I’m trying to set aside a good portion of my weekends home to just sleep and rest – this weekend I caught up on a lot of ZZZ’s and it felt wonderful!
On Saturday I had two private lessons, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. Both were just wonderful – great students, great conversation and many skills were honed and acquired. My afternoon student brought her daughter and Hannah had some practice as a jr. baby sitter, watching the 4-year old and playing with her while mom had a lesson. Then I gave the daughter a brief lesson – she’s really quite good and makes me think of Hannah at that age! She definitely got the concept of making a knit stitch, and with every row her skills grew exponentially.
Then I took the kids to see Narnia on Saturday evening. I am unfamiliar with the books – my only connection with the series was the BBC version made in the 80’s (which I enjoyed, but was a bit confused by…)
I had heard all of the buzz that this was really a Christian tract masquerading as a kid’s book, but I have great respect for CS Lewis, and that just seemed too obvious for his style.
I enjoyed the movie immensely! Of course there are such clear connections between Aslan and Christ – but you find that all over literature (and art, and music) so I don’t really see what the big deal is! The Myth of Jesus (myth in the larger sense – as a story which tells a truth too large to be told in concrete, factual terms) is a very compelling story – and in every culture there is some kind of death and rebirth myth. I thought it was handled quite beautifully.
The only complaint I would have about the movie was that some of the makeup looked a little stagey, but that’s really very minor. It was also a little more violent and scary than I’d expected, and there were some younger kids in the audience (4 – 6 year olds) who were whimpering and really wanted to go during the scary wolf scenes. The child actors were just terrific, the costumes were lovely (I adored Lucy’s cardigan!) and the pace of the film was excellent for adults and for kids. This is a film that DESERVES to be #1 in the box office. Now if we can get a sitter, Gerry and I are dying to see Syriana.
Knitting
I spent my knitting time this weekend finishing up what I consider the last project for the men who knit book – a cabled grey vest with a matching doggie sweater (the sample size is suitable for a dachshund – now I have to track one down so I can get a photo before I send this off to the publisher!) I also did some finishing work on a few other sweaters which arrived – beautiful stuff – an amazing job by Laura in Long Island and a very lovely, simple dropped shoulder sweater arrived in two versions – one by Kenny and one by Drew, both in Houston! I have one more version of this same sweater being worked up and my hope is that all three will be together on the same page in the book – showing how one sweater can be transformed by using different colors and weights of yarn.
I had run up to White Plains this past week to pick up some stuff, and while there I stopped in to Art Yarns for a wonderful lunch with Iris and to try some of their new mohair. I’m very excited to play around with it and get some good swatches worked up – it’s really lovely stuff, and so subtly dyed that I’m psyched to see how it looks worked up in lace, cables and colorwork patterns! I was also able to see – in person – one of my new designs. It’s a mitered colorwork jacket, and it’s quite mathmatical. I’d worked up the pattern and sent it to Iris, she sent it to a knitter who worked it up and sent it back to her. Kind of scary because, truly, I had no idea how this would work up. It’s very nice, and I’m VERY relieved! I took it back to make a change to the front edging (I decided I didn’t like the original colors I’d chosen…) and to see if I could marry some of the colors used in the coat in a more harmonious manner with judicious duplicate stitch. When I get more work on it finished I’ll post some photos.
Crochet
The Crochet Calendar’s been given short shrift (is that a word?) but I’m trying to make it up by cataloging the many lovely designs that have been submitted to me – arranging them and editing the patterns. It is a HUGE job, but having done it once I have a better handle of where I need to put my time, and how to do it so that I can be as efficient as possible. If you’ve contributed and haven’t heard from me, fear not! I am getting back to everyone, one by one, more slowly than I would like!