Filed under: Life in general
Soon it will be 1 year since my Grandmother died. She was 84 and living by herself in a remote village in hills of western Bosnia. Whenever I think about a peaceful place to visit or a place that’s sincere, close to nature, a place of simple love, I think of that particular house, suited in the middle of an old orchard of plum trees. The grass growing beneath them is so soft and tender having been ‘brazed’ by generations of sheep year after year. The smell of wild herbs fill the air.
Of course, I am more than aware that living there is far away from romantic images of being close to nature that many people have in their heads nowdays. She didn’t have runing water in the house – she had to get it from the well every day. All the water – for drinking, cooking, washing dishes, cleaning the floor, washing her clothes, personal hygiene. She had to get up every day to light the fire in the stove to warm the house up and cook the water for coffe. Sometimes (qute often, probably), she even had to chop the wood for the fire. In the snow. In the rain. In the freezing cold. In the evening after a very long hot day of working in the field.
That’s why I feel such respect for her and smetimes even some kind of desire for a simpler life, not cluttered with things that have to be changed, replaced, thrown out or otherwise become obsolete. Her kitchen is a symbol of that desire for me. Here she made some of the best meals that I have tasted (and surely, some of my relatives too). Here is where she cooked vegetables which were grown by her hands.
Whenever I look at my life now I try to focus on the important things. How to reach them and how to keep them. Health, satisfaction, genuine interest for other people. Also fear. I cannot but think about how many things are we preoccupied with – picking up the right cups, wishing for that cappuchino machine, being sad for not getting the right shade of the mixer on the sale… All so important in the moment. And unimportant in the long term perspective. Long time ago I read a very good post on ‘All the dumb things’ that describes almost exactly my feelings regarding the important stuff in our lives.
Think about your kitchen.
What do you do there and how long will your doing it take you? Until you are 84? I hope so.
Cupoard in my grandmothers house
First of all, thank you for all the sweet comments on Vapour. I promise I’ll take a photo of me wearing it and post it here – soon! Now, we have finally received some sunshine and this is good news for a photo session ;)
I want to start another knitting project. You remember I said I’d knit Happy Hen Sweater for Tamara? I still like that pattern and I so much want to knit it, but… I checked her clothes and she’s got so many sweaters, cardigans and stuff she really doesn’t need another one at least until next autumn. Everybody is buying her clothes – my mum, sister, aunt, friends and relatives… A very good friend of mine said to me that ‘… it can happen that your child is rearly dressed the way YOU like it…’ and now I see what an excellent point she made. Some of the clothes we get I like, some not so much – but what am I supposed to do – throw them away just so I can buy new? That, surely I am not going to do.
So today I wanted to start a new project. No idea what it’d be. I just wanted to cast on something. So, I checked my stash, took out varigated pink St.George and cast on.
And than I got a flashback of -not so few- conversations with my mother. They went something like this:
“Ohhh, that’s nice! What is it?”
“Uhhhmmmm. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be a vest.”
“I like the color. Whom are you kniting it for?”
“Uhmmmm. I don’t know… It looks to small for me. Maybe for your sister?”
“Does she like it?”
“Stop being so annoying. I’m just knitting.”
It all makes sense now. Sometimes. ;)
Women - viscious circle
Filed under: Life in general | Tags: Kim Hargraves, knit, simple, Vapour, vest
Front / back detail of Vapour
I am finally done with Vapour. This was a very simple and quick knit, it must have taken 3 – 4 evenings to finnish. However, this amount of knitting time stretched through a period of at least three weeks.
Rolling neckline
I am sure you are familiar with excitement over the new project and than as you move on the speed and enthusiasm just vanish somehow. At the end of (most of) my knitting projects I have to force myself to finnish the thing or it may end abandoned in a dark corner of my warderobe. I guess this is why some knitters do more projects at the same time. This is not for me. I’d probably end with a lot of 7/8 done stuff. I don’t even dare to try this tactics – no, I’d rather force myself to finish each item and than move on to another one.
Sleeve (?) line
So, here’s Vapour. It looks nice, I think. As my husband commented – it’s like one of those things I buy when Iam desperate and just want to buy something to wear and don’t consider the colour, the shape, nor the size (in any other way women do) - I just want to get done with it.
Vapour - totally done :)
But, it’s warm and universal and that means, I’ll probably even wear it sometimes. Typical. Ahhhh – I am more than 30 and still cannot buy myslef decent clothes… Or knit clothes for myself for that matter.
But that’s a whole other story.
P.S. All photos were taken by Grasswire.
