Muir

John Muir was a Californian naturalist and conservationist. He has been called "The Father of our National Parks" and there is a national park named after him in northern California. But this entry is about neither. It's about my first knitted lace shawl, the pattern named Muir after the national park above.

This is perhaps the first thing I've knitted that I hope lasts a really long time and I get a lot of use out of. Not necessarily because I love how it turned out, even though I do; but also because I think I will have such great memories associated with it. I brought it everywhere I went and knit it whenever I could during this great time of my life. I'd stay up late cuddled under a blanket in our first house working on it. I'd bring it to Olivia's class meetings and knit during those long hours of getting acquanited with her first school. And of course at the playground while Olivia and Noah played and Olivia learned to do the monkey bars for the first time. And now it's done in perfect time for the nippy California winter days that start cold in the morning but the suns warms up so much by afternoon.

But enough of my rambling, here are a few pictures of it. Even though it looks like the wind would blow right through, it does a great job of holding in heat since it's 100% wool. In fact, I used a J. Crew sweater I found at a thrift store and unraveled for the wool.



And the front. Man, I wished I had put on some lipstick. Oh well, the tomato plants, plum tree, and strawberry patch in the background don't look much better, do they? ;)



Soon after completing this shawl I took the kids to the San Jose Chidren's Discovery Museum and I found a quote by John Muir painted on the wall.

Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.

I thought that was such a cool quote given I had just knitted something named after him, because it also describes how a knitted item is all connected together, being just one long strand of yarn.