At the seaside

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up
Till it could come no more.

As usual, my sweater name search yields unexpected finds, such as this poem At the Seaside, by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child’s Garden of Verses – a tattered book by now, given to my mother as a child by her aunt Hilda, and these “a day in the life” family photos – interesting to me both visually and historically, from the archives.

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On July 29, 1922 the Stieg clan enjoyed their day at the seaside.

In the photo above, my great great grandmother Johanna stands in the center of the back row, with great aunt Hilda on her right side and great great aunt Hattie on her left.  Hattie’s husband William kneels in front of her holding one of their 3 sons born by this time – it’s most likely Paul at 2 years old given the dates I know. Paul was my godfather. Their oldest, William Jr., is the 5 year old wearing the sailor top with the dark tie, and their youngest, Donald, is the infant in Hattie’s arms.  Donald died too young during WWII at the age of 23. 

Taking a deep dive into my family tree, the rest of the children likely belong to my great great aunt Flossie, the younger woman wearing glasses.  She had 6, and among the 5 born by this time, 3 were girls – matching the number of those unidentified in the photos, some wearing bows in their hair.  Flossie’s first marriage to Joseph ended with his death after only one year.  I don’t know what happened. Their son William, the 9 year old in the photo above, was later adopted by James, her second husband, and took his name. 

Knowing bits of how their lives turned out makes me stop and wonder what’s in store – but I guess it’s best not to dwell.  Why spoil the surprise.

The weather’s getting warmer in the northern hemisphere these days, and I’m surely ready for it. My yarn’s lighter and my needles are thinner.
Summer knitting has begun.

At the Seaside – my next sweater design, coming soon.

Update:  At the Seaside, published 5/29/2019.

Shawl collar v-neck

I’ve been working on a new knit design lately, coming back slowly and surely from the mysterious injury of my knitter’s elbow. The project is nearing its end and soon I’ll be needing its name, but so far none have come to me. Last night I went looking through the family binders for inspiration with no luck. So today I decided to focus on my hard drive – where by now I’ve been for a while.

Before it was all knitting all the time for me, I enjoyed making books and boxes for my printed photo collections. I came across one while name searching – a project I worked on in 2007. I had been taking a photography class at NESOP and self portrait was the assignment.

The photos were taken on my birthday that year – a coincidence for sure, but I like the added autobiographical emphasis. And 12 years later a self portrait series by me that includes my Bill still rings true – though sadly by now, same love, different kitty.

A while after these were taken I reused the photos in a new collection, as the basis for one that now featured the pattern instructions for the purple knit I’m wearing throughout,

and one that I bundled all up in its own paper cover, for posterity.

I was glad to have found all the files for this project on my hard drive stored in a folder of its own – even though it was named tragically as Shawl collar v-neck.

Needless to say, my name search continues. I’ll report back.