Back from Mackinac Island!
As we flip the page to August, it is hard to believe that the summer is halfway over. Last week I traveled to Mackinac Island to give a workshop on two-color knitting and to deliver my first talk on The History of the Sweater. There could not be a more idyllic place to hold a workshop! The island is a step back in time and makes it hard to return to the pace on the other end of the ferry. One gentleman attending the lecture said that his reason for being there is that he could not find sweaters that suited him in the store, so he wanted to learn how to knit. As I said at the time, “Be still my heart!”
This morning I finished a pattern called Basic Socks. The name pretty much covers it, but the basics are the best thing to have in your toolbox. Two years ago, I was on the quest for the best basic molasses cookie recipe and after many trials and errors I found it! It is lovingly tucked away in my recipe box under the name, “Mrs. Porter’s Molasses Cookies”. I wish years back when I started knitting socks, I had this Basic Socks pattern. I tried to make it very user friendly so that the accomplishment of having knit a pair will have you taking out more yarn to knit another.
I was interviewed last fall by USA Today on the history of the Ugly Christmas Sweater, and after that I decided to dive deeper into the subject. There will be a new lecture on the The History of the Ugly Christmas Sweater that I will present in November. Once lectures are polished and ready to go, I make them available for classes or groups that are interested in learning more. Please refer to the contact page of the website to get in touch with me.
In northern Michigan we wait anxiously for winter to be over, but I admit once we reach August, I am ready for fall to arrive. Perhaps it is my nesting nature or working on new designs I am not sure. Being wildly allergic to poison ivy might be another explanation. So, I am content and feel like I pushed some good work forward in the last few months. As I said recently, this is a long-distance project, not a sprint. I will leave you with this. A poem that I have carried along with me over the years:
Ode to My Socks
Pablo Neruda
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.
Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.
The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.
Gail
July 31, 2022