knitting 1, 2, 3

1. Watching -- belatedly, on tape -- the brilliant series, The Adventure of English. I learn that, after the Black Plague wiped out about 25 per cent of the population, the importance and wealth of the ordinary working person increased. In fact, apparently, the wool trade made great regions of England rich.
2. The new Ikea catalogue arrives. I daydreamed over them when I was young and poor, planning room after room based on furnishings I saw in the pages before me. Now I am surrounded by Ikea, at least in the studio and my home office. I still find time to sit down with the catalogue to see what's new and am delighted, this year, to find that cats and knitting populate the photographs of the ideal Ikea home.
3. I decide I need another stole to see me through late summer and fall. I settle on Schaeffer's gorgeous Elaine. We've just used it in a KnitNet shrug pattern and I immediately want not just to own something made with it but to knit it myself. I turn the skeins into balls and pull another basket out of the closet to hold the yarn. The right-size one that comes to hand takes me back more than 20 years to a day my father was visiting here in Toronto. He wanted to take me shopping and buy something for me but the only thing I could think of that I wanted was a nice big basket with a handle to hold big knitting projects. He kept saying "That's all you want? Just this $10 basket?" It was, so he bought it and, if he were not gone, I'd tell him about all of the projects it's held over the years, from layettes for the cherished granddaughter he loved to this latest glamourous stole that will take me through fall evenings. Thanks, Daddy.