Clever #2 son got us back online with a denizen of the computer graveyard in the garage. We have however lost all our pictures, music, and all the other stuff we should have backed up onto disks and didn’t. All my bookmarks are gone, which I suppose gives me freedom to come up with a new list of blogs for daily reading.

We still have no refrigerator and are subsisting on convenience foods, which is bad for my digestion and my mood. Since I a) still haven’t had a day off, b) am exhausted when I get home and by now also when I get up and c) live with a bunch of cavemen, the house is in squalor. As for work, I offer you the immortal words of That Man when I asked if he was going to rehearsal after work: “I am going home to the jacuzzi. And I may drown myself.”

I have just barely finished the colorwork for Pipes. This is a selection of traditional Fair Isle patterns done in the traditional Fair Isle method, but it is not traditional Fair Isle. It repeats motifs, and has multicolor motifs on a plain ground, both of which disqualify it.

It is perhaps an example of how to use Fair Isle for someone who doesn’t like Fair Isle. To me, it is a bit reminiscent of Latin American knitting designs in its effect. #2 daughter, for whom Pipes is destined, finds Fair Isle too folkloric. When she and her siblings were little, I knitted them things with designs from the wonderful out-of-print New Directions in Fair Isle, with bees and leaves and bunnies and things. So she may also find Fair Isle childish. She likes this take on it, though.

The sock on the right is a traditional two-color Fair Isle, and Erin, below, is a modern Alice Starmore Fair Isle, using the multi-shaded approach that is most characteristic of 20th century Fair Isle.

The story that the residents of Fair Isle copied their designs from dead Spaniards washed up on their shores is false, by the way. They really copied them from a woven shawl someone brought back from the Continent.

Just so you know.

 

 

 

 

 

Our big exciting news is that #1 daughter and Son-in-law will be visiting in about a week. #2 daughter is also coming for the weekend during their visit. I am very excited. I hope to have a day off between now and then to clean the house. Today, however, I have church immediately followed by more work.

Right now I am off to catch up on your adventures.