Sweater Stories

The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” --Brandon Sanderson, fantasy and science fiction writer

We spent a couple of days in Victoria this week. It seems almost taboo to say such things. "I went away somewhere, away from home." When the idea came about, I struggled with it. Was that allowed? Was I being selfish to go away when we were all supposed to be avoiding travel? But in the end, we went. It meant we packed a bag, put Mr. Seymour in the car with us and drove for an hour and a half down the island, and went into a hotel room. We didn't share elevators. We avoided people. We wore masks indoors. We went out for walks and ate sandwiches on a bench in the sunshine. In the end, it seemed not much different than staying home... except it wasn't home. It was somewhere else:

I always enjoy visiting Victoria, but it was different this time, which I suppose was to be expected. The hotels had all taken the opportunity to spruce themselves up, refurbish rooms, repaint, redecorate. I noticed that several shops had disappeared, empty spaces left where they were. And then, some spaces were filled with new shops I'd never seen before. That was heartening.

We took the opportunity to visit places we'd never been before. We stopped at Royal Roads University on the way down. It was nice to visit a university, even if it was nearly totally empty. I have fond memories of my time in university, and this campus reminded me so much of parts of the University of Manitoba. It was a time in my life when I was meeting so many new people just like me, and spending all of my time exploring new things and learning what I was capable of. I think the students who go to Royal Roads are looking forward to feeling those feelings once again:

We spent part of the next day down at the beach near Sidney. It was super windy, but not cold. There were a few people kite surfing in the water which was pretty cool to watch. How wild and free that must feel... and shockingly cold when you land in the water. But it was a visual reminder of life, fresh and vigorous and real:

Seymour enjoyed exploring, sniffing and walking and meeting other doggies who were enjoying their day. His ears were doing their best to take flight. It's just as well that Mr. Seymour is not super aerodynamic:

We came back into the city in the afternoon and went for a walk around town. While waiting for the hubby to come out of a shoe shop, I found The Papery:

Yarn shops, book shops, stationery shops: these are my favourite shops, in that order. I wandered in and walked away with a couple of adorable erasable pens, as well as a couple of calligraphy pens in different colours, and a silver ink pen, all of which will come in handy for when the next urge to create a Christmas card seizes me:

And by happenstance, I looked across the street and was surprised to see that Russell Books had moved to a new location:

It still had its characteristic stacks upon stacks of books. I went in to wander around and to gaze up at all of the shelves:

And while I was there, I picked up a used copy of this book. I learned about this book from a unique crochet-a-long (CAL) project I saw on Facebook through the yarn brand, Scheepjes. The project was a blanket that was inspired by the imagery of the Natural History Museum in Paris which featured in the book. Just like most make-a-long projects, each week, you got the next release of the pattern, but you could also join the optional book club where you read a section of the book, watched an interview with the author, and discussed what you'd read. I didn't take part in the CAL, but I thought it was such a wonderful way to get people to really engage with their projects... to not just learn new stitches and new techniques, but to see how the designer was thinking and to read the story that inspired the project. I believe all of our projects have stories attached to them. Heck, that's why I write this blog: the "how and the why" is what sets handmade items apart. And while I'm not a heavy reader, part of me is looking forward to the feeling of connection of reading something that thousands of other crafters have read contemplated, and to watch the interviews with the author and find out more about his thoughts on his book. In my own way, it's a way of connecting, which is something I so desperately need right now:

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I have been making steady progress with my Midsummer Aran. This seems to be yet another project where I take two steps forward and one step back. I ripped it back to the ribbing last week, but since then, after several calculations and a couple of false starts, I decided to start right back at the beginning and cast on for a completely different size, remove a few mesh elements, and re-jig the placement of the lace panel. I brought it along with me to Victoria and was able to get quite a bit of work done on it, but last night I had to let down a bunch of stitches to fix an error I noticed about 40 rows down. It was minor, but seeing as I had gone through the trouble to start over, it seemed only right to make sure I was going to get something that was not going to annoy me in the end:

And this is what I mean about projects having stories. This story will be all about how I learned to spend the time to read the pattern carefully, including checking whether or not the gauge actually does match up with the resulting schematic and finished sizes (this one does not) and how I now trust my own instincts to make something that fits me properly. That's probably not quite so interesting as a novel set in Paris, but this project is nowhere near finished yet. You never know what might happen next.

It's back to work for me tomorrow, now officially in spring. I'm grateful for the time away from work and for the chance for a change of scenery. I'm off to make some dinner and to look out the window for a while. Have a good week.