a switch in time

At this time of year in the mountains each day feels like a new season even though we're still in the remains of summer and the lightest blankets are still on the beds. Today is one of those gray cashmere sweater days. Sprinkles of rain on and off, an occasional peep of sun. After three busy days in a row and more coming up, I am happy to have finished at least one project and be at my desk inside as the warm wind whistles around outside.

This project has been enthusiastically embraced and casually abandoned for almost two years. It is a lace ribbon scarf knitted with 2-ply hand dyed cashmere from Jabberwocky Farms that I bought two years ago at the Wool Festival in Taos. This year's event on the first weekend in October is looming closer. Completing projects with yarn bought at past wool festivals erases any twinges of guilt that might arise as I buy more. And these colors are so gorgeously futuristically seasonal that I put everything else aside to finish it. In other words I was highly motivated. Guilt-wise and season-wise. Although I'd like to be a mindful person and try to live in the present moment, the act of buying yarn thrusts me right into the future.

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Still in an autumn mood (I know it's here because the chamisa is yellow and I can't stop sneezing) I found a project for the Malabrigo sock yarn in color Primavera. The pattern is Ishbel by Isolda Teague. Although I have two skeins of this beautiful yarn, I decided to make the smaller size and use only one. I'm not much of a lace shawl wearer - too short to wrap up in a big one and too old to look cool in it. No matter how the trends have changed, knitted shawls on women of a certain age still  bring to mind grannies and farmer's wives as depicted in old black and white movies. Actually, if you have ever seen Camille (a movie that is older than me), she is wearing, on her deathbed, a hand knitted lace shawl and looks radiant. How else could Garbo have looked? So since I'm not Garbo and like the design, I will make the smaller size to wrap around my neck or drape over a sweater.

I've only finished the stockinette section and an inch of the lace pattern. I began by following the written instructions, but after knitting and ripping in frustration several times, I realized that in spite of being a word person, visual charts work best for lace knitting. This may not seem like news to anyone but me. I resisted charts when they first hit the mainstream. Eventually I had to deal with them because they became the way most lace patterns were written. In time, without my knowledge, my brain made a switch. Good thing too because the pattern so far is humming along and I can't wait to get back to it. On a card I jotted down this quote from an anonymous source.

Truth is about examining, testing,
knowing the actual, immediate,
direct experience of this moment.