Wednesday, September 1, 2010

CARROTS, ONIONS and YARN

We have the garden variety carrot:
which is found growing quietly in my herb garden - tucked in and forgotten for now along with its herb-y neighbors.  Unlike the robust vegetable garden, life is undisturbed in this bed until the first frost.  There are cherry tomatoes and young cabbages and finger radishes.  But back to the carrots!  There's another carrot captivating me this morning-
'Toasted Carrot' malabrigo lace merino.  Aaaahhhh ... Another carrot that was tucked away for the summer and now emerges to be completed.  
There's some real dreamy knitting waiting for me here.  The malabrigo is so fine that my summer hands cannot work with it, and I've missed it!  If you are thinking that it resembles an Anne Hanson design, you'd be correct!  This is the Bee Shawl - a classic.  
I harvested most of my yellow onions yesterday and they are drying in the shade of the maple trees.  Pauline, aren't you just ITCHING to get your hands on my produce!  Oh, the lovely concoctions that you are famous for!  Do you remember the time that you made the Birds Nest soup?  OMG...
If you've never grown your own onions, you really don't know what you're missing.  Freshly pulled from the soil to the sink - the knife cuts into a flesh that is so firm and fresh you can hardly believe it.  And the fragrance?  Unreal. The kitchen blooms with its sweetness.  People come in sniffing and wondering outloud what smells so good.  Later on you have to light a candle!
Are you familiar with the expression 'you're only as sick as your secrets'?  I think that this applies to knitting too.  During the long tedious yard sale I picked up my buttery alpaca and started - oh geez, ANOTHER Mira!  I know, this is sickness.  But it IS the one shawl that requires absolutely nothing from me and I can carry on a conversation, eat a tomato, walk the dog and throw in the laundry - ALL without dropping a stitch.  We need mindless projects that allow us our ordinary lives . . . plus knitting.  C'mon people, don't tell me that you haven't seen images of the shetland island knitters walking while knitting.  They had little pouches attached to their waists which held  the yarn so as to free up their hands!  My kind of gurls.
I frogged the Green Mountain lace this morning.  The pooling was driving me insane.  Maybe this is a sign from the Knitting Gods informing me that socks are not my forte.  Not now, maybe not ever!

4 comments:

FRANKIE PAIN said...

so beautifull your blog
subtile more female
sweetly
good natury
see you to soon frankie

SusanB-knits said...

Beautiful Toasted Carrot! It will be a lovely shawl. And yes, we all need to have a mindless knitting project. I usually have a basic sock on the needles for when I need the mindless knitting.

JelliDonut said...

I shudder to think what my knitting would look like if I walked and knit at the same time, but I must confess, I've often thought about trying it on the treadmill. I hope you won't give up on socks, btw. Once you "get it," they are addictive. On second thought, maybe you're being smart.

Bea said...

The carrot shawl is fabulous. I think your shawls are wonderful and don't mind at all that you don't like to knit socks.