cosmic order

and blue
In between other projects I'm knitting as if my life depended upon it. And, really, it's not my life so much as my sanity. By chance I'm in a blue mood again. The package arrived with hand dyed Handmaiden Casbah sock yarn in "glacier". Now I ask you, does this color resemble a glacier? To me it resembles a sky pearl (what the Pueblo people call turquoise).

I was expecting a different color based on the photo I saw. Cool, faded, icey-looking. So I showed it to my friend who loves all sorts of blues, hoping she would like it - she did - but is already going under for the third time with new yarn of her own. At home I browsed patterns. What could I make with just under 400 yards of this merino/cashmere blend in a hot color? A shawl? A lace scarf? four pairs of hand warmers? Then my brilliant brain came up with this: it's sock yarn, why not make socks with it? duh! And it turns out to be the perfect choice. Colorwise (stronger than shown) it's fun, and the feel is deliciously soft. I'm loving it and planning to keep the socks for myself for sitting meditation ~ the yarn was expensive and I haven't snagged a pair of luxury socks for myself in a long time. I forget that a rule for happiness (mine) is to treat myself to something extra special once in a while.

more blues...
Because I was so intent to try out the Casbah yarn immediately, I put aside the sock I'd already made with Opal Van Gogh "Starry Night" and one inch of the second one on the needles.  This yarn is not as soft, but if you've ever used Opal you know it gets softer with wear and lasts nearly forever. This color is also stronger than the picture (my house today is filled with bright silver gray light pouring in from all 51 windows - the cameras don't like that).

So. Because I'm rereading the book on Wabi-Sabi I'm not stressing over not-quite-perfect-for-me color, nor the two major writings I have to finish by tomorrow afternoon; blue calms and things will fall into place (she says as she reaches for St. John's Wort and the needles and yarn...).

If you're not familiar with the Wabi-Sabi concept...and if they were to be considered separately...but they're not.... It's explained this way: "when Japanese today say "wabi" they also mean "sabi" and vice versa....and...there's a lot of metaphor involved. Just saying.

wabi refers to:
~ a way of life, a spiritual path
~ the inward, the subjective
~ a philosophical construct
~ spatial events
sabi refers to:
~ material objects, art & literature
~ the outward, the objective
~ an aesthetic ideal
~ temporal events