Letter from Paris: La Vie en Froze

Dear friends,

The grisaille is back with a vengeance. I’ve mentioned it before–the famous, all-pervasive grey of Paris in the fall and winter. It hasn’t been raining as much as it might, but the cold damp has crawled out of the river and into my bones.

Late afternoon along the Canal St-Martin

Whatever resistance to frigid weather I acquired from twenty years in Chicago is gone. The longer I live here, the more I understand why Marcel Proust spent the majority of his days wrapped up in bed and the remainder wrapped up in fur.

Tempting as it sounds, a Proustian lifestyle is beyond my reach. That doesn’t mean, however, that I cannot make precious moments under the duvet as luxe, calme, and volupté* as possible.

To that end, I have at last begun addressing the sorry state of my sleepwear. There comes a time in a man’s life when he must ask himself, “Can I ever be truly happy sleeping in the shattered remains of the free t-shirt that came with my purchase of a bottle of Tommy in 1998?”

For me, the answer is no. You do you.

While I can’t spend all day in bed, I do enjoy lingering there in the morning. I read and scribble until I am forced to acknowledge that there is still no maid around here and nobody is going to bring me breakfast. During those sweet interludes, why should I not try to look elegant?

I don’t know if you’ve shopped for men’s sleepwear lately, but I can tell you that what’s out there on the racks is dire. Are you a latter-day Hugh Hefner in drapey polyester satin? Are you still just a boy at heart, in your fandom hoodie with coordinating sweatpants? Or have you put joy and imagination behind you with an oatmeal cotton two-piece?

Clearly, I was going to have to make my own.

My taste, as you know, is painfully old-fashioned. I found a 1950s pattern for men’s pajamas in my files…too modern. I considered nodding to the Hee-Haw nature of my origins with a set of 19th-century red flannel longjohns, complete with butt flap. But I hate sleeping in pants.

Ultimately, I settled on a nightshirt. Warm and reasonably dressy, yet allows one the freedom to sprawl. Has pleasant associations with such style icons as Ichabod Crane, Scrooge, and Pa Ingalls.

Here’s how it’s going.

The pattern I am working from dates to the 1940s; but given that nightshirt styles had been pretty static for about fifty or sixty years, it works for me.

It’s nearly done. Today I have to run over to Ultramod and get some mother-of-pearl (nacre) buttons for the placket. The full look will also require a nightcap and a wrapping gown. I already have the bowl of gruel and the past full of ghosts.

That’s sewing. What about knitting, you ask?

Yes, of course I’m knitting. I’m always knitting. In fact my bedtime improvement project includes knitting something for my constant bedtime companion. My hot water bottle.

Before moving here, I only knew about hot water bottles from old British novels. Now, I get the appeal. The only thing I hate about my water bottle is the nasty polyester fleece cover that came with it. It looks so horribly medical, feels nasty, and it’s difficult to get on and off.

So I’m knitting a cover for it, in some glorious yarn I bought last month in Lyon at the Knit Eat festival. It’s “Compass,” from the France-based outfit Laine des Îles, a 50/50 mix of Bluefaced Leicester and Polwarth wools.

This stuff is…well…luxe, calme, and volupté. Durable, yet extremely cuddly.**

What you see here looks at a glance like plain stockinette, but it’s actually double knitting. I’m working flat–turning the work at the end of each row–but simultaneously creating two separate layers of fabric.  When the work comes off the needles, the layers will open to reveal a pocket for the bottle to slide into. I’ll show you in my next letter.

And, for out-of-bed moments, I’ve finished a new vest to keep my kidneys warm. My Parisian friends are very particular about warm kidneys, and I bow to their experience in this area.

Now, this vest is very simple. I’ve shown you it in bits and pieces before. It was worked bottom-up, in the round, as a stash buster with four different skeins of wool from four different purveyors. The neck and arm openings were created by cutting steeks, and then the shoulders were grafted.

Since I didn’t know how much of any one yarn would be left when it came time to do all the ribbing, I decided to knit on the ribbing at the hem after the body was finished.

Unfortunately, this piece suffered in many ways from my chemo-addled brain. When I thought it was finished, including the ribbing, I put it on and realized it was too long. I’d knit the body to the full desired length, instead of the length minus the length of the ribbing.

What to do? I snipped a thread at the necessary point, and unraveled it until the excess length fell away.

It was not especially difficult, and made me feel mighty powerful.

Then I knit the new ribbing downwards, and now the fit is correct.

And that warms my heart, as well as my kidneys.

Until next month, I hope you are keeping as warm or cool as your hemisphere requires. I wish you comfort, and I wish you peace.

Cordialement,

Franklin

*Luxurious, calm, and sensual, as Mr Baudelaire wrote in Les Fleurs du mal. That means “The Flowers of Evil,” but it’s a much pleasanter collection of poems than you would guess from the title.

**Yes, just like me.