"These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life." – Susie, page 320.
Heavy, beautiful, scary, and moving story of a 14 year old Susie Salmon, her violent murder and her persective from heaven of how her family deals with their grief.
My winter addiction has been knitting for a while now. I like to do it while watching movies. It's easy to do. I mostly listen, with brief glances that let me follow along just fine. Then I got tired of watching so many movies and realized it had been too long since I read a book. Books on CD, placed on my ipod have been magical. I get to listen while I clean, while I walk (I have walked miles around Bainbridge and Seattle just listening), while I knit. I am loving it. My imagination gets to be tickled by the pictures I create in my mind while I listen. It's more slow-paced than a movie, which is welcomed. I tend to internalize movies and they stress me out too much. Not to mention eveyone loves to be told a story. Storytelling goes back forever...long before movies and books. Of course, the people narrating the stories is very important. Noone wants to listen to some dull, monotone voice tell a story. Well, I have been lucky so far. My knitting ordinary things like hats and scarves and mittens has moved into a love of felting, or more correctly, fulling (knitting something huge and putting it in hot water and agitating it to shrink to the perfect size--or in some cases a very abnormal size, depending on success).
The Lovely Bones accompanied me through the creation of this awesome felted bag.
Here it is huge and funny looking. I wore it to work and got some "...uh, thats a nice bag Maddi, its a little big, but very nice.."
And here it is in a normal usable, won't-drag-on-the-ground-if-I-put-anything-in-it size.
I had every intention of making that cool branch button, but got lazy when the knit store sold it for 3 dollars.
After Susie Salmon and her Lovely Bones, I decided to move into more fantasy and magic. Not so heart heavy listening. Another friend wold me about The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett. Sounds silly right?
Totally Silly!!! Laugh out loud silly. Will leave you saying things like Ahhhhh, wailey, wailey, wailey. Thanks Sarah G! It's about a young girl, Tiffany, who finds herself training to become a witch. The Queen of the Elves (not a nice queen) has attempted to invade Tiffany's world by stealing children and infesting dreams. With the help of the Wee Free Men, or the Nac Mac Feegle (very little men with thick Scottish Gaelic speech whose love in life is "stealin', fightin', and drinkin'"), 9-year-old Tiffany Aching finds out that her grandmother (Granny Aching, the shepardess who lived and worked in the hills with her two sheep dogs Thunder and Lightening) used to be the witch of the Chalklands, and that she has inherited the trade. When her baby brother is stolen, Tiffany, with the help of the Nac Mac Feegle enter the elves' world to steal him back.
This story led me through the creation of these awsome Fibertrends Felted clogs. Here they are pre-felt.
So, remember whats supposed to happen when you felt? Things are supposed to shrink down to the perfect size. Ahhh, well, not always. These things just wouldn't shrink any more than this:
After ALOT of time online trying to figure out what to do, how I could fix these ridiculously big slippers, I went to the knit store for guidance. Turns out the problem had to do with weight. I used a great New Zealand wool I had a bunch of from an old project that was about 200 grams. The pattern called for doubling up your yarn. Trouble was, that I neglected to consider, the yarn it calls for was about 100 grams. I followed the pattern and doubled my yarn, which basically doubled the weight/thickness of the slipper. When I felted, they were so thick, they had no room to shrink. So, I have these slippers that wouldn't fit anyone except a clown.
I bought new yarn and am in the process of making new slippers. My poor feet have longed for these slippers all winter. Just went to library and picked up the Lord of the Rings, which I have never read. Very excited to give it a listen. They are my favorite movies so I will enjoy the expansion of the story.
More to come when the slippers are done.
