Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Knitting Chronicles in Peruvian Blue


Over the years, I've taken up and discarded various hobbies. Be amazed as you browse through my lack of profiency in the following crafts: pressing/preserving flowers, oil painting, watercolor, needlework/embroidery, sewing, scrapbooking, and composting.

It's been one year since I took a knitting class and I am still totally enamored with it. I'm starting a scarf with this beautiful blue and have torn it out twice now to get it the way I want it. I don't mind tearing projects out because that means I won't finish them too quickly. This is Peruvian cotton, hand-dyed in large kettles. The company, "Manos del Uruguay," employs rural women to do the dye-work. Mine was signed by "Maritmela" ?? in careful, loopy, right-slanted pen.

Some nights, when I can't sleep, I come downstairs and sit and knit in the quiet night, thinking of Miss Marple and Madame Defarge...thinking of my hatred for plastic needles and all things plastic...wondering which of my nieces' dolls needs a new blanket...

I ride the bus to the university campus and often knit while I'm riding. Because I come from the far side of town, I'm often the only student on the bus and not one of the "regulars" who seem to ride the bus all day, every day for all their errands. I notice, on the days when I knit, some of the regulars will talk to me. They will ask what I'm making. And who is it for? And they will offer a story about what they know how to do-- be it crocheting or knitting or sewing. And we will share a little knit-together moment there.

So I'm home this afternoon, the sun is still high in the sky thanks to daylight savings, and the house is quiet. I have things to do: reading books for school, writing papers, transcribing notes, researching a new project, putting away laundry. But, just for a few minutes, I pick up Maritmela's yarn, run it through my fingers, cast fifteen stitches on to smooth bamboo needles...

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