Thank
you for your comments (so glad that you are not tired of the cats yet), and the
feedback for what I should put inside the kitten’s pants’ pockets; they are
still empty, although I made a pair of mittens.
Since last time, I finished one
crocheted cowl, one pair of knitted socks and three little kittens. (Plus, I
have one dog body without a face!) My focus has still been on the cats. The
other things have provided a much-needed break from the cats, as they are labor
intensive with all the different steps.
In
my quest of going through the stash this year, I came across two balls of red
Zauberball and crocheted a cowl. It is once again this lovely shell pattern
that is well loved in knitting. I used 2,5 mm hook, had 170 stitches all around,
kept going until I had almost used all the yarn, one full skein, the other
almost full, crocheted crab stitches on both ends and called it done. I truly
love this stitch pattern and will use it from time to time. This yarn was very
easy, enjoyable to crochet with, no worries of splitting, the fabric has some
shine, feels heavy, almost sturdy somehow. Most likely I will keep this cowl to
myself, I have a red coat that will match the cowl very well.
The
socks… Last fall I knitted the cuffs with this dreary brown yarn. I guess the
color felt right during the fall when the leaves were falling, the ground was
all brown… now… not so right. I had the cuffs on my desk; I looked at them
often with a sigh. Finally decided to get them done; used one of my own hand
dyed yarn to knit the rest of the socks. Every single stitch was a battle, I
wanted to just rip them, do something else instead. I did not like the color at
all, combining the two was a mistake. I kept knitting; the orange yarn felt
very hard, like steel. Then here at the other end, I am happy, if the color is
off, at least I now have a steely pair that will last forever…
The kittens… After every single one I
think that this was the last one… then cast on again; all the way while
knitting I keep telling me that this will be the last. I tried to make a dog,
made him a face too, or truly two faces, ripped them both away and now he is
waiting for a third one. For some strange reason, I am not able to catch the
image of a dog, this because I don’t have it on my mind yet. I am not sure how
it should look. I want it to have similar qualities to the cat’s face, it needs
to be this mixture of two and three dimensional, but it cannot be too much like
the cat’s face. For some odd reason, I keep seeing some other creature on my
mind all the time I try to think of a dog. I cannot tell you yet what it is,
because I am not sure it will work out, but I will need to try it sometime soon.
I have the image, I know how it needs to look like, then I am not sure how to
make it happen. There is a big question mark hanging in the air that needs to
be solved. It is what really makes this making very interesting, let’s hope not
frustrating.
I have been thinking a lot of this
design process… why cannot I make the dog? Of course, I can, I know I can make
a dog: at a moment, I am not able to make the dog with good spirit, meaning and
mission. I know, grand words for something knitted, nevertheless, that is how I
feel. The spirit, the soul; I have not been able to catch them yet. I keep thinking
of the qualities of a good dog, loyal, loving, trustworthy; I need to capture
those qualities plus I need to see what feature is essential in a dog. Not to
talk about the fact, that it needs to be not just repeating something that has
been done many times before; something that feels fresh, at least to me. It
needs to be new to me.
I have 12 kittens altogether. I still
like the very first one a lot. It is somehow a free spirit, I can well remember
how I felt when I was making it, it was just letting it to be born, letting it
to take the shape it was taking and watching it happen. Every single one after
that, has been more like a row of judgement calls, even though them being
handmade, they differ from each other, however, the more I make them, the more
I know beforehand how they will look; they are somehow less of their own
person. Do I make any sense here at all? I will need to make a distance to them
for a bit, so that they will be born fresh again.
I have 8 of the kittens here at home,
4 are at my Mom’s. She of course is interested in what her child is doing
(forget the fact that the Mom is over 80, the child is getting close to 60, it
is still the same), responds to the familiar sentence Look, Mom! as mothers do
in the best possible way. She wanted to have a few kittens in her place and the
very first one is there too. Maybe he needs to come home again.
This last kitten I made, I tried to
scribble down all the numbers of stitches and rows because now if I will proceed
to make something else, am probably going to forget how to make this cat. All the
details are now written down, including the pants, the information is there if
at some point I need to make it into a pattern. The knitting part is just the
beginning of the process, nonetheless, it needs to be right.
March… I cannot not talk about March.
Here at the Arctic, it is the month when life returns. The wind starts to shake
the trees; they start to stand taller, it is like all the branches one after
another stretch a bit, like you do in the morning, they shake their heads, take
a pause and turn towards the sun again. They look welcoming, happier - the
birds pick up their spirits and begin to open their voices. One chirp tentatively,
then after a while, another one with little more strength and suddenly, along
with the sun, you are in the midst of a concert. I notice that I am taking
longer steps on my walks (snow permitting), the dogs roll over in the fresh,
white powder, they dig deep because they can here sounds from underneath. There
is life again all over, above our heads, deep down near the ground inside the
snow. The weather keeps changing, one day (or few days in a row) there is snow,
heavy snow and the next, the sky is bright blue, the sun is up there already
quite high, and the world is glimmering with light as it bounces from the snow.
Don’t forget the sun glasses when you go out!
It is a long way still to go before
the snow is gone and the summer is here, however we are getting closer to May,
my most favorite month of the year. Good-bye to the dark, cold Arctic Winter!
Wool with you,
Lene
