Sometimes it rains

...and you don't realize you're in the middle of something bigger than a rain storm. When I wrote my last post, I was saying ...ok, we had a little rain here. I was maybe understating the situation. Winnipeg was on the national--and then international-- news. I know this because my sister-in-law in Virginia emailed to ask if we'd been flooded out.

So far? No problems at our house, and we have a lovely sunny day right now. That's good, because over 500 homes in the area (and many more unreported ones) are busy taking all the ruined stuff out their basements. HERE is a photo of what things looked like.

It's supposed to rain again starting tomorrow. Uh Oh.

The student that is visiting here has been exploring our connections. In April of 2007, we both went to hear the Yarn Harlot speak in Lexington, Kentucky. Last night, our resident student looked up the Yarn Harlot's blog post from that day. Take a wander over there...and you'll see, first, a photo of a woman in a bright blue v-neck top, holding up stripey socks. Our Resident Student is the red head to her left in the photo. (No, we didn't know each other yet.)

Keep scrolling down, and you'll see a photo of me in a bright red wool sweater. It made sense when leaving my home in the cool early morning to make the 2 hour drive. It was darn warm when I arrived in Lexington. Here's what Stephanie aka Yarn Harlot said:
(Joanne)
Who I know in from the internet and was trying her best to look like a Canadian (that was the plan...right Joanne?) wearing her very best woolies. Fabulous socks...yes? (It was hot in Kentucky. Joanne looked - besides fantastic, like I always do...warm.)

Note: the Fabulous Socks are available here in case they distracted you.

Anyhow, at the time of that event, I had no idea that I was yearning to live in Canada. Now I do live here! I also had no idea that Resident Student would become one of the Professor's research students, and eventually live on the third floor of my house while visiting Canada.

Connections are sometimes a long time in the making, huh? It took years (and a persistent undergrad) to see the long strands of yarn that connect all these events!

Here's the kicker. Back when I was undergraduate at Cornell, I often thought they'd made a mistake in accepting me. It was sometimes such a struggle--I felt stretched sometimes academically. One cold and dark Saturday evening, I promised myself that if I studied at the library for a couple of hours, I'd let myself go out afterwards. As I trudged to the library, I looked up. In every single window, at each library desk, I saw a student studying. It turned out sometimes everyone else felt the way I did. I wasn't alone in feeling like maybe I wasn't good enough to be there...and that I needed to study on Saturday nights.

Today I got an email from a student intern at the Cornell Alumni News. She asked if she could interview me for the magazine. I was so excited and surprised! Good thing I was sitting down. Apparently, 15 years after graduation, I am worth interviewing. Wow.

If I had to rate all this? Living in Canada, not having a flood at my house, or this interview? I'd be hard pressed to say which connection is best.

Nah. Just thought about it. Probably not having a flood is best.

Too bad it's going to rain again soon. I am just hoping to avoid a flood...

connections

Knitting makes me think a lot about how we're all connected to each other. Yesterday, I posted the first Knit Green pattern, Ploughed Acre Knee Socks, to Ravelry, an enormous online knitting database. People from all over the world started checking out the pattern right away! This is a pattern I started working on years ago, and it became one of the designs in the book. I loved the socks so much that I've got several versions here, and I'll show how they're connected as this post goes along...

On Sunday, I left the knitting retreat and rushed home to get ready for Yom Kippur, one of the Jewish high holidays, the Day of Atonement. The professor and I have moved several times, but attending a new congregation is always somewhat jarring. Most people observe these holidays with their families and friends. It's hard to move in the summertime and know very few people at the start of a new (Jewish) year! This time, though, it was different.

The family (a rabbi and his wife and their daughter and son-in-law) who ran these "alternative" services were already connected to us. One of their sons had been our rabbi in Nashville. This special service was a once a year, intimate and small congregation and we were introduced and welcomed into their Winnipeg community. We were asked to participate in the service. Then, their son-in-law gave a talk about Jonah, with a handout which included lots of rabbinic and academic commentary. The last quote on the page...was one of my favorite professors from graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill. I was bowled over!

After the holiday was over, I was able to email a copy of the handout to this favorite professor, who also happens to be a member of that congregation in Nashville. Every single person in this exchange, (from Winnipeg to Nashville and back) was surprised, honored, and pleased as punch to get to make a connection like this, so many thousands of miles from home..wherever home is.

I promised I'd explain how this relates to a knee sock and knitting, I know. (seem far fetched?-just wait.) A few years ago, I made this one sample sock out of a cotton sock yarn. Fortissima Cotton, in a color that is hard to photograph! I made one sock. For whatever reason, no one wanted the pattern at the time.

On my travels in 2007 to write Fiber Gathering, I found some amazing Cormo yarn from Elsa Wool Company sold both at Estes Park and Taos wool festivals. I knew it would become these knee socks. Soft, supple, and as soulful as a fabric can be, I fell in love with its texture as I knitted. While this pattern is relatively simple, it requires attention. Each stitch must be connected to the next. You can't drop one. You can't forget about the pattern completely. It draws you back in to attend to it, every other row. One row stockinette, one row of ploughed acre lace.

When I finished the sample socks for the book, I knew I wasn't done making these knee socks. I found some Bo Peep Not Just for Socks yarn in two colors in Greenwich, NY last fall, and I knew the charcoal color would be perfect for my own personal pair. I also liked how the yarn connected me to Tracy and Jeff's story. (Click on the link to my post on Greenwich for more.) In short, Tracy's friends kept her yarn shop open while she was ill. When I visited, I bought yarn not just to knit, but to celebrate our connections and how they keep yarn shops open!

Making a community and making a home in a new place seems to be all about these connections. It's how each stitch links us, with care, to the next thing, to those past and present and future stitches. Just replace stitch in that last sentence, and you have it. How knitting, and this story of Yom Kippur are related...

It's how each person links us, with care, to the next thing, to those past and present and future people.

More projects will be introduced soon!