Knervous Hands

So I’m in the ‘dressing room’ Sunday night, waiting for my turn onstage at my bellydance student recital with my classmates, all dolled up and ready to go, with the familiar feeling that my diaphragm is shrinking slowly. I whip out the knitting to give my hands something to do other than flitting about checking pins and fluffing hair for the umpteenth time; one would think I’d pulled a live chicken out of my bag and begun trying to French braid its feathers. I was quick to say that it was only a simple pattern (the flower facecloth) using the most basic stitch, something I could do without paying much attention/screwing up. This began an enlightening get-to-know-you conversation; one of the girls is an embroiderer (if that is a word), although she says she has not picked up a needle in several years, when she was at home in Bulgaria. I estimate her to be in her early twenties! She has completed, among other things, a Mona Lisa and “The Secret Dinner” – a direct translation from the Bulgarian for The Last Supper (love it!) – which took her a year and a half to finish. She says they were ‘picture-size’ which we all took to mean average size of a painting on a wall. Wow.

On the subject of less common fibre pursuits, I have taken up drop spindling and the basics seem to have come naturally. My first yarns are quite rough and inconsistent in thickness, but show marked improvement with each tiny skein. Last week I finished spindling some very pretty merino/silk confection in brilliant blues and lavenders and have only to let it bloom underwater and wind it. I quite liked it as a single, and now that I've plied it, the flaws are more apparent. Also it is not as soft spun as it was as roving, so I am hoping it may improve after a quick soak. I plan to knit some little trifle for my mother as part of her birthday present; it will be the first time since I was a child that I have put something together for her quite like this…

Sadly I am behind in my photos and have none to accompany today’s subject matter.
I do have photos from last week’s subjects though. Behold the booty from San Francisco!

Scored from the sale room: The red-copper-gold yarn on the left is Alfabeto (76% silk, 19% superkid mohair, 5% wool), originally 6 balls (one has been given as a gift). On the right, the golden pink yarn is Kyoto (69% silk, 25% superkid mohair, 6% extrafine wool), as is its neighbour, the bronzy-olive. The centre yarn is the aptly named Inskein Asylum (Nylon paper, nylon – no percentages listed on tag), and there are 1300 yards of the stuff. Check out the closeup, if the photo is not too crap…
Also purchased after much deliberation (and desire for something handpainted from this store), perched atop the Inskein Asylum is the handpainted Rosetta (100% cotton), which is flat and has a beautiful colouring reminiscent of Rococo art. No idea what to make with this…suggestions welcome. And oh, yes, a set of Brittany dpns, nice and short for socks.

Here also is a photo of one of the Ugg booties in the iris patch in my front yard. Both sets of booties, I hear, are much appreciated by their small recipients.

Today's Earworm: Awedouny, by Amr Diab (practice to a song a hundred times...).