Fifty-three Sweaters

It's been a month since I've touched yarn to needle. The closest I've come to knitting in all this long time: yesterday I brought all my stash from the back yarn room to the living room, to sort, record, dispose of, and. . . get ideas for knitting?

Sorting stash reminds me of nothing so much as going through family photographs, for the sometimes hesitant recall of where that was (from), the cringe at having made such a choice; the longing for involvement with that seven hundred yards I bought twenty months ago at the little shop outside Milwaukee, but I'm sure there's not enough for what I envision. Nothing direct or unencumbered about this sorting, it's not like putting away winter clothes, not even like choosing to Salvation Army this and to keep that. Those can be crisp choices.

Now that I've got wireless connections with my laptop, I have the prospect at least of taking the laptop into the living room, and typing onto some site at Ravelry exactly what amounts of which yarns I have. Then it will be done. Will I do this tonight?

Will I ever knit again? (You bet I will, for I see dollar signs as well as textures in the yarns that surround me.)

I have found four sweaters, each one finished and totally forgotten, but each in a baggy in the stash. How peculiar. I now add those four to the ones I've got better in my mind, and in my photo records, and announce with wonderment, that I've knitted fifty-three sweaters in the last two years, along with multitudes of smaller items; fifty-three sweaters since I started knitting in August of 2006.

Will I ever knit again?

I have been teaching, film studies to high school students at Cornell, intensively for three-plus weeks, the major reason why I've not been knitting. All day, every day. But before, when was real life any bar to my knitting?

Will I ever knit again?

Probably, to speak with some prescience, never with the productiveness, expansiveness, devotion of these last two years.

motley aran

I started this one in Huron City, when I stayed longer on vacation than I'd planned, six days longer, and had only one book of patterns, Starmore's Children's Collection, and only one yarn stash--Rauma 3-ply strikkegarn-- necessity is the mother of . . . . Yarns left over from the elephant Christmas stocking.

A little classic Aran, done in motley: knit from the bottom up, in the round, going as long as one color lasted, shifting, up we go. All was seed stitch, triple cables, honey comb (a bruiser, every stitch cabled), slow going. The saddle sleeves were a finishing first for me. The defects of this sweater: it's a rough yarn, will need to be worn over turtle necks for comfort; it's a strange thing to have all the switches of color; for some reason, it's very wide compared to its length.

Anyone know a round and chubby four-year-old who'll fit it?

final footnote about "Jenny Wren": A day passed with no activity after I moved the in-house basket to the front stoop. Then the couple returned, overstuffed the nest, and laid a few tiny eggs.

I was away for a few days, and on my return: no wrens, and cracked eggs. I don't know if some other bird ate the eggs. But there's no one left around my house. hmmm

Elephants for Little Lee

But first a note about Jenny Wren. It's cute, having Jenny Wren dash in and out. But sometimes, Cute Is Not Enough.

Now is Sometimes, though I'm still not sure how to curtail that nesting. In a basket atop my kitchen cabinets, where she's made her nest. Really won't do, as much for babies' sake as mine. So I put the basket outside, NEAR the house, for Jenny's and pete's sake, but outside. We'll see what happens.

And elephants for Little Lee: worthy Alice Starmore elephants, now embedded in a simple and washable raglan sweater, and marching around a modified "Judy's Colors" Christmas Stocking. One to outgrow, the other to enjoy annually.

Just as I have satiated myself with Samantha jumpers, so, now, am I mistress and past-mistress of l'éléphant. On to fresh pastures.

Jenny Wren

Please note, that the entire time it takes me to share the lore, legends, literary heritage, and Audubon factoids about Jenny Wren, Jenny Wren flies in and out of my house, nest materials in beak, making anew her nest (where inside I'm not yet sure), while Hubby pads the nest outside my window, more cautious? happy to make do?


I've been gone thirteen days, slept at home last night (with the front door closed), opened it up this morning, . . . and in comes Jenny Wren. She and her male bested the cardinals in competition for the robin's nest at my window, so I've got visual access to her, as she, immediately this morning, re-entered the living room: what memory, what what? brought her right back in as soon as she was able? (But she shall not make a nursery in my doggie treat jar again).

So, googling around on House Wrens, I'm beginning to take offense at others' characterizations:

• "[Another] thing about House Wrens is that they are not too choosy about where they build their homes. " Clearly, my Jenny is very choosy, discriminating, and tenacious of her homestead.

• Here's a pair of "Jenny Wren" socks: but when I say "here" and the image appears "there," above, it means I can't figure out how to interpolate where I want the photo into the blog.

http://www.knitzi.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=80&products_id=265

• And here's Paul McCartney's "Jenny Wren" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36dtjxUMWdM

with lyrics:

Like so many girls, Jenny Wren could sing
But a broken heart, took her song away

Like the other girls, Jenny Wren took wing
She could see the world, and its foolish ways

How, we, spend our days, casting, love aside
Losing, sight of life, day, by, day

She saw poverty, breaking up her home
Wounded warriors, took her song away

(solo) verse, chorus

But the day will come, Jenny Wren will sing
When this broken world, mends its foolish ways

Then we, spend our days, catching up on life
All be-cause of you, Jenny Wren

You saw who we are, Jenny Wren

• In the nineteenth century, in Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, Jenny Wren is "a child — a dwarf — a girl — a something, " the put-upon and old-before-her-time daughter of an alcoholic father, orphaned by her mother's death. The following tells her story using quotes from the book:
  

A parlour door within a small entry stood open, and disclosed a child -- a dwarf -- a girl -- a something -- sitting on a little low old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working bench before it. "I can't get up," said the child, "because my back's bad, and my legs are queer. But I'm the person of the house. . . . You can't tell me the name of my trade I'll be bound. . . I'm a doll's dressmaker." Her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation of Miss Jenny Wren."


[Miss Jenny Wren describes how she finds the fashions for her dolls] "Look here. There's a Drawing Room, or a grand day in the Park, or a Show, or a Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say 'You'll do, my dear!' and I take particular notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste her."


"Then another day, I come scudding back again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that little creature is staring!' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much more often yes than no. All the time I am only saying to myself, 'I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there;' and I am making a perfect slave of her, with making her try on my doll's dress. Evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for a full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. However, there I have 'em, just the same. When they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say they think I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my dolls!"


[Miss Jenny Wren tells of the shining children] "For when I was a little child," [she said] in a tone as though it were ages ago, "the children that I used to see early in the morning were very different from any others that I ever saw. They were not like me: they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they were never in pain.. ."


". . .such numbers of them too! All in white dresses, and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. They used to come down in long bright shining rows, and say all together, 'Who is this in pain? Who is this in pain?' When I told them who it was, they answered, 'Come and play with us!' When I said, 'I never play! I can't play!' they swept about me and took me up, and made me light. Then it was delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said all together, 'Have patience, and we will come again.'"



[Miss Jenny Wren is blessed with friendship] It being Lizzie [Hexam's] regular occupation when they were alone of an evening to brush out and smooth the long fair hair of the dolls' dressmaker, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was at her work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning rain.

• Only slightly later than Dickens, round about the turn of that other century, appears E. Cobham Brewer (1810–1897), with his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898:

Jenny Wren,
the sweetheart of Robin Redbreast.	1
“Robin promised Jenny, if she would be his wife, she should ‘feed on cherry-pie and drink currant-wine’; and he says:—
‘I’ll dress you like a goldfinch, Or any peacock gay; So, dearest Jen, if you’ll be mine, Let us appoint the day.’
Jenny replies:—	2
‘Cherry-pie is very nice, And so is currant wine; But I must wear my plain brown gown, And never go too fine.’”

• But the finest, oddest account I can find, in its original 1820 facsimile is this child's reader:

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JENNY WREN
A very small book,
At a very small charge,
To learn them to read
Before they grow large.

I CAN GIVE YOU ONLY THE website, and promise it's worth your visit: http://www.archive.org/stream/lifedeathofjenny00yorkiala

sunrise and sunset: I can't come home.

I won't post knitting pictures this time, as the photographed images I snapped are of surprises, for Steven and Hickory. Those I knit during my first--my only scheduled, intended--week in Huron City. But I failed to leave the shores of Lake Huron. I am failing to not thrive. I have to be back in Ithaca by Saturday night, and that may well be when I get back (if I can remember to check the internet late in the week to ascertain when Saturday appears).

Having but little stash left on my vacation, having used most of it for the Baby Lee surprises and an Irish Hiking Scarf, in Berocco something or other with silk that was 50% off at the Knitting Etc Spring Sale, I am now knitting an Alice Starmore Aran sweater in multiple colors, with a fine (and surprise) yarn, one I have about thirteen skeins of, but each skein a different color. I've just built the in-the-round bottom, up to four inches, in Navy; and am taking a break after a long morning's mindfulness (there's not a five-stitch sequence of the same stitch in the whole bloody garment (dash it all for the too attractive picture that snared me: if it's not a single cross cable it's seed stitch or 1 x 1 ribbing or 3 x 1 cabling)).

But I stayed in Michigan precisely for the slowing down, the mindfulness, the solitude. My sister and brother-in-law, with whom I spent a wonderful week walking, talking, reading, and (me) knitting, left on Sunday, when I was leaving. Now I'm left. Now it's me, the three dogs, and the weather.

Ah, the weather.

It dropped from 86 degrees ( a very ominous and sudden 86 degrees) to 38 degrees, in the course of the evening and overnight. That's almost fifty degrees. And now it's about fifty and blowing to beat the band, in a full sun. Weather is a chief occupation up here, in Natechuh. At dawn I was sitting with my coffee at the picture window in the master bedroom thanking the weather tides for lowering the temperature and picking up the drama: big white caps, fourteen shades of gray and blue, something akin to a howl, backsides of baby leaves getting a whatfur.

I've made a fire in the "frpl" (furpull, realtor ad speak). I wore two sweaters, a sweatshirt, and my down jacket, to walk with the dogs up and down, up and down the beach this morning. I'm all for all the weather we can get.

I've read the four books I brought, to prepare for summer school teaching, last week. Our books in the family cottage have been standing here for centuries; well, decades. I've either devoured, tasted, or outright refused each one over multiple years. There'd better be one good book at the Port Austin Library, ten miles away, because I found Waiting--that I borrowed from the family cottage next door, after exhausting my own exhausted book shelves--well, like waiting. It performs what it says it's about. I kept waiting. From the first sentence, the guy is waiting, for the seventeenth summer in a row, for his wife to agree to get a divorce. At the start of the book he's a doctor; two chapters later, he's waiting to become a doctor. Ho hum, don't think I'll revisit that book tonight. Maybe I'll write a book.

Okay, no knitting pictures. But some pictures from where I am, to save me the trouble of finding words to explain why I have not come home. (I'll be back here, in Huron City, for perhaps three weeks in August, with lots of kids, mother, grandchildren, cousins. Now all is quiet.)

Off to Huron City

Now (Kylie) I'm a bit more back up to speed: four sweaters in the three weeks since I finished, and breathed hard after, the heffalump fair isle. All baby and size four-year-old sweaters, in Colinette Cadenza and Schaefer Susan cotton. Tomorrow I'm off for a week in Michigan, to read, and to knit a Hickory-and-Steven "Little Lee" surprise (it wouldn't be a surprise if I was coding that comment to a certain Zimmerman sweater, now would it? That's not what I'll do on the shores of Lake Huron, by the birch-wood fire, following the lapping waters to set my stitch rhythm; no, something else).

I did a few sweaters at speed, adding a ruffle here and there, a picot neck line, but mostly happy to go fast after the attentiveness of the elephant sweater. Then this fourth Samantha, for a fourth little girl, this one not yet among us.

With my front door and kitchen windows open against the mildness of May, I yesterday entertained a new critter, one who gave new meanings to her name: House Wren. Her first swing through my living room was a mistake, with much snorting and bopping off surfaces. But she liked it, and grew certain of her ways through the house. Since I spent much of the day at my computer in the nearby study, I'd catch glances of her swift departures, hear twinkles of her busyness in the kitchen. Gathering ghosts of old leaves and dried pansy stems for nesting, she and her mate (and two cardinals) were busy outside my study's picture window, nattering about who would build on last year's robin's nest on the front stoop light. Only later in the day did I find that she'd been building her nest in the dog's cookie jar, ajar; laying down a day's work over the Greenie treats.

That's my HOUSE wren. I've had to close those passages: since I'm leaving tomorrow, the house will be shut up, and she'd be a wreck trying to get to her new nest. While the goings and comings lasted, though, I felt ever more a part of the great outdoors, none of that winter shutting off from nature. Imagined I was in a Belize rain forest.

Elephant Caravan complete

Whew, that took me a good coupla weeks, what with completely losing the yearning to knit. I had a bad cold for a while, and...April has been one better Spring day after another. As each day passes and I tend to all the garden beds, names, hibernating over the winter, mystically spill out of my mouth: ". . .Helebore. . .astilbe. . .," instead of "K2tog...with right sides facing...Alice Starmore...."

Yet eleven elephants have gathered, all (but buttons) is done. Now I can wait to see when knitting calls again to me. For now, the pear trees want pruning, little sedums whose surrounding ground has eroded, want replanting. My mother, who's moving, wants some steadying help; my students want me to assign and read their last essays. (And all that wanting makes me want to knit; heh.)

The elephants are coming

After a breather, after doing a silly scarf--for which I learned a new cast-on and enjoyed Berroco Pure Merino Nuance--I'm happily knitting a fair isle cardi, with elephants from an Alice Starmore pattern. Pretty fine elephants--and, though for a child, the sweater is in NOT pastels; in super soft Blue Sky Alpaca. Pleasing work-in-progress.

Samantha Two and Three

This Raspberry w-i-p, which I'm knitting for a store sample, is knit in Classic Elite's Wool Bam Boo, very silky to work with. The Zara Ivory one, below, is ready to wear, if I find an infant girl.

Samantha One finished, Samantha Two begun

Hi, I have little to say--must stick with my Sunday workload, so later I can knit--but wanted to post the finished Kate Gilbert "Samantha," in a size 4 years, for Ainsley and Eliza (who are far from four years old, so this tunic will have some storage time before being useful, I think (it does look big, and "relaxed" when I washed it, even bigger)). I modified the pattern a little--changing the sleeve cuffs, to imitate the smocking on the body; and adding a row of yarn overs/K2togethers, near the base of the body.

Wondering about next projects, I found in my knitting stash some white Zara, frogged from an earlier lace project gone awry, and invisibly cast on to make another Samantha, in a tiny baby size (3-6 months). That's tonight's knitting pleasure.




Here--in the first, the white image--see the afternoon's back; I just like this so much I need to share. Plus, one of the dogs, perhaps in protest that I was for hours on the computer rather than feeding his face, ate this same back off the stitch holders; lah dee dah, neither he nor I drew blood or stitches, so all is well.

Swaddling in his Xmas Stocking

Just got this nugget of a picture in the mail, Eamon Schopfer semi-swaddling in the Xmas stocking I made for him. With his Auntie Em, whom I've known since she was almost as new as her nephew. Love that hair!

Samantha

This w-i-p is the Kate Gilbert "Samantha" tunic I just got the pattern for at Knitting Etc., and dove into with eagerness to be knitting at a smaller gauge (#'s 3 and 4), after Cayuga Cardigan, Central Park Hoodie, Little Einstein Jacket, plus a few hats and scarves, all at # 7 and above. Even with a lot of stockinette, this sweetie has the delicacy of a smocked dress, and entertains me enough. You can't yet see its true prospects, of picot hems, from turning under and sewing in place the invisible/provisional cast on, or the little dance of stitches on the front panel edges or the little trick down the sleeves, etc.: trust me, it has its touches. I've been away visiting my mother and my son and d-i-l (who loves her new Central Park Hoodie), and the twins--to die for-- and have managed at the ends of the days to do this much of Samantha (again, the one curse of the single woman driving: can't knit for those four-and-a-half hours; though I'm listening to Three Cups of Tea, which I'd not have time to read at home, so it's a fine trade-off).
I do wonder what the hell I'm doing knitting all the time; it's a powerful question that fires through my mind, when I'm not knitting. Many are the answers and questions grafted on to that first one, but I'll not explore them here.

Anyway, my Samantha-in-progress, and the Little Einstein, with orange borders and ribbed sleeve cuffs.

I have an eye appointment in the morning, and wonder if I can knit in the doctor's office while I wait for dilation to subside. We'll see.

This is how gray it's been

So the sky out my livingroom window looks blue in that picture; what you need also notice, however, is the Amaryllis I potted on 1 November--that's more than three-and-a-half months ago--has grown three-and-a-half feet of stalk, all of it seeking vainly for sun, up and up and finding none. The sun bursts out today and so do the three blooms. Three-and-a-half feet of stalk is how gray it's been. Which is also probably why I've gotten so much knitting done.

Central Park Hoodie in two weeks. (Its buttons aren't as shiny and contrasting as the picture suggests; the Jamieson's Shetland Heather (Cedar), with a dull overtone (a nice dull, which reminds me of the fine distinctions among grays I've been making these last three-and-a-half months), has character and subtlety, and clear cables.) And an Einstein Coat, for one of my grand daughters, in two days.

When I settled in to grade papers all afternoon today, the sun poured so through my west-facing study window I couldn't see the computer--where the student papers lurk and pant. . . . I had to take a second walk at the dog park.

But now, settling in with a dwindling light, I'll finish--not the papers; that's for tomorrow morning-- that Einstein Coat, knit with Noro's Silver Thaw, while semi-watching the Oscars tonight. Think I'll put an i-cord or other stitch around the border to hold the many-colored coat together (visually).

momma said there'd be days like this

There'd be days like this, my Momma said. When, with too little sleep bolstering me, I couldn't, I wonuldn't (even though I had to) do my work. I tried for all the hours of the morning: I read papers, I read poems, I revised syllabi, I devised new essay topics, and had miles more to go before I could sleep. But those woods drew me in, those skeins tugged at me, that still seat on the sofa beckoned; and I was gone, from the desk, from duty, from the day's determined path. Couldn't, wouldn't. I caved, I gave over to crisp cables. (But, she rationalizes, it's "work, " so it's okay. I'm teaching a class on making this sweater; I HAVE to make one.)

So, yesterday was a struggle between ought to's and want to's, and the want to's won. With many nice cables a-building, and a good night's rest, I today return, relieved, to work. The dawn now is tinging everything with a rose hue, the same rose hue hidden in the Jamieson's Heather Tweed Cedar yarn I've been knitting with: nice.

Rib and Stripe Scarf

At play with three skeins of Kureyon (Noro), following the shifting combinations of rust, black, brown, green, green, and green. A pacific evening or two, in k3, p1. Before washing, as one knits, the stiff yarn grows into a recalcitrant sea cucumber--how I know this without ever working with a sea cucumber? But a softening wash and blocking dissipate the worry that I'd be sporting marine life in winter.

Now, onward through a Central Park Hoodie, in Jamieson's Shetland Heather. Since I'm now teaching the Hoodie at Knitting Etc., and since why not?, and since someone's got a birthday upcoming, this is a sensible, pleasing whim. I also don't quite know what to do with some new and prominent batches of Noro staring at me; so, in the mean while....

Annie Thing Goes

. . . . In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.

I bought Annie in 1986 at Harrod's, thinking of Cole Porter and of my daughter, one who "fathered" this big-headed girl, and one who got the doll on my return from London.

This morning I needed a model, since I can't well take pictures of my own head: ANNIE! To show off "Gretel," a tam I just whipped up in some new Noro Kochoran. This tam has rhythmic cable patterns, can be made in three degrees of "slouch": fitted, regular, and slouchy, and. . . is hilariously voluminous in this most generous size. To shrink the brim, I'll look either to steam it, or sew in elastic .

The Presidential debates these last two nights were perfect listening posts to knit this hat by: I'd stab the ball of Kochoran with my cable needle when Republicans revulsed me--lots of stabbing; and, last night, purr along during Obama/Clinton's convivialities.

I've been sick for two weeks, so tired and be-virused I didn't even knit. So taking my friend Suze's suggestion to start small, I did this hat, am working on a Noro Silver Thaw scarf, and am now re-energized enough to design a sweater. Let the ice storm continue!

take a deep breath

I went to help my son and d-in-l and granddaughters through their misery, as misery went through both ends of my granddaughters and d-in-l and son. When I arrived, my d-i-l was in the hospital, too dehydrated to be safe at home, the girls, though on the mend, were confused and anxious about "puking on my pillow," and my son was white, freezing, and too weak to give me much of an update. For a day and a half I was helpful and happy playing with the girls and performing the satisfactions of a Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. DIL came home, weak but hydrated, son slept, . . . I got sick, and sicker. And spent thirty-six hours between bathroom and a mountain of blankets. We're all on the mend now; I've crept home, so I can start my teaching semester tomorrow, shaky, shaky, listening during my long drive to stories of The Plague in 14th-century England, and knowing a bit about contagious diseases (Ken Follett's World Without End ).

Last night, I sat for hours on my sofa wondering if I'd ever want to knit again, and worrying about absence of desire, especially in the face of the gorgeous NORO yarns which had arrived in my absence (of desire, of presence): three bags full, from the fine sale at Seattle's Little Knits ( http://www.littleknits.com/ ). I especially love the colorways of Kureyon's "172" (is desire re-emerging? or is it rue, that I'll watch this yarn forever, burping and never touching needle to wool?).

While I wait for a stable and calm intestine, and for my NORO's fate, I'll re-draft the syllabi for the two classes which begin tomorrow. Sometimes work must bring desire in its wake.

I'm off to care for the sick

Here's some doggerel wisdom, while I'm away, caring for sick relations.

Woman's life is but vain
For 'tis subject to pain,
And sorrow,
And short as a bubble.

'Tis a hodge-podge of business,
And money, and care,
And care, and money,
And trouble.

But we'll take no care
When the weather proves fair.
Nor will we vex now
That it rains.

We'll banish all sorrow
And strand 'till tomorrow,
And knit, purl,
And knit, purl again.

Little Bits

I finished up the little bits today: sewed the hanging loop on the Christmas stocking, for a baby being born in a few weeks; sewed buttons on a second "Dawn's Baby Joy " sweater, in Noro Silk Garden Lite, which will go with other goodies for the baby into the Christmas stocking; knitted two scarves for my two granddaughters; garter-stitched two blankets for the Kuhnergens' beds--the Kuhnergens live in the girls' Christmas doll house--and sewed buttons on the Cayuga Cardigan. Truly, tomorrow is for fresh fields and pastures new.

I thought about relations between fishing and knitting, fishing and Christianity, knitting and praying. I thought about knitting as a process of defying the mandate for a professional purpose, for defying the good daughter's productive life; about knitting as process and yet having for me the satisfaction of visible and sharable products, things I can point to, delight in, and move along from.

Grammy, this yarn is very soft.

A six-day trip away from the computer and the dogs: lots of sleep, having to find new ways to wander mentally. I left the Cayuga Cardigan blocking at home--finished that little fella in five days--and will sew on buttons this morning. With a pit stop at WEBS in Northampton, I spent my Christmas gift certificate and entered the contest to win $100.00 gift certificate. (Knit one of one hundred scarves for the UMass Hockey team, with yarn and pattern WEBS gives you; return it, get entered into the drawing at the end of January.) While visiting with my granddaughters, I pretty much finished the scarf; it's in the mail now back to WEBS ("I'm a winner").

Ainsley and Eliza spent some time "knitting" with me: when can they learn to do the strokes? Is there a knitting school for toddlers? We sang songs about knitting, and hugged the yarns, stacked markers on needles, and looked through translucent green rulers. The notions and the motions hold great appeal.

I'm off now for a knitting stint of odds and ends.