Just occasionally, life runs smoothly. Traffic lights turn respectfully green as I approach (am I the only person who has good-traffic-light days and bad-traffic-light days?) and the twinnage clean their teeth on something less than the seventeenth time of asking. Other days, the roof springs a new leak, next door’s cat poos on my veg beds, and I go to work in the day-job unaware that there are dinosaur stickers attached to the back of my jumper until a patient or a colleague points it out.
Likewise, some evenings the side-hustle knit-designing goes well and I fall prey to hubristic delusions of competence. Other evenings, every motif that I create for a piece of stranded knitting comes out looking like an illustration of private bodily parts gone wonky.
In knit-design news, today was definitely towards the rudey-anatomy end of the success spectrum.
I was working on a design commission. The time pressure was real, but I was on it. I doodled and re-doodled. Lots of curly-swirly bits. I was hoping to convey a hint of foliage, a suggestion of flora. But you get a completely different perspective when you stand back from your work… which was how I discovered that what I’d actually conveyed was a hint of BOOBS. Those twin sweeping curls with spots in the middle? Yeah, there was nothing foliate about those. All I could see was some dubious norkage. (Do you say ‘norks’ outside the UK or is that purely British slang?) You’ll have to imagine the image because I’m far too ashamed to show you my work. Perhaps I was subconsciously compensating for the fact that I only have 1.5 boobs remaining these days – though consciously I’m aggressively unbothered by that, other than worrying that I risk listing to the left and tracing circles every single time I go for a run.
Back, quite literally, to the drawing board, with a fresh pot of green tea as fuel. I sighed. I picked up my pencil and rubber. (Stop sniggering American readers: that doesn’t mean what you think it means over here.) And then I began work again, with a renewed determination to be leafy and ornate. Definitely not thinking about mammary glands. At all. Oh no.
I doodled in my knitters’ graph paper book. (Since knit stitches aren’t square in their proportions, it’s best to use graph paper accounting for that fact when you design your own motifs.) More doodles. Perhaps I should add a few more straight lines instead of all these curves? Doodling has always been a big habit of mine when studying, though less so at other times. Fortunately I clocked up a lot of years of studying. There isn’t a page of my student note-taking that doesn’t have a touch of the curly-swirlies around its edge. Not sure how I’d manage if I was starting out now in these screen-based times. Badly and miserably and uncreatively, I assume. I’ll never stop being grateful that both my sons love to draw, despite the constant lure of screens.
What I didn’t know back then was that all the student doodling would turn out – several decades later – to have been an apprenticeship for a yarn-based side-hustle. The stranded knit-design thing has been a long time in the making. Actually, I remember being entranced by the possibilities of complicated abstract shapes when I was no more than about nine years old, so I might have just served the longest apprenticeship ever. Better late than never.
Anyway. As I said, I had another go. This time there would be no boobs. And indeed, there were none. Success!
Again, I curled and swirled. Things seemed to be going well. I mixed different shapes – long thin shapes with small circular creations. You can guess where this is going, can’t you?
Yeah, when I smugly (hello hubris) stood back to admire my work, all I saw was a peculiarly… phallic creation. Again, I can’t bear to show you the evidence – sorry.
Le sigh.
OK. Yet more green tea, in the absence of anything stronger. Third attempt.
Perhaps – I naively thought – the solution was to go against every curly-swirly instinct in my body and embrace straight lines. Yes, this might be the way forward. Right angles! Verticals! Horizontals! I could do this. (Although word to the wise, it’s curls and diagonals that suit the stranded technique best, not long verticals or horizontals.) I played around with a few ideas. Sipped my green tea even though it had by now gone cold. Reviewed progress. Stood back… aaaaaaaaand realized that the motif I’d created looked WAY too much like a swastika. Yikes, that wasn’t even funny. Yes I realize that this symbol had positive connotations amongst Hindus/Buddhists/Jains WAY before the Nazis got hold of it, but still. Fascists ruined a perfectly decent symbol. This was not amusing.
Time to start yet again.
The good news is that having exhausted pretty much every form of rude and inappropriate imagery known to humankind, I did eventually make some non-abysmal progress on the design, albeit in an infinite-monkey-theorem kind of way. The less-good news is that I can’t show you quite yet because it’s a paid commission. So until I can ta-da you the reality, let’s just pretend that today has been a fantastically good-traffic-light day, that the twinnage have the cleanest of teeth, and that I’ve created exceptionally pleasing knitty images, yeah?
I just hope that your day has been full of success, both in yarnery and life.
Thanks for making me laugh. Really needed it today.
Thank you. May tomorrow contain many more laughs for you.
I love reading your blogs, Phil. You put an amusing few minutes into a fairly drudgy day of housework and cleaning chickens out. There is a nice roast dinner about to pop itself out of the oven and onto a plate though so it’s not all bad. 😀🤣
Thank you Janice! I hope your roast dinner was absolutely delicious. Please give my love to Shell.
Thanks for a great read on a cold Sunday morning.
And thank you for a kind comment on a cold Sunday evening. 🙂
I love to read your post there is something positive each time!
Thank you. I try. Life is definitely easier if you can laugh at it.
I absolutely love reading your blog, I giggle out loud reading them, you’re one amazing woman.
❤️
I’m soooooooooooooooooooo not, but otherwise thank you for your kind comment!
The combination of potty humor and funny (to my ears) British expressions cracked me up. Thanks for bringing a smile to my face. May all your traffic lights be green and the twinnage develop a love of good oral hygiene. We joke that we are the “good oral hygiene family.” All the women in my family are outstanding brushers. When a girl child goes through the non-tooth brushing phase, she is not-so-gently reminded that she is part of the good oral hygiene family and that the weight of generations is resting on her toothbrush.
Ha, love this! Sounds as though you’ve got the dental hygiene thing sorted, for the female side of the family, anyway. If only my boys were such diligent brushers…
Thank you for bringing lightness to a dull day. We have got to the age where all our bits seem to be going wrong and 2 years of Covid precautions only seem to have accelerated the process. You, Christine (Winwick Mum) and Lucy (Attic 24) bring the outside world in in the best way possible. Then my knitting and crochet can give me a mindful escape and proof I can still do something for others.
In a world gone tragically sideways where a simple phrase or image can cause a person (I guess I can still say Person without offending Someone!) emense grief this post is perfect! No norkage here but I got the picture. Wait till the Twinage start making questionable doodles in their sketchbooks.
Thank you for sharing your humor this morning. This weary soul needed the smile. My dreams on this snowy morning run toward gardens and not yarn.
Have a brilliant day And I can’t wait to see the finished G rated version of your motif. (G for general audiences, family friendly. To most families.) Here’s to sparking teeth and traffic lights who bow your way.
As always, thank you Teresa! Snow, you say?! May I please express my envy? Do you think you could pop a few inches in a refrigerated container and post it to the UK please?
Why would you want the cold treacherous stuff! I would gladly share but there is a supply chain issue!
Thanks, Geeha, Yup, Christine and Lucy are both awesome. And yes yes yes to the deleterious effects of two years of covid precautions… plus a bit of age. Sigh. Stay safe and may your yarn inspire you.
Your green traffic lights reminded me of a time (long ago) when I was in traffic court to plead not guilty to a speeding ticket (I was successful)… but while waiting a woman was telling the judge her speeding excuse… which was that every light she came to on Peachtree Road in Atlanta Georgia USA (which is a very long street with lots and lots of traffic lights) well every light was green and she just got carried away and thats why she was speeding. The judge laughed and let her off with no fine… and I knew then the judge had a sense of humor. Thanks for the laughs this morning… don’t throw out those naughty designs… just might be a market for them.
Ha, love that anecdote! Impressed by her style – so was the judge, obviously.
I e never heard the word nork. Ha! I have added that to my lexicon.
Glad to be of educational service. It doesn’t happen often.
Your blog is a real tonic! Thank you x
And your comment made me feel warm and fuzzy (in a very cold house), so thank you.
Your life is my life — you just manage to see it in a MUCH funnier light and, to the delight of the rest of us in the zoo, convey it. Thanks for the chuckles! Going forth with a lighter heart and hilarious images bouncing about in my noggin.
Awww, thank you! I’m not sure it’s always the most adaptive coping strategy in the world, but laughing at stuff has long been my way of dealing with stuff. You’ve probably got healthier strategies…
I think I lost my Comment just now. What I was saying was I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d love to see your initial attempts to design body parts…erm…I mean lovely stranded designs!
Oh no! I’m sorry that the internet ate your comment! Initial attempts are I’m afraid well and truly erased now. Sorry-not-sorry.
Thanks for making me laugh, Twisted. I’m home, sulking, with covid. 2 years of being a front line uk A&E clinician throughout this pandemic… and I catch it from my kids. Typical. I’d say it’s a nice rest, which heaven knows I need, except it’s not because I’m a bit sick with it (like flu/very heavy cold, not actually sick sick thank goodness, I’ve seen enough of that, I’m thankful at heart that I waited till 3 x vaccines and for omicron). Also the kids x3 are totally well but still testing positive. It’s like my house is some kind of pinball game with kids instead of ball bearings…. But it could be so much worse. At least I’m not accidentally designing norks!!!
Oh Lou, I’m so sorry. But more importantly, thank you for what must have been incredibly tough service over the past two years. Please get better soon. Far too many people I know are getting hammered by Omicron, even though they’re triple-vaxxed (albeit they’re getting hammered in a non-hospitally, non-dyingy way, thank goodness). I so hope that you’re over the worst, and I’m glad that your children are at least non-symptomatic. And yeah, you are at least innocent of accidental nork-designing, so chin up!
(Covid has landed here, too, but I thought I’d leave it for the next blog post. Twin one tested positive, then five days later twin two tested positive, and now five days later husbandface is starting to feel ill. Hey, it’s OK, it’s not as though I wanted to have a life or leave the house or get any work done or anything!)
And breathe…
Yikes. I hope you manage to continue testing negative Phil (if for no other reason than that you will very much need to get out of the house by the time the rest of the family is all released from quarantine)!
Thank you Debbi! Daily tests still proving negative so far, but I don’t trust this virus one inch. I’m sure it’s waiting until both boys are back at school, and THEN it’ll wallop me.
There are so many days when I feel like my life is based on the infinite-monkey-theorem, but then maybe that IS life?? Thank you for bringing mirth to the mundane, and delight to the details!
Having tested positive for Covid-19 last night, your brilliant musings are the first thing to have made me smile today. Thank you! 🙂
Nathalie, oh no! May your symptoms be mild or absent, and may your recovery be swift.
Leanna, yup, you’re probably right! Also, thank you. 🙂
We need to have a group coffee klatch to share all the words for all the great words we are missing out on. In the US we have boobs, knockers, “the girls,” etc. I had not heard that one though. I feel like my education has been incomplete.
Glad to be of lexicographical service! And yes, we should indeed all get together to share words.
Sounds tricky! Norks is such a great word! 😂
Norks is the BEST word!
You are a foolish and delightful person, Phil. Yes, norks are British (let me be honest: they’re ENGLISH), but we who were raised on everything emanating from that small isle know them well. (So many mammary descriptors: I learned not so long ago about a ‘rack’ !)
Were it anyone but you I’d cry “You gotta noive !”; but YOU can get away with writing stuff like this and refusing to back it up with images – well, other than those of breathtakingly high quality knitting that shows nary a hint of Dreadful Doodling.
Are you at peace with the 1.5, d’you feel ? I believe you to be, seeing as how you’re someone whose daily bread is earned n the fields of Helping Sort Out ..
Here’s wishing you months and months and months in a row of crisisless creativity, delineated by nothing but green lights.
Your much less fat fan from Downunder, with a hug.
Aaargh! I wrote the most witty and erudite comment, and WordPress gobbled it up and then belched. How rude! Here is a pale imitation of the original. Please pretend that this is vastly more funny/clever/interesting/witty than it actually is, yeah?
Well yes, I can accept foolish, though not delightful. I’d forgotten about the term ‘rack’ – wonder where that word came from!
Yes, I’m reconciled to the 1.5, mostly. I’m just grateful to the wonderful NHS clinicians who saved my life. They gave me the chance to continue being here to irritate my sons, so a missing half-boob seems like a small price to pay. The twinnage are worth it, despite the fact that I’m beginning to suspect that my bikini modelling career might not even get off the ground.
That said, I’m due for boob-evening-up surgery at some point. But I totally, totally, understand that the health service has bigger priorities than this right now, and I’m happy to wait. I was grateful that they chopped my cancer out promptly and I have no wish to barge in to the queue and prevent some other woman from having her own tumour removed asap. The last time I saw my surgeon she looked tired, and I felt for her, and we talked a little about the pressures that she’s under. (She also looked about 12 years old, but maybe that’s just my own advanced (49) age showing!)
Anyway hugs to you too, from across the world.
Not feeling verbally clever or entertaining – all I can think of to say is, “I love you.”
Oh Ann P Wilson, I reckon that’s said for all of us who follow Phil ! – don’t feel low about a lack of sharp wit ! 🙂
Ann and M-R, you’re both 300 times more generous than I deserve. M-R, I replied to your comment above. Ann, I know that feeling well, but thank you anyway.
Aloha,
I’ve always enjoyed my glimpses into your life and being able to share in your sorrows and your joys. However, I have to admit that reading this blog was so entertaining that I almost wet my knickers! What a great way to giving laughter to a grey day here in the Pacific Northwest.
Mahalo.
Awww, thank you! I try to please. May your Pacific Northwest days fast become considerably less grey.
Norks was new to me too (and apparently to my spell checker, just had to correct it there) but may I offer “over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder” as a very dear old friend’s term for the dainty items of underwear we restrain them in (or use to pad them out, depending)? Well done for persevering on a “negative flow” day so that your designs worked out in the end. Looking forward to seeing them eventually, and to your encouragement to venture into stranded motif designs. I always seem to want to adapt patterns so it’s clearly just a matter of time…
Oh gosh yes, I’d forgotten that fabulous term for bras! Thanks for the reminder. Also, liking the concept of a ‘lateral flow day’!
Please do venture into stranded work. It’s a fabulous and addictive world of colour.
Also, spell-checkers have frustratingly uncreative vocabularies, I find!
Thanks for the laugh. I wish you would show us your rude knitting though. Have a good week.
Best wishes
Jane
Sorry Jane, all inappropriate designs have been destroyed in a fit of shame! I’m sure you can imagine, though…
Hope you have a good week too.
You boobed! Thanks for making me laugh. Could have been worse. Could have made something and not noticed until you’d submitted it that it looked booby! I made an aran cardigan once and didn’t notice the bobble were placed down each front in a line in just the wrong places – it looked like I had several nipples !
I did that with XOXO cables once: an O exactly over each of my norks. Wore the sweater anyway! (Does one ever talk of a Bork, or is it only used in the plural?)
Argh. Autocorrupt. NORK, not bork.
I have to say I am unaware of what a bork is or
what borks are – maybe I am naive??? Nervous to google it now!
Oh dear! Autocorrect changed “nork” into bork.
Not really a word? Though we could start a trend and start using it. Phil, your blog, how would you choose to define it?
Ok, now I did google it and I still have never heard it used! Maybe it’s regional used? I still say ‘poorly’ when I feel unwell, was told when I worked in central London that ‘no one says poorly’ and asked if I was from the 1950’s !
Loving this thread of comments, especially the inappropriately placed XOXOs and bobbles! Tinaor, do we not say poorly any more? Mental note: must adjust vocabulary accordingly…
Oh Phil, you do make me laugh! But there does seem to be a bit of a theme to your accidental doodles; do you think perhaps there’s – ahem – something on your mind? 🤣🤣
Ha ha ha ha, of COURSE not, because my mind is as pure and innocent as the driven snow! (Also, whilst I’ve got your attention) I will get up to the allotment and do some weeding once we’re no longer the plague-house. Day 13 so far…) Hope you’re still all well??
Excuse random brackets everywhere in that comment. I was too busy hyperventilating at the very suggestion that my mind is filled with anything that is not pure and wholesome!
Phil, life is all about the birds and the bee’s, you know? Most art is based around it. I was called in the office of a professor because they suspected fraud. I had high marks while only doodled and crocheted in the college benches (rolls eyes here) Oi, remember the old lady refusing me to exam her because I was a teenager. I was 37 at that point, 12 years after graduation. At 42, walking with my toddlers, I was scolded as being way to young to be a mother. I am probabbly the only female happy with wrinkles and grey hairs. Sigh. Slang, I am not good at it. You’ve to be a native, I guess XD Thanks for the post. ;>*
And thanks to you for sharing your memories! Yeah, I guess there comes a point when looking way younger than your age becomes a mixed blessing. (Not that I’d know!) And yes, I guess that these designs were kind of getting to the essence of what life is about, but… I’m not sure that’s quite what the people commissioning me had in mind!
Needed a chuckle this morning. I pulled a low back muscle yesterday, did not sleep well and still in considerable discomfort. I had a 10 km long run planned for today as I ramp up for half marathon training. I’m only just getting back into distance training after a very long (a year!) hamstring/hip issue. Sigh.
On the plus side it is -29 Celsius, with a windchill of -36, so I *guess* missing a run today is not the worst thing ever! And I have ample knitting to keep boredom at bay. Plus a new subscription to PBS and Acorn TV, where I love watching British tv shows. Seriously British mysteries are the best!
Warm wishes from a cold central Canada!
OUCH on your behalf. I hope so much that you’re in less pain soon. Not being able to run is… very very very not good. But goodness you guys do seasons properly. Minus 29! Yikes! Please try to, erm, not freeze completely solid the moment that you step out of the door, yeah? Also, does this mean that I should stop grumbling about running in the dreadful cold when it’s about +4 degrees C???
LOL! I am always amused when I hear grumblings of ‘cold’ at temps on the plus side of the Celsius scale! It is all relative I know – and thankfully the cold snaps don’t last too long (usually!).
I always call the cold ‘brisk’, makes me feel like a proper “winter warrior” and love the feeling of getting back from a run, having a hot shower and then coffee. Pure Bliss!
Still sofa bound, anti-inflammatory meds and a heating pad are my companions today.
You are a treasure!
I would love to see your “failed designs” but then they would no doubt reach viral circulation on the web and I know that’s not what you’re about. I love your turn of a word, your creativity, and your style, Phil. You are amazing and I won’t hear otherwise.
I’m in the UK and I’ve never heard them called ‘norks’ so thanks for expanding my vocabulary as well as making me smile today 🙂