I’m sitting on my front porch writing this blog post, after neglecting my site for many weeks. I have been on vacation, aside from three days of work, since early June. I really have no excuse for not blogging aside from the major distractions caused by knitting, some gardening and social media. I’m really enjoying the routine, but why do I feel a small sense of guilt because of all the things I’m NOT doing? Rhetorical question. I did some very timely gardening work in June, which bore fruit! My roses are doing much better this year (maybe it’s the...
My Crafty Grandmother
May 30, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I recently found myself thinking about my paternal grandmother, Jean Lee. I didn’t get to know her all that well because she lived in Winnipeg and I grew up in Montreal, but our family visited probably once a year or so. My grandmother taught school in a one-room schoolhouse starting at age 16, but gave it up when she got married a few years later. She then raised my father and aunt and looked after the house and her husband for the rest of her life. I imagine she found plenty to keep her busy just doing those things, but...
Colourwork and Sock Fun
March 18, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I did some gorgeous mittens in my first year back at knitting called Fiddlehead Mittens By Adrian Bazilia. I had so much fun doing stranded knitting that I was sure I’d be churning out sweaters and more of those great mittens for the rest of my life. However, like a kid in a candy store I was attracted by all the other pretty things and I’ve done very little colourwork since then. Lately, I’ve picked it up again and it’s delighting me as much as ever. I was reinfected with the bug thanks to a Celtic Cast On podcast I...
Process knitting vs product knitting
March 8, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m finished my Vertices Unite Shawl! So I guess I can get back to writing about knitting instead of actually knitting. I can’t express how much fun it was to knit this project and how much it satisfied something deep within me to let my heart choose the colours one after the other and see where they led. From “cast-on” to “bind-off”, I grew as a knitter. Does it sound overly dramatic to say that perhaps I learned something about myself? The biggest lesson I learned is to trust myself, at least when it comes to choosing colours. I loved...
Sick bed delirium
March 6, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
So, I’ve been sick with the flu and its aftermath for two weeks. The only upside to this is that I’ve been able to sit on the couch and knit while watching knitting podcasts and Star Trek TNG, guilt-free. Therefore, I made great progress on my Vertices Unite shawl and finished a pair of Simple House Slippers during that time. Plus, I’ve started another pair of socks for the #sockbash2017 hosted by the Grocery Girls. Since I almost always have a pair of socks on the needles, this is no hardship. When I was still quite sick and my cough was...
Knitting mistakes as a metaphor for life
February 21, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Can grappling with mistakes in your knitting help you to understand and cope with the more important ones you’ve made/are making in real life? Perhaps they can, if you allow those lessons to swarm up from your subconscious. From the first day you embark on a new skill, like knitting, playing an instrument, or riding a bike, you make mistakes. As you become more proficient you make fewer mistakes, but mistakes will always happen, they’re called accidents—just ask my husband, who went ass-over-teakettle on his bike and broke his collarbone a few years ago. It wasn’t because he’s not a...
Colour Quandary
February 18, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Since taking up the needles again just before Christmas, 2013, I’ve discovered a lot about myself and how I relate to colour. Choosing colour is a surprisingly emotional issue. When you’re about to commit to a knitting project, which will take many hours of work, choosing the “right” colour(s) becomes very important. I have been watching quite a few knitting podcasts on Youtube, (yes, for the uninitiated, there is such a thing!) and recently my very own LYS (local yarn store) has started one that I really love. It’s called Espace Tricot. (The store exists just two blocks from my...
My Knitting obsession
February 15, 2017June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Hi, Knitters, and those of you are visiting because you’ve subscribed to the old Tranquil Garde! I hope you’ll stay! It’s been an interesting year or so of transition. I put this site on hiatus, partly because my commitment to gardening had become a little thin, but also out of frustration with my computer, which is extremely slow and almost impossible to use for blogging or site-maintenance purposes. I haven’t bought a new computer, but I’m trying a new thing, posting and maintaining my site with my iPad. So far, so good. I hope to keep it up, but posting...
Hello from Away
October 4, 2016June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Actually, I haven’t been physically away much, only spiritually. I have been in and out of the garden over the summer, but I have done little actual gardening. Whenever I walk through I marvel at how things are doing without my active participation. Things look a little overgrown and messy, but also wild and beautiful. I am grateful to the wonderful plants who continue to thrive ( or not, depending) and I throw them kisses as I pass. The only plants that have had consistent attention are the ones in the pots on my deck. Without some water and food...
November Beauty
November 22, 2015June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
If the title of this post seems like an oxymoron to you, I’m not surprised. I have a long(ish) and difficult relationship with the month of November. It’s always seemed to me like the most depressing, grey, cold, lifeless month of the year. On the other hand, my dear father, who died in 2011, was born on the 30th of this month, for which I always pitied him when I was a child. He missed being born in the best month of the year (coincidentally, my birthday month) by just one day! Even as I grew older, I thought having...