Talking Tuesday: Kristin Lavransdatter

 

As a kind of Lenten penance project,  I decided I was going to make my way through Kristin Lavransdatter.  There are many of my acquaintance who love this triology for its spiritual depth and beauty; I thought surely I would love it too.  I tried reading it several years ago, but gave up in the first chapter.  It was so slow, so overfull of description of 14th century Norway.  

This Lent, after reading another glowing recommendation in a Substack newsletter, I thought, I must read this book, even if it is a slog.  The first couple of chapters were again exceedingly slow.  Kristin is a seven-year-old child at the beginning, and it was difficult to get into her as a character.  But Sigrid Undset didn't win the Nobel Prize for Literature for nothing.  She carefully weaves in the story of Kristin's parents, Lavrans and Ragnfrid, while we wait for Kristin to mature.  I admit, I was more captivated by their story (and continue to be, if I'm honest).

I'm nearly to the end of Book 2: The Wife, and after 650 densely packed pages, we hit gold.  There are some glimmers at the end of Book 1: The Wreath, as well as threaded through The Wife, mostly from the story of Lavrans and his wife.  Lavrans is an extremely pious and ascetic man, a good man, who provides well for his family and household, is an upstanding member of the community.  He keeps all the fasts of the church year (both in food and marital relations) and drinks only with joy, never sorrow.  Lavrans is oblivious to to his wife's emotional and sensual needs until they have been married 20 years and he learns more about her.  

Lavrans pulls his wife aside at the end of Book 1 to talk to her during the celebration of Kristin's wedding.  Things Are Revealed that shake Lavrans to his core, although he does not show this to his wife, who thinks her revelations mean nothing to him, that she is nothing to him.  She continues to shrivel inside, although she does not show this to anyone.  It is only when Lavrans is an old man, approaching the end, that he and Ragnfrid reach real understanding, emotional connection, and rapprochement.  It is a beautiful thing to read, but also bittersweet, since it came so late in their lives together.  

Kristin, on the other hand, is a train wreck of epic proportions.  It is hard to read all the poor decisions she makes in her life that put her where she is by the end of Book 2, but at the same time, the spiritual revelation she has then is a glorious and beautiful thing.  But again, it comes so late.  

The recurring theme (to my mind at least) is how much we can hurt those closest to us by being willfully blind to our own faults and failings.  It is entirely possible to erect a Potemkin village of a life that shatters in the least wind.  We have a responsibility to the world more generally, but close to home more specifically, to soften our hearts and see our own faults and work to overcome them (and in a Christian context, we do this with God's help and the sacraments He gave us, including confession and repentance).  

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency, lust for power and idle talk.

But grant unto me, Thy servant, a spirit of purity, humility, patience and love.

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother. 

For blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen.

~The Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian, prayed daily during Orthodox Lent.

I suppose another theme is that it is never too late to try to put things right and start again.  Lavrans goes to his grave having made peace with the world and his wife.  Kristin has seven sons and is married a long time before she really understands how she has wronged her husband, but her revelation brings her to her knees.  I'm curious to see where this new understanding will take her in Book 3: The Cross, as she becomes an old woman.

Ordinary Love

At the end of March, I watched an excellent film, Ordinary Love, starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville.  (Manville will be a familiar face to anyone who watches British film or television regularly). 

As the title suggests, the story follows an ordinary couple through a year of difficulty.  Tom and Joan are empty nesters living in Ireland.  They have a nice relationship, have endured a terrible tragedy in the past, but have learned to live with the pain of it.  They mostly get along with a sense of dry humor and affection, but have their petty squabbles just like everyone else.  I appreciated the "realness" of their relationship, for lack of a better term.  The film showed the good, the not great, and even the ugly, without flinching. 

 

 And while it has gotten to be trope to say an actor's performance is "brave," both actors really dug deep for this one.  You can feel the longevity and intimacy in their relationship: the ups and downs, and how they've managed to stay together and even enjoy the journey together.  It was a window into a very private space, and the actors portrayed it extremely well.

I also appreciated the depth of this story, and the age of the primary actors.  They are not old or young, but in that long middle age where long term relationships can founder and die.  They tolerate each other's quirks, and even though they are living through a trauma, they still reach for and find each other throughout the ordeal.

 

It's not a fast-paced film, and you have to lean into the silences and the quietness of the story, but what a gift this film is.  I'm still thinking about it, weeks later. 

I'd love to hear from anyone who has seen it--what did you think?

Lilias Day

After a slightly rocky start on combining continental and English knitting, I thoroughly enjoyed working the stranded yoke on my Lilias Day and raced through to the finish line over the weekend (Western Easter, but still mid-Lent for us).  I'm eager to do more stranded knitting!  (And purpose-bought yarn for a Mackworth and a Blaithin-Stripes mashup with the great sale at Webs). And German short rows are brilliant (even if they did end up in the wrong place)!  I'm never doing a wrap and turn again. 

I did worry that blocking might mess things up a bit, so took copious photos before dunking it in the bath.  The body of the sweater relaxed and grew quite a bit more than I was expecting, and I was disappointed with how long it looked.  My torso is short, so even an inch too long looks really unflattering on me.  

My meager attempts to fix the growth resulted in some minor felting on the two pink sections and the yoke was slightly tight across the tops of my shoulders, although it fixed the body length issue.  I clipped some of the longer floats on the blue/green section (the last two lines of floats are epic) which helped release some of the tension.  

The sweater fit, but the white wasn't particularly great on me (it rarely is a good choice with my complexion) and I decided the sweater would be better off living with someone else.  

Thankfully, a friend who is narrower than me loved the sweater when I posted pics of it in progress and finished, and I'm popping it into the post for her in the next few days.  I'm glad it will have a good home!

In the meantime, I loved this palette so much, I decided to make an Evendoon with it instead (continuing to work from my stash), which will suit both my closet and my complexion better.  My son also asked for a sweater, and we were able to cobble together enough yarn that I think I can make him a slightly smaller Evendoon from also-stashed yarn in a palette that suits him. 

I'm watching Shtisel on Netflix (and am kind of obsessed with Hasidic communities at the moment); it is lovely to listen to Hebrew and read subtitles and knit with something not-quite-mindless, but not too hard either.

Wooly Notes

I've still got three sweaters on needles, but I've made considerable progress on two of them: the solid-color Stripes! sweater and the stranded Lilias Day.  The colorwork is like magic to me, as I've only previously done one stranded swatch.  I'm sure I'm doing it wrong, but I can't be bothered.  It looks fine enough.  I also got the idea from another Raveler to put my colors on a stick before knitting to avoid another Penelope sweater, which worked a treat.  Random tongue depressors to the rescue!

The solid-color Stripes! is about half way; I'm an inch into the body and then the sleeves. I'm fully aware that making a solid colored sweater on a striped pattern is ridiculous, but I really like the fit of the pattern! Made in Quince and Co.'s Chickadee yarn (in the Cypress colorway), it is a welcome break from the stranded work.  Although I'm thinking about tackling that Mackworth next, so it must not be too bad.   

In truth, my feelings about stranded work go something like this: the first repeat or so, Oh, this is fun!  See the pattern, look at the different colors, I'm getting the hang of two-handed knitting!  Then the next couple of repeats go like this: grumble, grumble, left hand yarn keeps losing tension or dropping off my finger all together, floats are messy, the knitting is all bunched on one side because there's so much sweater hanging off the needles, I hate this, my fingers hurt, why did I ever think I would like stranded work?  And then back to : Oh this is fun! See what I can make with two yarns!  Just work a row of repeats every day and Bob's your uncle!  And on, ad infinitum.  But really, a yoked sweater is a small amount of colorwork relative to the rest of the sweater, and I'm nothing if not doggedly persistent. *snort*

My Yolk! sweater is coming along--just miles of stockinette on the body, although I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake on the yarn color for the body.  Kate's sample (which I LOVE) is navy blue on the bottom, and when I purchased my yarn, I thought I was going a bit into teal, which works better in my wardrobe, but this dye-lot is quite green with a lot of purple accents in it, and I'm not sure I'm a fan.  I have a hat out of the same colorway in DK weight and it isn't nearly so green or purple in tone.  Palette yarn is pretty inexpensive, however, so if I wanted to redo the body in something more like Shoal, I think it wouldn't be too bad, provided I quit knitting now.  Although, looking at it again in the light of my living room, it looks more teal with earth tones, like my hat, so maybe it just looks green/purple under fluorescent lighting?

Peter Pan: An Homage

 

 

...or something like that.  I got my rear in gear yesterday and pulled out my sewing machine.  I had to fix one of my husband's cassocks (the top stitching had come loose on the pockets), and figured I might as well get on with the green version of the cord skirt I mentioned in my previous post.

 

 

Did I mention that one of my kids was up for the day at 4:00 a.m. yesterday?  *cough*Boo*cough*  Which meant I was awake at 4:00 a.m.  Needless to say, I wasn't firing on all pistons yesterday.  

The topstitching repair was very straightforward, and the skirt cutting was quick because I didn't have to mark darts, but I made a small fitting error on the back piece that was only evident after I'd finished the thing.  Namely, that when I made the gold cord skirt last month, I forgot that I took another 1/2" out of the back piece.  For whatever reason, that was fine in the heavy weight cord (maybe the zipper+fixed waistband made a difference?) but it pulled uncomfortably across the hips in this lightweight version. 

 

This make was full of mistakes, from start to finish.

The first was applying the waistband to the hem, and finishing the whole thing (elastic insertion and hand sewing the gap) before realizing the mistake.  And since it is corduroy, all the seams are finished with zig-zag, and the seam allowances are sometimes finished as one...you see where I'm going with this.  

 

I grumbled and gracelessly unpicked the waistband from the last seam sewn, but quickly realized that it wasn't worth the effort to unpick where it attached to the hem, so I decided to make it a hem facing and call it good.  (I was going to use bias tape anyway, so it saved me some trouble--call it a happy accident?  I've been watching Bob Ross lately 😊)

 

I recut the waistband and attached it to the top and finished it, albeit about two hours later than I had anticipated.  Tried it on...too tight in the hips.  What the...?  

Then I remembered the additional bit I took out of the back and decided to narrow the seam allowances on the sides from 5/8" to almost nothing, tapering in to the waistband and again about 4" from the bottom.  (Like making a big arc over where my hips are, if that makes sense).

 That gave me enough room across the hips, but the thing was too long, so I turned up the hem facing once (for another 2") and stitched across and called it good.  I'm hoping the slightly thicker hem will help the skirt to fall nicely, as that is one problem with this lighter weight cord--it wants to ride up.  So far so good.

It is considerably more fitted than the blue version, but I like it--it strikes a nice balance between my very fitted cold weather skirts and my less fitted summer skirts.  The wider waistband is more finished looking, but the ban-rol keeps it comfortable (I think I could wear something tucked in and it would look okay, whereas the blue skirt doesn't look that great with a tucked in shirt).  

I almost wore the skirt with a newly thrifted green top, but I wanted to wear this set of jewelry and the greens clashed.  I've been kind of obsessed with this color palette since I saw a bouquet of flowers with a similar palette at church a few weeks ago.  The bouquet also had a pale lavender, which was pretty in the floral arrangement, but didn't look right with the beads.  This past week there was another arrangement that was similar but added a light blue hydrangea to the mix.  Anyway, I made this set from a bunch of odd beads in the right colors and I like the eclecticism of it, but also the unifying color palette.  I've been craving some brighter jewelry in silver tone, and this was just the thing.

Mending: That Corduroy Skirt

Recently, Kate Davies reposted a chapter from her last book, Wheesht, entitled Mend.  I read the chapter about a year ago and found it quite resonant then.  I have been darning my tights for a number of years now, and mending my own clothing, but I had started to darn my kids' and husband's socks by then as well.  I've always repaired mine and my kids' clothing (holes in knees, or those irritating places in tshirts that get little pin holes over time and wearing, holes in sweaters), but I liked the intentionality of Kate's chapter.  

 

 

That said, last month, the kids all needed bigger socks, plus the darned socks were to the point of more darning than socks, so it was time to replace for all of them. 

 

 I confess I heaved a sigh of relief. 

It's one thing to romanticize mending as a slow fashion way to keep your footprint light on the earth, but it is quite another to keep up with the darning for six people and everything else that needs doing for four kids, special needs not withstanding.  It had got to the point where I had to spend about a day every week or so doing the darning or else it piled up beyond doing.  This on top of the increased load of cooking and baking, and everything else that became harder last year with the extended lock down.  It seemed like every laundry cycle added to the never ending pile of mending.

 

 

 (I still think it is worth it to mend most things if possible, buy used, and pass things down within the family, but the cost of this approach is labor- and time-intensive for me, a cost that I think is largely ignored in these sorts of conversations).

 

So with that in mind, remember the dark blue corduroy skirt I made in the series two years ago?  I wore it twice before realizing the fit was really off and the fabric and pattern were a poor match, so I dumped the whole thing in my fabric bin, hoping to salvage the fabric for something else.  Sometime last year, I thought to put ban-roll elastic into the waist band to see if that fixed the fit.  I unpicked all the darts (all six!) and threaded the elastic and whomp, whomp, whomp.  Still really poor fit.  Back into the bin it went.

 

 

Fast forward to January and I thought maybe tightening the elastic would help.  Lo and behold, that worked!  The slightly less structured body of the garment works better with the light weight cord.  I won't say it is the most flattering thing I own, and it isn't warm at all, but it is light and comfortable for these days of chilly mornings and pleasant afternoons.  I have some dark green baby cord that may become another skirt like this.  Just as soon as I can muster some sew-jo, which has been in serious short supply round these parts.

 

My thoughts are slowly turning to warm weather garments (even as I have three sweaters on needles.  Three!  I make no apologies...)  I have two dress lengths of rayon challis from past birthday presents that have been waiting for the right pattern.  I thrifted a maxi dress last fall (that you can just see the top of in the pic above) that I love the fit of, and can replicate by doing a bit of frankenpatterning, so I intend to get to that at some point in the next couple of months. 

Talking Tuesday: Hamlet's Just Deserts

 

 

Recently, I rewatched Kenneth Brannagh's masterful production of Hamlet.  It is possibly his best work on screen.  The film came out when I was in college, and I remember eagerly awaiting its arrival in the video stores (remember those?)  I went to a small college in the middle of nowhere, and had to wait on the small local video store to get it before renting, but I promptly declared I had a hot date with Shakespeare and settled in on a Friday night to watch it.  All four hours.  

 

Most productions of Hamlet cut some of the subplots to bring it to a more standard 2 hours, but Brannagh chose to make an uncut version, weaving together all the complex story lines.  (I took several days to watch it, since these days I rarely have four hours to sit in front of a screen uninterrupted).

First was what an excellent cast Brannagh assembled--the top Shakespearean actors of the time (it is a kind of a Who's Who of that set) plus a high quality listing of American actors like Charlton Heston, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams.  Simon Russell Beale has a small role as one of the grave diggers (I almost didn't recognize him!) and John Gielgud has a role as Priam--I believe it was one of Gielgud's last screen roles, although his portrayal of the Pope in Elizabeth may have been the very last.  The two films were released close together, so I couldn't say exactly.  Brian Blessed, a long time collaborator of Brannagh's, plays the dead king to perfection, and Derick Jacobi's Claudius is oily and inspired.  

Hamlet is, at its heart, a play about grief.  It is about a son grieving his father, about a wife grieving a husband and making poor choices about her future life from the depths of that grief by marrying her brother-in-law. 

 

 

(The movie Ophelia makes the bold claim that Gertrude's choice to marry Claudius came from a desperate desire to maintain her youth and sexual desirability.  I'm not sure what I think of this, but it certainly could be true.  A perimenopausal woman watching her vigorous son and Ophelia together may well have felt the forgotten woman.  On the other hand, you have to feel for Ophelia, who was madly in love with Hamlet, had given herself to him in anticipation of a marriage to come, but instead is driven to madness by Hamlet's poor treatment of her.  One wonders if he had just let her in on what was going on, perhaps she would have gone along with the deception.  I found myself increasingly frustrated on her behalf, and wanted to yell at Hamlet to just tell her already). 

 

 

I heard someone say once that it was too bad that Gertrude and Hamlet couldn't have just sat down for a heart-to-heart and shared their grief over the king's death, as the whole tragedy of what follows could possibly have been avoided.  But then we wouldn't have a play to discuss and use as a mirror for ourselves.  Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech is about a man in deep pain; a pain so deep he contemplates the end of his existence.  By the end of the speech, Hamlet recovers himself, and decides that yes, he does want to live, but his life will be one of revenge for his dead father.

There was a line that struck me between the eyes, so to speak, in Act 2, Scene II.  In it, Hamlet meets his university friends, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, whom Claudius has sent for in the hopes that they will rouse Hamlet from his melancholy madness.  Hamlet's madness is written in such a way that it can be played a deliberate deception or as genuine insanity; Brannagh chooses the former, clearly using the guise of madness as a cover for his real plans to uncover the poisoning of the old king by Claudius.  

Toward the end of the scene, a group of players arrive at the palace to put on a play for the court.  Hamlet is delighted to see them, and sees that he can use them for his own ends.  That is, he will direct them to put on a play that exposes Claudius' perfidy to the entire court in the guise of a story about Troy.  Hamlet is giving his instructions to the lead player, and Lord Polonius (Ophelia's father) is increasingly concerned about Hamlet's state of mind, particularly given Hamlet's previous attachment to his daughter. 

Hamlet and the lead player have been exchanging words about the play, and the lead actor (played by Charlton Heston), assures Hamlet that he is well aware of the classical references Hamlet seeks.  Polonius is unsure of the subtext of the verbal parrying between the two men and keeps interjecting his own commentary.  Hamlet rudely tells Polonius where to put it, but then this exchange caught my ear:

LORD POLONIUS
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET
God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man
after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less
they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in.

Given Hamlet's underlying desire for vengeance over the old king's untimely death, it is an interesting thing to say: that everyone under the sun is deserving of death and destruction, but that we should not use people thusly.  We should rather treat people as we would be treated, with honor and dignity.  It is, I think, the moment that Hamlet reveals his hand: that his madness is an affect, that he desires justice for his father, and a redress of the wrongs done.  

Unfortunately, Hamlet's machinations take on a life of their own, and in the scandal and intrigue that follow, the Danish court is too distracted by the unfolding drama to notice that their old enemy Fortinbras, at the head of the Norwegian army, has breached their borders and overrun the palace, finding the king, queen, Hamlet, and Laertes dead, Polonius and Ophelia having met their untimely ends earlier in the play.  

It is a tragedy of the highest order, and so very human.