Fall Falls; Winter Rises

Ah, Winter! Every year it’s the same. I loathe it, I dread it, and then when it arrives I am briefly seduced by its dazzling beauty and freshness.

I woke around 4:00 a.m this morning and on my way back from the bathroom I glimpsed the ghostly glow through the study window. Still half-asleep, I drifted over to the window to see what it was, and my jaw dropped in wonder. It was winter! Snow, and not just a hint of it either: it was the real thing.

I couldn’t bring myself to hate it. Not yet.

I went back to bed and a few minutes later I heard the snow plow rumbling by. I remembered an old room-mate from when I was very young and living on McLeod Street. Her name was Sue; we called her Aussie Sue because she was from Australia, and also to distinguish her from me, whom we called Little Sue. The first time she saw snow, Aussie Sue was delerious with excitement. She ran outside and literally danced in it. For weeks, she’d run wide-eyed to the window every time she heard the snow plow coming. By Februrary of course, she hated winter as much as the rest of us.

This morning I bundled up and headed into the winter wonderland, on my usual trek to work. It was a whole new world out there.

There is a larch tree that I pass when I cut through the Experimental Farm each morning. It is currently my favourite tree of all the trees. I have gotten into the habit of always walking underneath this tree and patting its trunk on the way to work. And I talk to it too. Not long detailed conversations or anything bizarre like that, I just say a little something to it each morning.

It just so happens that yesterday morning I took a picture of this larch tree, and that today I also took a picture of this larch tree. And I am going to show you both pictures so you can see how much the world changed overnight. (Although you probably know this already, since you probably went outside today yourself.)

Yesterday:

Today:

I practically didn’t recognize her this morning!

Anyway, it was a lovely walk through the pseudo-rural half of my walk to work, but somewhat less lovely during the decidedly urban half. This was because all the snow had turned to slush, and slush is not nearly as pretty as snow. Not only that, but the cars were driving through the deep slush puddles and splashing it onto the pedestrians. Consequently, my pants were damp most of the day. But it wasn’t enough to make me hate winter yet.

At lunchtime we had knitting club, which we do every Wednesday, but it seemed especially nice to be knitting on the first wintery day. Penelope, our knitting guru, brought in special accessories to demonstrate the fine art of blocking. She even demonstrated her own unpatented technique which includes rolling the wet knitted fabric in a towel and standing on it.

There were several important blocking tips, and I will share with you the ones I remember:

1. You must get the knitted fabric deeply wet, not just superficially wet.
2. You must then remove as much of the moisture as possible using the towel method.
3. You pin the pieces to your board using high quality dressmakers pins (dollar store pins will rust and stain your garment).
4. You shape and size the pieces according to the specifications in your pattern.
5. You block for several reasons: to eliminate curling edges, to ensure proper size, to make it easier to join the pieces together into a garment, and to get a more professional-looking final product.

This is what I’m knitting: a scarf. I’m knitting it very, very slowly because after I finish it, I’m going to make myself finish the sweater that I left half-done three years ago. And I’m kind of dreading it, because I don’t remember where I was at or what modifications I made to the pattern.