The cold is settling in

It would seem that the mercury has decided to nose-dive, whether (weather? haha) or not I'm ready for this to happen. As much as I love this time of year for the scarves and mitts and general comfort factor of it all I'm just plain and simply not ready.

I spent the better part of today thinking it was yesterday....and by better part of today I mean I clued in to the fact that it was Thursday at around 8pm tonight when I looked down and noticed the 15 on iCalendar. Tonight I was supposed to be going to hear Donna Morrissey read in Amherst as part of the Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival. This unfortunately did not happen.

I have a friend who left today for Sweden...gone for a week. I'm supposed to be taking care of her kitty cat whilst she is off on her nordic adventure. This unfortunately did not happen.

I just today started my annual mitten, scarf and hat drive in my office for "Coats for Kids". I need to have everything collected by around the 31st and delivered. Traditionally I knit a boatload of mittens for this. These unfortunately have not been started.

(if you are reading this, and live nearby, and know me...please do me a solid and for the love of wool whip up a couple pairs of kids sized mittens or hats ...or something for me ...please?!? I'll be doing the same, but am apparently seriously time-poor these days)

OK - now that I've got that out of my system, there was fun and frivolity as well recently. Thanksgiving weekend was spent in St Andrews and St Stephen with friends. A most excellent and much needed road trip. Lots of yarn buying...as well as some needles made from rosewood that were mighty pricey, but I decided I was worth it.

While in St Andrews I of course made the usual pilgrimage to Cottage Craft - most lovely. While there I bought the usual boatload of yarn as well as a book about the making of Cottage Craft - "Grace Helen Mowat and the making of Cottage Craft" by Diana Rees with Ronald Rees. It's really quite a fascinating read. I think Nell Mowat and I would have been great friends, we both share a passion for keeping things local.

This weekend I think I'll have a little Betty time...and I should really do something about the project that has been on my loom since spring. I'd like to finish the spring coloured item that was so appropriate when there was still snow lingering and start something suited for winter. Maybe I'll even get it done before Spring returns!

I should know better...

Often I find myself thinking... "You knew that wasn't going to work". From time to time I also find myself starting things that I know may not work, but going ahead with them anyhow. I'll cast on, commenting to myself that there's a good chance that what I'm doing is going to end badly.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm careless or horribly inept, I just prefer to be optimistic from time to time and have incredible skills when it comes to blocking out the reasonable part of my psyche that knows damn well that what I've cast on is too small...that the gauge (if I were to take the time to, you know, swatch) will not be correct etc. etc. In fact...when I bought the yarn I knew damn well it was too fine for what I was doing, I knew that just by looking at it but I liked the colours. I got all caught up in the euphoria of it all and the next thing I knew I had four skeins of it wound and was sitting in my living room casting on

Rather than heed my own good advice I soldiered on, telling myself that it might very well work out, that I should trust the creative side of my brain and ignore the rational one. I went so far as to convince myself that it was completely normal for the cuff of a mitten to take more than the length of a movie to complete, that I was simply tired and not knitting as purposefully as I usually do. Then I started the charts...enough of the charts that another movie was watched in its entirety. Then I came to the glaring realization that I was making mittens fit for no adult hand I have ever encountered. This is a pity because I really dearly love the pattern..and the yarn... though they unfortunately were never meant to be involved with each other.

I don't quite have the heart to frog what is done so far and wind it back...I was really quite fond of them up to a certain point. I think we might re-start with a linen stitch something or other (I'm a sucker for punishment).

The fibre content? 50%wool/50%alpaca. The jury's still out on whether or not it can be trusted, though it's 50/50 so I trust the wool will teach it how to behave in a civilized manner... at least that's what I'm hoping.

There are things that drift away...

Things I have learned this week;

Making mustard pickles is messier than making pickled beets.

Purchasing an Ott Lite will make you think that sitting at a spinning wheel until 3am is a brilliant plan.

Orange and green are my favourite colours. Followed closely by Purple and Turquoise. Followed again by the rest of them. ( I knew this already, but it never hurts to discover things you already knew all over again as if you didn't already know)

That spinning all hours of the night leads one to have interesting self-conversations about the nature of art, of life and why exactly the creepy guy across the street is outside with his pet snake and a video camera in the middle of the night.

That Iron & Wine is excellent music to listen to while spinning...as is Sarah Harmer. Particularly if you sing along quietly.

OK...enough words, Nellie's coming over for some wine and I've got a cheeseball (this makes it an event... no, an Event. Nellie and I wreaking havoc on the general populous of this fair city deserves a capital E.

Now for some pictures... New yarn, the next colours to hit the wheel and those mysterious pumpkin socks that bring me so much joy that I should probably consider seeing a professional about it.

Dear Knitty...

I feel the need to yang. Imagine this...it's a cool fall evening, the sun has gone down and you are about to throw on some wool socks and spin for a bit because a certain someone had new colours of polwarth when you arrived on the weekend. That's when it hits you... THE FALL KNITTY MIGHT BE AVAILABLE! You rush to your computer to check and sure as the leaves are about to change - there it is. The fall (your favorite season) issue of knitty - without a single pattern for the man-beasts. 'Tis a sad day indeed.

Dear Knitty,

Not all of your readers are female.

Boys like wooly delights and knitted bits of fun too.

Smarten up.

That's all.

Love,

M

Where We Come From

I thought I would take a moment to explain the "why" behind the name"Boy In The Field"... particularly since I was advised against naming this blog exactly that. I'm a firm believer that you have to know where you have been to know where you are going. Sure, you should look ahead and live in the moment yadda yadda yadda, but if you forget where you've been and the things that have made you the person you are today then I'm fairly certain that you will find yourself lost. I will agree that there are parts of where we have been that might not always be pretty, or what we would like them to have been, but that is all part of the process.

I grew up in a house that was across a field from the farmhouse where my mother was raised. I will always be thankful for that because it meant that all I had to do to get to my grandmother was cross the field... a journey I made daily (often several times daily) right up until her alzheimer's had advanced to a place where she was no longer able to live in the house, even with 24 hour care.

When I was very young my grandfather would sit at the kitchen window and watch for me to go outside and play in the yard. He did this every morning from what I have been told. My brother and I were the youngest of their grandchildren, you might say we were the end of an era for the two of them. My grandfather passed away after a battle with cancer when I was just barely five years old. He was sitting at the window with a bowl of cornflakes beside him, watching for me to come outside.

I spent every waking moment as a child underneath my grandmother's feet...I would cross the field every chance I could get - barely opening the door to my house long enough to scream "I'm going to Nannie's" before motoring down the stairs, across the lawn and into the hayfield that was between her house and mine. It was a journey that I (and my little brother) made so often that there was a well defined path from her door to mine. Years after she had moved out of the house itself, and even after she had passed away, you could still make out the faint outline of where that well worn path had once been. I spent my childhood there, in the field and at her side. If I close my eyes and look back I can still feel the hay as it brushed past my bare legs, I can smell the air, I can see the wildflowers that lined the way from my door to hers. When I was very little I would sit beneath her quilting frame as she worked away at a quilt for one of us. When I was older I would sit beside her and help. I can't help but work with my hands, with textiles, creating things to keep people warm.

I can't possibly do the story, nor the reasoning behind the title justice with such a short blurb but that is it in a nutshell. The Coles Notes version, if you will. This is where I came from.

It's who I am. I was, and still am, the boy in the field and that - that is something that you don't ever grow out of... regardless of how urban your existence has become.

Mamma said there'd be days like this...

I suppose I could wait until there was some daylight and take a picture of this masterpiece without a flash so you could really see what's going on here, however, I'm not going to.

This mess in the bad photos is what one half pound of alpaca looks like after it has been accidentally felted due to some terrible info found on the (oh so trustworthy) interwebs. I feel the need to warn anyone who might consider reading the below that if they are;

(a) an alpaca farmer

(b) a friend or relative of an alpaca farmer

(c) one of those people that think the almighty alpaca fibre descended from on high with a host of angels singing its praises

(d) all of the above

that they need not continue, it will just foster ill feelings towards me and I really would rather not do that, so please, just skip along to something happier (it's bound to show up sooner or later).

Now that you have been warned, I digress... the above mess was caused by some quick research on the internet on washing raw alpaca fleece. I encountered what was a seemingly trustworthy source as the website in question was that of a keeper of the beast from which this fleece originated. I was sooo excited to get this washed, spun and turned into a couple pairs of super-warm mittens for people - people I planned to tell, "I hope you like these, I picked the poop out of the fibre myself!" I did my research (so I thought) and read that due to the incredibly smooth surface of the individual fibres that it was IMPOSSIBLE TO FELT ALPACA. In fact, they suggested washing it as vigorously as needed to get all of the dust and debris out. So that's what I did. During the first washing the water was disgustingly dark, same with the third, fourth and fifth. By the sixth water change things were looking up! The fibre floating in my sink was a much lighter colour than what I started with... all was good, so good I was in fact chatting on the phone with a friend while I mashed things around making sure it was nice and clean. That's when things got a bit wonky. I was talking about my little washing adventure and had no sooner said the words "and you know what's cool!? It can't be felted so you don't have to be so careful with it" before things started to go sour. Clumps were becoming apparent, clumps that weren't separating... "holy shit, this is felting" I exclaimed...incredulous that I had just spent the past hour joyfully washing what was now apparently a sink full of amputated dreadlocks. It. was. horrifying.

That was the moment I decided that the oh so revered and well marketed alpaca was the devil in a Sunday hat and that you can't trust things you find on the internet (yes I see the irony in actually ranting about this online...I find it slightly glorious and just a bit satisfying). I'm going to say it...I have a great distaste for alpaca... in fact, I would go so far as to say I plan a full-fledged boycott. Neither the fibre nor the hooligans that raise them can be trusted.

At least for now.

Birthday Present Extravaganza!

I love birthdays... not only are they an excellent excuse to rally the troops and have a bit of fun, they are also a great opportunity to make presents for your nearest and dearest. A very good friend of mine celebrated the *edited for decency*th anniversary of his 25th Birthday yesterday. As a special bit of birthday present goodness I spun him some (if I do say so myself) rather delicious yarn I entitled "William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream". I tend to be a bit wordy when it comes to naming things - and everything gets a name. Betty (my wheel) and I spent the day furiously trying to finish this in time for gift giving time. In fact, I was setting the twist at the 11th hour and cheated with the drying process...this may or may not have involved a hair dryer... I'll deny it if you tell. The fibre is 100% Polwarth hand-dyed by the FABULOUS Heidi at London-Wul. The finished product is the result of a couple of her delectable colour selections mashed together in my own special way resulting in 304+ yards of 2 ply squishiness. I'm thinking there will be a series of colour combos inspired by the Bard... I can smell Autumn on the air and for some reason that always puts me in the mood for knitting and Shakespeare side-by-each. Now I must get back to my pumpkin socks...I have a great desire to get them off the needles and onto my feet.