Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Blog, page 4

Knitter, know thyself

Last week something happened. That alone is the start of an interesting post because – well, not much has been happening around here for a year or two. The thing was that I got on my bike and rode across town to Ken’s house, and I had dinner on his porch. We had a lovely time and shared food and wine and then I rode my bike home and when I got there, I realized that I’d left the fun rainbow coloured socks I was knitting behind. Ken rescued them and then said that since I was going back to his house in a few days for a Bike Rally thing, that I could get them then. This made absolute sense. I’d be reunited with my socks in 48 hours and goodness knows that I have a million WIPs here that I can turn to in my time of need, but it still didn’t sit right, you know what I mean?

I looked around the living room to see what was nearby and sure enough another sock project was within my grasp. It was a pair of socks I’ve been working on for months, in fact I cast them on for Joe last year and had every intention of finishing in time for Christmas but I didn’t and now I have been slogging away on them for what feels like eons. (It is worth noting that while Joe has terrifically large feet and the socks are patterned, it is actually not possible for a knitter of my experience to be working on a pair of socks for months. It just isn’t. If socks are are still on my needles after this long, then you should know that I am using the word “working” to mean that I look at them often and feel bad but opt for something more fun.) They’re nice yarn, it’s a super cool pattern, there is nothing at all to account for my uncommitted nature except for (well see the name of the blog) and the fact that the big men’s socks in plain colours just… well, they do go on, don’t they?

In this moment though – with my “real” knitting stuck at Ken’s, I picked up those socks and beavered away on them, and do you know, they only took a few hours to finish?

Yarn: Too old to know. Maybe Into the Whirled? Pattern: Colsie

Now, you would think that there is a lesson here, and you would be right. It would be a good idea to learn it too, because a little while ago I made a commitment to myself that I was going to tackle the bigger socks earlier this year so that I didn’t get stuck with them at the end when my commitment is low. Now – Now I tell you, now in the cheerful spring and soon in the bright colourful summer – these are the times to be knitting enormous socks in bland colours, not in November when the world’s nothing but bland itself.

So like I said, there is a lesson here, and I should learn it. You would think that maybe the lesson is that determination, commitment and perseverance are good traits to cultivate, and that if you do manage to summon up that trifecta of character gold – the rewards are immediate and many, and that the work is never as hard as you think it’s going to be.

You would think that, but instead I think I’ve learned that I’m only going to knit boring socks if they’re the only things on the needles and I shouldn’t have a temptation pair within reach. I will knit the boring socks if they are the only socks.

I’m plowing into another pair now, and they’re (almost) the only socks on the needles. (Ignore the colourful self striping in the background. I’m just having a look at it.)

PS. I know I said that originally those brown socks were for Joe for Christmas, and you would think that would mean that they would be in his possession now, what with being almost five months late, but you would be wrong. I’m considering myself ahead a pair for this year.

Rip Tide

I love to swim, and I am a very good swimmer. The whole family is the same, there’s not a one of us that isn’t happiest in the water, no matter what kind of water it is. We’re strong and confident in and on the water.

Several years ago I was on a trip to Mexico with my mother and I went down to the beach for a swim. I went by myself, though there were lots of people around, though none of them were a lifeguard. This didn’t bother me because… see above. I swam out and made my way through the shorebreak, the spot where the waves are dumping and breaking near the shore – and started to swim along. Next – to be honest I’m not sure what happened next, except that I broke a rule (never turn your back on the sea) and a huge wave I didn’t see coming broke right on top of me as I was coming up for a breath. It shoved me under the water and rolled me around a bit, and then released me and I popped and grabbed another breath as another big one broke on top of me again. This one pushed me way down under the water and then I could feel it pulling me fiercely, pulling me away from the shore. I didn’t panic because I am indeed strong and confident in the water, and besides letting the ocean have its way with you is usually safer than fighting, and when I popped up again I could see that I was in deeper than before.

“Crap” I thought to myself, just as another wave the size of a Subaru smashed me under and dragged me further out again. I came up, took a deep breath and wham – under again. As the water pulled me down and under, I started to realize I could be in trouble, and that I needed to figure a way out of this in a really big hurry. I reached for the surface and didn’t find it, and in that moment I remember thinking really, really calmly “Oh wow, I think I’m drowning.”

I didn’t. I mean, obviously since I’m writing this to you now, but it was a near thing, and I only got out of it because I saw what was happening and right away used every self-rescue technique I have ever known. I let the ocean take me for as long as I needed to in order to get control, I took a breath when I was able, I didn’t fight the current and I rested floating on my back whenever I could, and I slowly made my way sideways across the current and waves until I was finally able to wade up on the shore where I sat exhausted on the beach and goggled at how near a miss it had been. If I’d have lost my cool I… well. I wouldn’t be writing about it.

Another story about the ocean. My sister and I were in the ocean, playing around and swimming, and my mum was making her way into the water. She waded in where the waves were small, then deeper and deeper and the waves grew bigger, and mum gave a little hop with each one to keep it from bashing her about. She was about that deep, maybe hip deep when she got distracted by something on the shore, I can’t remember what it was. Mum was standing there, hands on her hips, looking off along the shoreline, and Erin and I suddenly saw a mammoth wave headed right for her. We started waving and shouting and finally got her attention just as the wave reached her. Mum turned to see us madly waving our arms in the air shouting “Wave! WAVE!” and at that exact moment, it crashed into her. Suddenly Mum is gone and all we can see is a jumble of limbs. The wave tumbles her under and over and into the bottom and we see an arm go by, and then a leg, and then the wave starts to recede and mum stands up, bedraggled, soaked, covered in sand, and most spectacularly – the wave has rolled her strapless bathing suit clear to her waist.

Mum staggers for a second, then reaches a hand up to smooth her hair, and completely unaware that she’s absolutely topless – gathers herself to her full height (5’1″) whacks a smile on her face and calmly shouts to us “It’s all right, I’m just fine.”

For most of the pandemic (and more properly, since Charlotte’s death, though the two things happened at the same time and are hard to separate for us) I have been like my mum, I think. Standing there bashed up after every wave, but on the whole cheerfully ready to go on. These last few months though – I don’t know what happened, but I woke up one morning and realized that if I wasn’t didn’t immediately do something I was going to drown.

The anniversary of Charlotte’s birth and death were upon us, and any way you want to slice it it has been a very, very long winter. Joe’s broken arm (still not quite healed and driving us both mad) has meant that anything we’ve tried to do has been frustrating or difficult (and most of the time both) and this last wave(s) of the pandemic really got me down. It was hard enough when we were all in this together, but this phase where low-risk people charge about having parties and vacations while vulnerable people stay home and hope for the best has been the wave where I can see we’re not all in this together anymore. (Also, low-risk people treating high risk people like they are bananas is super not helpful so please quit that.) I can’t stress enough that I haven’t been drowning these last weeks, I just saw the big waves headed for me and decided to do whatever it took to keep my head above water.

I have knit a lot over the last while. I’ve cried quite a bit too – though it is unlike me. Mostly, I practiced a lot of self-rescue techniques. I’ve rested when I needed to, I’ve let the ocean take me when it must, I’ve grabbed a breath when I’m able, and all of this has helped keep me well afloat – just sort of tired, with a lot of yarn lying around.

I’ll try and show you a bunch of knitting over the next bit but let’s start here. Elliot in his birthday sweater -a whole five years old. (The kid, not the sweater.)

Sweater pattern is the always reliable Flax Light, and the yarn’s Targhee/Nylon Sock in “Electric Heel” from Indigodragonfly. (This was from a SQWID box a while back, but they’re always doing more.)

Meg and I knit some shawls too, and show you those – for now, consider this post the internet equivalent of proof of life- me flailing by, all arms and legs in a crashing wave of the ocean, and then coming up topless.

Still Kinda Itchy

February isn’t my favourite month. I know that at least in theory it’s got a few decent attributes and is nice and short and I understand that a lot of people like it because it is simply not January, but I just don’t care for it, and this year… even less. There’s no Madrona to see my friends at, there’s still an International Travel advisory, Joe’s arm is still broken, Elliot’s not yet eligible for a vaccine, and it is really, really cold and just keeps snowing and snowing and snowing.

I had a bit of a think about that, and decided that no matter what February’s intentions for gloom are, I am not buying a ticket on its dreary train. It can snow all it wants, I am planning beautiful dinners and buying flowers and pushing back against this abbreviated annoyance of a month and also? I am knitting whatever the hell I want and embracing the little seed of startitis that’s lurking around, and I’m just going to cast on whatever I want. Why not. It makes me happy and I have lots of needles.

I finished Elliot’s sweater – as a matter of fact I finished it two and a half times. The first time I almost finished it I had the body done and one sleeve, and I popped it over his head for a quick check, and it was too short in the body and the arms. I took it off, pulled back the ribbing on the sleeve and the body and added another few centimeters. During this time his mother and I both measured him multiple times and were completely reassured that it would fit, which… it did not. It was still way too short in the sleeves, so I can only assume he grew faster than I could knit, which is a shocking thought. The whole thing was way too nice a sweater to be unhappy with it, so I pulled back the ribbing again and added a nice generous amount, and finally… success. It’s warm and cozy but lightweight enough for everyday, and Ellie chose the button himself. (Not shown, but it’s yellow.)

Pattern: Anker’s Shirt, Yarn – Holst Garn Supersoft in “Ember” leftovers from Ken’s sweater.

I finished Alex’s socks too, but handed them over without taking a picture, I’ll get one soon. The only thing I didn’t finish before I decided to scratch my startitis itch any way I want to, was Joe’s socks, but I did start them and that’s good… right?

Yarn: well aged stash – maybe Into the Whirled? Pattern is Colsie

Once I felt like I had done my duty (sorry Joe, but in my defence I have literally been your right hand for a month) I turned me and every little whim I had free on the stash. In my first attempt to bring joy to February – I got out a kit that I bought at the Knitter’s Frolic years ago – for Shorescape. I spent a good chunk of time arranging the gradient skeins to amuse myself, and then cast on.

It’s beautiful and I love it and it’s knit on 2.75mm needles and for some crazy reason, that didn’t quite do it for me, so after a little bit…

Lichen and Lace 1ply merino and marsh mohair in “Rhubarb”

I found some other yarn in the stash and it was so pretty and so spring-like and so I cast that on for a Rock It Tee– and started knitting the heck out of it until I sort of started to wonder about a mohair summer knit and if that and menopause are really a thing? Anyway, I decided the answer to that question was rather inexplicably more, not less, so I ordered more of that yarn and I’ll give it 3/4 length sleeves but that didn’t seem pressing anymore, I mean… I don’t even have all the yarn so…

Indiogodragonfly Targhee nylon sock in “Electric Heel”

The last time Meg and I were at Indigodragonfly, I saw these two skeins of robin’s egg blue yarn with fun sprinkles on it, and knew it had to be a sweater for Ellie. Soft, cozy.. it’s destined to be a Flax Light.

Then suddenly last night I was knitting along on that, and looking at the mohair and thinking about the cardigan and noticing Joe’s socks and an urge came over me, I put down all four of those projects and sighed deeply in their general direction, then got an idea, and made this.

Love and Light

Suddenly, I felt like I have a purpose for February. I’ve ordered more lights.

Randomly on a Wednesday

I had this bonkers idea that I could get everything from before Christmas off the needles by the end of January so that I could start a big new project as a midwinter treat. (I use the word treat here to mean “a reason to keep going on as the snow keeps falling as though it could bury our tattered hearts in the lassitude of our second covid winter. Loosely speaking.)This is a very motivating thought – starting a big new…. something. I don’t even know what the something might be, but I do like the idea of it and its shiny newness. Unfortunately, I have a sweater and two pairs of socks to finish if I am going to put a bow on this month. I’m not sure why they aren’t all done anyway, because I have been so diligent all month. That is a lie. I have been knitting rather a lot of mittens. While I do not regret this choice for a moment because mitten knitting is one of the true joys left to us in this world, I do kinda wish I had applied myself to the other projects sometime before this afternoon because I am cutting it a little close, ya feel me? Technically, I came very close to finishing Elliot’s sweater, but that tricky wee beast must have grown while I was making it because even though his mum and I both measured him multiple times, because when I popped it on him it was too small. I ripped out the bottom ribbing and added a bunch, and the same with the finished sleeve. The audacity of some children, I tell you that. Pattern: Anker’s Shirt

7. I have no excuse (except mittens) for why Alex’s socks aren’t done (except his feet as as big as Joe’s which scarcely seems fair) but I feel like there is hope.

8. Joe’s sock’s….

9. Perhaps we must assume I have other charms that bind him yet.

10. What should the something be?

Eighteen

If the blog was a person, today they would be an adult. Someone who can vote. Someone trusted to make big, important decisions and be responsible for their own selves. Upon reflection, that’s probably good since The Blog has been on its own more than I intended this year – so it’s good that you’ve all got some practice being a grown up.

Every year I write a big sappy thing about what the blog means to me, and this year is no exception – but let’s start here. When the blog began, I wrote to you from a spot in the dining room. We had one family computer, and I had this parenting philosophy (still do, though now I am outvoted I think) that the best way to manage kids and the internet was to let them at it- but in a family space. The kids could use the thing, but they had to understand that the rest of the family would be…around. They would be on the net and all around them the family swirled. They weren’t the only ones either. The first day that I wrote to you, I walked the kids to school, then came home and made myself a cup of coffee, and sat down with my laminated html cheat sheet, and had at it. This is a link to the very first post.

In those days Sam was 9, Meg 12 and Amanda almost 15. I used a digital camera, I went to spinning class at Parks and Recreation on Tuesdays, I’d written no books, I worked as a doula, Lactation Consultant and Childbirth Educator, and Hank was 4 – the age that Elliot is now, and I wrote every post to you from that dining room, amongst the noise and commotion of a young, busy, wild family.

I don’t have to tell you how much things have changed. Today, I write to you from here.

I almost always write to you from that space, the crazy little office I built for myself sixteen years ago- which reminds me, I should paint. That room is a little different now, in the beginning I had what felt like an expensive Ikea desk (we were so broke) and now I have my mum’s tiny desk.

Still, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, and after all these years, an adult human number of years here we are, me and you. Today I struggle to explain that almost everything I have (outside of the family I had when I started) is because of the blog, and Ken’s decision that I should have one. Everything changed the day he sat me in front of a computer – showed me this URL (it’s still the same) and told me that my people were… there. He wasn’t wrong, and today I’m so grateful to him for knowing me and my talents well enough to know that this was something that would resonate in my life like nothing else.

I just tried to write a paragraph about what these years have meant to me, and it ended in tears, and I deleted it. Here is what you need to know. Everyone I love and everyone who loves me, has been touched by The Blog. This last lonely, empty, wild year has been less lonely because I could walk through that little door to my tiny desk and know that you were there, whether I was able to do it, or not. I know that I haven’t always been there as much as would have been comforting to you, but these are strange times, and I want you to know that even though I haven’t always been the magic you wanted, you have always been the magic I needed.

I don’t know what I would have done without you, my sweet blog.

Don’t forget to vote.

Love,

Stephanie

PS. As is traditional, today is the day that I kick off fundraising for the Bike Rally. Hopefully that’s actually happening this year, though honestly I worry about sparking a new variant just thinking about it. In years past we have amused them mightily by donating a dollar for each year of blogging, a load of donations all the same amount (or a multiple) has always weirded the staff out over there, and I like that. I know that for many of us things are tight but honestly If you’re feeling it, we can keep the weird going with an $18 donation.

Dusted off

Today I’m wicked tired. Just… all in. It’s sort of a nice change from the aimless drifty feeling of the last while, that’s for sure. Last week we managed a ski-holiday of a sort, despite Joe’s broken arm, and I am here to tell you that I miss hotels and restaurants. We had a good time and it was very nice to be somewhere else, but when the covid-times finally end I am going to go somewhere that is unequivocally not self-serve. A person, a person that I am going to tip very well, let me tell you, is going to bring me a meal and clean up afterwards and I am going to be crazy about it because now that I’ve done a ski trip where you get up and cook and then get a kid to ski-school (outdoor and distanced for the win!) then come home for lunch and cook and then ski and then make dinner and clean that up is completely amazing and so much fun and I am awash with gratitude that we got the hell out of this house – but it’s a lot of work for someone who’s partner in crime is one-armed. (Tip of the hat to Meg and Alex who busted themselves helping out with everything.)

Still, Elliot did learn to ski (he’s an animal out there. Zooms past you with this little voice going “whoo hoo!”) and Alex and Meg learned too, and Joe had as good a time as he could, poor broken chum.

We drove home just before the big blizzard that’s buried Toronto over the last two days, and today I spent hours trying to shovel out our everything. In the end it was impossible to do by myself and when I realized that I was on the brink of tears with how huge the task was, I remembered that I’m in a family and called for help. Carlos turned up almost immediately and he and I shovelled while Luis and Frank did their best to knock down our snow mountains.

I don’t know if you live in a place where it snows a lot, but if you don’t, let me tell you this: Shovelling is some serious work, and I am feeling it in my back and shoulders, and just as soon as I’m finished this post and a bit of work, I’m going to have a bit of a rest and spin.

Like so many of us, my sweet little Ashford has been languishing these many pandemic months, but last week I had an idea and I’m going to need it up and running to make it work. I am still wildly in love with thrummed mittens (still going to do a thrum-along on the Patreon) and I was ploughing through a ginormous one when I had an idea.

How much fun would it be to find myself enough fibre that I could spin yarn for mittens, and then thrum with the same fibre. Don’t answer that, I know you’re aquiver with the excitement, as am I. I’m almost embarrassed by how exciting an idea this is. Exciting enough that I hauled the wheel out, dusted it off (I mean that literally) and did a full workup on it. Cleaned, polished, oiled, a new driveband and new tension, and it’s spinning like a dream- I am wild with passion for this concept, let’s just cross our fingers that it’s captivating long enough to finish the project.

So – off I go. It’s almost dark here, and I’m going to light some candles, make a nice dinner, and then have a date with a friend I’ve missed.

PS: This Sunday, despite having discovered that teaching live online is not my jam, I’m going to do a Fiberside Chat. It’s an hour long Zoom thing, and while teaching by seems funny to me, a chat seems lovely, doesn’t it? You can click on this link to register, and scroll through the yarn shops listed on the right to see if there’s a shop local to you that you would like to support- if you’ve got a preference. It’s a collaborative thing and there are 30 shops taking part (including one Canadian one, River City Yarns). See? Right up my alley.

Second verse, same as the first

Happy New Year!

See how chipper that was? Fake it ’till you make it, that’s our motto around here. We’re starting the new year – not quite the way we’d hoped. First, on Sunday we decided to go skating. We went round and round a few times on the skate-path, and Elliot (in his own words) fell down “a thousandy hundred of times” always bouncing up cheerfully.

After a while the cold got to him (it really was pretty fierce) and I took him off the ice to start changing into boots and such, and Joe said he thought he’d take one more lap and off he went. Well, he was back about 5 minutes later, hat askew and looking pretty wild, and pointing desperately at his arm behind Elliie’s back and mouthing the word “broken”. He was right. He’d dodged a kid whipping past at a thousand kilometres an hour and something went wrong and unlike Elliot, he didn’t bounce. I drove him to the hospital straight from the park and he spent about 30 of the next 36 hours in hospital having first a procedure to try and straighten it out, and then finally a surgery when that didn’t work as well as it could have. Covid rules in place here mean that he was alone the whole time he was in hospital and that added a layer of anxiety for both of us, but on the upside he’s got a partly bionic arm now, with lots of fancy plates and screws and the surgeon assured him that it’s now one part of his body that can never break again.

Second, the province is back in a modified lockdown. It makes sense (though I sincerely think that if they’d acted a little sooner things wouldn’t be so bad) and now our gathering limit is five people indoors and ten outside, and restaurants, gyms and other businesses like that are closed again, and all others have capacity limits back in place, again. Worst of all, schools are closed again, and health care is too overwhelmed to treat anyone for anything but covid (I refuse to use a capital letter for that word any longer) pushing off other kinds of non-emergency treatments. It is craptastic in the extreme, and a demoralized fog has settled over the city as we all hunker down to try and relieve the stress on the system.

Personally, I am fighting back with mittens. It seems like a completely reasonable response to the state of things, and if I can only see my people outside, we’re all going to need them.

I am adding thrums because it’s freezing cold, and also I think that puffy mittens are uplifting and cheerful.* I know maybe other people are making better use of their lockdown by cleaning something, taking care of their taxes or learning another language, but while I’m knitting these mittens I find it very hard to believe there’s a more worthy endeavor.

*I have a feeling that I might not be the only one, so in the next few weeks I’m going to do a thrum-a-long over on the Patreon. If you can’t resist the urge to thrum, find more there. Also this is not my first obsession with thrumming, so the archives here can be your friend.

Passing the time

Elliot’s picked up a phrase from one of us, he’ll snuggle up to me and say “Grammy, shall we read a book to pass the time?” or “Poppy, do you want to build a tower… to pass the time?” or “Auntie Banda, do you want to colour to pass the time?”

I love this idea he has of time – that every day we get up and we do things as time passes, and then we’re out of time for the day, but that’s cool because you have a tower, a book, a picture. He must think this way because one of us presented time like that, asked “what shall we do until it is time for the next thing to happen?” This fits too, since Ellie has only a limited concept of time in general – he’s still only four so benchmarks work better for him. He’s more likely to understand that something is happening after lunch than to grasp the concept of two hours. If you ask him what time it is he can tell you the numbers on the clock, but if you ask him what time something will happen he’ll say “3pm.” (We are all unclear on the significance of 3pm, but everything happens then.) If you inquire about how much longer until something happens he either tells you “a few minutes” if it’s soon or “Seventy twenty hundred” if it’s going to be a while. (These are not exact numbers. Sometimes soon is “seven minutes” and once in a while an event will not be going to occur for “nine and fifty years!”)

Last year at this time I decided on a year long project, a big theme to help pass the time. A long range goal, something that would carry me month to month with a sense of continuity and movement, no matter how weird the world around me got. My knitting serves a lot of purposes in my life, and I was comitted to working all the angles. I wanted it to be the perfect project for the year if restrictions lifted and I started travelling for work again (Oh, the innocence) and the perfect project for if – well I didn’t know what the year might bring so it was something that had to be really chipper. I decided it would be sock based, because I’ve always though that no matter what happens to you a knitting a pair of socks seems to work out fine – and since I thought this year would be the year of our rainbow baby (the baby born after pregnancy or infant loss) that a rainbow theme would be perfect.

It turns out that this wasn’t the year for our rainbow – and I almost lost my cool on this big project when that pregnancy was lost but it turns out that I was super clever when I picked it, because this kept feeling right, and hopeful and positive and like… Like things have just got to change eventually. Truly, it is hard to be down about your life and its direction if every project gets you one step closer to a rainbow colour-wheel of socks. Every pair not only passed the time, but felt a little bit like building something, and that felt pretty darn good for this knitter, even on this little scale.

I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to add another pair to the pile as the year wore on, I’d giggle as I laid a pair on the stack and while away some time deciding what colour was missing or what I should knit next.

When I was done, I took it apart and mailed it away in bits for Christmas gifts- and people I love are now wearing parts of my privately constructed rainbow on their feet as they all walk forward into next year and thinking of that makes me smile. I knit a walking rainbow. Take that, pandemic.

The Inbetween

I was reflecting this morning on the way things used to be, which I know isn’t a very helpful point of view for either the midst of a pandemic or the weird week between Christmas and New Years when nobody really knows what’s going on or what day it is anyway. It used to be that our family celebrated most of the 12 days of Christmas, and round about now I’d be organizing myself for my mum’s big party at her place, looking forward to seeing Tupp and Susan, and embracing how I’d come up with my share of appetizers for 50.

Needless to say the minute those thoughts entered my mind I shut that (*&^ down. Now is not the time – almost two years into a pandemic that’s breaking a lot of hearts at present – to get anything remotely resembling wistful. This is a time when you look straight ahead my poppets, so the minute that I felt my spirits start to fall into what my dear friend Judith would call “a decline” I drank a big glass of water, changed into my running stuff and headed out for a cold, fierce run. Two things about this, first – to the knitter who recognized me on the street as I was hitting the 3.5km mark – I apologize for not being far more personable and for not telling you that your festive red, white and green scarf was very pretty. It was- and I thought that and several nice things in the moment, but in my defence I was barely clinging to life and oxygen, so know that whatever it was that I gasped at you was a poor outward reflection of my inward feelings, but there is really only so much that a knitter in her 50’s is capable of saying at that point. Second – “Come and get your love” may be one of the greatest running tracks ever.

We are out the other side of Christmas here – our current version being only one day, and it was very nice. I am not going to even go to the place where I say that it was “nice for a pandemic version” or “nice considering what the restrictions and risks will allow” nor will I tell you that we just about set fire to brunch because the right people weren’t here to do the right jobs, and that there are few pictures because the rhythm of the thing was all funny. At this point, please take it as read that we desperately miss the folks we can’t see right now, and that all our versions of things this year were scaled down, but we’ve decided to focus on what we’ve got, rather than what we don’t, because most of us don’t run, or at least not enough to deal with those feelings.

Instead we found a lot of happiness in the things we were able to do- a teeny tiny version of our gingerbread party, just enough to make memories for Elliot,

Tree trimming at Auntie Banda’s house after she joined our bubble,

A lovely quiet Christmas Eve.

We moved our traditional Christmas brunch outside so we could welcome Ken (we have a patio heater we bought to make this a little more realistic and we’d like to thank the Toronto weather for being mild) and knitted twinkly stars made it cheerful,

Elliot was everything else we needed to be happy (every time he opened a gift, big or small, he said “I’ve been wanting this for YEARS!”) and our Christmas dinner was sweet and small and we all fit around the table this year, and we pulled our crackers and wore our paper crowns which was really rather thrilling for Elliot, since he has been trying to have the Christmas crackers on every table we set for a month.

I took a particular pleasure this year in presents mailed far and near – especially all the Starry Lights (rav link) – just about everyone that got one sent me a picture of where they’d placed it, and I loved that. (It is worth noting here that I knit nine. NINE of them, and I am not sure I am done. Say what you want about me, but I really know how to get on an obsession.)

Sea Ink (rav link) was finished in time to be mailed north – it was a glorious knit. I used Eco+ in black (never again, lace in black, never again) and the finished project is HUGE and fantastic and I have no doubt that when the box was opened, and the thing wound round the recipient, that it worked just the way knitted things are meant to.

Like mailed love. Hang in there petals – love the ones you’re with.

Hold hands when you cross the road

I’m sitting here at my little desk trying to figure out what to write. I promised myself I would. I put it on a to-do list and that means I definitely have to, but absolutely nothing of any interest has happened in the last few days, with three exceptions, so I think I will tell you about those.

Despite the incredulous tone some of you took in the comments I still think that this Christmas knitting plan borders on the possible, and there’s even visible progress.

I admit the progress is a little easier to see if you’re either here or supernaturally interested – but I am both so it’s clear to me. First, the shawl is bigger, and I had to start the second ball of yarn which is pretty exciting. There are just 36 rows to go, although they are ever increasing, but let’s leave that bit out because it competes with the optimism. The hat’s gone, that’s because it’s done. The advent socks have six stripes on each and it’s the 6th of December, so can’t hope for better. Last time there were four skeins of sock yarn that were just skeins and now I’ve got a cast on, a cuff and one sock knit to the heel, that’s much better, loads of positivity there. Elliot’s sweater is several centimetres longer – almost at the hem, and then I’ll be on sleeve island for a while but honestly, he’s four. His arms are shrimpy. The Starry Light (rav link) is gone and there’s a new string of lights there – but it’s even better than that, one whole other star was knit in the interval. (That’s three I’ve knit. I told you I don’t know how this ends, I find them really, really compelling.)

2. Elliot and I made a whole bunch of other Christmas presents together, and that’s a big green square on the spreadsheet. I am thinking about making it a neon green because anything you convince a four year old to do should be something you get extra points for. Also, if anyone knows how to get wax out of a carpet I’d be into hearing about it. (I tried an iron and paper towel but frankly, it’s a lot of wax.

3. Finally, I read all the comments on the last post as they came in, and it was not at all what I expected. I don’t know what I expected you to say, and I’m not sure there’s a nice way to say this, but I’m so glad so many of you are struggling the way I am. That doesn’t sound right of course, I’m so sorry that things are hard all over, but these last months have been so ridiculously trying that hearing other people say that they’re tired, and sad and sick of it, and thought it would be over and aren’t emotionally prepared for the pandemic version of another stinking holiday is wildly reassuring. If we all feel this way, it must mean there’s some sort of normalcy in the reaction, if not the circumstances. It feels good to be in it together, to know that as always, the blog gets it and that we can all just go forward together, imperfect beings that we are.

PS. I am serious about the wax in the carpet thing.