Projects for Foreign Films

No, this is not a post about projects or patterns that allude to foreign films.
Sorry, I'm not that creative.
I'm working at it, but you'll have to wait a decade or two.
This is a post about having a project that I can work on that is conducive to reading subtitles.
Really, you can't work on a project that requires your full attention if you're watching a film that also requires your full attention.
Referring back to my cross-stitching days, Hardanger comes to mind as a similar activity that would require the full attention of the stitcher.
So I have a project on hand that is useful, not too costly, and allows me to watch foreign films.
It's also kind of a boring knit, but in a place where our temps have been running about 16 degrees, and are accompanied by snow, you can bet your sweet bippy I need something to keep me warm.
It is a shawl:

Yeah, exciting I know, but believe me, it is easier to knit on size 13s and read the subtitles than when working on 2.75 MM DPs.
Don't believe me?
Give it a shot.
Anyway, on New Year's Eve day I made the decision/mistake of signing up for some of the cable pay channels - or should I say "premium channels".
All this in the midst of reading about the Viacom/Time Warner conflict.
Jerks.
Anyway, I thought I would sign up and try out HBO and Showtime for a month or so, and just cancel if I thought it cost too much, or we weren't happy with the choices.
And then on that same afternoon a movie came on that I have been wanting to see for about 4 or 5 years.
Guess it was a good choice, right?
And I'm so glad I finally got to see it; let me tell you about it.
It is a film about an Italian woman who is on a bus trip with her husband and two sons and she gets left behind at a rest stop. Instead of staying there to wait for them to pick her up, she decides to make her way home. But...instead of heading home, she goes to to Venice, a place to which she has never been, and where she begins a vacation of her own. She takes a job, forms a circle of friends, and slowly evolves from under-appreciated housewife into a woman in full bloom.
The film is called Pane e tulipani (Bread and Tulips).



What a delightful film!
I was smiling at the end.
Smiling!
And happy!
How many films make you sincerely happy when they finish?
Some you're just happy to have end, but this one wrapped itself up in a nice package, and it wasn't smarmy at all.
It was lovely, and I felt so good about the film because it was told in such a touching way, and then it ended so perfectly!
Unfortunately my Italian is not so good, so I did have to pay attention.
That's when I'm glad to have a simple project to work on that didn't require my full attention.
It was good to have on New Year's Day as well, since DN1 and I sat down to watch Fanny och Alexander again.
I love Ingmar Bergman films, I truly do, and I'd forgotten how good that film is.
It is slightly creepy, kind of freaky, existential fairy tale.
But wonderful, and the colors are so rich.
Sometime I'll sit down to watch the six-hour television version; for now I'll be happy with the three-hour cinematic release.
Anyway, my shawl is almost at an end.
So the question is, now what can I work on that is a similar boring knit so I can still watch my films?
I'm encouraging DN1 to watch Babette's Feast with me, and I need something to work on.
I only have 2 skeins of the Homespun left, and that shawl can only be so big before it starts dragging on the floor.
And don't say a scarf, because I have 3 hangers full of scarves in the hall closet.
I guess I'll have to take a look around and see what I can do.
I'm sure I'll figure it out, because if there's one thing I love doing, it is to sit on my butt with a knitting project and watching a movie.
For sure.