Pink knitting needles!

Is it wrong to feel this happy about them?

What good days are made of

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, prepped, fed and washed up, packed snacks, naps, quick coffee with friends, gentle chores steadily done, fresh parcels, cuddles, scrubbed clean pyjama play, foolish dancing, grown up time and the promise of sleep in a soft bed. A day that feels full and ample in its everydayness and modest ambitions, but what gifts and blessings! I feel lucky that today was one of my days.

Gratitude

I wanted this blog to be a gratitude blog to help me appreciate the good stuff in life. But it seems to be more a reflection on those moments of insight that descend when you least expect them. A blog about moments.
That's fine, things have a way of finding their own form.
But for today, I'm going to force it's hand and write down some things I'm grateful for. This week has been tough but there have still been such good things in it.
First. My sweet daughters. I am inside out with gratitude for their every breath. Every day. Nothing is too hard to bear just as long as they are ok. My heart aches with what I feel for them. I am deeply grateful with every molecule of my body for every living molecule of theirs.
The wonderful comfort of a flickering warm open fire. We humans are deeply drawn to it and it is heartwarming indeed.
Meaningful food - the delicious chai I've just made. Home made chocolate cake. Hot coffee. Toast and marmalade. Fresh salads. Ahhhh blessings indeed.
The Alpaca yarn I'm knitting a new baby cardi with - feather soft. Aqua blue. Heaven.
The sea, the ocean, the wide deep salty pools of the Welsh coast. I will always love them.
Art - currently deeply inspired by Louis Bourgeois. What a woman.
Meditation - what an awesome tool, why do I always put it off when it does me so much healthful good.
Toasty socks, fresh tea, clean jeans, white t-shirts, peacocks and fabulous feathers, books of wisdom and knitting, snuggly cashmere cardigans, documentaries, naps, sparkles, shawls/wraps and handknitted blankets from friends. Photography. Clearing out cosy minimalist spaces, hot showers, sunshine on water, organic healthful skin products, massage, sleep on fluffy pillows, connections with new people, communities and social media. Contact. My amazing and awesomely inspiring friends. The cleanliness of a vegetarian diet.
This is my deliciousness this week. Thank you to whome it may concern. I have been blessed this week and I am grateful. xxx

Going with the Programme

I've never been able to stick to plans. Even growing up I was incapable of following instructions and felt compelled to always invent new ways of doing things. This is both a creative blessing but also something of a curse because some essential rebelliousness within me, some fiercely independant core is always vigilant lest I fall asleep at the wheel and give someone else the controls. It just won't allow me to draw within the lines. The up side is that this brings me energy and an urge to always invent but you know, it's exhausting, it wears me out, it's often unnecessary and sometimes, just sometimes, going with a plan, a pre-determined path and someone else's ideas is just fine. It's a struggle to let go but when I do, it's blissful.

This is the joy of the craft kit. I'm still savouring my fair isle arm warmers and although it's not sold as a kit I'm following the pattern to the letter with the precisely specified yarn and needles. My mind is eased by the lack of decision making. I give my trust to the designer of these wonderful objects and my tangled mind breathes a sigh of relief. The pressure is off.

Learning to paint by numbers took me 37 years to discover and the realization that there is something profound in trusting the knowledge of others came to me as an insight on Galapagos.

Eco-tourism permits require strict regulation of visitors to minimise the environmental impact. There's no off-roading here or inventing your own itinerary. As I was chaperoned around an island covered in nesting boobies, iguanas and sea lions I recall the clear and profound moment I stopped fighting. I relented and let the guides decide how long I was allowed to linger (I love spending time to suck the marrow out of experiences) but I discovered the time was just perfectly enough because it focused and opened my mind to relishing the moments I had and it was the imperfection of the moment that made it all the more vivid. I went with the programme and the programme was good.

It's that classic truth that life happens whilst you're making other plans. Trying too hard and reinventing the wheel every moment can prevent you from being in the present. Perhaps it's all just ego. Whilst it brings me original gifts, I often think I'm missing something obvious - that opening and letting go bring rewards. That rather than losing myself by submitting to someone else's view of the world, I release energy, relax entangled thinking and experience the joy of the present through moments of trust. You could call it faith. When icon painters copy their old masters they feel they find contact with the painter of the past through copying their brush strokes and physical style. Their spiritual vibration is passed on through these bodily traces - the way they made their marks and laid down paint, with vigour or gentleness. The student almost channels them like the way you can feel people if you copy their handwriting, it helps you gain insight into them if you listen carefully to the way it makes your body move. Perhaps the same is true for knitters. So here's to knit kits and the gifts they bring and to the melding of creative minds between those who lead and those who follow and the deep peace it can bring to just go with the programme and allow someone else to take the creative strain for a little while.

My Knitweek

I've had a wonderfully woolly week.  I'm feeling inspired and appetized by new stash full of promise and old projects picked up afresh. I lost my knitting mojo this year because I told myself I had to finish all the stale old projects I had lying around. My knitting duly ground to a halt as my will failed me - these projects were lying around for a reason. Eventually I realised life's too short to finish an oversized cardigan that I've run out of yarn for, or a disappointing shrug that I'm only finishing because it's cashmere or a half finished blanket that's too fiddley to be fun. So I took stock and decided it was out with the old and in with some new....

My knit week started with a pom pom pixie hat from 'Knitted Nursery'. My little Pea looks so squidgable in it. She has a cold poor squee thing. It's Debbie Bliss Andes wool and it's soooooo soft and perfect to keep her wee little head warm.
Rav link to the pattern here:-
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pom-pom-pixie-hat


I've been working on my collection of Tubeys - Tube gloves featuring different colourwork designs.
Here's a simple starter Fair Isle project called 'Heartstrings' - strings of easy and satisfying hearts that knit up superquickly (especially with 25cm circulars - no faffing with double-pointeds necessary these days).
They were knitted by the sea. Pattern coming soon.



Other knits still in progress include these Fair Isle armwarmers which I am SO enjoying. They have been accompanying my enjoyable journey through watching 'Breaking bad' and are now coming out the other side. I find them just so exquisitely delicious that I think they might have been designed just for me. Box set knitting is such a treat.

And finally, if all that wasn't good enough - I've been investing in kit - fabulous knit pro carbon fibre Karbonz - just lush!

 Happy knitweek folks! Hope you are fortunate enough to indulge your needles freely this week and here's some knit-listening inspiration:-

Talks from Aloka - an enlightened buddhist which, combined with meditative knitting, will sort your head out entirely. http://dharmamind.podbean.com/

Sending Love xxx

Online Inspiration for today: Dressing with delicacy, deliberateness and soul - Elizabeth from Squam artworkshops.

 Delicate feathery knitting in soft, loose, luxury. Thinking of an Alpaca shawl for the sheer sensuousness of the two years it would probably take me to make it.

 Social Breakfasts: getting out early in the crisp air to meet people for a wicked start to the day. So grown up.

 Building my own small house. So want to. Where to begin?