Summer Bouquets

Hello. High summer arrives with extreme heat, humidity, summer squash, and cosmos. I pickled another batch of cucumbers, filling all jars designated for pickles. In May, I planted cosmos seeds, both the orange and mauve/white varieties in the center of the pollinator garden. I should have thinned them. I did chop off a few stalks to give the butterfly bush room to bloom but the tall cosmos are blooming like crazy. A few monarchs and one swallowtail have floated by but the buzz and hum of bees is going strong. Hooray for the bees. The July rainfall was a godsend. However, the sweet temperate days of rain and high eighties have come to a screeching halt. The heat dome, with 100 degree days, has extended to our locale.

Wednesday is the day for linking with Kat and the Unravelers. A few weeks ago, Norah requested a pink rainbow sweater with buttons. While I waited for the yarn to arrive, I found the Anker's Jacket pattern. Originally, I thought I'd put two colors in each section of the yoke ribbing but changing colors in the middle of ribbing doesn't make a clean line. Sometimes that look is charming but I didn't like it in this pattern. My plan is to add stripes of different colors at the edge of the sleeves and the body for more rainbows. 

When I showed the yoke to Norah yesterday, she reminded me she wants "all the colors." If you remember I knit a "rainbow" scarf for her last winter out of a brightly variegated yarn that she loved. I thought combining colors would suggest a rainbow but this yoke may not be what she has in mind. I knew this project would involve trial and error and I want to knit a sweater she will wear. I could use a top down raglan pattern and knit a more traditional rainbow in the yoke or reknit this yoke in different colors. Perhaps I'll be unraveling  later this week. 

I put a few more rows on this shawl of leftovers. I love the yarn. I was knitting this on our recent road trip and added a row of eyelets because it was the end of a day in the car. I need to count garter ridges and decide how to add other rows of eyelets. 

I started a new spinning project this last week. The Shetland fiber from Fibernymph Dye Works came unbraided and separated by color. That packaging makes it less compacted and very easy to spin. I'll have to see what kind of yarn I spin but I think this might be a great colorwork project. 

I'm currently reading After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz. Although Goodreads classifies it is historical fiction, this book is not typical historical fiction. The structure echoes both the style of Virginia Woolf and the extant fragments from the woman poet Sappho. By writing in short vignettes, the author focuses on times when women artists, writers, actresses, and lesbians exercised agency in their lives. The sections move between characters as well as time and place. Short musings on lines written by Sappho are interspersed throughout the chapters. This book might not be for everyone but I am enjoying it. It makes me think and I have learned more about these strong women, a few I never knew existed. The writing although lyrical is concise. Schwartz cuts to the chase by writing: "What did we want? To begin with, we wanted what half the population had got just by being born." It's a summer reading adventure for me. 

I hope your week is going well. Stay cool. 

Ravelry Links

Shawl of Leftovers

Norah's Rainbow Sweater

 

I

The Poetry of Spinning

Once a friend gave me a birthday card with this little charm. It reads "In the rhythm of knitting needles, there is music for the soul." Unknown. If there is music in knitting, there is poetry in spinning. All are stories of transformation. 

A poem begins with a single word, a noticing, a thread.* That thread may come as a wisp of the wind or from an underground current. Energy builds in words and lines as sounds and spaces invite comparison. Spinning begins with a bit of fiber, a tool, and the human body. Rotating a spindle or wheel creates energy called twist. As the spinner allows twist into fiber, yarn is created. Each yarn is unique to the spinner. 

March 2023 - BFL Fiber 

A poem contains the energy of breath. Often the rhythm of a poem echoes the rhythm of the poet's breath. Iambic pentameter, the most common meter, may exist because five beats is the average length of speech easily supported by a cycle of breath. 

A good poem spurs the reader to see differently. Metaphor employs delight and surprise to turn one thing into another. A path in the snowy woods becomes a choice in life. Coming upon the turn of metaphor and the supporting language creates joy. Each experience of a poem is unique to reader and poet. 

Poetry and spinning are old stories. The origin of the word "spin" is "spen" meaning to make, to draw out or stretch. Poem comes from "poiein" meaning to make, to construct, to arrange. Poetry began as storytelling and ballad with rhythm and rhyme added to help the storyteller and singer perform from memory. 

Bobbins spun in gradient order

Spinning is over 20,000 years old. It began with a stick or bone used as a spindle. Using a wheel to increase spinning efficiency must have felt like magic to the spinning spinsters. No wonder the spinning wheel is part of folk tales. The magic of spinning stretches from goddesses of mythology through my great grandmothers to contemporary spinners around the world. A hand spinner, as a knitter, or poet, literally holds time and place in her hands. 

Three shades of color in each skein

While spinning was often drudgery, music and poetry meant escape and entertainment. My foremothers spun out of necessity. I spin for the tactile meditative experience as well as the poetry and yarn. The rhythm of the wheel becomes my own meter. Good poems lead the listener/reader to new ideas. Fibers spun by hand create a new yarn, a new story. Both "dwell in possibility."**

900 yards of possibility

* Some thoughts in this sentence come from an "On Being" conversation between Ada Limón and Krista Tippett. 

**Emily Dickinson wrote the poem #466, I Dwell in Possibility"   In this poem, Dickinson cleverly renames poetry Possibility. When I read the poem, I rather enjoy spinning other ideas from possibility.   

For more musings about poetry see Bonny's post, A Gathering of Poetry. 

  

Pickled

July and two hills of cucumber plants jump the edges of the raised bed. Since we returned and even before, light rain has fallen every morning. Weather patterns are interesting. The reservoir that supplies Lincoln's water is recharging and that is good news. I spent yesterday in the kitchen, slicing, dicing, brining, pickling, and canning. By six o'clock, I had ten pints of bread and butter pickles and a pile of kitchen laundry. Next week, I'll do it all again and then I'll be giving away cucumbers. They will be a hard sell. If my garden is producing, so is everyone else's. The tomatoes need some hot sun in order to ripen. And so it goes. 

I did a little too much car knitting so have been doing other things. My right shoulder, upper arm, wrist, and hand are sore. Still I enjoy the weekly posts with Kat and the Unravelers. I knit the thumbs and so finished the Kvetching Mitts. (No amount of adjusting in this photo made for better color.) Once I understood the pattern, I enjoyed knitting them but the worsted weight suggested in the pattern makes them heavy. I prefer fingerless mitts out of lighter weight yarn. Since I knit at a loose gauge, I'm pretty sure I could knit them with a DK weight. I plan to try the pattern again. 

This mitt project reminds me to think carefully about using scraps. Besides the weight, I am also not wild about the colors in the cuffs. Using partial skeins and scraps is satisfying but maybe not everything needs to go into a project. I mostly save all the scraps. When I am buy yarn for a sweater project, I often buy one extra skein to make sure I have enough. That leaves me leftover yarn. When I toss the stash, I think this is nice yarn. Lately I'm wondering if more of it could be moved on to a new home. Does this happen to you? If you keep leftovers, how do you decide what stays and what goes? Everyone decides differently but I am curious.  

The little swatch amongst the summer flowers is a test to insure the bright pink yarn is colorfast. Norah has requested a rainbow sweater with buttons. As soon as my shoulder and arm recover, I'll be casting on that project. 

While I wait for a library hold, I reread Willa Cather's Shadows on the Rock. This lesser known work of historical fiction begins in October 1697 in Quebec. The story follows a father, an apothecary, and his twelve year old daughter through a year. Although some cultural references are dated and perhaps inappropriate by today's standards, I find Cather's lyrical writing worth reading. She is a master at bringing time and place to the page. Although she doesn't gloss over the hardships faced by citizens iced in for the winter, she finds and writes of small kindnesses as well as the beauty in the place. This book was first published in 1931. 

Now the sky is blue, at least until the smoke wafts it's way down from the Canadian wildfires. I best go find room for ten pints of pickles on the basement shelves. I hope you are finding some delight in these summer days.   

Happy Friday

Happy Friday. Back in the days when long distance phone calls were a treat, my Mom and I took turns calling each other on Friday evenings. Whoever placed the call greeted the other with "It's Friday!" When I taught, Friday evening meant two days breathing space. I think of Mom every day but especially on Friday. I've been away and a TGIF post feels like a good way to catch-up.

Thinking about: I have been thinking about how to live with a lighter heart; how to balance the fortunate life I have with a world full of pain and injustice. Sending constant angst out into the world is just sending more angst into the world. Fretting and worry isn't healthy or constructive. I don't have answers but I am pondering the idea. I do know my heart benefits from being outdoors and by noticing. Yesterday as we drove home from north central Minnesota, the skies were beautiful and the roadsides were sprinkled with wildflowers. On the drive up, we stopped to eat lunch at a lovely rest stop outside Worthington, Minnesota. The stop is home to a path around and through a wildflower meadow. As we set up our picnic in the open shelter, we noticed a nest up in the corner. A swallow swooped in and out feeding three chicks. We didn't seem to be disturbing the birds so we sat on one side of the table and watched them as we ate our lunch. Lunch with the swallows was charming. 

Grateful:  Recently, rain has fallen in our area. The area is still in drought status but the Platte River was full when we drove over it yesterday. My garden benefits from the rain and I am happy to water less often. Hooray for the clouds moving in again as I write. I picked the first cucumbers before we left and I could be making pickles Sunday or Monday. I am so grateful for a few days with my sister and brother-in-law and my brother and his daughter in a beautiful lake setting. We don't see each other often so days together are treasures.  

Inspired by: I am inspired by the Tour de Fleece spinning. Some gorgeous interesting yarn is coming off spindles and wheels. I finished a big spinning project that I'll write about soon. While in Minnesota, we went to a local flea market in Hackensack. I found a booth with a spinner and an independent yarn dyer. We had a pleasant conversation. I didn't buy yarn but I did pick up some undyed Targhee Silk roving. It is quite soft and a pretty cream color. 

Fun: - Tomorrow my niece and her little girl are coming for lunch. My niece is a law student and needs a little study time so after lunch she will go find a study spot and my great niece and I will play. We are going to have great fun.

I wish you all a good weekend and look forward to catching up on your posts. 

Oh yes, a 1000 mile road trip (round trip miles) meant plenty of car knitting and on these long trips I do take an old fashioned map. Yarn from Must Stash. Pattern is Impossible Girl.

 

Oh July

I feel a little groggy today. Personal fireworks are allowed in the city limits of Lincoln on July 3rd and 4th. The last two evenings were a barrage of explosions until midnight. When I walked this morning, I saw lots of leftover debris. Last night a terrific thunderstorm blew through as we gathered with friends for a potluck dinner. Later, light rain continued as citizens lit fireworks. It was a little crazy. The storm is the third one in the last two weeks and the rain is very welcome. My cucumber vines are about to jump the edge of the raised bed. The cosmos are glorious in their orange and purple shades. 

As for making this week, I cast on a couple of projects. I have one skein plus some odds ends of a nice cashmere merino yarn so I cast on a shawl/scarf. The pattern was designed for mini-skeins but is easily modified for odd bits of yarn. I sewed the project and notions bags so they are fun to use. Once in awhile it's fun to coordinate bag and project. 

I am also knitting these Kvetching Mitts from the top down. I decided to try this method in order to joggle my brain cells and they have been joggled. There might have been some kvetching going on. This is the first time I've knit mitts from the top down. The first go around I misread the pattern. The second time, the thumb gusset was too big, the third time was a charm. I am knitting them from leftover Mountain Colors yarn. Awhile back, I read the company was for sale. I've enjoyed their yarn over the years.

I finished both Remarkably Bright Creatures (audio) and The Violin Conspiracy. At times I wanted to shake Cameron, the young man in Bright Creatures and tell him to get his act together. I appreciated the older characters in the story, especially Tova. The Violin Conspiracy seemed like a plot driven novel. Still, I enjoyed the descriptions of music and shook my head at the heartbreaking racism directed toward the main character. As the author wrote in his note, "music should be for everybody." I predict a good discussion of the book with my local group. Currently I'm listening to The Housekeeper and the Professor, a novel translated from Japanese. What an elegant story about a kind woman caring for a Mathematics Professor whose memory lasts only eighty minutes. Although he is old, frail, and rather quirky, the professor is a mathematics savant. I'm sure I'm not getting all of the Math concepts but I like the story. I wish the Professor or someone like him had been one of my Math teachers. 

Thanks for reading. Here's to the beginning of a new month and high summer days. I hope all is well. 

Ravelry Links

Shawl of Leftovers

Kvetching Mitts