Knitting Is the Opiate of the Masses

It was a productive weekend, stitch-wise, here at OY. I’m almost finished the Annie Modesitt Backyard Leaves scarf (with apologies for misspelling Annie’s name and misnaming the scarf in previous posts…the fact checker in this joint needs a good scolding): I’m two repeats and an end-leaf away from having two Romin’ Snakes, which I will then bathe, block, and join. Black blobs on field of poppies:

In addition:

What is it? Pullover for a baby gorilla? Pas de tout! One clever fold, and it’s a little easier to see that this will be Piece 1 of the Teva Durham corrugated asymmetrical pullover:

The fat bit is the sleeve, which is three or four inches from being finished. This is the smaller piece, but it whips right along. The next piece is worked on the bias and will fold around and meet the long skinny edge…well, there’ll be pics. The lamb’s pride bulky is called “Pine Shadows” and has a slight halo of white, which is making me feel all romantical about snow on pine trees. Though I’d prefer not to look like one in this sweater.

The rest of the weekend was intermittently social. Lunch with the Kamloops chix, which always means laughing until we snort wine through our noses. It was so much less painful when we drank milk at lunch. Our knocked-up member is off to Mexico next week to get married…they weren’t going to bother, but both sets of parents were very keen on the idea.

Then on Sunday I went to church for the first time in way too long, but didn’t much like the hippy minister at Emmanuel Howard United. She talked diversity and acceptance and celebrating difference but didn’t make eye contact when she was shaking hands after the service.

And I’m all for the United Church’s very Canadian attitudes on God (imagine Him/Her/It how you will) and one’s neighbours (be nice to them, for crying out loud) but I don’t know…the order of service/weekly bulletin had an asterisk next to “kingdom” in the Lord’s Prayer, and referring to the bottom of the page, I saw that I was welcome to say “kindom” instead. I don’t like it when people muck with texts – particularly beautiful ones. While it’s true that words shape our beliefs without our even knowing it, I think we need more credit for being able to hold in our minds both the value of reciting a prayer that connects us to generations – centuries’ worth – of churchgoers and the understanding that the prayer’s words mean something different to us than they might have to those who preceded us. Do we really need a made-up word (honestly: “kindom”!) to keep us from thinking that the United Church advocates the return of a patriarchal monarchy?

Well, having said all that, I’ll go back next week and give it another try. Mustn’t give up after just one service. And, a strange coincidence: I watched Mrs. Miniver on Saturday night, and at the end of the movie, the minister reads Psalm 91. At church yesterday, the children's choir sang the same Psalm.

Those poppies posing as background to the WIPs? They’re going to become a curtain: I remembered how to thread this beast:

and now I just need to get up the nerve to cut the fabric. (measure twice three times; cut once!)