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Pillow Talk • Sock Love • I Heart Kangaroo Dyer

I am (the holiday is hindering!) working on the third pillow colorway.  I have heard from quite a few readers about my pillow backs.  I haven’t started sampling yet – see above – but I will listen to group wisdom and try to use some restraint.  I will not, however, try to restrain the generosity of my beloved friend Gail Callahan, aka, the Kangaroo Dyer, who has offered not ONE but TWO skeins of her wonderful yarn to be personally selected from her website by the winner!!! Check out some of the delights you will have to choose from at: http://www.kangaroodyer.com/our_products/yarns.html

In addition to the to-dye-for (just can’t resist!) yarn, Gail has offered to give her ColorGrid to the winner of the 125th comment drawing.  If you haven’t come across it, this grid is an ingenious tool that Gail developed to help choose colors. It is invaluable for textile projects, painting a room, arranging flowers . . . or choosing colors for your tattoo! Check it out:

Finally I want to leave you with a favorite poem of mine by Pablo Neruda that I came across while nudging my 12-year-old to get to work on his school project on Chile (Neruda is a Chilean poet)  It is perfect for this time of year and it is perfect to read while wearing socks from Keldaby Farm . . .the BEST socks in the world.

Mara Mori brought me

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Pablo Neruda

 

 

 

 

 

COMMENTS
  • November 19, 2012
    reply

    Carolyn

    I love the color interactions on these pillows–also you’ve gotta love a poem about not only socks but also about resisting the temptation to put away precious things rather than using them…

    Hope you enjoy the holiday!

  • November 20, 2012
    reply

    Elisabeth Hill

    My favorite notion too. I would much rather have a worn-out, well-loved, used and remembered item than a pristine, saved-for-a-special occasion item. I had a good lesson in this from my Grandmother who was a product of the hard times of the Depression and 2 World Wars. She was an extremely fastidious woman who never left the house without white gloves, a hat and a girdle. Over the years one of the favorite gifts to give her at holidays, etc. were new, very nice gloves particularly because we noticed that she most often wore a slightly threadbare pair. She died at 93 with almost 2 dozen very nice pairs of white gloves that she was “saving for nice” in her dresser drawer.

  • November 20, 2012
    reply

    I love the little poem on socks and saving precious things. Before my mother passed away 16 years ago, she gave me a beautiful piece of glen plaid fabric, at least 10 yards. It is tucked away as she had also tucked it away. After reading about the socks, I’m inspired to cut into it this week. I will let you know.

  • November 20, 2012
    reply

    Elisabeth Hill

    Thanks Loretta – that thought makes me really happy. I would love to see what you do with it. As SpongeBob Squarepants would say, “love in every stitch.”

  • November 20, 2012
    reply

    cate markey

    Thank you for the lovely Neruda poem , and the link to article on calming crafts. I was fascinated by the neural work in recent Lia Cook, Craft in America. Those lines full of color remind me of your warps. The DDW is so wonderful. I lost by RSS feed links from your old site – so I will create new connections brousing it anew.

    • November 21, 2012
      reply

      Elisabeth Hill

      Thanks Cate. I will have to see the Craft in America piece on Lia Cook. Thanks for the tip.

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