Jung At Heart

First I thought you might enjoy seeing how spring is progressing here. Today there are 3 boats moored just below us, a sure sign that summer is coming. The new sprouts of the knotweed have started to grow so soon the old stalks will no longer be visible. The birds love that thicket of stalks so we leave them. I know knotweed is an invasive species, but when confined as we have this patch (which we did not plant), it seems a reasonably good thing.

I was thinking last night about the days when I was first learning to cook whole meals and what an overwhelming task it was to have everything ready at the same time. Yet today, I don't even think about it and everything is ready when I need it. Somewhere a long the way I learned the art of juggling ingredients and times so that now it is second nature to me and seems effortless.

My knitting is kind of like that. There was a time, waay back when, that I had to knit just one thing at a time because of the level of concentration I needed in order to make what I was attempting. But as I gained experience and skill, that fierce level of focus was no longer required and I began to be able to juggle several projects at once. And in fact, having several at a time seemed overall to facilitate all of them as I could move from one to another as I got bored or frustrated with any given project. It is not a case of short attention span theater for me. For me it is a kind of energy that comes from having multiple options available to keep me inspired by my projects.

In that spirit, here is the beginning of my Slow-Bee shawl. I am using raspberry extrafine merino from Colourmart, which I learned is Baruffa Cashwool. It is delightful yarn in any case. I am using a mixture of red beads on it.

Here you can see how I load beads onto my piece of SuperFloss, which has become my method of choice when adding beads --

And the knitting itself --

I am making it for a friend and have doubled the width of the rectangular panel in the back as she needs extra width there. I like this pattern.

I had a cancellation this afternoon so I will be working on charting the center motif of Medea. And I will post pictures of her so far tomorrow.

Spike finds all of this satisfactory --

Mother's Day is crisp and clear here on the coast --

I have been thinking a lot about mothering, being mothered, being a mother lately. When I was growing up, more than anything I wanted someday to be a mother. Being married was secondary and mostly a means to become a mother, because in those days  marriage seemed a necessary pre-requisite. My own mother was a very difficult woman so some of my desire to be a mother certainly came from wanting through it to mother myself. 

Mother's Day has never been terribly important to me. I loved when the kids were small and gave me things they had made in school or cards they made. Those things are so very sweet and I still have several of them. My kids, adults now, are generous with "I love you." -- being well-loved, they love well.

So on this Mother's Day, I would like to thank my children for giving me the opportunity to be their mother, for loving me, for providing me with many of the best, and worst, moments of my life, and for continuing to grow with me. 

Thanks, Courtney and David -- you are the best!

Look at this -- the lilac outside my window has LEAVES!

I always tell people that we see leaves around Mother's Day. Right now, the maples are blooming and pouring out pollen by the ton -- I know this because even with my medications, I am quite stuffed up. And sure enough, by the weekend, there will be some leaves.

There isn't much to report on the knitting front. I am chugging along on Medea. And the GoddessKnits stole is underway --

I still have questions about this Yubina cashmere. I haven't washed it so maybe it will fluff up then, but it seems fluff-challenged to me. This is the second time I have used it. It is certainly nice to the touch but not very cashmerey.  Anyone have any experience with it?

Ariadne and Aphrodite are nibbling at the edges of my mind for future stoles. Just so you know.

My husband and I hope to get some work done on our garden this weekend. The soil is warm enough to plant beets and sugar snap peas, two of the vegetable we have decided on. We also plan to plant tomatoes and peppers and winter squash in a couple of weeks. We're trying the square foot garden method this year to see if we can grow more in our available space. This year we had a plot around 12'x15' tilled, a bit more than doubling what we planted last year. That seems to be the trend around here -- bigger gardens as a hedge against higher food costs.

I think my creative process actually draws a lot on monkey mind. I appreciate that some people become monomaniacally engaged by one thing at a time, but that is just not me. As I am working on one thing, my mind is gayly tripping about swinging from one possibility to another, some of which I will later follow in some detail, others of which will simply fall back into the great pool of unrealized possibilities. I am still working along on Medea, now working on the long stretch that leads to the center motif, which has yet to be mapped out. Now there are people who design using elegant drawings and all, but that is not me. I have piles of graph paper and lines going here and there as I try to see what I can do within the space I have to do it in and in the shape I want. This is one of many attempts to see how to transition into the center. I kinda sorta think I have figured it out so tonight I will work on actually making a chart and see.

Meanwhile, other yarns and other patterns also call me.

I wearied of the high drama over the Mystery Lace KAL -- life is too short to deal with moving from group to group and emails about conspiracies. I do this to have fun. So I frogged the one and only clue and am now contemplating what I want to use this pretty yellow Yubina cashmere for --

And I have this very nice raspberry merino from Colourmart which is actually Baruffa Cashwool --

I think I like it for either Secret of Bad Nauheim or the Slow-Bee2. Don't know about the beads though -- those are clear AB and look nice on just about anything.

Finally, I have this white cashmere and linen from Colourmart that just seems to scream summer to me. I think it will be for whichever pattern I don't use the raspberry for.

Letting myself play with other yarns and other patterns makes space for issues in the Medea pattern get worked out in the back of my mind, along with the paper I am simmering back there. I know it is a way of working that wouldn't work for everyone but it seems to be good for me. That's my story ad I am sticking to it. 

on edit: eh, I have looked at finished Secrets of Bad Nauheim and I am underwhelmed. Maybe something from Victorian Lace Today?

Spike and Moe love the little mousies we get at the pet store. They love that they are fuzzy. He and Moe bite off the tails and ears and carry them around. And now look where they are putting them --

Look at this -- GREEN --

And the appearance of spring moved me to get somethings done today -- like put away the DVDs we never watch and use it instead to create my little altar to Colourmart --

Now I can look at it and sigh happy sighs.

A little more progress to show you, on Medea and on Arabian Nights, v.2 --

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, with those 4000 word-equivalents, I am out to enjoy some of the sun!

Medea -- she's got me. I am becoming a woman obsessed with this stole. 

Working this design out is a new thing for me. I am used to being able to intuit my way, to "see" what I want something to be, how I want to shape a piece of writing for instance, and then it just happens But this is different. I cannot see it as a finished product in my mind. This is a journey to an unknown destination. ll I can do is start with basic parameters -- how long and how wide and what shape and then step by step find and put together the pieces. 

So last night I laid out the beginning -- decided on an edging, at least for now, and the bottom motifs. Then the number of stitches and repeats of each motif. I can't see how it will work without knitting it -- the graphs don't tell me enough, don't let me see how the color and texture and stitches work together.

As soon as I got home from teaching this morning, I sat down and cast on for the first look. I used a beaded cast on -- here it is just started 

I don't have anything other than a few rows of garter to serve as a base for the columns that will come next. And the fluted lace that Denise found ended up not looking column-ish enough for what I was hoping for, so I am back with what I tried originally for that. Maybe someone knows of a fluted column pattern that suggests corinthian columns? And I still want to work out something that suggests maybe acanthus leaves at the top of the columns, but I have a ways to go before I am there.

My daily photo sometimes catches extraordinary beauty. Yesterday was such a day. 

One of my favorite blogs to read is Endicott Redux, with its wonderful posts and links on art, myth, fairytales and other delights. And yesterday's contained this poem for knitters, along with a lovely painting --

Eve's Design

I played a little with some red zephyr that I have to see what I could do towards developing motifs for Medea. I want to make something that looks like Corinthian columns, given that she was in Corinth when the play unfolds. 

Now there is no way I can or will make something with all these elements, but I did come up with this, using beads to make the fluted parts stand out a bit --

That red is not true and in any case I will use a deeper red for the stole when  get a design together, but that maybe gives an idea.

 This is all a bit haphazard for me at this point. A thought about a possible motif comes to mind, I look to see if I can find a stitch suggestive of that or one I can modify and then I try it and then to the next one. I suspect it will be weeks before I can begin to actually attempt to make anything. Or maybe I won't get there. This is where being a process knitter may pay off for me.

This is what greeted me today --

When I was little , I just adored The Little Engine That Could. And as I was growing up, my father always told me I could learn anything I wanted to learn from books. He wasn't altogether right on that one, but the two things combined have made me confident that I can do most things that I really set my mind to -- even when I start filled with anxiety and doubt. Like about designing lace. 

So I start this process with some anxiety -- because I have never designed anything. But Medea is a passion of mine -- I write about her and teach about her and now I have this urge to knit about her. I can't , yet anyway, visualize what I want, except that I know the shape -- rectangular -- and some motifs are starting to come to mind. Flame. Waves. Columns. 

At first I thought I would see if I could work with someone whose patterns I admire, but why not, I decided, take the plunge and try it myself? So last night I spent a long time looking at blogs of people like Susan Pandorf who blog about their design process. Doing this was encouraging because I began to understand something about the process and as I went to bed last night the motifs started to come to me.

Now of course I was not adequately prepared for this urge to design to come into my life, so I had to quickly order the Barbara Walker book I was missing just in case the crucial lace stitch I want happens to be in it. Why is it that urges and inspirations don't wait until i am ready??

Thanks to Denise for her lovely suggestions in the comments yesterday, I have some starting places for stitches to play with and begin to develop a layout for the design. I am under no illusions -- this is going to tae a god deal of time and a lot of trial and error before I arrive at something that pleases me. But I think it will be a fun adventure and what a deliciously different adventure this is for me, who is usually a person of words.

Moe says enough of this laptop stuff what's really important is petting him!

When I went out for my walk today I saw a couple of unmistakeable signs of spring --

Ahhh, youth!

When I was in college, we would leave for spring vacation with the campus still looking kind of dreary and when we came back 10 days later, the whole place would have burst nto bloom and the air would be filled with the scent of magnolias. It was intoxicating! And then the gardens would fill with couples "studying". I confess to having enjoyed some study sessions under one of the old magnolias that are now gone.

I cast on and got a few rows of Chinese Lace knit last night. It feels funny to work with yarn that is much bigger than the fine lace weight I have been using the last several months. I love the color. I get gauge without effort. What's not to like?

Denise planted an interesting seed yesterday in the comments --

"I would love to read insights based upon Jung's ideas that are related to women at midlife...I would especially enjoy it if you designed a lace pattern at the end of each chapter!"

Well now -- wouldn't that be interesting! I have no idea how I would do it or even where I want to start, but the thought certainly intrigues me and I will keep it in mind. Be sure to read her whole comment to yesterday's post. And if you have thoughts on this, let me know.  Hmmm, Jung, midlife and knitting.

On Ravelry, someone asked me how I put beads on the YOs that form the edge of Arabian Nights. So I figured I would use the macro setting on my camera and finagle a way to show it. But look what showed up in the last picture -- 

Moe is everywhere even when he is in another room!

It happened. The snow is gone!

Right now clouds have moved in and it's going to rain. 

I reached a milestone today -- it is day 100 in my photo-a-day from my window. When I started on New Year's Day I had only the idea in mind that I wanted to take a picture every morning from my window. I had no idea why or where the idea came from; I only knew I wanted to do it. Now I am a person who did a 21 day shape up program at least 5 times, getting to day 6 each time -- which I suppose means I was doing a 6 day don't get in shape program. But you get the point -- following through on this kind of thing is not something I have done a lot in my life. I decided that all I had to do was take the picture each morning; not worry about the next day or the day before or how many days were left in the year. So that's what I have done. I don't use an alarm clock so the time I get up varies between 6 and 8 am, as do the photos. And going day by day I have gotten to day 100.

If you click on the Flickr badge there on the right and then look at the photos as a slide show, you will see the changes in the light, the direction of the sunrise, the snow, the clouds. And now, color has started to creep back in as the last of the snow recedes from the hill. In a few weeks, we'll start to see sailboats moored in the bay. 

This is akin to a meditative process for me. I place no expectations on it. I keep my focus on one photo each day. And when I look at these first 100, I am delighted.

I expect I will make it a practice for some time to come, this photo a day thing. Next year maybe it will be the end of the day. Or some other constant yet always changing part of my environment.

For now, today was Day 100 and I am feeling pretty good.

Some kind of technical problem is keeping me from uploading my posts. I hope this will be corrected tomorrow. I have not forgotten you!

Not much knitting was accomplished yesterday as I wrestled with this posting problem. I was a living breathing example of superstitious behavior as I tried all kinds of ways to try to "trick" it into working, but it would not be fooled. Sometimes a terrific application just gets really stubborn.

Last night we went to our county Dems fund raising dinner. I am still unhappy about all the sexism on the national level in this campaign, but here on the state and local level, things are much better and it was fun to be with so many who share my beliefs. The food could have been better, but you know, that was a minor point.

It is gloomy again today, but look how much more the snow on the hill has retreated --

If the forecast for the week holds, in a few days the whole slope should be bare. And there is a trace of green in the grass already.

I am still hopping from project to project. Here is the start of my Dem Fischer Sin Fru, hereinafter known as Dem Fischer --

The yarn is two strands of 50/50 wool and silk I got from Colourmart and I am using KnitPicks size 4 needles. I think I will resist beads in this one, but who knows, the bead urge could strike at any moment!

Here's hoping you are able to see this in a day or so!

This morning when I got up, the clouds were already moving in --

and was in the forecast. Rain, not snow. In fact there is no snow predicted for at least the next week, so maybe we have seen the last of significant amounts of it. It started to rain around noon. Early spring rain seems different somehow, maybe because it eats the remaining snow revealing the ground which has been covered since early December.

It is grey and a little gloomy but look -- there is the faintest bit of color now.

I am making progress with my version of Secret of Chrysopolis and I continue to like what I ma doing with it. Two strands of this yarn knit together gives it more substance. I think this might be my favorite of the Colourmart yarns. I am eager for there to be more in more colors.

So right now I have 3 active projects -- the navy silk Arabian Nights, The Secret of Chrysopolis, and today I cast on for Dem Fischer Sin Fru -- for this I am using a beautiful blue wool and silk from Colourmart. Not enough done yet to photograph.

In Treatment ended a week ago, and most of the readers drawn to Jung At Heart because of it are drifting away. It was fun having so many readers -- StatCounter can be positively addictive when the numbers move a bunch every hour! I am content with being a very small corner of the blog world -- a good thing, I suppose, as I am not likely to become one of the cool kids any time soon. But that experience did make it easier for me to get into a rhythm of posting frequently, so now my challenge is to keep it up.

One more thing I want to share with you today. I have a wonderful friend here, a woman who is older than I and a very gifted artist. I was at her house a week or so ago and was admiring the assemblages that she has been making of late. And I asked her about something she had mentioned before, about keeping snippets of poetry and other things she likes on slips of paper in a box. She showed us two of her boxes and I was immediately enchanted with the idea -- I  told her I was going to steal it! For many years I have written such things on the fly leaf of my journals, but of course, when I want to find them, I have to try to remember when I wrote them in order to locate the journal. So to have a box for them seems just right -- instead of a commonplace book, a commonplace box.

I found one on Etsy and ordered it --

I will be on the lookout for others at flea markets and the like this summer. 

The first slip in my commonplace box --

You know, being faithful to just one project, as I was the whole time I was test knitting Arabian Nights, was not easy for me. And as soon as I finished, I started itching to start new things. You've seen Arabian, 2.0. But that wasn't enough. Nooooo.

I got these pretty silver lined olive green beads that I knew would be just right on the terracotta cashmere/silk I have. 

So I unknit the small amount I had done in it. And I looked at the pattern for Secret of Chrysopolis again. And I looked at al the pictures of finished ones I could find on Ravelry. I came away from Arabian Nights knowing two things for sure -- I really like wider stoles because 20-24 inches just doesn't quite do it for me; and I like a lot of beads in the design.

So first question was how to make the stole wider. And I remembered the portcullis element in Arabian Nights. So I added that, which added 22 stitches. And the second question was solved by doing a beaded cast-on and then running beads along the long edge of the stole, as Arabian Nights does.

I cast on yesterday and I am happy with this. You can't really see much about the added design element here -- I will show you that in a few days when I have knit more.

I got a new fountain pen last week. I love fountain pens and have one really good one I received for Christmas around 20 years ago. The Mont Blanc Noblesse pen, a nice weight slender one made from steel that of course they no longer make, has been my every day pen but the nib has a crack and I have t find someplace where it can be repaired or replaced -- no luck so far. So I got a slightly lesser pen for everyday, one made by Conklin and I think it will work out fine --

I used to do all of my writing in longhand -- and my handwriting was rather nice. But these days it's only for my journal and sadly my handwriting has deteriorated. But I remain attached to actually writing in my journal with a real pen. Something about it is different for me than writing on my laptop. For a two year stretch a few years ago I kept my journal on my computer but I was never really happy that way. I like that my handwriting varies with my mood -- sometimes big and bold, sometimes cramped and tiny. I love the colors of ink I can use -- right now I am using black cherry, a purpley brown that is really nice.

More marmalade pictures later.

Look at how glorious it was yesterday when I got up --

There was sun and melting. By afternoon it was warm -- well in the 40's anyway -- and I saw a couple of boys in shorts and tee shirts having a snowball fight on the Common. There is something delightfully wacky and Maine about that.

And then, this greets me this morning --

It was snowing. And it snowed all day. Not hard, just slow steady snow. Until about an hour ago.

So don't talk to me about crocus and daffodils. Not for a while yet!

I think I have made my piece with the flame beads. I have a tall red-headed friend who loved the picture I showed her, so I think the finished stole will go to her. She has the drama in her to carry it off.

I am going to make kumquat marmalade tomorrow. Watch for pictures.

Easter is a quiet day around our house. We are sort of occasional Unitarians and these days reading the Sunday NY Times seems to grab us more than leaving the house for church. And, of course my kids are all grown up. My daughter was off with her husband to her in-laws for whom Easter is a huge family gathering thing. But who can pass up the opportunity to make a feast anyway? So we had a rib roast, potatoes, and asparagus. Yumm.

I do miss the foofarah of Easter when the kids were little -- dyeing eggs, making baskets for them and getting them each a new stuffed animal each year. That was probably the best part -- the search for e right animal. One year they each got a Babar character. Another year dinosaurs. And a number of bunnies, who had to look a little different. I remember we named one Bunny Begonia. Stuffed animal bunnies, not real ones. Hiding the eggs and hoping we found them all -- because, you know there is just nothing like rotten egg to make the house smell great.

There are faint signs of spring. The bare patch in the side yard is growing as the snow ever so slowly retreats. And this morning I heard birdsong for the first time since last fall. The male cardinal of the pair that has been at our feeders all winter was singing his heart out this morning. Yesterday was Maple Syrup Sunday -- that is an early spring event. So the end of winter is coming into sight.

I am making peace with the flame red beads on Arabian Nights, v.2.0. The effect is less garish than I thought it would be because the dark navy mutes the beads a little. Here's what it looked like this morning --

The calendar may say this is the first day of spring but you wouldn't know by looking out my window --

It's the ever popular "wintery mix" -- snow, sleet, rain and freezing rain. 

And when I got back from teaching this morning, all full of hope that my red beads wold be here ...

they weren't. The tracking information says they left Scarborough, Maine this morning which means I will get them tomorrow. But I really really hoped for them today. :::BIG sigh:::

I need to find some just right patterns for my cashmere/silk. It is really cobweb weight and I don't have enough in every color I have gotten to use it double stranded. And it is  so light it is almost weightless. I am going to play with beads to see what they will do to give it a little more drape, because the lightness of the fabric makes it almost float.

I have to say I am glad it was Amanda who was eliminated last night on American Idol. I thought she had too little range to be interesting.

Here's hoping that tomorrow I will be able to show you the beautiful red beads on the navy silk. Keep your fingers crossed!