a southern gal in the north

So as if I don’t need anymore distraction from my daily practicing and knitting and chores and….

TWO knitting magazines arrived in the last two days! 

First  ROWAN –  I flipped thru it – I must say its such a gorgeously produced seductive magazine that I start out wanting to make everything cause they all look so yummy – I mean the photo styling etc.  Will check back after a closer read.

 

Rowan Knitting & Crochet Magazine No 41
Spring / Summer

This season we take you on a voyage of discovery that captures the romantic and nostalgic sides of the British summertime, in Secret Garden and Promenade, and adds a hint of Moroccan spice with the designs and location in Medinas and Minarets as we travel through the Soukhs and bazaars looking for inspiration. This season we have used different photographers for each of our stories to bring you three very different looks to explore. In Recreation Lisa Richardson and Rachel Henderson show us how to rejuvenate jumpers that have been languishing at the back of your wardrobe or turn that high street bargain into a one-off look. In Lazy Days Marie Wallin and Sarah Hatton have created homeware pieces such as a garden table runner and tea light holders that will add a highlight to outdoor living. Finally we revisit a very popular technique, short row shaping, essential to create the asymmetric and flared looks in designs such as the beautiful skirt, Wisteria.

All skill levels are catered for in the easy to read patterns and charts, and the regular features and articles provide plenty of reading material too.

Rowan Yarns.

and then the next day INTERWEAVE KNITS

Features

Joan McGowan-Michael: Seduced by Knitting
Judith S. L. Young
A lingerie designer throws curves in her knitting.

Beyond the Basics: Entrelac  EUNNY JANG
Try your hand at this “woven” knitting technique.

On the Cover: Ruffled Surplice page 43, photography by Carol Kaplan

See photos & yarn requirements for all projects in this issue

Haven’t even cracked the cover – too tempting.   Will save for a treat this weekend.

Dave Eschmann of Rochester, New York, sent this picture of the frozen Lower Falls of the Genesee River. The river empties into Lake Ontario six miles away. Eschmann snapped this photo from a bridge near his workplace.

From a fellow music lover:  

Listening to an old interview with harpsichordist Wanda Landowska from her home in Connecticut in her advanced years, I was struck by the beauty of her words expressed in English, which she also had mastered with a charming accent: 

“Perfection is something very cold. A human being cannot be perfect… performed culture cannot be perfect…. It would be stupidly modest if I would say that I am not successful because I have obtained victory for my instrument and for my art — and for the idea of my art. Of course I am successful. It doesn’t mean that I am very delighted by myself. Not at all.

 

I think that I have very much to learn, and as long as I live I am going to work very hard, more and more than ever. I hate the idea of perfection, as I said to you, and of practicing.

To work, to play with all your heart and intensity, this is important. (Of course you have to prepare [your fingers….]) I try to be as true as I can. I love my music, for this is the most important thing: to love something in life, to love, to be in love with something….

 

If I would not be in love with my music, what could I do? Nothing….

 

And this is the most important: people who have nothing in their souls, they are fools, but a man or a woman who has a conviction that something is beautiful and something is profound, this helps him to overcome his grief, his bad, very sad hours, and we have them plenty in our lives.”

am feeling happy – yeah, even joyful. because I am in love with my new Mozart sonata – well, its not new but you know what I mean. 

since my restart, I have been struggling with the return of the technique – but lately it seems to be purring along – still after xx number of years it will be awhile before i get back to stuff – or get my chops back as pianists/musicians say.

the long practice of working on a number of pieces from different “periods” is so ingrained that I have been feeling adrift on the musical ocean without these four/five pieces to anchor me. 

The Bach was easy – Partita #2.  Had wanted to work on it for ages – and it was a good thing to start back with – all that contrapuntal activity and so forth.  really good for my fingers.  At this point the first two movts are in great shape, the next two medium and the last two in the note learning phase. 

I am restless and need a lot of variety in my music.

Mozart or Beethoven was the next decision – but to be honest I want to wait a little for LvB – I feel like a good Mozart sonata is right for now.  There are so many LvB sonatas that I need to work on and will but for now a little Mozart is healthy for the technique.  I had been dallying with a few and finally today after a bit of warmup sat and read thru about a half dozen and came back to this great c minor one.  The Andante movt is incredible – a whole country in itself.  And the other two movts are wonderful too. 

so thats done.

and so on to the next group – I am leaning to a Schubert sonata…. and some Chopin of course – would love a ballade but maybe not just yet.  Am working on the Op 25 etudes for now that will do.

Have been working thru the Schubert Impromtus but really want something a bit more substantial and working thru the arch of a sonata – there’s not much that can beat that.

ok back to the keys

A piece of yarn walks into a bar and jumps up on a bar stool. 

He orders a drink, but the bartender just glares at him and says “Get lost, we don’t serve your kind in here”.

The yarn is very dejected, and walks slowly outside.

He’s sitting on the curb when a man walks by, and he says “Excuse me, sir, would you please tie me in a knot?”

The man looks doubtful and says “But won’t that hurt?”.  The yarn assures him it will be okay, and the man obliges.

Soon, a woman walks by and the yarn says “Excuse me, m’am, would you please fray my ends for me?”

The woman is skeptical and says “I’d be happy to, but won’t that be painful?”  The yarn puts her fears at ease, and she frays his ends.

Whereupon the yarn marches boldly back into the bar, jumps back up on a bar stool and orders the same drink.

The bartender looks him over and says “Hey, aren’t you that piece of yarn I threw out of here a few minutes ago?”

The yarn looks him squarely in the eyes and says “FRAYED KNOT!”

[hee hee]

surprises!

check back later today!