The Potential

{ Flickr }

The Periodic Table of Knitting has kept me occupied lately, but I've made time to knit. Just the very smallest things, mind you. Like these.

Pattern: Sock Pixie Magic Slippers
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM in a warm coral and taupe mix
Needles: US2

It's Spring cleaning in the countryside; a man came by last week to trim our olive trees, so there are piles of branches everywhere drying out. Later I imagine he'll come by to oversee their burning. I'm always amazed at the way trees are so skillfully trimmed here. The trees lining the streets in the towns and villages are straight and tall, their trunks and branches scarred with big knots from repeated cuts over the years. Trees grow gracefully upward and outward.

But back to these slippers. They're tiny.

{ Flickr }

It's hard to imagine that one day the baby that will fill this slipper will be a grown woman, making her mark on the world, making her own life. It's hard to imagine that someone like Shaquille O'Neal, or André the Giant, was once a tiny, helpless being in diapers. But they started at zero, with socks and shoes and perhaps slippers small enough to fit in a hand.

As for the sock yarn, there is a lot left over. I see a pattern, or two, in the making.