It's hot again today, in the 90s (30s C) with far more humidity than we really like -- we want our California summers nice and dry, you know. Not a good day for knitting, anyway. I tried a few rounds of this Jaywalker, and not just the yarn but the needles were sticking to my hands. It's a nasty irony that there is so much moisture in the air and yet we're in a drought with no end in sight. ("The only way in which we know that summer is coming is by the more chilling winds, the increased dust, the tawny color of the hills, and the general dying look of things," wrote Caroline C. Leighton in June 1876. Heck yeah.)
Strangely enough, it isn't too hot to do needlepoint. I'm not sure why this is, but I suppose it's that the needle and wool don't need to slide through one's fingers.
This is another miniature carpet from the McNaughtons' book -- the Khotan No. 25. I've changed the background color from the lightest gold shade in the medallions to the putty-ish white left over from the Holbein carpet. The pale gold was quite all right, but this really speaks to me.
Am also reading The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks. I'm torn, actually -- sometimes he writes whole paragraphs in sentence fragments, which are generally like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, but sometimes he's quite lyrical, and sometimes I feel, with his viewpoint, that the world would be a better place if more people were able to simply do what they love, regardless of whether others think they are "wasting their lives," and that tourists are a nuisance (or worse), and from my own viewpoint that those who are blessed enough to live in the Lake District, to have lived there for centuries, regard people like me as a nuisance (or worse). A conundrum, to be sure.
I am on the waiting list for this book. I may be glad I didn't buy it.
Posted by: Mary Lou | September 06, 2015 at 03:06 PM