Things to do on holiday...

Well, yes, I know it's been ages, as usual, but I do have a day job these days. Except when I'm on vacation. Then it's time to break out the "things I've been putting off" list and take a nap. Or, you know, live a little 'cause I'm in New York and I'd better act like it. So...what does one do on holiday, you ask? Prepare the lists (and the debates on proper spacing and the Oxford comma), grab a caffeinated beverage (hey, it's not 5 o'clock here for another 10 minutes!) and your favorite knitting needles, and hop on board!

1. Bum around Central Park with a cupcake.

Can't have mine, though. These babies are from the Sprinkles cupcake ATM (that's right, they dispense these things like the friggin' Jetsons) at 61st and Lex. And in time for Passover, they've got these gorgeous, rich, dense, utterly sinful (but possibly kosher?) flourless chocolate guys, complete with fondant Star of David. And when you're already halfway there, why not wander west a couple of avenues, hit up the park, listen to a jazz band, absorb a little Vitamin D, and then stop by the Strand kiosk and blow 10 bucks on half-price paperbacks on the way out? I know that's how I like to spend a sunny Monday afternoon in my dreams.


2. Troubleshoot washcloth patterns.

Have another wedding to knit for? Can't come up with ideas? Really just want to play around with LOTR motifs and see what emerges? I'd done a version of these for Comrade's wedding a couple years back, but couldn't be bothered to transcribe the charts, so this time I thought I'd try retracing my steps and seeing what comes out. So far the Tree of Gondor (the Aragorn part) is officially spreadsheet charted. Elven Leaf (Arwen) is still in paper form, but at least I know what to type into Open Office Calc when the time comes. Ravelry patterns to come...eventually...

3. File your taxes. Uuuuugggggggghhhhh!

4. Take the in-training (RISE) exam for your residency program. Sort of. We're allowed to take these at home (yeah, I know, WTF mate???), so guess who took hers with several cups of tea and while singing Regina Spektor songs and disturbing the neighbors?

5. Bake for Passover.
When Comrade asked me to bring dessert to Seder, I jumped at the opportunity (nothing says "I love you" like inflicting sugar and calories on one's friends and family, after all). And then I realized exactly how restrictive the no-flour, no-leavening, how-kosher-does-this-actually-have-to-be rules can get. Hazelnut torte (not shown here 'cause I forgot to take pictures), drawn from someone's granny's recipe, turned out a success, but oy vey the hazelnut flour costs an arm and a leg! We also won't mention the milk in the semisweet chocolate, right? Damn you, Hershey!

So for round 2, i.e. baking for my classmates who are not on holiday at the moment, I drew inspiration from Monday's cupcake adventure and went flourless chocolate. The lift in flourless desserts, according to the Food Network, comes from the eggs, usually separated and lightly beaten. Carefully. Underbeat and the thing doesn't rise at all (that's what she said). Overbeat and it rises like crazy in the oven, only to fall flat before its time (oh dear, that's what she said). Fantastic, I love beating eggs (no, seriously, there's something weirdly therapeutic about whipping a batch of yolks and whites into fluffy creamy shape, I admit I have a problem)! So imagine my surprise and dismay when none of the recipes I subsequently click on mentions separating the eggs! "Fuck it," she says, and decides to improvise.

The recipe on which my cupcakes are based can be found here. My version is this:
4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
pinch of (kosher) salt
8 oz semisweet chocolate chips/chunks/chopped up bar
1 stick butter, chopped
cocoa powder for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a 12-muffin tin with muffin/cupcake papers.
2. Beat egg yolks, sugar, and salt together until pale and creamy.
3. Melt chocolate and butter over a saucepan/double boiler.
4. Gently fold chocolate mixture into yolk mixture until combined.
5. Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks. Gently fold into chocolate and egg yolk mixture until combined.
6. Pour into muffin cups and bake for approximately 30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean or you get tired of waiting and are willing to eat a little goo.
7. Allow to cool, and dust tops with cocoa powder.
Makes 12 cupcakes...give or take a mutant screw-up or two.

By the way, if anyone's paying attention, your resultant batter is...chocolate mousse. I'd eat that shit raw. Have done so by the teacup-full, in fact. Any recipe that starts with "make a chocolate mousse then stick that fucker in the oven" is a winner in my book. And the souffle-cakes that end up coming out of the oven? Horrific to transport (see dime bags pictured here and imagine the slightly sat-upon end products of subway travel), but better than sex. Not too sweet, airy on top, decadent on the bottom. I should replenish my whiskey supply and make some...additions. But only for off-hours and not during religious holidays.

6. Pet yarn.

I have lived in New York for almost 10 months and just set foot in Purl Soho. I am a disgrace. But making up for lost time, apparently I stumbled in just in time to locate their 40% off table. Now, any local yarn shop worth its salt is full of beautiful top-tier yarns arranged by color and weight, helpful staff, and quirky customers. Not every local yarn shop causes me to drop over 40 bucks on positively scrumptious yarn on my first visit. But there was this...this single 300-ish yard skein of mohair-silk deliciousness the exact color and texture of fresh-spun cotton candy. I didn't--and don't--have a clue what to make with it. Something floaty and girly, yes (do I even do floaty and girly???). Well, no, what I really wanted to do was take it home and stash it and pull it out when I'm feeling blue and pet it.

But to make it feel less lonely, I purchased a couple of skeins of 100% merino in a shade of peacock that might well be a disaster with my skin tone but will look gorgeous on probably everybody else in existence. It will become some sort of upper body covering. Cowl or hood or shawl or something. I honestly haven't thought beyond "I love that color," "Oh, how soft it is" and "40% off!"

Which is probably about what Raiden thought (minus the 40% off bit) when I opened my bag of goodies. Better that than "Mommy, what the hell have you been doing cozying up with a large black poodle on your trip to Soho???" But we won't speak of that.

Something About a Skirt

Well, hello there!  It's been a while.  (Cue Barenaked Ladies' "One Week"?  My brain comes with its own soundtrack.)  That said, it's time for another edition of weekend knitting adventures, or misadventures as the case may be.  Because I have no other choice.  You see, I'm two days out from Happy Hour with my classmates/co-residents, and still "enjoying" the after-effects of a large sangria.  I suspect tequila was involved.

c.f. Douglas Adams' "My Favourite Tipples" if you really want a fun run-down of alcoholic beverages, but suffice it to say tequila and I don't get along and never have.  I remember tequila from my foreign study days in France when I was nineteen.  "Remember" being the operative word.  I have never made it to floor.  Unless you count giant margarita of doom (from the same restaurant, now I think of it) which had some other interesting players hiding in the mix.  No, tequila is the supernatural bitch of the liquor world, but instead of making me mystical (or unconscious), it creates the unfortunate combo of just uninhibited enough to act on regrettable impulses and just cogent enough to regret those actions.  Sometimes immediately.  And reach for other tipples to drown my guilt.

My mixer of choice is rum.  Rum is basically fermented sugar.  Coke is basically colored corn syrup.  The result is a sugar high that renders me incapable of acting older than about five.  Which is all right, I guess, if you're into birthday cakes and pin the tail on the donkey?

Vodka is a spirit.  Vodka mixes in everything.  I have nothing against vodka, but it's like the invisible robot server that disappears into an alcove unless you want to order something.  You can't have a proper conversation with it unless you really really try.  After a lot of vodka.

The less said about gin (and vermouth), the better.

Bourbon is my Southern gal at play.  I can't so much as imagine fruit pies, especially peach, without making for the Maker's Mark.  (Bourbon peach?  Pear "Waldorf"?  Well, I do declare.)  The only problem with bourbon is I can't drink it.  Highballs are tolerable but make me feel like a Steel Magnolias character.  And straight or on the rocks it's like consuming a mine shaft dripping with rain water. Um...yum?

On the opposite end of the whiskey scale is Scotch.  Ah, Scotch.  Smooth single-malts with names invoking peat bogs and Celtic ceremonies and who knows what else.  Scotch reminds me of my favorite ex-boyfriend: smart, complex, gregarious, a born storyteller with an accent equally at home in an old boys' club or a candle-lit bedroom.  Therein lies the problem.  I don't care if the colors do call up kindling or woodsmoke, an old flame is not the ghost you want haunting your liquor dreams.

Beer is fine.  Beer and I are friends.  Bros, if you will.  We don't go deeper than that.

Which is why I usually fall back on my old staple of wine.  Red, white, sangria (hey, the fruit adds antioxidants, amirite?), whatever we got.  I like the swirl of colors in the glass, the ceremony of drinking it, the complex flavorings you flatter yourself you've got the palate to pick out.  The only thing I don't like about wine is that if I don't pace myself judiciously with a glass of water between each trip to the bottle, I will get a migraine.  Immediately.  At least the water keeps me sober enough to knit and stay out of trouble, though, so nobody should complain.

Which brings me, finally, back around to my latest knit-with-a-glass-of-wine project.

This, friends, is Carnaby.  You may find the pattern (from knitty.com) here.  The yarn was a sort-of-birthday present from a classmate who actually had no idea when my birthday was but happened to own two skeins of bright red alpaca that reminded her of me.  Might've been the cherry-red wool coat I tended to sport in early winter before I gave up and went sleeping bag like everybody else.  #%*^ winter!  I'll shave my legs for a sight of greenery and a warm breeze.

In any case, the yarn was duly bestowed with a warning to avoid heavily textured patterns that might overshadow the natural beauty and softness of the alpaca.  But I was scarfed and cowled and hatted out, and I saw this beautiful skirt that called for pure wool, and I couldn't resist.  It even promises to work with the pills that will be forming on my proprioception-challenged bottom.

So far I've only been able to work on it while either nursing a glass of wine or suffering the after-effects of unexpected tequila.  But once anyone I may have offended starts talking to me again (...?), it's anyone's guess whether this gets put on the back burner.  There is also transcribing of washcloths to be done, because I have another wedding to craft for.  No, not my own, thanks.  Can't teach an old maid new tricks.  And seriously, read Douglas Adams.  "The Salmon of Doubt" is hysterically, thought-provokingly funny and doesn't have to try like I do.

Marshmallows and Song

I've been waking up to marshmallows lately.  Well, if by lately I mean the last 3 days.  The inspiration for this has of course been December birthdays.  Not mine, mind, but if you're gonna turn a year older in the bleak midwinter, you might as well do it while inhaling slightly updated childish delights such as marshmallows as a vehicle for hot chocolate.

So when somebody wise (or possibly evil) posted a Smitten Kitchen recipe for homemade cocoa on Facebook, and I stupidly clicked the attached link for springy fluffy marshmallows, and I realized a friend and classmate would be turning 29 (oh, to be 29 again!) in an appropriate time frame to guinea pig said recipes, what else was I supposed to do?  Alas, there are no pictures of any of this stuff in production because (what else?) I cobbled everything together around 9PM on a work night and ain't nobody got time to clean marshmallow goo and chopped semisweet chocolate off hands to grab a camera after a long day at work.  Whether the chocolate mix was a success I cannot answer because I gave it all away.  As for the marshmallows...

One thing I need to remember to put on my wish list: an electric mixer.  Stand mixer would be ideal, but honestly after building up Popeye biceps in my right arm trying to get the sugar mix to turn "white and fluffy and almost tripled in volume" I started to long for my slightly crappy Kalorik multi-purpose that got lost somewhere in my last move.  That said, the 'mallows might've turned out a bit denser because of the hand mixing.  The egg white portion came out lovely and peaky though, 'cause that was easy by comparison.  And the grace note?  (Because I used to be a "singer" and there's always a grace note.)  Um...whiskey.

Why there is a bottle of nice whiskey on the bottom shelf of my fridge is a story for someone else's grandkids.  It's sort of not even my whiskey, unless adverse possession rules get shortened in the case of food products.  But if it's booze and I'm making desserts, the temptation is undeniable.  So remember that line about using your choice of flavorings?  Screw the vanilla, mate.  Reach for the Glenfiddich.

You know you've done a proper job when your friend sniffs the gift bag and breaks into a shit-eating grin.  Because you've just brought booze to work.  Yep.

And now I've got a Ziploc bag of leftover whiskey marshmallows to pop in my (Irish cream flavored) coffee in the mornings.  Which is a dangerous combination, as it makes me prone to nostalgia and poetry.  (It would be songs, but I'll spare you the husky morning voice.)  Which is why I'm leaving off with a poem from my last few months in North Myrtle Beach.  Enjoy while I go lick the marshmallow residue out of my mug.

Wanderlust

I.

It merely is: the call of the morning star

too late or early, empty cracked highway at sunup

and the fear to close your eyes at the bend

for memories lost, or promise of loss to come,

rootless since rooted in all, the unspooling rope

of cosmos and microcosms dangling on a hope,

a dream of undivided attention, a fleeting eternity:

Is that the blank these tires grind, an unbeaten path,

a worn and wearing groove worth longing for?

II.

My favorite cloud is cirrus, wisped harbinger of change,

favorite sound the seashell's roar, a shifting secret

mirrored from nautilus chambers, favorite color

the turning of leaves, taste salted caramel

burnt dregs lingering like the aftermath of passion

so much unrequited, disappointed, bauble trophy

that at its purest could shake the bowers of gods.

I tire of familiarity, once-beloved smug cold embers

that I would, of my own gnarled hands, rekindle

though it be immolation, staring bewildered, silent

forevermore, remains of lifetimes, now as then as always

inert, without even the dream of awakening.

III.

This is not a rejection, love, my polyglot song,

no recrimination but invitation, to you alone,

whose face, not features but essence, remains etched

among those migratory stars I never cease to fly to.

How will you find me? The little dark woman

with untamed hair picking a way through sea-debris,

eyes attuned to the dance of tides, already distant:

the sea, the sky, the morning star, the myriad paths

twining multitudinous that lead from me to you.

Come, my love, the partner in my peregrinations,

let us answer, alone, together, the urgency of universes

forming colliding consuming consigning to gaseous flames

our own desire unslaked, like the draw of twin stars,

gravitational, a transfer not of light but of lighter spirit

that, bigger than we can hold, drags us in its undertow.

The Girl Who Writes

Part two of my saga is not really a part 2.  I just needed an excuse to post a story.  Why, you ask?  Wait, do I know you yet, and/or do you know me?  At the moment I don't have a designated story blog (did I ever have a designated story blog?), seeing as I write them so infrequently as to make it not worth the work of maintaining yet another website thingy.  And so on occasion I post stories and poems here because they take up time that I would otherwise spend knitting.  Or doing legitimate work.  Because independently wealthy is a trait for other people.

In any case, if you do know me, this story is strictly fictional except for the setting.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, etc. etc. you get the drift.  And I will proofread this hashtag before posting this time:

#thegirlwhowrites

Wine Country

It had been too long since she felt a warmth like this. The beginnings of sunburn prickling on her bare shoulders. The first stars igniting over their heads as the Miata jostled its way over the weatherbeaten roads back into town. She ought to feel guilty, spending the day in wine country with a man who wasn't her husband. Instead, for a span of a few stolen hours, she felt free.

Not that he was her type, really. She knew full well what that was: tall, thin, gray-eyed and intellectual. Come to think of it, her husband wasn't her type either. And he hated wine: complained about the sourness and the booziness and couldn't tell a Chardonnay from a Riesling. Jim, on the other hand, was going through one of his phases and threw himself into the excursion with a natural ardor. Her bastard brother. Not by blood, of course, but the sort of fickle, just on the edge between screw-up and success life-lover you shook your head and couldn't help smiling at. The last thing she wanted from him was sex. But as a travel companion, he was ideal.

Neither one could quite remember whose idea it was. Although, “I didn't know there was wine country out here,” she admitted, looking out onto another gray winter day over the slovenly Mississippi. However it was, finally there came that weekend that dawned without a cloud and with that first capricious inkling promise of warmth, and Rob had to work, and next thing they knew they were following country highways into Hermann or Hannibal with the top down. She vaguely wished for a hairband. And a pair of shades. The latter more so as they passed the first party trolley and were promptly mooned.

It was the drive as much as anything, they agreed. God's country. Vast stretches of low-lying farmland you could see a lightning bolt clear on the other side of, and punctuated by short knobbly trees you could just imagine cowering and buckling from the heat of the full summer sun. Desolate as any English moor for all the flatness and promised fruitfulness. Here and there they passed a farmhouse with the paint peeling off in chunks, or a silent group of cows. It was like having Whistler in her brain to provide commentary. That was while sober.

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times,” she quipped as they found themselves in another crowded parking lot with loud music wafting sourly overhead from rented speakers. This time the “estate” grounds were littered with Viking hats. “I won't ask,” she said. “Better not to,” he agreed, turning the key in the ignition.

Then, just as they began to despair, there it sat on the rise of the next hill: quaint, unassuming, unsullied, with nary a trolley in sight. Like a revelation, she thought, and wondered if he thought it too.

And of course, inside, the wine beckoned. Hot and cold on the tongue, lingering on the palate, teasing her memory with not-quite-placeable aromas. He developed a yen for Vignoles. She grew misty-eyed over a tawny port and referenced mead-halls over an oak-matured ice wine. Once the spell was cast, she knew, it would be difficult to undo. She realized she didn't care.

A clatter at the door made them look up from their individual reveries. A shaggy golden retriever, still soaking from a run-in with a hose, dashed in one entrance, through the storefront, and back out the opposite door, followed by a trio of young men in various states of wet formalwear. She watched them and thought vaguely of Whitman's twenty-ninth bather, the young men still handsome with the flush of good health and spirits and someone else's wedding. The proprietor turned up a patrician nose, mortally offended at the intrusion. As for Jim, he laughed and went back to his wine.

They settled on the lawn for a few moments afterward, stretched out in the shade of a venerable oak just getting its leaves back. Her head swam with port and poetry. Not for the first time, she wished she could fly, or at least drift through the cosmos on the perfection of the moment, lie weightless with nothing but the unblemished blue of sky as a mattress and listen to the whispering of the cooling breeze through new leaves.

She knew his thoughts held a different color, that he was aware of the curves of her body through the thin shirt, the heave of her breasts with every half-contented, half-melancholy sigh. But she wasn't her body anymore, more Emerson's transparent eyeball, and the risk to her physical form didn't concern her. Besides, she sort of relished the danger of not knowing whether he had the control today not to do as he wished. He did: she always did bring out a protective impulse as well as the unexpected desire. It was why she trusted him.

The landing was always the hardest part, the slight jerk and thud of re-inhabiting her body, the realization of oak roots digging into her back muscles and the slight dryness to her mouth as the wine dissipated. He waited quietly for her return. “Ready?” he asked when she finally looked up. She nodded, pushing aside the sense of responsibility a little while longer. First she would savor the evening drive.

Alternate scenarios floated through her mind at intervals. What if the car went over a rickety guardrail on a lonely river and her last thought would be of the starry night? Nuit étoilée, her mind filled in automatically, wryly. Or what if she found herself actually attracted to Jim, proposed they run away together and escape the boredom ingrained into her soul by a cold winter and a bland marriage? Would he do it? Sometimes, she thought, watching him drive, his thoughts as occasionally visible as hers, it would be so much easier.

The house was dark as they pulled up. Or course, he'd gone to his sister's, realizing she wasn't home to help ponder the old dilemma of what should they do for dinner. She shrugged, settling the dullness back onto her shoulders like a ratty security blanket. Jim watched her do it, as he had on countless occasions before, and didn't comment. It sat among their many secrets, like wine country. One day, perhaps, it would become a tradition.

The Girl Who Reads

"So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes.  At Cambridge, they had passed each other by in the street.  All those books, those happy or tragic couples they had never met to discuss!  Tristan and Isolde, the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Mr. Knightley and Emma, Venus and Adonis.  Turner and Tallis.  Once, in despair, he referred to Prometheus, chained to a rock, his liver devoured daily by a vulture.  Sometimes she was patient Griselde.  Mention of 'a quiet corner in a library' was a code for sexual ecstasy...She never wrote that she loved him, though she would have if she thought it would get through.  But he knew it."

---Ian McEwan, "Atonement"

Today, Cecilia sweater looks like this:

And I'm re-familiarizing myself with the original novel that inspired the sweater because there's something to be said for text and language that of necessity can't really make the jump to the screen.  Especially for a story about language and storytelling, that can be a little...limiting?  Then take out language altogether (well, unless you count knitting charts and instructions) and you have quite the challenge.  Still, she looks rather more like I intended now that I've revamped the lace pattern.  And I have the added benefit of waxing philosophical on reading and literature.

There's an essay/short story I found online this morning while nursing a coffee (and the after-effects of two espresso martinis from the night before) that stuck with me more than it should have precisely because of its glorious literary snobbery.  The original can be found here.  Don't worry: it ties all my yarns together about as well as my trusty circulars are doing at the moment.  How well that may be is debatable.

The point is I relate more than I really have a right to relate to the "girl who reads" of the title.  I see patterns when I probably shouldn't, empathize more than is strictly good for me, and live vicarious happily ever afters that likely will never exist.  I think I have been in love precisely once with a real flesh and blood human being, precisely because he saw me as the girl who reads...at the time...and wasn't afraid...at the time.  Because he saw my funny voracious little mind with its need for poetry and stories as an asset, something that turned our tawdry little relationship into a LOVE STORY in big city lights.  And like all stories, this one couldn't possibly translate to real life, at least not directly and without losing some of the inherent beautiful textual and contextual complexities.  Sometimes, knitting patterns are so much more satisfying, aren't they?

Still, I think I'm doomed to associate Cecilia sweater, not with my usual thecraftydoctor tagline, but with the slightly ironic hashtag #thegirlwhoreads.  Which means future posts about said pattern will likely feature said hashtag.  Anyone who can relate is also welcome to beg borrow and steal.  It would be...interesting, in any case, to start a trend.

Really glad I wasn't assigned the turkey...

Not that a lot of knitting went into Thanksgiving, but still.  Of all the times of year when you find yourself staring at the embarrassment of riches known as way the crap too many leftovers, Thanksgiving definitely ranks among the top offenders.  And all I had to deal with was dessert.

I admit, I come from a long tradition of too-much-fooders.  My ancestors would've seen a spread that didn't dwarf everybody seated at the table as a disgrace.  And as for the friend whose family I spent the holiday with, well, to quote "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" on this one, she could pluck me like a chicken.  There was turkey, juicy and done to perfection; stuffing drowned in turkey au jus; mashed potatoes with bacon and Gorgonzola; brussel sprouts with bacon; enough cranberry sauce to eat up with spoons.  I'm probably forgetting something, but you get the idea.  And then there was pie.

Now, I've only done sweet potato pie once before in my life, and that was completely off the cuff and without a recipe and came out a bit heavy on the sweet potato.  So I was perfectly willing to try the version suggested to me, which comes from Smitten Kitchen.  Add a sprinkling of ADHD and a lack of buttermilk (let's mix Greek yogurt and 1% milk and see what happens!), and voila new go-to pie recipe.  I even did the homemade flaky crust...sort of.

Trouble is, as a "dinner for one" sort of person, normally, I know what fits into a standard 9-inch pie crust.  2 medium sweet potatoes, 3 eggs, and 3/4 of a cup of buttermilk...won't.  Even after I ate the evidence that I'd come out with way more than 1-1/4 cup of sweet potato mash.  The pie turned out lovely:

Unfortunately I still had a bowl full of (quite yummy) leftover pie filling.

And that was when it hit me: thanks to the whole egg (including whipped egg whites), I had mixed together all the ingredients necessary for a souffle, mousse, or pot de creme.  Honestly I wish I'd come to that realization Thursday afternoon when the oven was still hot and the filling still completely fresh.  Still, no harm done.  This morning, out came the ramekins and the hot water bath, pre-heat oven to 300 degrees, fill the ramekins, place in pan of hot water, and pop these babies in for 40 minutes.  It comes out about the consistency of (slightly chunky thanks to the damn sweet potato) creme brulee, so really you should resist the urge to gobble up immediately and instead break out the sugar and blowtorch.  Just sayin'.

Yeah, really glad I didn't have to deal with the turkey....

99 Reasons

Hello and welcome to my 100th post.  How about that?  I finally got this blog to register properly on my Ravelry page.  Appropriate, no?  This calls for a celebration.

Actually this blog is about a neglected project from the days of yore.  It centers around a picture, and the picture is this one:

This is a story of Cecilia sweater, and a story of piecing things together from the remaining fragments of this year.  It seems only fitting that the items shown here are my trusty experiment yarn, large needles, mechanical pencil, graph paper, headphones, and...Pablo Neruda?

So, first, Cecilia.  Cecilia began as a concept project for 4 largeish skeins of green wool laceweight from a specialty shop in New York.  I knew said yarn had to be a sweater-dress-tunic thingy of some sort, but couldn't come up with a good reason for using laceweight until, on a whim, I rented "Atonement" on Amazon instant video sometime after my first boyfriend and I broke up (well we hardly would've watched it together...), before I left St. Louis, and fell in love with the ethereal, floaty lines of 1930s fashion.  Unfortunately, at the time I was an almost complete novice at lace, and every pattern I looked up and/or tried to adapt to my requirements fell short.  Badly.  My last attempt was a pair of bell sleeves using the Aeolian shawl from Knitty as a base, but the sleeves turned out enormous and this was my South Carolina country doctor phase and I had other things to do like figure out how to change career paths and move someplace a bit less...restrictive?  So Cecilia ended up in my unfinished projects stash during the big move to the Big Apple, never again to see the light of day until I had the time, energy, and inspiration to frog her and start back at the drafting board.

What I hadn't counted on in moving to New York was that it would be both exactly and nothing like what I expected.  I fell in love with my new job (though I still complain about it being my abusive husband, but that's the workaholic way) and with the frenetic tough romantic undefinable energy of my new home.  And somehow, in the middle of that crazy hot ridiculous summer, I found myself in a relationship that never should have happened.  It began inauspiciously, it ended with a whimper, and in the middle there were passion and friendship and laughter and adventure that make it hard to regret even in hindsight.  And then it was done, and because I couldn't torture myself with how my replacement is actually a better match (steadier, more studious and discreet, has her life together even though she's younger than me), I frogged Cecilia instead and set out to make her better.  Well, how else does one get through the bleak November?  More wine?

A green tunic sweater knit under such circumstances must necessarily evoke a little bit of rebirth, aka plants.  So the center of the lace panel pattern is based on rose leaves:

And the edges are based on flowering vines:

In the green laceweight, these will become the lace panels of the skirt, moving into a slightly fitted sleeveless bodice with V neck and back, and topped with short lace cap sleeves of the same pattern.  If I have leftover yarn (which is rather ambitious), I'll make a ribbon tie for the waist, trimmed with the leaf lace at both ends.

This, friends, and the trusty poetry that I love will be the fragments I shore up against my ruins.  Because if there are second chances to be found anywhere, I'll probably find them here in this goddamn crazy city in the absolute last place I look (egads, not Coffee Meets Bagel, please!).  It is the knitter's way.  And, as it turns out, the only proper way for me to celebrate the 100th.