January 16: Begin again (again)

It seems like everyone is talking about colouring books. They are vaunted as a way to slow down, a way to refocus, a way to be more mindful, whatever. I was never good at colouring, even as a child; I wasn't great at colouring inside the lines and I was completely unable to see the utility of the process. A book of coloured-in pictures is still just a book of pictures. Why bother colouring-in when you could read? I wanted words. I still do.

But sometimes it is good to slow down, to play with colour, to immerse yourself in another realm. Much beleaguered by a week of non-stop editing (file under: be careful what you wish for) and bitterly cold, snowy weather, I turned my thoughts to the rug-hooking project that I started last fall.

The process is basic: use a tiny hook to pull loops through gaps in the linen – heaven forbid you should call it burlap – until you've drawn the outlines, then repeat the process to fill in the spaces with blobs of colour. As you can see, I got tired of the lines. It's cold and grey outside; I needed some red. 

It's a simple process, using simple materials; one of those crafts that obviously had its origins in necessity and thrift. (I wouldn't want to explain to a local grandmother how much I spent on the class, or the materials.) These days, of course, the rugs are more likely to be made from new materials, some quite expensive; rather than workaday floor coverings, they're works of art. 

Sitting on the couch after dinner last week, tensioning the wool strips with one hand while the other hand guided the hook through the linen, trying and failing to catch the strip, trying again, and again, I thought about that cold fall day that we sat in the rug-hooking class. There was a fire in the wood stove; the trees were just past peak colour, but bright reds and oranges were still visible through windows rimmed with the first of the year's frost. We ate trail mix and drank tea in mugs with the bag still in, and we worked mostly in silence, except when the teacher regaled us with tales of her former life as a fabric buyer for fashion houses in England, and during the short pauses we took to look up, flex our fingers and stretch our necks, and trade some gentle gossip. 

It's challenging to learn something new as an adult; mentally and physically exhausting. Sitting at that table, I was so frustrated: I can knit and crochet and sew and embroider, I kept thinking, why can't I do this? I kept shaking out my hands, as though that would help get the knowledge from my brain down into my fingertips. 

Thinking back on it now, it occurs to me that the tiring part of learning something new, at least for me, might not be in the assimilation of new information, but in quieting the critical voice and replacing it with the voice that I try to use around new knitters, the one that is patient and encouraging, that says, When's the last time you learned a brand-new physical skill? Driving a car, right? Be easy on yourself. Don't give up yet. 

(That, of course, is one of the secrets of life. Find the balance between being easy on yourself and not giving up: it works for more than learning rug-hooking.)

So here we are. I've got the basics down now, and it's getting easier, but it still requires me to sit, head down, brow furrowed, in concentration for half an hour at a time. As I do, the cares of the day fall away; by the time I'm on my third or fourth strip of wool I've mostly forgotten the emails that didn't arrive; the meetings that took too long; that errant semi-colon and the perfidy of spell-check. That doesn't happen for me with knitting any more; one day it won't happen with rug-hooking, either. Maybe then I'll have to take up tatting...

March 29 – Craft scenes

I'm still not used to having a space that's dedicated to crafting. Sitting down at my desk to sew still seems really novel; it's best in the morning, when the light streams in.

Took a class in paper-template patchwork. Very interesting; lots of potential.

I've been thinking big thoughts about levels of skill, experience and experimentation, tools and materials, how we signal that we belong in a community, how those communities form and shift and change. I've got pages of scribbled notes all over my desk, but I'm having trouble getting the thoughts to coalesce.

Meanwhile, my mind has turned to sewing, as sure a sign as any that spring is on its way. 

I pulled out some springy skeins to inspire me. They last longer and require less upkeep than tulips.

Spring cleaned my knitting notions box. Doing that always makes me think of Amélie.

Needed a bit of whimsy in my knitting, so I'm making a sheep. Didn't encourage the month to go out like a lamb, though; I woke up to another 20 cm of snow on the ground this morning.

Took my table runner off the loom. Should have ironed it pre-photography, obviously. Pleased with my progress. Next up, a Noro scarf.

Took a look at the classics on my bookshelf.

What have you been up to?

October 20: Story of a Rhinebeck sweater

Rhinebeck was great. There were sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas and rabbits; just about every kind of fibre you can imagine; nifty little (and big!) trinkets; treats of every description, including apple cider donuts; trees aflame with fall colour.

 

I loved seeing my knitting friends – many of whom I only know via Twitter, or who I get to see once a year at Squam – in person. I loved seeing so many people I didn't know parading around in their knitted finery. It was a true feast for the eyes.

I didn't do much parading around in my knitted finery, because I spent the weekend trying to finish my finery. The first clue that I wasn't going to be wearing my sweater was when one of my non-knitter friends looked at my knitting last Monday and said, "Hey, nice scarf."

Hm. She had a point.

Try as I might, I didn't think I'd be able to pull off the "knitted cummerbund with matching arm warmers" look. Thus ensued much fevered knitting, but by Thursday night I had yet to join the sleeves to the body. I stitched and stitched and stitched...and I carried that WIP with me all weekend.

I finally cast off in the car on the way home, about 65 miles from the US-Canada border. At the next rest stop, I changed clothes at the gas station for a quick victory photo. It was supremely, sublimely itchy, but oh boy: I am in love with this sweater.

It's blocking now and I can't wait to wear it. Maybe I'm being silly, but I'm actually a little bit happy that it worked out the way it did. Now it's more than a sweater; it's a sweater with a story. My favourite kind.

(Details on my version of Strokkur here. Next up: Carpino.)

July 11 – To the city

Remember those summer nights ten years ago? If I wasn't staying in town, I'd pack my bag on Thursday night so that I could take off for the city as soon as Friday's work was over. Pop out at lunch to cash my paycheque and fill the gas tank, buy a pack of gum for the drive and ensure I had change for the bridge.

(Change for the bridge: seventy-five cents, all quarters. Once I tossed a mitt-full of nickels and dimes at the automated toll booth and watched in dismay as they ricocheted off the basket and onto the road, and I had to scrabble for change under the car as people behind me honked. After that, always three quarters, no small change.)

Partway through that summer I moved to the city and settled into a different routine. That summer – a time in-between – was a day of long, sunny days, not too hot, not too cold, with wide blue skies and all the time in the world. I lived in a tiny apartment at the top of an old house, with a little back deck way up in the trees. (And mice, too, though I didn't discover that till much later.)

What did we do on those summer nights? I remember watching a lot of Frisbee games and spending a lot of time strolling along the boardwalk eating gelato, pretending to be somewhere more exotic. Sometimes they'd be showing a movie on the wide white back wall of Pier 21 – we sat on the boardwalk watching Jaws as the water lapped the pilings beneath us. We walked to the corner store every other night or so to buy popsicles then took the long way home, crunching the ice between our teeth, the sticky juices dripping down our hands. I was reading A Suitable Boy, very slowly, a page or three a night. I sat out on the deck and watched the stars come out.

Saturday mornings (not very early) we'd convene at the farmer's market and line up for coffee, first, then bread. I always got a tiny coffee and an enormous pain aux raisins. (Priorities.) The produce arrived too slowly for my Upper Canadian sensibilities – strawberries didn't surface till July, peaches at the end of August. It was an endless sense of waiting for a harvest that never quite lived up to my expectations. (You can take a girl out of the Golden Horseshoe...) 

Even so, we feasted. We were several small households but we ate together often – sometimes several nights in a row, at one house or another. Lobster, once, on a dining room table covered in newspaper, with soft white rolls, tomato slices and potato salad. Indian food, another time. Enormous racks of spare ribs, home-made fried chicken, pizza, arugula salads dripping with olive oil. Corn on the cob. Giant plates of vegetables with big bowls of baba ganoush. Cherry clafoutis. Peach cobbler. We used to carry the kitchen table out onto the deck, angling it through the door, and sit outside long after dark, lit only by candles in tiny blue votives. We ate chocolate cake sprawled in the grass at the park. Ice cream cones from the shack at Point Pleasant, eaten while eavesdropping on the Shakespeare performance du jour.

And oh, we drank. Dark and stormys all around – rum and ginger beer – the recipe a souvenir from a work trip to Bermuda. Cold beer: Sleeman's cream ale and McAuslan's apricot wheat ale, growlers from Propeller. Bottles of wine, some better than others. I always had ice in the fridge and a bottle of rum in the pantry in those days. There was a new Joel Plaskett song on the radio and a blues club waiting for us downtown. (And time to sleep in the next morning.) 

Another time, another world. Tonight, ten years later and half a country away, I went out and spent the evening with friends: pizza in the backyard, then a peewee soccer game (well, "game"), then back on the commuter train and heading home by 9. Around me the twentysomethings were getting ready for a night out – calling their friends, snapping chewing gum, shimmying into club clothes, primping and preening in the windows that had been made mirrors by the night. As we got closer to Union Station, they pulled out their wallets and counted out coins for subway fare. Three loonies, no small change.

July 8 – Rainy afternoons and cherry cake

It seems to rain every Tuesday lately – my own suspicions confirmed by the damp and bedraggled vendors at the local farmer's market, who might be forgiven for starting to take it personally. After hours of showers this afternoon, the clouds rolled back and there was an hour or so of brilliant sunshine and cool breezes. I dashed out, hoping to pick up some berries, but the cloudless skies weren't enough to coax the actual farmers back to the park, and there wasn't much produce to be had. I was disappointed: Mexican chocolate and bison sausage and ice cream sandwiches are great, but they don't really work on top of your morning cereal.

In the end, I abandoned the market and wandered down to the corner store that sells fruit and flowers. At this time of year they're doing double-duty in succulents, and the sidewalk display mixes potted hens and chicks with overflowing boxes of raspberries and strawberries and big ripe Morello cherries. I bought big bags of each, sneaking cherries as I walked home through the park, fingers stained red. I wasn't too hungry for dinner.
 
All week I've had a craving for a bundt cake, and last night I found myself paging through cookbooks and considering a late-night trip to the store for sugar, imagining staying up late to bake a rich, almond-scented pound cake, ready to toast for breakfast. Today, though, I'm thinking about this one, which has pecans and cherries and would probably be delightful served still warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Maybe tomorrow I'll make it to the baking aisle.

July 7

My neighbourhood isn't one of the more vibrant neighbourhoods in the city – centred around the mid-town stretch of Yonge Street, populated by mid-rise office buildings and the chain stores that provide caffeine to the people who work in them, it's certainly no Leslieville or Roncesvalles or Corso D'Italia. But it does boast a few hidden gems – a decent health food store, a wood-fired bagel place, and a Book City. And boy, I love that book store.

Earlier this year, when one Toronto book store after another was closing down until it seemed we might soon not have any at all, I decided that I was finished with ordering books online or from stores that seem more interested in selling tchochkes than novels. So these days I find myself at the Book City once or twice a week, for one thing or another.

It's not a big store, but they've got a great magazine selection and they've been doing a good job of feeding my Shakespeare habit, and I'm confident they'll never deliver my purchase by drone strike. The staff members occasionally sport Doctor Who t-shirts (always a good thing, in my opinion), have definite opinions about the best sushi in the neighbourhood, and are always happy to recommend a picture book or track down an esoteric title – they special-ordered both Mo's Mustache and the new Beowulf translation for me without blinking an eye. (OK, not quite: I should have specified that Mo's Mustache is a kid's book a bit earlier in the conversation. Ahem.)

I like ordering books from them because it means I'm supporting a local business, because I enjoy the chats we have about what I'm buying, and because there's something about the wait – and attendant anticipation – that means I enjoy the book more when it finally arrives. But it was just today, when I was there to order a copy of The Subversive Stitch, that I realized that what I really like about ordering books from my local bookstore is that when they take my order info, they always spell my name right – their default is "Austen, like Jane," not "Austin, like Texas." I love that.

(Now, if only they could get the message across to the kids at Starbucks...)

July 1 – Shakespeare in the Park

The forecast called for rain, so I had every intention of having a Very Lazy Canada Day, but then the morning's thunderstorms cleared up and the sun came out, and it behooved me to get outside. So: a trip to the bookstore, a leisurely walk to the farmer's market, and some time on a park bench, reading and eating strawberries.

I'm on a bit of a Shakespeare kick at the moment – watching "Shakespeare Uncovered" on Netflix, planning a trip to Shakespeare in High Park later in the summer, and wishing I could pop over to visit The Globe for a tour and tea. (Strawberries and a paperback will have to do for now.) Like every dutiful English student, I have a Shakespeare anthology on my bookshelf, but if you ever had to lug one of those bad boys to English class and back, you know they aren't exactly the kind of thing you can pop in your bag or crack open on a crowded subway car. So lately I've been buying these little Penguin editions: they're just $10, they have fantastic introductory essays and comprehensive notes, and they're perfectly purse-sized. It's good to read Shakespeare again – I'm reveling in the way the language fizzes and sparks. I can almost feel my brain being rewired as I read and it is wonderful.

Now it's just getting dark and I can hear fireworks in the distance. Happy Canada Day.

June 24: Handwork

My first memory of knitting is vivid. Even 28 years later, I can recall what I was wearing, where I was sitting, the sound of the brown acrylic yarn squeaking across the yellow plastic needles. But I don't have the same sort of recollections about embroidery. Knitting was something I had to be taught, repeatedly, but embroidery feels like something I just did. 

(It can't be true, though: I remember having to get my mum to thread my needle for me again and again, sometimes three times in five minutes. She must have demonstrated the stitches for me over and over, too.)

  

Our house was never short of craft supplies. We had all the usual suspects: scissors and paper and crayons and markers (x-acto knives and crazy glue, too, if you knew where to look). But there was other, better stuff: a seemingly bottomless button tin, scraps of fabric, yards of yarn, and a stash of old embroidery kits – and the freedom to make something with it. 

I loved the old embroidery kits. They came in crackly cellophane bags, with colour photos that heavily featured the rich golds, bright oranges and sombre greens of the 1970s. The canvas was sometimes badly creased and yellowing around the edges, and the crewel wool sometimes had a musty smell, but that didn't diminish the pleasure I felt in stretching the fabric across the hoop or organizing the yarn, looping short strands through the colour card and matching the names and numbers to the chart. I could make it take all afternoon.

Indeed, I spent hours deciphering those charts, practicing the stitches, threading (and re-threading) my needle. If I think back to the summer vacations of my childhood, I remember swimming lessons in the morning, lunch eaten in front of "The Price is Right," and afternoons spent perched in the rocking chair in front of the living room window, stitching away. I watched avidly for the leaves on the maple tree out front to flip over in the wind, signalling rain on the way.

At some point I ran out of crewel kits (what were they? I remember a rose, stitched in shades of dusty pink, but that's it) and moved on to embroidery. The images were more modern and the embroidery floss was a treat compared to the scratchy crewel wool. There was a sprig of wildflowers framed in blue; a cheeky sparrow, framed in faux wood grain. But the choices were limited. I remember standing in the hobby shop and surveying a rack of kits: the only choices, variations on country geese and Ziggy cartoons. My interest waned.

In the years that followed I learned to knit (again), learned the basics of sewing, taught myself patchwork and quilting. For a long time I ascribed to the "beautiful use" school of thought—the idea that things should be both beautiful and useful (but mostly useful). Quilts were made to be slept under, socks were meant to be worn. I didn't have much time for decorative stitching. Embroidery was relegated to fixing holes in otherwise-fine shirts, stitching labels for quilts and putting noses on stuffed toys.

 

Of course, enthusiasms ebb and flow. Lately I've been drawn back to embroidery. In recent months, knitting has started to feel like work and sewing projects are driven purely by need. I want to reclaim the other side of creativity, the act of making for the sake of making, creating because that's what hands are for. I've been inspired by the Great Tapestry of Scotland (this commentary is wonderful); by the work of the craftspeople at Alabama Chanin; by the class I took with Joetta Maue, who opened my eyes to the idea of embroidery as art and craft; by the sampler above, from Rebecca Ringquist, which encapsulates so much of how I feel about crafting these days.

And so I'm back to sitting by the window on a summer afternoon, watching the maple leaves for the first hint of rain, quietly working my needle and thread.

June 10: Squam Art Workshops 2014

After six months of anticipation, it's hard to believe that my time at Squam has already been and gone. It's an intense experience (so many people! so much nature!), but this was my fourth visit and I feel that I've unlocked the secrets to having a good time: reveling in the little things (a bite of chocolate cake; a shared joke; a stolen moment in the forest), focusing on the good in people, concentrating on process over product, and managing expectations. A lot like life, I suppose.

 

After the whirlwind of check-in, I dumped my bag in my room and headed to the dock. It's one of my little traditions – surveying the water, stretching my travel-tightened limbs, taking the classic shoe-gazer photo. It was cool and overcast; the clouds sat low in the sky, obscuring the treeline on the hills opposite.

 

I was back in the same cabin as last year, Everest, but with all new housemates. There were nine of us altogether – six from the US (Sarah, Karen, Shelly, Heather C., Emily and Heather W.), plus Fiona from Ireland and Sarah from the England, who made up the Commonwealth contingent with me. It was a really good group and we had lots of fun – one of the highlights being fireplace s'mores, courtesy of Emily.

 

The opening ceremonies, with their fairy lights and general air of excitement, got things started off on a good foot. There's always such a buzz in the air on the first night: reunions happening, new friendships being forged, and a lot of knitting talk.

Unlike last year, I didn't take any knitting classes. My Thursday class was with Joetta Maue – an artist who works in embroidery. I wasn't sure what to expect, especially given that I already knew the basics, but it was a terrific class and hearing her talk about her work really changed the way I thought about the ancient art form. (More about that later, perhaps.) This little sampler is simple but it makes me very happy.

 

The second class, taught by Maya Donenfeld, involved stamp making, fabric printing and sewing (hand and machine). We did the printing and most of the snap pouch on Friday afternoon and the zippered pouch on Saturday morning. The view (above) was lovely and I really enjoyed working with Stewart and Wende, fellow embroiderers and rabble-rousers.

I didn't learn anything earth-shattering in this class – the techniques are basic and I'm pretty confident with X-Acto knives (too confident according to some! but hey, no bandages required, so no harm, no foul), ink pads, rotary cutters and a needle and thread. I am pleased with the finished projects, though, which will likely become a project bag and a pouch for embroidery notions.

 

By Saturday afternoon, the weather had finally taken a turn for the better, and we spent the afternoon down on the dock. One of the girls had rented a canoe, so we all had a chance to do some paddling...

 

...which was a new experience for me. (I'm in the front, being surprised at my heretofore unsuspected canoeing abilities.)

 

The rest of the afternoon was spent dock knitting, and it was wonderful. I had been looking forward to that moment for months, and it was definitely worth the wait.

 

The Saturday night art fair was also well worth the wait – as usual, there were tons of vendors and all sorts of tempting goodies. I came away with some Brooklyn Tweed yarn and a couple of the beautiful linen bento bags from Fringe Supply Co (I was happy to meet Karen in person), plus a copy of the delightful Kerry Lemon's new book.

 

Sunday morning was clear and calm, the water like glass. I'd have loved to have stayed all day, but it was time to pack my suitcase, bid my housemates farewell and head back down the I-93. There's always next year.  I'm looking forward to it already.

November 30

This morning, a common occurrence: the arrival of a mother and her seven-year-old daughter on a learn-to-knit mission. I used to dread this – I worried about giving the wrong answer and sending them in the wrong direction, somehow ruining knitting for two generations with one careless word. But three months in, I've come to love it. There's something exhilarating about all that potential waiting to be realized.

Now, I ask questions first, talk later. What do you want to make? What is your favourite colour? Which of these yarns is softer? Do you like to learn from a book? From a person? From a video? Every knitter is different, even the knitters who don't know how to knit yet.

*

The first time I learned to knit was on a Monday night in a Sunday school classroom; I was in Brownies. My teacher was older, Dutch, no-nonsense; the yarn was brown, acrylic, scratchy. The classroom was dimly lit – it was a winter evening, dark and cold. I was eight and I had a head cold. I struggled to concentrate; I wanted to learn but my nose was running and I couldn't hold the knitting needles and a kleenex at the same time. It was a conundrum.

The second time I learned to knit was from a book – an old book with black-and-white photos and a crackly plastic dust cover, with that musty sweet smell that old library books seem to have, the combination of dust and fingerprints. The yarn was from my mum's stash, in a range of colours that do a good job of dating my childhood: brown and rust and orange, with some cream and a bit of avocado thrown into the mix. The needles were yellow plastic, with the size – 5 – stamped into the grooved brown buttons on the ends. They lived in a marmalade jar, high on a shelf in the laundry room.

*

Today, I walked the mother and daughter through choosing yarn and helped them pick needles. The choices are overwhelming: five choices of purple, just for example. It's a big responsibility for a seven year old, requiring serious deliberation. Needles were easier: laminated birch, 4.5 mm, grey. Three sets the same, one each for mum and two daughters. Identical, so easy (and undetectable) to mix and match: handy if there's more than one kid involved.

*

Important lesson for daughter: what to do when you're finished knitting for the day. In the last month, I've seen four different boyfriends come in to replace broken knitting needles. "Someone sat on them," they say, sheepishly, holding up the unbroken tool as an offering. "Do you have a replacement?" So, lesson number one: knitting needles and chairs don't mix. She nodded, wide-eyed. Can she even imagine having a boyfriend to send for replacement knitting needles? Probably not.

Important refresher course for mum: how to make a slip knot and cast on. When is the last time you tried to explain a set of actions that are completely automatic? Now I remember my own mum showing me this, again and again, patiently tying and untying, casting on again and again, as I struggle to put words to unconscious action. A slip knot – that basic foundation for so much of knitting – turns out to involve half a dozen steps and innumerable subtle hand movements. We muddled through.

*

My first projects: endless rectangles. I made doll blankets, too-short scarves, lopsided teddy bears. Eventually, a garter stitch vest, in peach acrylic (two big rectangles, sewn together). None of it amazing, and yet all of it amazing: amazing because it was one thing and I made it into something else. It was amazing enough to keep me trying.

Their first projects: scarves. It doesn't get much more basic, or more satisfying, than that.

*

I've been knitting now for more than 25 years, through school and jobs and more school and more jobs and cross-country moves and innumerable trips. That I've been doing anything for more than 25 years still shocks me. The list is fairly short: knitting and writing and baking, the things I was interested in first, that I continue to come back to year after year. The three pursuits that give me the most satisfaction: equal parts challenging and comforting, all of them delivering on the promise that if you put the right components together with enough care, you'll end up with something greater than the sum of its parts.

But it's challenging to explain alchemy to a seven year old. Instead: simple tools, an old rhyme, and a little encouragement. It's OK to be frustrated; keep trying. Nothing worth knowing how to do can be mastered in 10 minutes. Stick with it, and you'll give yourself a gift you can enjoy for the rest of your life. It's a little bit like magic.

November 13

We took the dogs to the beach. The last time we were there it was high summer, hot and humid in that typical southern Ontario way. I slipped off my sandals and waded for a while to cool down while the dogs gambolled on the sand. Later, itchy, I remembered why you're not supposed to wade in Lake Ontario in the warm weather.

Today it was far too cold for wading – a fact not lost on Flash, who bounded into the lake and, shocked, bounded right back out again. Insulted by the cold water, he stood and barked at the waves until he got distracted by something – a piece of driftwood, maybe, or another dog. Hard to tell. He's a rather inscrutable hound.

We walked eastward, into the wind. The dogs' ears fluttered like flags. Walking with my head down against the wind, I found piece after piece of beach glass glinting in the sand, a handful of tiny bits of blue and green and white, and I remembered someone telling me that the best time to find beach glass is at a full moon. Perhaps I'll go back on Sunday to see what else I can find to augment my collection.

Finally we turned around, and walking with the wind at our backs made all the difference. Suddenly it felt like the sort of day that, if you were sitting in a sheltered spot, you could almost pretend was warm enough for an ice cream cone. Almost, but not quite. Instead, we drank tea from insulated mugs cradled in mittened hands and urged the dogs along, ready to get back to the relative warmth of the car.

November 11

I've walked past this alley twice a week for twelve weeks now; not sure why I felt the urge to stop and take a photo today. I stood there in the driving rain, balancing the umbrella in the crook of my neck and getting wet anyway, poking away at the screen of my phone, keenly aware of how much I was discomfiting the group of teenagers who'd loped around the corner behind me to light up contraband cigarettes. Looking at the photo now, I can almost catch a whiff of cigarette smoke.

Getting to know this part of the city has been an unexpected bonus of my teaching gig – I haven't spent much time in the east end before now, but these days I take the long way home from campus, exploring the residential streets and enjoying the echoes of all the places where I've lived before. I've met the friendly local Doberman, discovered my favourite front gardens and waded through the after-school rush of kids clutching art projects and soccer balls. One of the houses boasts a collection of topiaries; the one closest to the sidewalk seems to be a curious amalgam of Coyote and a jackalope.

This part of town has a nice "main street" shopping area, including a disproportionate number of bridal shops and a really good health food store, so big and bright and clean that it puts the one in my neighbourhood to shame. Once I'd finished taking pictures in the rain, I pushed thoughts of take-out pizza into the furthest corner of my mind and went to stock up on grains and greens instead. Brown rice and bok choy and tofu; the perfect foils for magic sauce.

Finally, I headed home through the lengthening shadows. I don't love the rain, but I do love the way the wet streets reflect the streetlights. Who can argue with puddles full of rubies and emeralds?

November 10

The baby shower was Saturday, but I've got one more gift on the needles – Hansel, a hap shawl designed by Gudrun Johnston. A hap shawl is a traditional Shetland baby gift, a garter stitch square bordered by a traditional Shetland lace pattern such as feather and fan or old shale, with a knitted-on border that finishes the whole thing off. They are simultaneously workaday and beautiful, full of personal meaning and carrying the weight of tradition, and I have wanted to make one – to have a reason to make one – for a long time.

I have been tinkering away on this in the background for months, but it's suddenly at the front of my queue and I urgently need to get moving. Acres of grey garter stitch isn't the most engaging of knitting, but I've only got 72 more rows of that before I get to tackle the fun part. I intend to be knitting lace by the weekend. Even the Christmas socks, those fingering-weight-on-2-mm albatrosses that I've been carrying everywhere lately, have been set aside for this project.

And so: back to the needles.

November 7

The sun was gone by lunchtime, but it was nice while it lasted. We walked up the rickety metal stairs from the train station and skirted the plywood hoarding, caught up in the push and rush of people to-ing and fro-ing. Sometimes it feels like the construction at Union Station will never end. Those new platforms, that promised atrium, the refurbished girders and rebar and concrete that the train station so obviously needs: the idea that it will ever all be in place just seems impossible most days.

We carried on along Front Street. Many of the restaurant patios are still set up, although it's been too cold to sit outside for weeks now. We saw chairs and tables stacked in corners; limp greenery hanging desolately from window boxes that have been fertilized with cigarette butts. A collection of trailers occupied a side street – someone shooting a movie. We carried on.

 A couple blocks south hulks the Gardiner Expressway, the elevated highway that ferries cars across the bottom of the city and which occasionally calves chunks of cement onto the cars below. People scurry underneath, dodging cars and other pedestrians in an effort to get back under clear skies as quickly as possible. Even a deluge of cold, sleety rain is better than the thought of a concrete block landing on your head.

Heading north, we almost missed the light because the couple in front of us didn't understand the walk signal. The hand flashed red and counted down: 15...14...13... . We brushed by, hungry, in a hurry to get to the restaurant. "But can we go?" they asked. "It flashes red!" "Hurry, hurry," I said, but as we gained the opposite side they were still on the corner, deliberating.

Even further north lies City Hall, which has its own clouds hanging over it these days. If you've been anywhere near a newspaper or a late-night talk show this week you'll have heard about our mayor, a man in crisis who could give a reality TV show a run for its money right now. Unfortunately, unlike on a reality show, his troubles are real, unscripted, and there's no help waiting in the wings and no prize at the end. We can't vote him off the island; the interventions have all failed. Our laughter, which always had a self-aware "isn't this awful?" hollowness to it, is dying out completely.

But life carries on. Inside the Belgian restaurant, with its tiny booths covered in sparkly green vinyl and its dual specialties of waffles and beer, the air smelled of breakfast, yeast and hops. No matter the news, there's still the pleasure of good company and good food; the joy of laughing with a friend about nothing in particular. Outside, the wind swirls tiny dust devils, picking up twigs and gum wrappers, plastering wet leaves to the crackled paint on the door. Inside, it's the talk that swirls, twisting and turning and doubling back.

It's all temporary, but I know which one I'd rather pay attention to.

November 6

Today: A red sky in the morning, then heavy grey clouds stretching out to every horizon. Stop-and-start rain, a walk with two hound dogs, one of whom nabbed a truly impressive stick. Endless cups of tea, endless stacks of papers to mark. Three dead ballpoint pens. A little girl in a red macintosh and matching rubber boots, skipping down the sidewalk in the rain, singing a made-up song. Macaroni and cheese; a pumpkin spice doughnut. I bought my first Christmas present, and a birthday present for my favourite three-year-old. I looked at Christmas cards and tiny gilded Christmas tree ornaments. The sun set at 5:02 p.m.

It's tempting to say that I've hit the late-autumn doldrums, but I'm anything but becalmed. I'm refusing to acknowledge the early sunsets, with varying degrees of success, and my body still hasn't caught on to the time change: every day this week I've been ready for lunch by 11 a.m. The body wants what it wants when it wants it (which, this week, is meatball sandwiches at 11, although it gets carrots at noon instead).

My craft projects orbit my work space like moons, challenging my grasp of time and space. It's a small apartment, so they never get to occupy one surface for very long; instead, they get shuffled from couch to ottoman to desk to table and back again. The next pair of Christmas socks is proceeding well, though typically slowly; the tilting Tardis cowl gets a halting three rows before breakfast and another three before dinner. This stack of fabric is destined to become a stuffed hippo sometime before Saturday afternoon, although my current strategy of leaving everything piled next to the sewing machine doesn't seem to be working.

Everything, suddenly, has a deadline; but I'll get there. As with anything, it's just a matter of taking it one thing at a time: one word after another, one stitch after another, one day after another. It will all get done, and soon enough the days will begin to lengthen once more.

November 4

I was beset by writer's block this morning and so instead of working I sat at my desk and watched the shadows of leaves chase each other across the wall. The maple tree outside my window has held on admirably, but today its leaves were falling in flurries; giant yellow snowflakes, catching in drifts and banks on the lawn below. The temperature dropped dramatically a couple nights ago, and suddenly it's not difficult to imagine snow in place of the leaves.

The enormous oak tree next door has leaves the colour of old, burnished copper saucepans. In the morning, if I time it right, there's a short time when I can catch the sun as the light slants down and illuminates the leaves from behind. I stand at the window with a cup of tea in hand and I watch the leaves glow just like a stained-glass window: yellow and green, crimson and burnt-orange, black branches instead of lead solder. The layers shift in the breeze. Five minutes later, the spectacle is over for another day. Another week, and it will be over for another year, and the only stained glass I'll have to admire will be the windows in the hundred year–old church down the street. It suffices.

Meanwhile, the cool days with their early evenings have their small consolations – crisp air,  woodsmoke and beeswax candles; rice pudding, jewel-like pomegranate seeds and tiny, juicy oranges; woollen hats, handknit socks and cozy afghans. Spiced tea and spiced rum. The fall-coloured leaf and the stained-glass window.

November 3

A couple weeks ago I had dinner with an old friend of mine who was in the city on business.

The last time we saw each other was over a year ago, and I was visiting her. I turned off the Trans-Canada and into town just in time to sit down with her family for dinner – pork tenderloin, corn and green beans, noodles. There was ice cream for dessert. Her sons, who were just a toddler and a newborn when first we met, are now young men, pushing six feet. I tried not to stare; tried not to repeat too many variations of "You used to be so small..." I wasn't particularly successful on either count, I don't think.

When we finished eating, we headed out again; out across the highway and into the countryside, to the dairy farm where her younger son boards his 4-H calf. It started to rain. I was wearing just a t-shirt, a denim skirt, slip-on Keds; I was completely unprepared. They managed not to laugh out loud at me as I tip-toed across the barnyard, slipping and sliding through the cow manure, or when I recoiled from the attentions of the dozens of curious barn cats. When the thunder and lightning started, I bolted for the car, secretly happy for a legitimate excuse to seek refuge from all that mess, all that life.

Home again, she and I stayed up late, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea from the old Pyrex tea pot and talking. The house was dark. The only illumination was from the fixture over the sink; the light spilled onto the floor in a golden pool. The streetlight out the window glowed sodium orange. We talked past midnight. We had a lot of catching up to do.

We had a lot of catching up to do this time, too. As I rode the rush-hour train downtown to meet her at her hotel, I thought about our last visit: how the town where I'd once lived had felt simultaneously so familiar and so strange to me. How I'd driven past my old apartments, peered into the window of my old office, walked the old familiar campus paths. How I'd watched that teenage boy work with his calf, and how confident and self-assured he'd been, and how somehow his calf had looked better, more special, than all the rest. How later, retelling the story of my farm visit to my friends at work, I'd watched them lift their feet off the floor in sympathetic dismay, imagining the mud and the manure, and how then I'd laughed, recognizing myself in them; recognizing the city-mouse caricature that I'd become.

We walked up Yonge Street to my favourite local pub. I'd estimated it would only take us twenty minutes, but it was more than half an hour. I'd forgotten how much there is to look at when you're seeing it for the first time. How bright the lights are; how many people there are; how close and loud and crazy they all seem. She pointed out businesses I'd forgotten existed. She asked questions about things I'd never wondered about, and questions I wasn't sure I had the answer to.

"How do you do it?" she asked. And "Do you like it here?" I hesitated too long before answering.

Once again we talked for hours. We had salads in order to justify the giant plate of fries. No dessert. The light was dim, but the space heater behind us was hard at work, so the pub was warm and cozy. The other tables filled and emptied, but we stayed on, until the fries were almost all gone and it was finally time to go. We caught the subway back downtown; it was full of the usual late-night characters, and there were empty paper cups and plastic bottles and discarded newspapers on the floor. In the darkened windows I caught a glimpse of my city-mouse self, operating in her element, navigating a different kind of mess, a different kind of life.

We hugged in the hotel lobby and went our separate ways. It will probably be a year before we see each other again, even though a year is too long. In the days since then, I keep hearing her voice asking me, "How do you do it? Do you like it here?" And then I hear the echo of my hesitation.

But this morning I rode the streetcar to work and I had my answer. Queen Street is quiet first thing on a Sunday morning, and the air was crisp and the sky was blue and there was time enough to walk to the coffee shop to buy a muffin from the guy with the wire-rimmed glasses who knows all the neighbourhood kids by name. I tucked the muffin into my bag and headed east, walking past the park, into the sun. Something about the light made me look up, and I saw those trees, and that lamp post, and the blue blue sky, and I smiled. I do like it, most of the time. It's like anything. You just have to know where to look.

November 1

A year ago today, I stood on the beach in Napier, New Zealand, and watched the waves roll in. It was early afternoon, and the sun was high overhead. The sky and the water seemed endlessly blue.

I had woken up that morning on the other side of the island and driven cross-country for almost four hours. I crossed from lush forest, thick with ferns, to meadowed valleys, where gorse crowded the roadside. I wound my way up and down mountainsides, my cautious Canadian nature balking at the 120 km/hour speed limit on the precipitous two-lane mountain roads. Whenever I could, I pulled over to let people pass, although I pretended that I was getting out of the car to look at the sheep.

The fact that I can't find any pictures of sheep is probably revealing.

I got to Napier and checked into my hotel. That day I was supposed to join my tour group, half a dozen other writers, but I found myself wanting to prolong my solitude. I begged off lunch and headed into town, where I bought an apple and a homemade granola bar from a health-food store and a latte from the coffee shop next door. I'd been travelling on my own for five days and my head was swimming from too much time alone and an incipient head cold, but I found some comfort in the fact that the health-food store smelled familiar: sandalwood and nutritional yeast and paper bags. Some things don't change, whatever the hemisphere. The smell of the health-food store, the shape of the lid on my takeaway cup, the taste of the hot, frothy milk – each carried their own brand of familiar reassurance.

The walk down to the water took less than five minutes. I crossed the promenade, skirted the band shell and hopped a low tide wall onto the shingled beach. The gravel crunched beneath my boots and the sun glared down; there were girls in bikinis, hopeful, watching the surfers, but the breeze was cool enough that I was moved to wrap myself more tightly in my scarf. I sat on a driftwood log to eat my snack, and I watched the waves, and I thought about "my" ocean, the Atlantic, and wondered if I'd ever seen it so blue.

After a while, I pushed the apple core into the empty paper cup and stood up to walk back. On the way, I looked for rocks – striped pebbles, my favourite – and tried to fix those moments in my mind.

(More about Napier, the Art Deco capital of the world.)

Lately

No big news here – just a collection of small things that I've been doing, watching, listening to and reading lately. A bit of a jimble-jamble, but that's all right.

The hot weather has arrived in earnest. In the evening, right around ice-cream time, light from the setting sun bounces off the balconies across the street and into my apartment, casting long shadows.

It's not a great photo, really, but for some reason I love the way the light falls on this little collection of precious-to-me things I've gathered over the years. Each one has a story.

Knitting-wise, I'm making good progress on my Audrey in Unst sweater, although I'll be pushing it to make the KAL deadline (July 1st, midnight), I think. The short-row set-in sleeves is like a magic trick, and I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out. The pink (SweetGeorgia in Rosebud) is slightly less...violent...in real life.

I waited for weeks for my copy of Knit to Flatter to arrive, and it was well worth it. Thanks to what I learned in the book, I've got a good excuse to give my cardigan short sleeves – a good figure-flattering strategy for bottom-heavy types like me, it seems. Look better and have a better chance of making that KAL deadline? Works for me!

There's a lot to like about this book – it's got a friendly, no-nonsense tone; it's non-judgmental and very supportive of all shapes and sizes (I loved the range of models they used); the hints and tips work for all your outfits (not just the hand-knit ones); and in addition to the handful of attractive patterns designed with my shape in mind, each of the other patterns includes notes for figure-friendly modifications. (There's also help with the required math. Perfect!) This is a book I'll go back to again and again.  

I did a bit of spinning with my Moosie, and wow, what a difference a good tool makes! Unbelievable. I've been too preoccupied with my sweater to do much more, but I did splurge on a little incentive...a bit of fibre. Isn't it pretty?  

Polworth + Silk in "Coal Harbour," again from SweetGeorgia. I'm going to have to be careful that I don't end up with double the stash, it seems.

In non-fibre news, I've had this song on repeat; seen Much Ado About Nothing (loved it, and that's not just my appreciation of the theatre's air-conditioning talking); and spent an evening at Another Story Bookshop, where Marianne Elliott was reading from her new book.

Zen Under Fire is the story of her time as a UN employee in Afghanistan (to put it very, very simply), and it's a fascinating account of a place – and a set of circumstances – that I can barely imagine. If I was in a book club, this would be my pick for the year.

Tomorrow, I'll pop back to share the results of what might be the best culinary experiment I've done in a while (or might be an enormous failure). Cross your fingers!