Le week-end dernier

I watched the lilies bloom.
I knitted many Icarus stitches.
I took my silver clutch and went to a chorus concert.
I finished the first hexagon of the Basalt Tank.

And I learned how to create a photo mosaic:

1) Lilies. Fresh flowers remind me of my mother. She always has several vases around the house filled with them. One thing I immediately noticed when I moved to the U.S. was that fewer people care for fresh flowers. At home we frequently give flowers, certainly at all special occasions, but also when invited to dinner parties or when meeting someone new, and sometimes for no particular reason at all. With the exception of New York City (of all places), I noticed that flowers cost a lot more in the U.S. Hopefully my husband and I will eventually move into a house with a garden; I want a garden to grow my own herbs and vegetables, but mostly I want to plant flowers.

2) Icarus. The past few days occasionally made me think of Penelope, who, after a day's worth of weaving, spent the night unweaving her husband's burial cloth, in order to keep her suitors at bay (whom she promised to face once the cloth was done). Of course, my story is hardly as tragic, although having to tink (to un-knit) provoked a few dramatic scenes (in which I took the part of a sailor, swearing like one). In charts 2, 3, and 4, sequences of "2tog (...) ssk" suddenly become "ssk (...) 2tog," and I missed the change every single time! The shawl has developed its own geography: the pattern has grown little hills on the wrong side. Cute!

3) Sunday. I went to this season's last concert of Coro Allegro, my very favorite classical music chorus that performs several times a year in Boston's Church of the Covenant. Among other pieces by American composers, the chorus's very talented (and hard-working) singers performed Ronald Perera's "Why I Wake Early," which is based on poems by New England poet Mary Oliver and involves frogs, bats, crows, ponds and rain. I loved it!

4) Hexagon. Whenever tinking Icarus became too painful, I did a couple of rows of the Basalt Tank as therapy. The plain stockinette and garter stitches were soothing enough.