Setting Goals

--And Helping Miriam Meet Hers

I’ve been thinking about the value of setting goals.

I was an awkward child who, whenever she could, stayed inside. I avoided team sports and team captains avoided me. When forced by PE teachers to run around the football field in high school I had a terrible cramp in my side and was last coming in. I hated exercise.

But about five years ago, inspired by a friend, I signed up to train for a marathon with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training. I agreed to raise $2,000 and they trained me for my first marathon. The tee shirts read,

“Think training for a marathon is tough? Try chemotherapy.”

I didn’t run. I walked. I finished my first marathon in 6-1/2 hours and felt great. Shortly afterwards the 14 year old leukemia patient in whose honor I had participated, lost his battle to leukemia. I signed up for a second marathon and raised another $2,000 in his memory. I didn’t think I could finish a marathon, didn’t think I could raise money, but I did both.

Setting a goal and meeting it gives such a sense of satisfaction. They don’t have to be big, life changing goals. Little goals set and met move me forward. I have two goals for the next months:

(1) I want to finish Level 1 of The Knitting Guild Of America’s Masters Class and send it in for review. I'm aiming for the end of the month. OK, the end of August.

(2) I want to run (well, walk/run) the Four Bridges Half Marathon at the end of October. The race has a 2 hour and 45 minute cut off time so I have to pick up my speed. I think I can do it if I start training now and really work at it.

And I want to help my youngest daughter, Miriam, meet a goal she has set for herself. With her mother’s encouragement, she joined Team In Training. Now she is the one raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Miriam is only 26. She is an 8th grade English teacher. Her friends are teachers, graduate students and others just setting out in a difficult economy. She’s selling bottled water, hosting a Silpada jewelry party, and appealing for donations. The funds are slow coming in and she’d sure appreciate your help. So would I. Clink here to go to her fund raising page and join us in the fight against leukemia and blood cancer.

A Felted Hat

Carolyn, who has many years experience as an avid and adventurous knitter, decided we should encourage the many beginners in our knitting group to move on from scarves. At her suggestion they agreed to knit Fiber Trends' Felt Hat. I knit one up quickly to show as a sample the next time we meet. I should have taken before and after pictures. Before felting I was pretty worried. But after felting I couldn't have been more pleased.






This is in Cascade 220. I have lots more Cascade 220 in various colors. I'll do this again and next time I'll knit in various bits of odds and ends. This could be addicting!

Musings On The Boat That Didn’t Sail

We spent the long weekend with friends on their Catalina 42. Friday morning we left their berth at Marina Del Rey, sailed to Catalina and spent the weekend with those who had made a choice we had rejected.

We enjoyed wine and cheese on the outdoor patio of the Banning House, overlooking Cat Harbor, visiting with a couple who had spent eight years circumnavigating the globe. We listened to their stories of adventure, Christmas with the harbor master in Mexico, superb care in a hospital in Bangkok, getting caught in an eight mile wide fishing net and twenty six days crossing the Atlantic on their way home.

I felt envy rise in my breast. I wanted a boat. I wanted to sail around the world, or at least down to Mexico, Central America and through the canal. The cruising couple told us it needn’t be terribly expensive, that people cruise on lots of different budgets, some for as little as $200 a month. When they made the decision to go, they sold their house, kept only one car and didn’t buy anything for two years as they prepared for their trip.

“Let’s do it,” I thought.

Perhaps because he has done more sailing than I, my husband was more realistic,

“Sailing is a lot of work,” he said. “I have no interest in buying a boat.”

He thought differently thirty years ago. When we married we thought we would buy a sail boat and sail up and down the Pacific coast. We even talked about sailing around the world. Both of our fathers had sail boats. His father had a 29 foot Ericson sloop docked just blocks from their house in San Francisco. We crewed for him on day sails to Sausalito for lunch or to Angel Island for a picnic. My father had a bigger boat, a 42 foot sail boat he and my mother sailed to Alaska and talked about sailing around the globe. Eventually both fathers sold their boats. When my father-in-law sold his boat my husband thought about buying it. But responsibilities and limitations said no.

We could do it now. It’s not too late. But we won’t. Even as temptation rose inside, I knew it was not a choice we would make. I’d have to give up too many choices I’ve already made, I’d have to give up my weekly time with my grandchildren, my volunteer work with hospice patients. I’d have to give up my house, my sewing room, my office, my garden and my mother’s cats.

I didn’t know I was choosing not to sail around the world when I decided not to join my father-in-law in a Sunday afternoon sail around the bay years ago. I was only deciding to spend the afternoon doing something else. And somehow that decision that day joined with many others and today I’m not setting sail.

It is not regret I feel. My life is good and I’m grateful for my husband, my children and my grandchildren. They are my greatest satisfaction. I’m grateful for the career I had, the volunteer work I do that contribute to a sense of purpose in my life. I’m grateful for my friends and my hobbies that daily affirm me. No, it’s not regret I feel.

What I’m feeling is an awareness of my ever more limited choices. Forty years ago my life was all possibility with no limitation. I believed I had forever to do whatever I chose to do. And the possibilities were endless. I could study Russian or biology or English. I could go to law school or teach or be a flight attendant. I could marry or not, have children or not. I had no sense of limitation.

I’ve never been one to dither about my choices, to engage in paralyzing analysis about whether to do this or do that. I just go blithely forward with the choice made. Sometimes I’m not even conscious of the choice or its consequences when I make it. But today I am aware of limitation, aware that taking one choice precludes another, that time spent one way today cannot be spent another way tomorrow, and that each choice I make today affects the choices available to me tomorrow. I’m increasingly aware of my mortality.

A February Lady in Cotton

This is my second February Lady Sweater. The first time I fussed over the pattern and made lots of notes about modifications I'd make if I were to knit it again. But when the time came to knit this one, I'd forgotten all my brilliant ideas. I did decide to add some extra stitches to the front for the overlapping bands. But that meant the pattern didn't work out just right under the sleeves. No matter, this is a very forgiving pattern. I fudged a little bit and all was well.

My new advice for this pattern: Don't sweat it. Just knit. It will be fine!

I made short sleeves because that's all the yarn I had. This is my first short sleeve cardigan and I've decided I like it.

Happy Mothers Day!

My mother had a silk screen of the Brooklyn Bridge done by Wayne Thiebaud, very different from the work for which he later became famous. It was given to her in 1960 by coworkers at the Chico State library when we moved to Fresno. It hung over the sofa in the living room for forty five years.

She took it down to hang this, one of my first quilts. I liked the scrapiness of it and knew she would appreciate its earthtones. But it is an amateur’s work. Not all the points are sharp. Nor do they all meet. The quilting is mere wavy lines stitched across the front of the quilt. In fact, it embarrassed me a bit. She had friends who quilted, who would know this was the work of a beginner, and a beginner without much artistic talent. I urged her to put Thiebaud back up.

“I like it. I was tired of Thiebaud.”

She said she remembered the quilting frame set up once or twice a month in the parlor of her grandmother Ornbaum’s house and the ladies gathered to quilt. She showed me an old quilt her grandmother Ornbaum had made. It is beyond repair. I remember other quilts. We used them as moving blankets, wrapped them around the furniture. I remember a hand stitched multicolored wedding ring quilt frayed and tattered, perhaps one of those stitched in the Ornbaum parlor.

When my mother moved to a senior apartment, she sold or gave away the art work she had collected over her lifetime and took with her only pieces done by her daughters. I told her she should keep the quilt where she could wrap herself in it on the couch when she read, but she hung it on the wall.

“It’s not art, Momma,” I told her.

“I like it. It is too art.”

The quilt is in my house now. The golds have faded. Some of the red has washed into the browns. I didn’t hang it. I wrap myself in it when I sit on the couch.

Happy Mothers Day!

It's Not Just Beginners and Perfectionists Who Rip It Out and Start Over

I sat next to a beginning knitter at knitting group last week. She was working on a baby blanket, graduating from simple stockinette, to a basket stitch. But although she knew how to knit and purl, she was off on her pattern and had at least an inch to unknit. In frustration, she ripped the whole thing out, even the inch and a half garter stitch border that was just fine. She was frustrated, maybe the blanket was too difficult for her, maybe she shouldn’t try to do a stitch pattern.

I told her I do a lot of unknitting. She expressed amazement. I wanted her to feel better, didn’t want her to give up on knitting, but I wasn’t exagerating. I do a lot of reknitting. I told her I frequently have to redo my starts. There’s something about getting started on a new piece or a new technique that requires me to knit, unknit and reknit several times before I get into the groove. I told her I make mistakes when I’m not focused on my knitting, that after our last knitting get together I went home and ripped out everything I did in group, two hours of knitting lost. Sometimes I’ll put a piece aside too long and not be able to pick it up again without a lot of mistakes. I make mistakes at the end of a piece, when I’m in a hurry to finish and start something new. I make mistakes when I’m trying to carry on a conversation, knit in the car, knit while watching television or listenning to an audio book. And I make mistakes when I’m trying too hard.

Sometimes I unknit because I lose track of where I am, sometimes I get sloppy and my tension is off, sometimes I’ll notice a split stitch several rows below and for some reason, especially if its lace, I can’t figure out how to drop down and fix it, so I unknit those rows instead.

I’ve learned not to fight it. I’ve learned to accept it as part of knitting, as what I need to do to get the results I want.

Often other knitters say when they find a mistake they just fudge it, no one will ever notice. But if I can see the mistake now, I’ll see it ever after. Better to fix it.

And that leads me to the Vine Vest I was knitting in Provence. I seamed it all up with the skills I learned in Margaret Fisher’s Perfect Seams class. The seams were beautiful. I added the edging. No problem. I put it on. Ugh! I ripped it all out and am knitting the yarn into a new February Lady Sweater. If I were a perfectionist, I would have soaked the kinks out of the yarn before reknitting.

Where have you been and what have you been doing?

OK - It's been quite a while since I've posted. I intended to post, really I did. But...

I have two spring sweaters on the needles: a February Lady Sweater in Classic Elite's Provence and a lovely soft pink pullover in Rowan organic cotton. Both would be perfect for the beautiful weather we are having right now. But, I keep getting distracted by shawls:

Luna Moth Shawl

I purchased Black Water Abbey's organic fingering weight wool in ecru at Stitches West. Several vendors had the Luna Moth Pattern knitted up to show off their yarn. When I saw it knitted up, much prettier than it had appeared in pictures I had seen, I had to make it. It knit up quickly into an elegant shawl and will make a nice gift.

Here is a detail of the lace:

Evelyn Clark's Lace Leaf Shawl

This is a fast pattern I'll make again soon! It's in Misti Alpaca sport weight. Soft, cuddly and warm.

Stitches West!

Swatches ready to go for Margaret Fisher's Perfect Seams class!

I have never been confident or satisfied with my seams. Hopefully that will change!

I'm taking my Vine Vest which has waited unseamed since last summer. I'm hoping to seam it up in my hotel room after the class. Then pick up and knit the edging and wear it this spring.

God reached into Himself and created her

Caroline St. John Close

Born
October 18, 1925
Boonville, California

Died
January 29, 2009
Bakersfield, California

She asked that this hymn be sung at her funeral,

Hymn of Promise

In the bulb there is a flower
In the seed an apple tree.
In cocoons, a hidden promise.
Butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter,
There’s a spring that waits to be
Unrevealed until its season.
Something God alone can see.

-Natalie Sleeth, 1986

She was my mother and I ache to talk with her again.

Sigh of Relief

I spent most of yesterday watching television, watching the inauguration and watching the crowds of people in Washington, D.C. and all over the world, watching and celebrating together.

Yesterday’s celebration followed a great big national sigh of relief. It would have been unseemly to cheer the departure of the 43rd president, to have shouted “good riddance” as his helicopter flew over the crowds on the Capitol Mall. And so we celebrated the incoming president instead.

The commentators seemed to think that what we were celebrating was our first black president. And, yes, that was a very important part of what we celebrating. On the day following what would have been Martin Luther King’s 80th birthday, in the presence of members of the Tuskegee Airmen who chose to fight for their country in a segregated military, of Congressman John Lewis who was almost beaten to death for his role in the civil rights movement, and thousands of others who believe in an ideal denied them only because of the color of their skin, a black man was inaugurated as president of the United States. It was a day many of us, black and white, did not expect to see in our lifetimes.

But to me, that Obama is African American, is symbolic of more. And his election promises more. If we can overcome our history of racism, we can overcome much more.

Yesterday came in a very dark hour. It came when it seemed our nation had lost its way, surrendered to fear and given into the intoxication of consumption. It seemed we had forgotten that our strength comes from justice and that what unites us as Americans is the common ideals codified in our constitution.

Yesterday we remembered who we are called to be. Yesterday we knew we could do better in all the ways we are challenged to do better.

Knitting with Sari Silk

I sat for three quiet hours last night knitting a scarf from recycled sari silk. It wasn’t on my to-do list, wasn’t planned as a present for anyone, wasn’t practice intended to make me a more skillful knitter. I cast on and knit for the sheer pleasure of working with this yarn, of feeling its softness with my fingers and watching its unexpected colors reveal themselves in the scarf flowing from my needles.

This was the yarn that had made me a knitter again after a decade long hiatus. Discouraged because I didn’t have time to knit, I didn’t know how to knit the things I wanted to knit and my knitting didn’t meet my standards, I had given all my knitting needles, yarn and unfinished projects to Goodwill. I remember looking at the back and partly finished front of a silk vest that had sat unfinished for several years and thinking they weren’t as bad as I had thought, but into the Goodwill bag it went. Still, I loved the look of knitted garments, loved the look of yarn in the ball and one day when I happened on a new yarn shop, I wandered in and there, right by the front door, found a basket of sari silk yarn. Soft, colorful with a rich luster. I’d never seen anything like it. I bought three balls and planned to make a shawl.

From the beginning it was a difficult relationship. Even before I left the store, I was frustrated by the colors. There were no color numbers and no dye lots. The yarn comes in all the colors of saris seemingly picked at random and spun into balls. Rich jewel tones, purples, jade and ruby red, and warm autumn colors, browns, oranges and yellow green, predominate. But these are suddenly interupted by the black and orange of Halloween or the red and green of Christmas. I wanted four balls for my shawl, but after pawing unsucessfully through the basket of yarn searching for balls in the same color way, I settled for three similiarly colored balls, enough I thought for a smaller shawl.

When I began to knit I alternated between love for the colors of the yarn, the softness of its feel and exasperation at what seemed to me to be the yarn’s poor quality. It varied in thickness from a single thread to heavy worsted weight, it twisted and kinked as it came off the ball, very difficult for someone who hadn’t held a knitting needle in many years. Unrefined furry puffs of silk marred the smooth appearance of my knitting. And when I finally learned to catch all the varying textures of the yarn in my needles, all of a sudden the colors changed mid ball from rich jewel tones to the warm colors of autumn. I put it away in frustration until I found more of the yarn at another shop and after again searching for a ball in the jewel tones and finished the shawl. After much frustration I finished the shawl only to immediately discover a hole where a thin thread had broken. I mended it with a piece of wool and decided the yarn simply didn’t work.

No matter, I was knitting again. I found internet sites to teach me what I didn’t know about knitting, about tension, gauge, and stitch definition. I collected skeins of wool, organic cotton linen and hemp and made more shawls, scarves, sweaters and hats. I kept the little parts of the balls of recycled silk I had left over in a bowl, beautiful to look at. There was a quality to the yarn I could not resist. Every now and then I’d pick it up, feel it and look at it. I knit a little into a wool scarf and some into a hat. And then I decided to try it alone again. My knitting skills had improved. I felt able to handle its flaws. I started a scarf. And as I knit I understood this was a yarn without guile, its flaws were not flaws, they made the yarn what it was.

Recycled sari silk isn’t really recycled and it isn’t made from old saris. It is made in Nepal from the ends of warp threads remaining on the loom where the new sari was woven. After the sari has been cut from the loom, the threads are gathered, teased and spun by hand on drop spindles. The yarn I buy is fair trade. I am assured my money goes to women’s cooperatives where the women who work in their homes earn enough to support their families.

As I knit with this yarn I wonder about the women who spun it. I know very little about them or the distant part of the world where they work and make their home. The land of Everest, Three Cups of Tea and a Nepalese man I met some years ago who had turned his home in Katmandu into an an orphanage. I imagine these women with a quiet dignity going about their work, kneeling on the floor with the colorful silk laid out before them working their drop spindles. Sometimes my fingers touch a little bit of their lives, pieces of grass, splinters of wood, twisted into the yarn.

There is a quality to this yarn that brings to mind two very elegant elderly sisters who were my neighbors in South Caroline thirty years ago, one a widow, the other never married. They welcomed me into their apartment, furnished with dark wooden furniture with clawed feet, perhaps inherited from their parents, heavy upholestery, drapery, oil paintings and china. And while I would have set such things aside, packed them up to protect them, bringing them out only for special occasions, these were the things with which the elderly sisters were comfortable, the things making their apartment their home. A small crack in a tea cup, wear on the upholstery. These made me comfortable when they invited me in for a cup of tea and freshly baked cookie.

I imagine the women who wear the saris cut from the threads that will be spun into my yarn. These women will have chose their saris for the intracies of the patterns and rich rich colors woven into the silk. When they put on their sari they will study themselves in the mirror and apply a bit of paint to their faces, in a self conscious effort at beauty.

There is no self consciousness to this yarn as their was no self consciousness to my elderly neighbors. Still useful. Unpretentious. And beautiful.