Stitching Away

While the temperature and humidity hold on to the end of this Nebraska summer, the morning and evening light comes at a different slant. Some mornings the spider webs are hung with dew. Yesterday a front blew through so this morning feels like autumn. Grandmother Spider is busy repairing her web.

All summer I have been making quilt blocks for our new grandchild. Come December this little one will be sleeping in a crib and have no need for a large Christmas quilt. I am under no immediate deadline to finish and am taking my time. I enjoy thinking about Baby Coconut (temporarily named by her eldest brother and due in mid September) while I stitch away on the blocks. I have completed seventeen of the twenty. I will stitch the last one after Baby Coconut arrives. I need the child's given name for the block with my name and date. Come autumn, after a visit to meet this new babe, I will set the quilt together.

I finished the Petty Harbor socks. The alpaca/wool/nylon yarn makes warm soft socks and worked well with the textured pattern. I often buy a skein of Alpaca Sox yarn from a LYS in Omaha. My sister and I shop the store's end-of-the-year sale together. These socks remind me of a cold December day in a yarn shop with my sister. The summer shawl and a toddler sweater remain on the needles but haven't seen much knitting time lately. Currently I am joining some other women in knitting Mitered Cross blanket squares as a gift to a cancer patient. The construction of the garter stitch square is interesting and makes the knitting go by quickly.

I am reading several books. The Cottonwood Tree by Kathleen Cain, a native Nebraskan combines science, ecology, natural history and Cain's experiences with the trees. Most of it is quite readable. A section or two describing the science of the tree are a little technical but still interesting. The other two books are from the library. Knit Mitts by Kate Atherley is a resource with patterns as well as mathematics needed to design mittens in a range of sizes with various weights of yarn. I am always on the look out for knitting books and found this one on a shelf of new nonfiction. After listening to an episode of "On Being" podcast featuring poet Michael Longley, I requested his Collected Poems via Interlibrary Loan. Listening to his Irish Brogue as he read and talked about poetry led me to search for his work. His poems are beautiful.

I'll link to Kat and the Unravelers today. It is always fun to see what others are reading and stitching or even unraveling.