The Wild Shrug

I have finished my Arachne Shrug (the pattern is from the Knitting Goddess book, which can be viewed by clicking on the link). I had a lot of fun with this pattern, leaving off the bobbles from the original (which are little raised dots of yarn), as I felt this would look too Klingon for my tastes, and adding a crocheted collar and hem, which cannot be seen terribly well in this picture. Contrary to the photo, I do not have one arm; my dear daughter Prada posed me thus (I also have a serious case of "yoga hair," as I had just gotten back from yoga class). This photo is taken in the Holy Strega's Lair, my downstairs office, with its altar to goddesses, angels, and ancestors, its walls of masks and Day of the Dead banners, its artifacts of a childhood returned to me from an ocean of grief and forgetfulness. This is a place where tarot cards are read, candles lit, rituals devised, prayers rise like luminous petals, my children come to me for advice, for a story, for a mother's love, where Mr. Strega and I steal kisses in the middle of a busy day.

I am glad to have finished this shrug, the very first real garment I have ever made, on a day of winter letting everyone know that it is not quite done with Santa Cruz. Wind roared through the canyon this morning, waking me, and a branch blocked my front door. Lately, the days carry with them the promise of a slow, hot summer to come, or they offer up a remembrance of frozen months, like a cameo of ice and rain. Clouds flew over the sky, hastening to somewhere along with a flock of ravens, and our cherry tree lost handfuls of petals like unmeltable snow. I remembered something I read, that a knitter sometimes weaves a part of their soul into a garment, and I hoped for that, a single thread of spirit caught in the tangled fibers.