September Flowers

Now it is September. While sunflowers in the neighborhood droop, wild roadside varieties stand tall in late summer sun. I make the last summer bouquets of sweet peas, blanket flower, black-eyed-susans, and lavender from my yard. The bright colors remind me that everything doesn't have to match. Of course a birthday bouquet of orange and white blooms is a different kind of joy. Emmett chose the orange bouquet because he thought it was so beautiful. He is right. A gorgeous bouquet in an orange vase was delivered mid-afternoon on my birthday, Labor Day. Please excuse the messy table, I focused on the flowers and our company.

Our son was home for the long weekend and we enjoyed visiting with him. He was here to draft a Fantasy Football team with friends but I told him I knew he really came for my birthday. To humor me, he smiled. He brought a birthday gift of homemade peach jam and peach butter. The peach butter was delicious on a warm hard roll with a bowl of chili. The Connecticut kids sang to me via Face Time and my husband brought me red roses. I cast on two new projects over the long weekend. All in all, a lovely way to celebrate my sixty-eighth birthday. What will another year bring? Change I am sure - because life is full of changes.

I have a good friend who often buys yarn and casts on a project to celebrate her birthday. What a marvelous idea. Since it's never too late for a new knitting tradition, I cast on a sweater. I have had a winter raspberry sweater in mind for awhile. This yarn from one of my local yarn shops was the right shade and weight. Knitting a swatch to the correct gauge (rarely happens on my needles) is a good omen. I also bought an extra skein. This year I have had two sweater projects land in the frog pond so I hope this third time is a charm. Worsted weight yarn on size seven needles knits up quickly.

Yesterday my son drove home from Lincoln to Fort Worth. He is quite capable but I needed to knit him safely home. After tidying up and starting the laundry, I dug out some leftover yarn and worked on this mitt by Bonnie Sennot of Blue Peninsula. She designs with interesting textures. As always, this pattern is well written. The squishy fabric is soft and warm. Aaron arrived home safely about the time I finished the hand of the first mitt.

As a summer finale, I am reading Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. History, culture, doomed explorers, biology, and geography are included in this work of nonfiction. Lopez begins by comparing the light and seasons in the Arctic to the same phenomena in the temperate and tropic zones. Did you know that astronomers in the Arctic distinguish among three degrees of twilight - civilian, nautical, and astronomical? The older publication date, 1986, and then the reissue in 2001 makes the work seem all the more haunting. I have only just begun. I am reading slowly in order to understand the rich details.

For more making and reading, click over to Kat and the Unravelers. What will September bring?