Why I do what I do (be-doo-be-doo)(...sorry)

It's a puzzle for non-knitters. Why do knitters knit dishcloths? And why to knitters knit socks?

You can purchase both commodities at your local Walmart (if, indeed, I shopped at Walmart, which I don't. Did back about five years ago. Since then I've not set foot in one. Ever.) at 54,679 of them for a dollar. Of course they're worth about that much...

Okay. Not always. You can get cheap dishcloths and socks at stores that don't aim to fill our landfills with useless crap, exploit their employees and trade with unethical manufacturers. And they will be functional and you can buy a ton of them.

So why knit them?

On a personal level, I prefer hand knitted socks, since my feet are shaped like squares and I when I buy socks I always have an abundance of toe fabric at the end or the heel is halfway up my leg. And I do prefer the heftiness of a knitted cotton dishcloth.

But that's my personal preference and I realize not everyone appreciates the difference between hand knitted and functional store-bought socks. And that's okay. You like what you like.

I think, though, another reason why I knit these things (other than the fact that I like to knit) is that this is another way of keeping close to the items I use during the day. By putting so much work into this common, everyday household item, I become more mindful of the task I use it for.

It's easy to take silly things like socks and dishcloths for granted. They mean nothing. Throw them away, tear 'em up. Doesn't matter at 54,679 for a dollar. But it matters if you've put a few hours into them and while you knitted you watched a Jane Austen movie and thought about all you've heard about Austen and whether it was true that she recognized the societal hypocrisies of her world or just inadvertently included them in her little romantic story*. Or this sock is the one knitted during as waited for your son to arrive back at school from a track meet so you could take him home.

I think of how many things I wasted because they are so cheap. I can afford paper napkins, paper towels, disposable dust rags and -- and this one really annoys my brother -- plastic straws. (I wash my plastic straws, especially because I usually use them only to drink water. This drives my brother crazy. When he comes over he always tries to throw out my plastic straws while I always try to give him drinks with the rattiest looking straw I can find. What? You were expecting the warm fuzzies?) But I'm slowly weeding them out of our lives because I think we have a responsibility not to use up resources.

And so I knit dishcloths and socks. And I darn socks. And I take more care of them than with the store-bought variety.

*In the movie Sense and Sensibility my favorite line is when Mrs. Jennings asks what is the occupation of the man who was interested in Elinor and Marianne replies, "He has no occupation," to which Mrs. Jennings exclaims, "Oh! Then he's a Gentleman!" This little piece of irony, though, belongs to Emma Thompson, who wrote the screenplay, not to Jane Austen.

Well, Bread

I love to bake bread, a task that forces you to putter at home as you wait between steps. With two puppies to train, I'm confined a lot to the kitchen. Might as well make good use of the time.

I'll admit that I used to be intimidated by the first steps in the process, the proving of the yeast and the forming of the dough. But I've overcome my fear of my yeast dying a horrible death -- an error that I commonly made during my early (12 years old) attempts at bread making and my Artisan, once again, has eased the tension over the rest. After that it's pure bliss to knead bread dough. It's almost alive with warmth and bounce and I love that when I put it to rise it does just that, like it knows. But between you and me, my very favorite part is punching down the risen dough. Don't ask me why. I just love letting my bread exhale.



I know a lot of people make this part of their chores and the bread becomes a staple for the family. But I think the very best thing about making your own bread is eating it fresh out of the oven. After that, it's really okay and all. It's that half hour after baking that makes homemade bread an unforgettable treat.

This is cinnamon raisin bread made with the standard white bread recipe out of Fanny Farmer with the sugar and butter doubled. Then, prior to shaping the loaves, I roll each half of the dough into a rectangle, spread with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and a handful of raisins. Then I roll up and shape my loaves.

Needless to say, one loaf is gone. The other will be breakfast.

A Mom's Got to Do What a Mom's Got to Do

So what was this week's project?

A new dress? The beginnings of a quilt? Hair for poor, bald Eleanor?


Alas...this is Homecoming week. So this week's project?

Black pants.



















Hemming black pants. Lots of boring black pants.


Sigh.

Gnome for the Holiday

For our anniversary, Chuck and I decided to buy each other a gnome. We have been steadily building our collection, tentatively at first because of our first experience with populating our property. But now we know to secure all known gnomes and use signage to remind people we do, in fact, have large dogs on the property.

So we’ve happily been adding to our collection, aided by friends, and when we passed a store with this fellow sitting outside, well, we couldn’t resist.

Then the dilemma became whether or not to paint him.

I know there is something very dramatic and earthy about leaving him gray. I can imagine moss or lichens or really organic stuff growing on him and giving him character.

But…

Remember during the sixties when Disney Wonderful World of Color came on the television? There it was: the Disneyland Castle with Tinkerbell flying around splashing color all over the place. My mother would sigh and say, “Wouldn’t this be lovely in color?” and then turn on something else because we didn’t get a color television until 1970. When every year we watched The Wizard of Oz on television my parents would describe to us about how pretty the movie was when Dorothy opened the door to the land of Oz and suddenly everything was in color, a feature we were missing because we were seeing it in black and white.

I blame this color depravation with my preference for things being in color. I may admire the texture and nuances of the halftones, but really I’m just waiting for the door to open and to see the beauty of color.

And so I painted our gnome.

It was a pretty mundane task until I got to the face. The beard really needed enhancement. And then there were the eyes.

Eyes are always a challenge because if you get th

em wrong you end up with

a frightening lawn ornament rather than the kitschy fantasy that is a garden gnome.

I don’t think he’s all that scary, do you?

Certainly Fluffy doesn’t

think so.

Though I’m sure, having two teenage boys around, the poor fellow will be subjected to some disturbing situations…

A work in progress

I'm taking a big chance. I'm showing you a work in progress. Were my mother alive and here, she'd be rolling her eyes and saying, "You know you never finish anything you start."

I do have a problem in that area, mostly because in the back of my mind I think, if I don't finish it, it's always got potential. Once I finish it, it might be lousy and that's that. But, unfinished, it still has a chance to be wonderful.

At any rate, this is going to be a doll house doll for the doll house several of the men in my life have promised to build me, but as yet none have delivered. My husband came closest when one winter when we would go to the high school's open shop night. We built the frame of a three-story Victorian, but choked when we got to the roof since it required beveling and a very scary saw. So now it holds a bunch of his old papers at our old house that has yet to be cleaned out.

Still, I persevere and yesterday sculpted this out of polymer clay. Turns out my oven doesn't go low enough to bake it, so now she awaits the purchase of a toaster oven. But am I daunted? Was my mother right after all?

Beats me. I haven't figured out anything about the body other than it's going to be cloth and stuffed. I still haven't decided whether to sculpt the upper arms and hands, just the hands or use cloth for both. I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm doing. I'm sure there are classes and books for this, but I tend to get too hung up on directions from other people and think I can't do something if I don't have exactly what they say I should have.

She has turned out older than what I was aiming for, but I decided I like her that way. Her story is already forming in my mind.

It's a sad story, though. She's had a hard life, what with marrying for convenience rather than love, failing at becoming a mother, and running a huge Victorian home on very little money. They live with her husband's ailing mother, the owner of the house and provider of most expenses, since the husband is not a great success in business, as the old lady never ceases to remind him. His father, she nags, was the great builder of the empire that now supports them all and junior cannot ever hope to fill his father's shoes. And he accepts that version, and it makes his wife sad and a little angry. But she has long since given up trying to bolster his ego after his mother is done with it. So she saves her strength for running her household on the meager amount alloted to her with very little help.

She wishes she lived in a world where a woman of her station could go out and get a job. But this is the 19th century and to work outside the home would be unthinkable for someone in her class. So at night she writes little stories that she sells to a small publisher under a nom de plume. Even though she is exhausted, this at least gives her money that she stashes away, just in case her mother-in-law dies and her husband grows a backbone. Then she will reveal her savings to him and they will travel together and, maybe, she'll fall in love with him.

Or maybe he'll die.

Her name is Eleanor.