random blogging

I spent the past two Sunday nights watching Tess of the D'Ubervilles on PBS Masterpiece Theatre. It was pretty sad, and made me glad to live in a time when women are treated more equal to men and have more say in their own lives and homes. It was very well done, though, and I am positively enchanted with Tess' shawl that she wears throughout the movie. It is a simple garter stitch brown wool shawl and I really love the way they wrap her in it for this movie. I can't seem to find a decent picture, but if you go on the wedsite you can see a not-so-great picture. I am attending a knitting retreat in the first weekend of February, and I am determined to find a good project to take along. This may fit the bill, I am going to dig around and see if I can find a pattern that would make a duplicate. I somehow doubt that I could contact the Emmy winning costume designer, James Keast, for his pattern...

Also, I found two new knitting books at the library last week, one called Woolbur, about a sheep that refuses to follow his herd, and Knitalong, which has a lot of cool patterns for knitalongs. One in particular that I love is the Pillow of Sei Shonagon. I think it is beautiful, but I wonder what quick work my kids would make of tearing that ribbon out of it. Maybe it would be a good project for a hope-chest for a daughter. Do people even do such things as hope-chests any more? I'll have to check Ravelry to see who is making that pillow, and for what.

One other thing that might interest some budding etymologist out there; This weekend, our family attended a fly-fishing show in Denver, and there was a woman there selling Caddisfly made jewelry. She collects the caddisfly puppa, then gives them gems and gold to build their cases, she then makes it into unique jewlery. What a novel idea! The jewelry can be seen on her website: http://www.wildscapes.com/, and if you want to know more about caddisflies, look here. The cases are made in stage three of the life-cycle. She was so kind, she gave each of the kids a necklace, and me a zipper pull.

How about a picture to make you smile?

Mimi dresses herself these days...