Golden Gate
I think this might be my favorite sweater of all the ones I've got:
It's Starmore's "Golden Gate," Pacific Coast Highway (Unicorn Books and Crafts, 1997). One could make it in any color, but brick red helps out the bridge illusion:
The pattern calls for Starmore's "Bainin." Yeah, right. Like THAT'S gonna happen. I believe I made mine in Dale's "Freestyle" -- I like the feel of it, and it holds stitches well. Good definition. And you'd HATE to lose definition on this pattern.
So. I like it because it evokes the Golden Gate, and I like the color, and it's very comfortable, and it's impressive. A difficult pattern, in that it requires twisting of stitches on the wrong side as well as the right, and you can't see what you're doing so well. That kind of thing takes me a while to get through.
"Golden Gate" got finished last year, but I really have been knitting lately, no kidding -- am done with my leper bandages (for which I'm grateful, as they are BORING as all get-out), and am whipping through a pair of socks:
I'll go for months without making socks, and then all of a sudden do some -- they're so mindless and quick -- I'm using, as I usually do, some Brunswick sock leaflet from what appears to be the 60's. No frills. Socks in 2 sizes, 2 styles. Oh, I see that there's an argyle pattern too. Yeah, well, I don't use it. I just whip out socks.
I do have, stashed away, the materials for a pair of Jean Newsted's lovely "Pearls of Wisdom" socks, with the last stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem to his socks on them in stranded knitting -- the pattern I've got's in Socks, Socks, Socks, edited by Elaine Rowley (XRX Books, 1999). I'll get to them someday, but I'm not holding my breath, and you shouldn't either, as that were foolish.
But here, in case you haven't run across it someplace else, is Robert Bly's translation of the poem:
Ode to my Socks
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheep-herder's hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
seablue, 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.
It's Starmore's "Golden Gate," Pacific Coast Highway (Unicorn Books and Crafts, 1997). One could make it in any color, but brick red helps out the bridge illusion:
The pattern calls for Starmore's "Bainin." Yeah, right. Like THAT'S gonna happen. I believe I made mine in Dale's "Freestyle" -- I like the feel of it, and it holds stitches well. Good definition. And you'd HATE to lose definition on this pattern.
So. I like it because it evokes the Golden Gate, and I like the color, and it's very comfortable, and it's impressive. A difficult pattern, in that it requires twisting of stitches on the wrong side as well as the right, and you can't see what you're doing so well. That kind of thing takes me a while to get through.
"Golden Gate" got finished last year, but I really have been knitting lately, no kidding -- am done with my leper bandages (for which I'm grateful, as they are BORING as all get-out), and am whipping through a pair of socks:
I'll go for months without making socks, and then all of a sudden do some -- they're so mindless and quick -- I'm using, as I usually do, some Brunswick sock leaflet from what appears to be the 60's. No frills. Socks in 2 sizes, 2 styles. Oh, I see that there's an argyle pattern too. Yeah, well, I don't use it. I just whip out socks.
I do have, stashed away, the materials for a pair of Jean Newsted's lovely "Pearls of Wisdom" socks, with the last stanza from Pablo Neruda's poem to his socks on them in stranded knitting -- the pattern I've got's in Socks, Socks, Socks, edited by Elaine Rowley (XRX Books, 1999). I'll get to them someday, but I'm not holding my breath, and you shouldn't either, as that were foolish.
But here, in case you haven't run across it someplace else, is Robert Bly's translation of the poem:
Ode to my Socks
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheep-herder's hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
seablue, 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.
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