Forsythia

 Winter got here! Of course, here snow is a REALLY big deal. The children next door were outside when it first began to fall.  It snowed and snowed all day. It was wonderfully relaxing to watch the big and small flakes falling, falling, falling. 

Even though snow fell all day and into the evening, it didn't really cover the ground too much. But, I am happy anyway. It was so lovely!

I took advantage of the day to finish the yoke on the sweater I started over the Christmas holiday. I took forever to choose colors for this one because the suggested yarn did not have the golden yellow color the designer used. It is so hard for me to see color combinations well! I almost always use what is suggested or what someone else made in a color that I like. I am most often drawn to knitted articles because of the colors used, so I use those colors too. When a color is unavailable, I am really swimming.

So, my first color combination was this:

It actually looks pretty good in the picture, but in my real life eyes, the yellow was just too subtle and muddled into the neutral tone. So, I changed my idea and went with this:

I made green the main background color and used the neutral as the short accent. I am still not 100% confident that I did the right thing. As I worked the pattern on the yoke I felt myself getting really unsure about using this yellow. 

Several people have made this sweater using green for the leaf pattern, but my botanical self wanted the leaves to be yellow for sure. The pattern is Forsythian.  And for me, forsythia blossoms are a sentimental sign of hope. I think, in fact, the name of the plant means "anticipation." 

Living in the southern United States as I do, the season I really rejoice in, when it finally comes, is autumn. Finally, the tropical heat and dense humidity and perpetually hungry insects abate. However, I have not always lived here, and I well understand why so many poets praise the coming of spring. And marking that coming, is the happy yellow forsythia.

I remember a forsythia grew outside my window as a child, and some others grew in my yard as a young adult--in fact, I have one now as well. But the one I remember most, didn't belong to me. It was a random plant blooming near a muddy road and gray wall and a rusted wire fence in Istanbul. 

The winters are hard in Istanbul. Especially in the 1990s when I lived there. Then, it was a city of over 12 million people (probably more are there now) and many, many buildings burned coal for heat. Poor people in makeshift houses burned whatever they could to cook or keep warm, not always knowledgable about the toxicity of what they burned. The winter air was thick and gray with clouds, but also with pollution. Sometimes on the bridge crossing the Bosphorus, the air was so thick and dirty you could not even tell you were on a bridge because you could not see as far at the other side. It was not uncommon for people to get out of a car while sitting in traffic and vomit because of fumes and terrible air quality. (I did so myself!) In winter, no one hung laundry outside because it would turn black. We knew air from outside crept under out back door because it turned the carpet black. In winter, there was no such thing as opening the window for a bit of fresh air.  

So, on that gray day when I went by taxi with a friend to pick up our little boys from their morning out, and I saw that forsythia blooming, I felt my spirits lift. Here was the promise of spring! I often think of that spindly little branch and how much joy it gave me.

So, of course, my forsythia leaves on this sweater had to be yellow, and the little bits of neutral gray yarn are meaningful to me too--the yellow bigger than the gray.  I like the story of it, the idea of it. I just hope I will like the finished sweater of it! Haha.  And I sincerely hope that Istanbul winters are better now.