Vasant
It has been cold, dreary, grey, rainy and windy here in California. Not even the sight of mist swirling in the Berkeley hills is cheering me up as it normally does. Usually the rains vanish by mid-Feb and the signs of spring are unmistakable as the birds and plants go crazy and it gets warmer and brighter. This year, these damned wet spells keep coming back every few days. Yes I know, we haven’t had any snow so I shouldn’t complain, but to add to my woes every second person you meet piously reminds you that “we need the precipitation” in that annoying, self-satisfied tone that Californians have perfected.
So yesterday, I ventured out on a wet and blustery afternoon to meet Huan-hua and Kristin for a small bloggers’ meet-up at Stash. I hadn’t seen Stash’s new digs (very nice!), and it was great fun to poke around with them in the store gossiping about Ravelry forums and discussing yarns and patterns. My eyes met a freshly-arrived batch of Madelinetosh sock yarn, and I fell in love, abandoning my plans to wait until Stitches to splurge. Some hot yarn pr0n to take the edge of the wet chill:
It is called ‘Nutmeg,’ but to me it is the colour of vasant (spring), of marigolds and mustard flowers in full bloom, of the vasant panchami festival. Our JNU campus in Delhi used to be awash in this colour on this day, when the Bengalis (the campus was awash in them all year long!) celebrated Saraswati pujo by wearing mustard-shaded sarees and kurtas. It was a sudden visual shift from the foggy colourlessness of December-January, and a prelude to the magenta explosion of bougainvillea amidst the rocky terrain in March.
There were so many unbelievably gorgeous Tosh shades – little flickers of deep purple in grey-black, midnight blues and deep sea greens and bright fiery reds and pale, grassy sage – I could drown in those colours for hours. But you probably remember that I love mustard-yellow, and just last week, a friend and I had been thinking about this colour as we bitched and moaned about the grey weather. So I snatched up a skein to make a pair of simple stockinette socks, to wrap the spring around my feet and celebrate Saraswati pujo (already past this year) in my own way.
As if it heard me calling out to it, the sun came out briefly as I was photographing the skein near my window, and glinted on this golden ball. As the strands slide off the cake it really is like liquid sunlight and dry hay and a fresh mustard blossom all rolled into one. I cannot stop looking at it.
More yarn pr0n to come after this weekend!
