Sometimes I look around our house and I'm faintly surprised by it, because it's a bit anonymous. I don't mean that it's anonymous in that creepily tidy* way of hotel rooms. It isn't in any way designed, it has just evolved in the way that family homes do, but I don't know that it necessarily shows much of our characters. We have a lot of Ikea furniture - nothing wrong with that, I like Ikea furniture, but there's a kind of inevitability to the Billy bookcase. I think what I mean is that I was looking round and it occurred to me that considering I'm a knitter and dyer there's not much individuality to our actual furnishing.
So I thought I'd change that a bit. I went to Liz Lovick's lace-knitting workshop at the Glasgow School of Yarn last year and as part of it started knitting a piece of cat's paw lace intended to be a scarf eventually. Of course I didn't have enough of the wool in that colour for a scarf, and to be honest no real desire for another lace scarf, so the sample piece sat on the needles for ages. Eventually I knitted a bit more so that it was roughly square, did a few rows of garter stitch, cast off, blocked it, and wondered what to do with it. And then I decided my bedside table needed a doily-kind-of-thing. Actually it didn't need it (let's face it, doilies are pretty much pointless) but it did look quite nice. And then I thought a coaster would be handy for when I throw caution to the winds and drink coffee in bed while reading**. So I knitted a garter-stitch coaster to match the doily-thing. And it looks a bit more comfortable and a bit more personal.
* Perish the thought! It is a house of clutter - there's no way that anybody could walk into our house and not realise that it contains children. And two moderately untidy adults. And two cats, though they're actually the tidiest of all of us.
** I know how to party.
2 comments:
Let's face it, there's no better place to read on a cold night. I see your coffee-in-bed and raise you one huge cup of tea and a large bag of kettle corn. Let the revels commence!
My bedside table is protected by a miniature quilt. (After spilling cocoa on a doily, I thought I'd switch to something darker that didn't have to be blocked after washing.)
That is a lovely bit of lace!
I never thought of having to wash and re-block post coffee-spillage! Oops. Though actually if it spills it's more likely to be on the coaster or me. neither of which need blocking (entertaining thought - maybe I should my face, and get rid of the crumpled bits!).
The miniature quilt sounds lovely!
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