Silver and Gold

Silver and gold, silver and gold

Everyone wishes for silver and gold
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth.

These days I have the best of both worlds:

Drizzle & Moroccan Days
Shadow and Light
Rain and Sunshine
Silver and Gold

Both are beautiful in their own way.

Both are an integral part of life.

I remember a funeral I once attended. The deceased was a photographer and died fairly young, leaving behind a grieving husband, a daughter, and one tiny grandchild.

The presiding minister observed during the eulogy that photographers never take pictures at high noon. Why?

Because, at that hour, there is no shadow, and without the shadow, the subject of the photo loses its definition.

I am enjoying both my creations this winter, and taking to heart what they have to teach me about this "bleak midwinter." I love the bright, clear days (like today.) Who wouldn't?

But at the same time, I am learning to embrace the darker days, the twilight days, the days when snow falls, swift and silent, even the days when Indiana serves up a cold, steady rain. And there are many such days.

Many, many such days. SIGH...

I may dream of sunny Morocco (or even Florida. I'm not picky.)
But I try to be present in the moment.

Even if the moment happens to be dreary.

I might even head outside to take pictures. I might NOT know enough to come in out of the rain.

And a shawl pattern might evolve out of it.

Drizzle is coming along swimmingly (How's that for a nice WET adverb?)

I have temporarily stopped work on Drizzle for the most part, in order to concentrate on knitting up Moroccan Days, writing out her pattern, working out those last little glitches before handing the pattern over to my test knitter, for the Arabian Nights version.

But that doesn't mean I have nothing to show for it!

Here are some WIP pictures, to wet whet your appetite:

Close up of Bottom border: seed stitch and open areas with floating beads.








Close up of beginning of lace patterning. See the raindrops?







Extreme close up of beading








I know this one is out of focus, but the sparkle of the beads and the soft color gradations of the yarn show to their best effect.

Now you see the raindrops, don't you?

So much for rain. What about sun?

Moroccan Days is moving along. Ran into a little glitch when I had to figure out how many repeats to do, and how to make it all come out even.

There will be another (possibly wider) repeat of the end border beaded window motif down the center of the shawl, to cascade down into a beautiful back view. So I have to reconcile 10 row repeats with 12 row repeats AND the 46 row end border. Things would have been so much simpler had I thought ahead and made the border 48 rows wide.

(Too math wonky to go into here, but trust me. I made problems for myself by not having the 12 row beaded edging pattern line up at the end of the border.)

But hey! Who doesn't love a challenge?

Right?

Right?

Anybody?

Guess this is one of those "embrace the shadow" moments.

Or, to steal a line from A League of Their Own...

"It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, anyone could do it. It’s the hard that makes it great."

Yeah, right...