and we nonetheless carved out a little world for ourselves in that Northwest land of milk and honey and rain. I have to say that I loved the weather - the muted blues of the slate sky and steel water and the technicolor greenness of everything else. I loved the rain dripping off the "nooky pen" trees (as I called them), the Washington Park Arboretum and the Japanese Garden, hiking in Ravenna Park (which was just at the end of the street where we lived), biking to work on the BG Trail, riding the bus to work in Queen Anne (just in the shadow of the Space Needle) and grabbing dinner, discovering my favorite novel of all time at Cafe Allegro, eating salmon teriyaki while watching the world go by, losing an hour or three, old school fish and chips at Ivar's while waiting for the ferry to Bainbridge Island, a steamy treat on a chilly day (back in their "eastern European cafe" days). I loved the incredible thrift stores. I love that we spent New Year's Eve Y2K on top of the Great Mound at Gas Works Park with a few thousand other crazy hippie types. I loved the fact that you could see snow capped mountains on the horizon every day of the year, loved the days when Mt. Rainier was "out," rising like a mirage out of apparently thin air. I loved that you were surrounded by water and boats and bridges and that the air always smelled fresh, like rain and the sea. I loved the green lifestyle, the progressive attitude of the city, a huge city, but one that felt suprisingly small and cozy. And by the time we left, it had really started to feel like home. I remember grabbing dinner to go on the day we started packing up to move, and I cried all the way home. It had finally hit me, not so much that we were leaving, but rather that, despite how hard it had been at times, I really wanted to stay. I have fantasies that someday we will move back there, or at least back to somewhere in the Pacific northwest, which is by far the most beautiful part of the country I've seen.

Now, off to have a little "I miss Seattle" cry.