Dawn Brocco's Life & Design Blog

It was hot yesterday and will be hot today - so I downed my morning coffee and got out there to water the tomatoes and zucchini as early as I could - not easy for me as I'm so not a morning person. Up at the crack of dawn I'll never be.

Have the last hundred Gazettes to print today and start on printing the 150 booklets I need to do.

Knitting
Began wool socks for brother John, for Christmas. He actually mended his pair last winter, but it's time for a new pair - Lamb's Pride Bulky in a navy for the cuff and foot, but I quadrupled up some coordinating grey fingering wt. sock yarn for the heel flap, turn and toes.

Am working on another slipper design for the Winter issue. This one is stranded - one of my favorite styles of knitting. My hands just love doing colorwork. I also naturally take to aran work, as well. Intarsia, OTOH, is an effort, but I'll do it if the design needs it. I may do something aran, as well.

Have to do a hat and scarf for Dad for Christmas - I promised him, as he lost the alpaca scarf I made him 2 years or so ago. As the cashmere I get to do my dyed kits with now comes in a natural black, I'll get that for his set and must design something simply elegant that doesn't look simple. I don't mind easier to do knits, but I really don't like designing *basic* knits whose 30 hours or so of knitting are enough to put one into hibernation, they're so boring to knit! For example, the alpaca boucle cable jacket I just finished for a booklet of designs I'm working on - there's interest in the cable border, then waist shaping to tend to, then working short rows for the sleeves, then cabled cuffs and front band. So, even though it's overall fabric is stockinette with cabled accents, the actual knitting keeps you from dozing off.

And I found beautiful Swarovski crystal clasps for it at my LYS, Amazing Threads. I tried Jo-Ann's first, hoping for larger gold aran-style clasps, but they had none and I knew Radley, at AT, would have beautiful and unusual closures to choose from.

I have anther design (an aran) almost finished that can use the aran-style gold clasps, and I can get them from JHB. Very celtic, very up-my-Irish-heritage-alley! Well, only 3/8th Irish heritage, but I feel its pull much more than the German, English or Native American (Mohawk) heritages I also have.

Yup, my maternal grandmother (who's still kicking - good for her!) is half Irish (her mom) and half Mohawk (her dad).

One day I'll write about my ancestors, both in the generic sense and the very real-life experiences of my family. Lessons exist in our family's pasts that shouldn't fade away with them. I know, from my own limited knowledge of my forebears, that, through time and generations, we are growing towards a state of health (mental and physical) and happiness that only comes from questioning, understanding and acceptance. This is good. I can't stand being static, not when we're capable of so much more.

There's no room for bitterness and regret in life. All paths can teach if we're willing to learn. And once we learn, we can fulfill our potential and purpose in this life. We can go *forward*. There's no more freeing a feeling that finally being able to go forward, away from old patterns, old problems, and the same old, same old ways of dealing with life that keep others, even ones we love, bound in the chains of negativity and unhappiness.

Breaking from the family, the root, the stifling enclosure of limitation, and saying not for me. This is not who I am, nor is it the way I want my life to be, eventually paves a path that others can see forward from, as well. We all must try and be the light that this world needs, not add to the darkness that we have too much of. But even if no-one sees that path, but yourself, it's far better to walk it alone that not to walk it at all.

Back to our regularly-scheduled light reading in a few days...!