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Ten years into widowhood, after one year of incredible happiness and nearly 14 years of single blessedness. Retired, and mostly enjoying it. Still knitting. [Zen]tangling.again after a brief hiatus.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Yipes! Stripes!

Anybody besides me remember the old ad campaign for Beechnut Fruit Stripes Gum? "Yipes! Stripes! Beechnut's got 'em! Yipes! Stripes! It's Fruit Stripes Gum! Yipes! Stripes! They gotta lotta flavor ... something, something", it's been about 40 years since I heard it.

You'll recall the minuscule ball that was leftover from Sock the First and its mate, and BittyBit's Bitty Socks. About 2-1/2" of gently-wound striped Cherry Tree Hill gorgeousness. I was in the LYS on my lunch hour a couple of weeks ago and found an overdyed skein of Nature's Palette Fingering (185 yds of superwash merino that was originally a pinky beige reminiscent of, forgive me, upchuck. It is now a lively warm darkish coral, and there was only one skein. A few days later I went back for more stitch markers ~ this Elann Crop Cardi is a marker-gobbling fool! ~ and found the same yarn in "Zinfandel". And last week when I went back for the last size of needles and yet more markers, I found it in "Chocolate".



Obviously, I've been carrying those colors in my head for weeks now, because each yarn individual goes well with the striped remnant, and together they are amazing. I haven't decided how I want to use them together, but use them together I will. I have enough yarn here to justify buying the Fair Isle book from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Check out those bobbles on the ankles!
http://www.bluemoonfiberarts.com/

I'm not sure that cankles like mine, which ebb and flow with the tides, the moon, my hormones, my salt intake, my level of hydration, and how much or how little sleep I've gotten, are the best canvas on which to display über-bobbles. I'm also not sure that I'm going to let a little thing like generally-accepted notions of good taste [why am I suddenly reminded of the accounting term GAAP: generally accepted accounting principles? or the FDA term GRAS: generally recognized as safe?] get in the way of continuing to wear what I please.

Firstborn and I have had discussions on this. She has been, among other things, an assistant manager at a now-defunct triumvirate clothing chain that served, respectively: petites like Secondborn, skinny-mini's like Firstborn, and regular people like me. And she has thoroughly absorbed the "no white after" and "no patent leather before" rules that separate the Us's from the Them's, and which I collectively call [with apologies to the Book of Mormon] The Foolish Traditions of the Mothers. And she has been known to say -- with amazing tact for anyone who came out of my womb -- "I'm not being critical, but I am very curious why you're wearing that top with that skirt." Particularly if I am wearing a black and plum silk charmeuse kimono bought from the first incarnation of the J. Peterman catalogue over a skirt I made from neckties, where the predominant color is red. Which reminds me: I haven't worn that skirt in three years, because I need to edit out two ties that have become "holey-er than thou".

I have reminded her, equally gently, that there is fashion, and then there is *style*. And any woman of my age who has not developed a style of her own, is far beyond help from the "thou shalt nots" of the fashionistas. I was putting red and purple together before the Red Hat Society (of which I am a member, thankyouverymuch) was a gleam in Sue Ellen Cooper's eye.

All I need now is to decide if bobbled ankles are part of my style, before I spend the better part of a month designing socks to prove it.

Note to self: after finishing the construction of the sofa table this Saturday, haul that skirt out of the closet and hie thyself to the thrift shop for more gently-worn ties.

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