Red Knitting

So this guy is sitting in a meeting of the American Bar Association. He is knitting. At a meeting of his peers. I like this guy. His name is Mark Johnson, and clearly, he cares not a whit about how others may view him - a knitter - knitting during the meeting. He bravura may have something to do with the fact that he is a past president of the National Lesbian & Gay Law Association, and Oregon's Gay and Lesbian Law Association. That is to say, he is not in the business of comporting to any one's idea of what is acceptable behavior.
He is a family law practitioner. I trust he would not mind my linking to his firm's Portland OR law firm website. Sporting a red turtleneck and red blazer in his website bio, he looks every bit the self-defined man. Red must be a favorite color - the item he is working on the photo is also red.

I have spent some time on Ravelry looking for a group of lawyers who knit. Then, I stopped, wondering why I was looking for a group of lawyers who knit. I knit through my continuing legal education classes, and have had many people say they wish they had brought their knitting, but were working during the classes instead. Maybe I should tell them that knitting helps me focus my mind on the presentation (even when working on Fiesta Feet), which is absolutely true. Keeping my hands busy helps in the battle against monkey mind. If I could knit while I write, I'd be in like Flint.

Fiesta Feet is going well - I'm almost done with one of them. I used a lovely red merino and a gold/purple/red (both Jawoll Color Superwash). The patterning is coming across only very subtly, but that is just fine, since some of the renderings of Fiesta Feet that I have seen look like pinata innards, and not in a good way (hmmmm, spell check won't give me a tilde for my pinata - I suppose I don't deserve one for that catty remark).

Once finished with Fiesta Feet, I will have worked my way through my Neatby legacy, acquired at Borealis Yarns after a class with Ms. Neatby several years ago (one should spend money at the LYS that hosts such a special event, no?). The Fiesta Feet yarn was acquired elsewhere, but the pattern was from Borealis, as were the 4 skeins of Celestial Merino. I'm sure the clerk believed it when she said that I would need 2 skeins for a pair of socks. But that would be true only if I were knitting thigh-highs. As it is, I'm glad to have duplicate skeins of the Sugar Maple and Honey Pot colorways. The first sock from each skein is brightly colored, but the second is quite subdued. It was my first foray into hand-colored yarns, and I knew not what I was doing. So now, I'll have two more or less matched pair from each colorway. And I will have 6 pairs of red socks.

I don't really wear red. In younger years, I instinctively reached for red clothes once a month. It took a college friend to notice the pattern and mention it to me. Thereafter, when I found myself reaching for red clothes, I knew my time was coming. Since I become post menopausal, not so much red. So how do I end up having all these red socks? Some are left over from years ago. One pair is knit from yarn gifted to me by a friend who knit a proud little Wildfoot horse from half of the skein. These most recent pairs originate with my developing old-age palette, evidently. Red is coming back into my closet. Reclaiming red, taking back my spark.


(Photo of Mark Johnson by Tim Llewellyn)