Thursday, February 24, 2022

Progress Markers

A few flurries fall on this cold morning. Temperatures are in the single digits and wind-chill makes them even lower. Tuesday I made some lentil soup and hard rolls. It is a soup week. Today I have Ginger Tea in my mug in order to stay warm. 

I finished the pillow case for my living room pillow. I didn't have enough of any one of the fabrics to make a continuous strip of binding with mitered corners so I used leftover strips. I prefer mitered corners but this is fine in our living room. The fabrics were leftover from prints purchased years ago. I like making do with what's on hand.

Knitting keeps me warm and sane these days. I am posting a picture of my sweater mostly to remind myself I am making progress. This sweater of fingering weight on size 2 needles is meditation knitting but even meditation knitting requires a visual of progress. I clipped on a progress keeper and move it every Sunday night. This strategy keeps me from feeling I've entered the black hole of knitting where no progress is being made. I still enjoy the knitting and this sweater will remind me of the gift of yarn from my sister and also (fingers crossed) of spring. Between March 17 and 21, the landscape begins to green just a little. It's a seasonal progress marker on the horizon. 

When I had a few odd moments and wouldn't be able to finish a knit and purl row on the sweater, I put a few rows on a cowl. I prefer not to leave a back and forth stockinette project at the end of a knitted row. Stopping in that place often leaves a line showing in my knitting. I suppose it blocks out but I prefer not to leave that to chance. 

I just finished listening to A Tale of Two Cities via old CraftLit podcasts and found it well done. I don't listen to all of the books available on this podcast and I missed this was one from early in the podcast. Heather Ordover with her background as an English teacher, does an excellent job of annotating books in the public domain and making them interesting. The scenes in A Tale of Two Cities relating to mob behavior and the portrayal of vengeance as opposed to justice are a cautionary tale for our time.  

I am reading All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family's Keepsake The research that the author put into this book is fascinating. Tiya Myles, a history professor at Harvard, is a skilled writer and storyteller. Recently she published an essay for the New York Times titled, "When Everyone About You is Talking about the End, Talk about Black History." The essay is about this book and the resilience of Black Americans. I am enjoying the historical connections to textiles, women's history, and the history of slavery. I appreciate Myles' thoroughness in distinguishing between facts and opinions as well as her ability to look at more than one explanation for a behavior or fact. This is excellent nonfiction. 

I am late in linking to the Unraveled Wednesday Party but I will link just the same.  I enjoy reading about others' making and reading. 

March is around the corner and with that the end of winter. Progress indeed. 



 

7 comments:

  1. I just was out for a bit dropping off our tax stuff to the accountant's office. It is bitter cold and there was a bit of sleet coming down. A shock after yesterday's Spring-like weather. Your sweater may be moving slowly, but it sure is lovely. Enjoy the meditative knitting.

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  2. Your "make-do" pillow looks both useful and beautiful, and your sweater is beautiful as well. It's nice to have all sorts of progress markers, for knitting and seasons. I was out walking in a field and was disappointed not to see some greening at ground level, but I will keep observing. I thoroughly enjoyed The Lost Garden and would like to read more of Helen Humphreys' books. I will put What She Carried on my list based on your recommendation of excellent nonfiction. Thank you for excellent recommendations!

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  3. I love that pillow on your couch. I am going to see if I can get that book you are reading from the library. You read a lot of good books. Your sweater is progressing and it is lovely. See you again soon. :-)

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  4. I think your pillow looks wonderful -- such a nice pop of color! I never understood the purpose of progress keepers until I started using one, and suddenly they made perfect sense. They don't serve a physical purpose; they're entirely psychological.

    I too really enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities when I listened to it on Craftlit. I've since enjoyed several other Dickens works.

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  5. your sweater is coming along nicely, it won't be long now! Love the pillow, my mom made some similar way back when and I have them in this house in every bedroom. I haven't read A Tale of Two Cities since high school!!

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  6. Your sweater is growing! :) While I don't feel quite ready to move beyond February (it seemed to just fly by, didn't it?) I am savoring these final few days. We had monsoon rains overnight and this morning my yard was well on its way to lake status! Perhaps ice skating later today when our temps drop to the frigid levels! LOL (more likely, I will be knitting my Vera Socks! Haha!)

    Have a great weekend Jane!

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  7. What a great pillow, Jane -- and such a clever way to finish it up. I'm using progress markers with my "black hole" brown-blob sweater for Tom, too. It helps. (I'm nearly finished with the first sleeve, so there is progress, even if it doesn't feel like it.) I love A Tale of Two Cities.

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