mondays with mrs. crosby: fourteen

my friend gave me

a couple of yards of irish wool.

it’s a lovely muted plaid in grey and blue and green and purple.

very much what my irish friends were wearing the year i lived in drogheda.

i am aiming for a pencil skirt

and something knit in this lovely mrs. crosby hat box to go with it.IMG_3592

must knit and sew faster, because i’m ready to wear them both now!

‘wool’ taken from 31:13 of proverbs.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.

mondays with mrs. crosby: eleven

it’s wet and grey.

if there was a choice, i’d be far away.

somewhere like paris, soaking in the ambiance,

and the language, and the food.

but, at least for today, this will have to do.

IMG_3014shall i send you a postcard…?

 ‘away’ taken from 16:21 of exodus.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.

mondays with mrs. crosby: eight

friday.

already?

the truth is, that

i realized fleetingly that it was wednesday

when my mum called to check if we needed anything at the store.

that’s bad, right?

and then in the blink of an eye it’s actually dinnertime on friday night.

still mostly feels like mostly monday morning to me.

in my

defense,

it’s school vacation week.

as long as we all got dressed, brushed our teeth,

and ate three square meals a day, that’s really been enough this week.

my mamahood life…

all this to say that i posted my

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ photo to facebook,

instagram, twitter, and then completely

(and immediately) forgot to post to the blog.

so, i’m claiming

‘school vacation brain’

and moving quickly on, okay?

it’s been a week for clinging a bit to all things calming.

 we’ve had bitter cold, rain, snow, 50 mile an hour winds,

and then today it’s sunny and nearly 55 degrees.

that adds up to kids who are climbing

up the walls

and me knitting stockinette stitch with a deeply contented look on my face.

don’t get me wrong, we’ve made marshmallow men,

hand drawn cards for papa’s birthday,

strung fruit loops onto yarn scraps,

built newly improved telescopes and planes from legos,

used toothpicks and gummy bears to create really sweet jewelry,vacay week collageand the kids did their own face painting.

that was just one day of the five days this week.

i have navigated focusing their enthusiasm

in positive directions as both referee and cheerleader.

i’m guessing you can begin to see why

i might be longing for more stockinette stitch speed right about now.

mrs. crosby’s hat box in new leaf was ever so happy to oblige.IMG_2770

add the patterning details of leilani arts indigo fabric

and indian lake artisan’s hexagonal needles into the mix?

now i’m happy as a pig in mud

which is just what

my kids will look like playing in the yard tomorrow

if the weather doesn’t chill up a bit.

oh well, more rhythm of the stockinette for me.

all good.

‘climbing’ taken from 4:3 of nehemiah.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.

mondays with mrs. crosby: seven

it is cold

and it is still snowing.

as darkness falls my thoughts

are journeying on to plans for warmer places to go

and this knitting will be just the thing to wearIMG_2702sat

wherever there turns out to be.

perhaps a place with elephants and tigers.

oh my.

‘turns’ taken from 1: 6 of ecclesiastes.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.

mondays with mrs. crosby: six

if a thing

is going to fit right

at the end of being made,

then the work has to be put in at the beginning

to design it well, allowing for

key things like the range of final sizes

and the fact that knit fabric has some give,

gorgeous drape, and the tendency to become a bit like

the warm body wearing it.

you know that, right?

my favorite hat

(after being worn weekly for the past 2 winters)

now fits me even better than it did when my friend sharon

first made it for me.

knitting becomes us in so many different ways…

but i’m getting off track here. the point at hand

is that it is time to stop, for a moment,

playing with the hat box

at my fingertips,

and put my muscle

to paper and lead for a while

so that what this yarn is begging to become

is sussed out to be actually possible.

IMG_2321ready? here we go then.

‘begging’ taken from 41:3 of job.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.

mondays with mrs. crosby: five

the thing about yarn is that we get to tell it what to do

one stitch at a time.

that is not the way that most of life goes,

at least not my life,

and it feels very, very good when something allows me that much choice

and ultimate control.

along those lines,

this week was all about swatching.

last week i pictured hat box in ‘new leaf’ and this week i’m testing ideas

(mostly gauge related) with a bit in the colorway roasted chestnut,IMG_2536-1but, it’s the same lovely fiber mix of

merino, silk and cashmere

(can i get an excited ‘oooh’ and a happy ‘aahhh’?).

such drape and my fingers

are overjoyed at being ‘forced’ to touch

this lovely yarn over and over again.

‘fingers’ taken from 8:3 of the psalms.

‘mondays with mrs. crosby’ is an ongoing series of posts

(to be posted on mondays, of course),

detailing a current collaboration between mrs. crosby yarns

and me. stay tuned.