Handwork – Page 15 – Deborah Makarios

March 26, 2019

I’m A Gnu

I’m knitting socks at the moment, out of a single ball of yarn – knitting the ball at both ends, as one might say. To avoid the awkwardness of having one short sock and one long one, I have both socks underway simultaneously – first foot, second foot, second leg, first leg. Unequal sockage duly avoided.

What I have failed to avoid, however, are the strains of The S-Song of the S-Second S-Sock, floating through my mind. And since that song is set to the tune of The Gnu by Flanders & Swann, I have found myself proclaiming at intervals that I’m a gnu.

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March 12, 2019

Working Through It

Once upon a time there was a woman called Anna Margaretta Brereton, and she had ten children.
One by one, five of her children died. After the loss of her fifth child, she withdrew to her chamber and began to sew. She cut, she basted, she pieced, she appliquéd, she embroidered.
She hand-sewed not only a full, sweeping bedspread for a four-poster bed, but all the drapes and hangings to go with it.

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February 23, 2019

Aaaand this is why GAUGE is a thing.

There is a category on this blog marked Current Obsession. It is there for a reason. Generally my current obsession is either worked off in library books, or in handwork – the DPN/hook case, for example, or the Dishonour Cow. (Sometimes it is worked off in books about handwork.)

Frequently, however, the more hands-on obsessions are unwise to pursue, or at the very least imprudent, and this is why I use the Caped Gooseberry as a Sensible Sounding Board, because he doesn’t fall under the enchantment that the putative project projects on to me (or that the putative projects project on to me, if plural).

On the other hand, I can be very persuasive when in the grip of an obsession. Continue & Comment