Sunday, March 11, 2007

He's back and so am I. Now on oral antibiotics, the Bear has returned, a bit diminished and tired, but much healthier than a week ago. I managed a lot of sock knitting and am picking up the gusset in the first of the blue Opal socks. I like longish legs to my socks and normally knit to 8" before doing the heel flap. At home I have 2 fat bobbins of BFL, and have cast on the back of the lace jacket. I have discovered to my dismay that my diet now means that many of my favourite (and not very old) sweaters no longer fit. I have a short-sleeved top knit of Classic Elite Avignon (cotton and silk) which is now a tent on me. Most of the winter jumpers I don't think will be as disastrous but I just knit the Avignon last year. We did grocery shopping on his return and there is much fish and Lean Cuisine in his future as well.

A couple of trips into my past popped up this week. I happened upon the book displayed to the right when looking at Lark books on weaving. In the first half of the 1970's I was in graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill and a frequent visitor to the potters of the Seagrove area. I have several pieces left and maybe will try nagging ex-husbands to get some more back, although some of the most striking pieces (a vivid red-orange ashtray) are long gone. I have a frog-skin green Jugtown vase, a teapot signed Seagrove pottery and a jug with lid signed Z. Teague that used to hold my sourdough starter in NC. I looked up the Seagrove of today and found their website but they seem much more upscale than they were in the '70's with people doing crystalline glazes, which are one of my favourite glazes and one I collect, but must have the Coles turning in their graves. I didn't see the Coles on the list of potters on the website, but they were definitely not upscale and I remember poking around in their dusty sale room. I had at one point a set of avocado green stoneware from them but I know it didn't cross the ocean with me. I still pick up pottery when I see something that I like but it has to be special now and I still look out for crystalline glazes and copper red if I can find it. There are many pieces in this book now in various museums and I have a few bits that are of the same date and lineage, although at the time I was buying functional pottery and not "art ceramics". I still refuse to buy "things" made out of pottery that have no possible purpose or heritage. My one exception is a large (ca. 18" long) porcelain egg with the most glorious glaze on it. The movers managed to crack it in the ride across the world but I kept it (high on a bookshelf where nobody can see the crack) because its presence comforts me.

The second thing that poppe
d up was rediscovering Laurel Burch after many years. I found bags she designed in an online yarn shop and was thrilled to see current work by her. I have since found her home page and now know from other online resources that she has a rare medical condition which presumably has interrupted her career. I am ashamed to even count how many pairs of her earrings I own and now I have discovered a whole new array of vibrant, colourful images. Of course I love her cats, but her other designs of a more abstract nature are just as attractive to me. I am of the opinion that you can never have too many earrings so I see some new ones in my future.

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