yarn along: march 2021

 

Squeaking in a Yarn Along before the end of the month...

Two more of my precious children asked me to knit them a birthday sweater.  The dears!  It doesn't matter to them that their birthdays are in a particularly warm and muggy month, they still want wool and are satisfied to put their sweaters in drawers until the weather allows.  I'm tackling a Polwarth sweater for Z, whose birthday is in early June, which marks the first time I've knit an adult sweater for someone other than myself.  She flipped through all of my color cards and settled on Rauma Finullgarn in color 422, a rich, warm brown.  It's impossible to photograph, apparently; there's no purple undertone as in the above photograph.  It's straight up brown.  The pattern up to the end of that brioche V at the neck has been fiddly. It was nothing I couldn't tackle but required my full attention.  That meticulousness in Ysolda Teague's design, though, is what will ultimately give the sweater a very professional finish.  At least I hope.  Fingers crossed.  The yarn is not as drapey as I would like.  It's my first experience with Finullgarn, and it's a very crispy, sticky yarn--sticky like Jamieson and Smith, but without the softness.  Let's hope it blooms when I block it.  More fingers crossed.

Five minutes after I finished the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, I began the second.   It's vivid, and Solzhenitsyn's biting humor keeps the prose fresh and readable.  I was totally unprepared for that, having had no success in finishing any Russian novel I've begun. The Gulag Archipelago doesn't actually qualify as a novel, so I suppose it doesn't count toward my efforts in that area.  There's something surreal about sipping hot, sweet, strong tea just before dawn in my warm kitchen while reading about prisoners being eaten alive by mosquitos in the summer and slogging through human sewage on freezing trains in the winter--an out of body experience.  I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that God blessed me with the life I have, and  desire to toughen up my family just in case.  

In the evenings, I read The Snake Pit or listen to Peony on Audible.  I'm at the last chapter of Peony; it's a departure from my usual genres, and I am the better for it.  I was telling Z that Peony reminds me of Esther Summerson, my favorite heroine in my favorite book.

I leave you with a bit of The Gulag Archipelago: Vol. 1.  It's one for the Commonplace Book!

 What about the main thing in life, all its riddles? If you want, I'll spell it out for you right now. Do not pursue what is illusionary -property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life -don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn for happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart -and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it may be your last act before your arrest, and that will be how you are imprinted on their memory!

                                                                                                                                                                    p. 591-2