best laid plans

I like lists, cataologuing. I am secretly a librarian at heart. I make lists for everything: packing lists for weekend vacations, grocery lists, lists of clothes for the kids. To-do lists so that I can understand the full extent of my procrastination, or stupidity. For future reference, of course. Here, for your edification, was my to-do knitting list this winter:


This is all the yarn I had in my mental queue for the winter — which is to say, this is the yarn that I have bought (mostly this winter) with the intention of knitting this winter. Looking at this pile, I can only come to two conclusions:

1) I have obviously vastly overestimated how fast I can knit and the amount of time I would have, and

2) I really like the colour blue.

Clockwise from the top left: Artyarns cashmere sock. Love. I wanted really warm socks this winter, and I would have made excellent use of them ... if I had had them. Next, two skeins of Shalimar Breathless (in Ore), with a ball of A Verb for Keeping Warm Floating. Also dreamy. These were going to be some sort of colour-block sweater, although I might have to revisit that: those two skeins of Ore are not the same colour at all. (Yes, I know about dye lots, and no ... I did not apply that knowledge. The second skein was sort of an emergency buy.) Tanis Fiber Arts laceweight, from one of her one-off sales on Etsy; this was going to be something "relaxing." Ha. I am thinking perhaps a large Orchid Thief ... I am also thinking, perhaps not right now.

And finally, the big pile of robin's egg blue is Quince & Co. sparrow, which is pure linen. The colour is actually "Birch," but I know robin's egg blue when I see it. It's a bit of a cheat; it's the only thing on here that's not really winter knitting and so, consequently, also the only thing that I particularly want to knit. I am most of the way through the body of Kirsten Johnstone's Hane and I am really looking forward to wearing it. It's been a long, cold winter. I need spring.

false start

It really was my intention to start blogging again. I even took pictures (with a real camera, not my iPhone!) of things I wanted to blog about. For instance:

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Two weeks ago, it was astoundingly nice — 21 degrees Celsius and sunny, as though the world felt a little guilty about the horrid winter and late spring, and had decided to give us a little early summer. (And then, as it does, decided that perhaps that would spoil us — spoil everything — and rescinded the offer, which rather explains why the tulips are surrounded by snow.)

And then the weekend ended, a week passed, then another weekend, and oops. All I can say is that this whole blogging while parenting thing is a work in progress.

The gardening while parenting thing, though, is working a little better.


This reminds me of a story that a family friend told me recently: apparently, when they were younger, their family had the most beautiful English wildflower garden. They lived in the country. The kids (there were three) would get home from school and their mother would just set them to work weeding. And it was more than beautiful; it was practically Platonic: the physical manifestation of a page from a gardening magazine, with wildflowers waving in the breeze and masses of butterflies.

Then the kids graduated from high school and now that garden is essentially a meadow. I visited it the other day and the grasses were literally taller than me.

This makes me feel better.

I am hoping that this year I might actually get to garden. It's early days yet, which means that I still have hope. The Spanish Inquisition is starting to show signs of interest. She's a bit young for weeding but apparently I now have free toddler rake labour. We'll see how that bears out.