Five Green Acres

The Wizard of Oz is on my mind this morning, after sending off The Girl to her Preschool Halloween party not in the Dorothy costume I made for her, but the dragon costume I bought at Goodwill over the weekend for $4.99.  I had bought it as a dress-up costume, for everyday play, but realize now the folly of my timing.  This morning has been a lesson in pride-swallowing and bending to the whims, unpredictable as they are, of this 4 year old.  (Really, a DRAGON costume is not “less pretty” than Dorothy’s dress and ruby red slippers?  Really?)

Thankfully this Boy is loving the Emerald City rag rug I’ve finished, the first of two.  Perhaps you’ll remember when I first posted about the project?  Now, as I reread that, I see that I promised to keep you all updated on the progress.  Well, folks, there hadn’t been much.  Said rug, in all its urgency, was quickly replaced by Painting! and Curtains! and other third-trimester super-human feats.

And then, about a month ago, the real urgency hit:  The Boy needs to move around on the floor – the bare, hardwood, cold floor.  Better get busy with that rug.  So I pulled out the basket of greens and surveyed the scene.  I quickly realized, with some dismay, that one large 8ft by 10ft rug was really not the best solution for the layout of the living room.  (Really – what was I thinking?)  What I needed were two smaller rugs, more flexible in future rearranging schemes.  So I ripped out the crocheted part I had completed last winter in front of the fire.  A few hours of crochet time was undone in about 45 minutes.  Now, before you gasp too loudly, you should know that the most time-consuming part of the process is not in the crocheting, but in cutting the fabric into 1″ strips.  So that work was not lost – as I unraveled it, I rewound the rags into giant balls to re-crochet, this time into a round rug.  And about a month later, I think it’s done, at about 5ft in diameter.  What fun it’s been, too, crocheting it.  A little here, a little there, it’s so gratifying to work on because the progress is so dramatic – one revolution around the circle increases the diameter by about 2 1/2 inches.  Just the thing for my short knitting/crocheting attention span.

And The Boy loves it.  He hasn’t quite cracked the code of crawling yet, though I expect he will in about 10 minutes.  As soon as that happens, this small triumph of a rug will be rendered far less protective, once he leaves its cushioning confines.  Already he’s scooting to the edge, then tipping over to bonk his sweet little head on the maple floor.  I’d better stop reveling in the fruits of my labor and get going on that second rug.

Yeah, I’m talking about YOU, Boy.

I think this story is straight out of the DIY Homesteader’s Handbook.  Or it should be.

Let me set the scene for you.

We’ve just arrived at our campsite.  Baby is juggled, Girl is happily riding her bike.  Captain Daddio assembles the tent, the cots, arranges the tent layout, almost single-handedly.  In a rare moment of baby-nursing, camp-chair-rocking meditation, the wee, usually-muted voice of my subconscious was finally allowed to speak.  We packed no sleeping bags or pillows. Damn.

Driving home and back to get them was out of the question.  Instead, we headed to town to see what we could find.  Two more sleeping bags would have a legitimate place in our camping stash, we reasoned, once the kids got bigger.  In the little town with a big tourist economy, we combed the streets for a purveyor of sleeping bags.  After attempting to live the “buy local” ideal I support, the owner of the hardware store shook his head and pointed the way to that great, big, evil store I despise so much.  Daddio ventured in and returned with two sleeping bags of varying quality (slim pickings this time of year) and a heaping slice of humble pie.

And that night was cold.  So cold.  I had drawn the short straw and was stuck with the sleeping bag of lesser quality, which, when you close your eyes, feels rather like a handful of plastic bags sewn together.  Plastic bags with that big W logo on it, I imagined, and a smiley face spiting my every attempt at sleep.  Errol and I shared this bag throughout the long, tortuous night.  To be fair, Daddio was sharing his sleeping-bag-made-by-a-legitimate-manufacturer-of-camping-gear with Isadora, which he claims was no better.  Isadora said she slept great.

So this was the precursor to our jaunt into a nearby town the next day:  a bit crabby, sleep-deprived, and looking for a better solution.  Daddio’s first stop en route to the fishing lake was to return to the scene of the crime and buy some more blankets.  A good man, that one.  Me?  I started fantasizing about a hat.  That would have made all the difference, I surmised.  If only I had a hat.

Wouldn’t you know we came upon this Utopian shoppe, nestled among the other quaint stores of the town?  The first hank of yarn I spied was the chartreuse – locally spun wool dyed naturally with french marigolds.  Are you kidding me????  You know I had no choice but to buy it.  The sheer magnetic force of that yarn drew me to the bin of local alpaca roving.  There was a small reddish ball in there that would be perfect paired with the chartreuse, and soooo soft against the skin.  Sold. I sought out one of the owners and gave her the lowdown:  was camping, was cold, needed to knit a hat REAL FAST.  Could she recommend a simple, quick pattern, something maybe like this example here?  Oh sure, she said, and told me the simple how-to.  Then, an epiphany, and she went to her own knitting bag, pulled out an index card with the basic instructions written on it:  Elf Hat with Ear Flaps.  EAR FLAPS! I shrieked, for all to hear. That’s perfect!  I guess I said that pretty loudly, but I wasn’t fazed by the strange looks or giggles.  It happens to me a lot.

Edit:  You can find the pattern here!

And this, ladies and gentleman, is why I knit.  Knitting is POWER.  Power to see a problem (damn cold) and to solve it.  (with gorgeous, local fibers)

Yes, yes, I know that any normal person could have just gone out and bought a hat or toughed it out another night without, but that just wasn’t an option for me.  This, rather, was the realization of a long-born DIY fantasy, a test of resourcefulness and think-on-your-feet-ed-ness, whose solution (a warm, awesome hat) produced incalculable satisfaction from its inception en route to the campground, to its completion by the campfire, illuminated by the soft glow of lantern and fire light.  Aahh.  No, really – aaaaaaahhh.  Is it a coincidence that my favorite books growing up were of the Alone-in-the-Wilderness; Must-Be-Resourceful-to-Survive genre?  Probably not.

And it was lovely to sleep in.  Lovely and warm.  The tails of the yarn were woven in minutes before the hat was called to action, about 10pm, I believe, keeping my promise to finish it before going to bed.  I didn’t even have to sleep with 4 double pointed needles attached to the unfinished hat, though that was Plan B.  I chose to knit two strands of the chartreuse together to create a bulkier yarn that also knit up faster.  A good move.  Technically, it’s not exactly the best showing of my knitting:  I did some random decreasing in the wrong places, probably stopped too soon at the top, and have a few ends still sticking out.   But hey – the lighting was poor and the lively campfire conversation had me laughing too much to concentrate fully.  And the hat is a bit too big.  Perhaps the medium size would be perfect?  My anal left brain tells me to rip this out and re-knit in the smaller size, omitting the random errors this time, but my right brain says NO! It’s perfect as it is! I wonder which side will win?  Right now, I’m leaning towards keeping it as is and reveling in the hat as a culmination of an experience.

And here it is, the completed, felted bag I’ve been working feverishly on for only about a week. That’s certainly a personal record for me, at least in the felted bag category, beating out the only other contestant by a good year or so. You may remember the bottom and middle stripes from their previous position: lodged between my big baby belly and some pugs.

There’s something about that big belly and the magic that it pumps through my veins that’s turned me into a knitting fiend. All I want to do lately is knit. All the time. Our morning vigils of Sesame Street have become infinitely more enjoyable for me now, with wool in hand, coffee on standby. And having been raised on a healthy diet of the Green Bay Packers, I’m ensured of a good 3 hour slot of knitting every Sunday. It was during the last installment, in fact, that this bag was finished. And there are plenty more stolen opportunities peppered throughout my week, which I’ve snatched up greedily, lending to the feverish pace with which I started and finished this bag which so captivated my attention. No small feat – that attention’s rather flighty.

After pulling it out of the washer and dryer to inspect the progress of the felting, I found it to be a wee bit sluggish. The lovely triangular shape that had drawn me to the pattern was all but lost in its poor posture, so I cut a piece of foam core to fit in the bottom and then sewed a sleeve over it to finish it off. Incidentally, the yellow plaid I used on that sleeve and on a zipper pouch to go with was part of the collection of old rags that I inherited from a family stash. Originally a dress, it was in rags when I got it and must be pleased now, I imagine, in its latest incarnation.

I think I would have felted it a bit more, had our water been turned on. Andrew had turned it off to work on a grueling plumbing project, drawing attention, once again, to the luxury that is running water in the house. In times like these, I’m forced to be thankful for the easy, carefree presence of that water that is so accessible at every other moment but the present. Accessible and handy for those little things, like washing hands in the bathroom, cleaning up potty accidents on child and floor, cooking an emergency hot dog and…oh yes…further felting a knitted bag that barely made it off the needles before racing to the washer. A pre-Thanksgiving meditation, perhaps.

And now I’m off to fill the bag with more wool. Will it be the so-soft-I-can-hardly-stand-it pale pink waiting to be spun into a hat for me or the wow-that’s-a-vibrant-color-and-so-soft red that will make its way into a Christmas hat (and maybe scarf too!) for Isadora? Anyone’s guess who will win that fight.

I’ve realized that I can no longer be a monogamous knitter.

I’ve tried almost everything, I think – sensual fibers, vibrant, juicy colors, the promise of a fulfilling future together, even a support group. But, damn. My other relationship, with sewing, is so Instant Gratification. At least by comparison. The above photo (lovely, no?) is the FIRST of what will be a SET of FOUR place mats. Really, what was I thinking here? Oh yes, here it is: Easy, quick pattern. Should fly by. Can knit one, move to another project, come back to remaining THREE.

Right. Let’s edit this for reality.

I really want to be a better knitter. I want to get into the groove of the motion, the cadence, the sweet spot; that place that knitting mystics speak of when they use lofty (ridiculous, I think now) words like meditative and relaxing and soothing. But I’m so not there yet. I’m still rather bumbly with my needles all askew and the yarn not cooperating. The technique is there, but not yet flowing. Which is hard to stomach when the competence level on the sewing machine is light years ahead. Yes, I know how to resolve this – ractice, practice, practice! Lately, though, all I’ve been able to stomach is one boring row at a time. The fault lies with me, of course, and my circus-monkey-sized attention span.

So I’ve decided to court multiple projects at once, like many of my knitting mentors. Earth-shattering, right? For some reason, it has been. I remember almost precisely when I realized that I could handle reading more than one book at a time and the inkling that it might even enrich my reading, which it of course did. Call it a one-track-mind, call it loyalty. Either way, it’s stifling me, and I’m now expanding my love life. Of fibers.

Which of course necessitates a new bag to hold, tote, and otherwise protect the project. What a delicious by-product of a problem, right?

This is the “before” shot. The colored horizontal strips (flat here) are at this very moment fraying nicely in my washer and dryer to create a chenille affect. It’s a pattern or concept based loosely on a kit I coerced my Mom into buying – she makes the bag as prepared in the kit, I borrow the dimensions and concept and supply my own fabrics and chenille tape, in the colors of my choice. We worked on them together this past weekend, in a crafty retreat up north. A fun project, and fun idea – to make the same thing together.

As I was choreographing the fabric layout, I was struck with a nagging sense of deja vu. I must have used the red/yellow combo somewhere recently, but where? Scanning, scanning……here it is.

Same yellow fabric, even. I am clearly a very gifted mystic to have made this subtle connection.

Cameras will be standing by the dryer as the “after” bag comes out, all frizzed and soft and ready to take the knitting world by storm. Stay tuned.

Lucy approves, but with less enthusiasm than desired.

After much fanfare, cutting, sweating, and crocheting, I’m happy to declare this rag rug DONE. (insert clapping, whistles, and orchestral explosion of “Hallelujah” here) And in the nick of time, too, as my attention span had almost written off the project on account of boredom and bigger, better, flashier prospects on the horizon. That attention span – so fickle.

But I’m happy to say I really, really enjoyed the project, which is good, because it’s a big house and there are countless more rugs to make for it. Up next: a shoe mat for the kitchen. This would be for the shoes that absolutely refuse to live on the mat that already exists, just a few steps away, and also refuse to live anywhere else but in that particular corner of the kitchen. Not that I’m pointing any fingers here; some of the shoes are mine. So I’ve decided to accept that this must be where they live when not on our feet, but not without a campaign to beautify the operation. So a rag rug it will be, which is perfect, because rag rugs are infinitely washable and absolutely look the part of this vintage-chic kitchen.

This whole giving-in attitude reminds me of a passage in a book I read a few years ago. I think it was this book. She talked a lot about the process of building something or laying out a design. In this case, it was her garden and the paths within it. Rather than arbitrarily laying down paths and plunging forward, she decided instead to observe where the natural paths lay. Where she, pets, and others found themselves taking short-cuts through the yard. Where it was always a hassle to walk around a particular bench, when the natural inclination was to go right through. There are undercurrents of Feng Shui here, to be sure, though I don’t remember her saying as much. This “Observe, then build to suit Function” mentality has stuck with me ever since. It works well with my general attitude of serendipity and go-where-the-wind-blows-me. And this, our first year in this house, is full of observing – what is blooming, how the trees are changing our view, what life is like with chickens. It’s good to keep reminding myself to slow down, observe, and not try to plunge forward so quickly into the realization of this self-sustaining dream. That kind of unrealistic, unresponsive momentum can only lead to the kind of backfiring that we’ve seen here of late, where our expectations (mine, especially) have not matched our results.

So a shoe mat it will be. Queuing Rag Rug Number Two.

And look at how nicely Rag Rug Number One plays with Tablecloth-Turned-Curtains. This bathroom is coming around nicely.