Unraveled Wednesday

Hello May. Sunday was a beautiful Spring day with sunshine, a breeze, and blooming lilacs. As I walk, I enjoy the tulips, wild violets, and the green fringe on all trees. Some trees have leafed out, some are in process.The Linden in our backyard sports buds beginning to unfurl. Friday a thunderstorm blew through and Monday gentle rain fell all day. We had almost an inch of rain. The rain was much needed as wildfires were burning out in central Nebraska.  

My husband has recovered from a mild case of Covid. I tested negative. We completed a ten day quarantine with only minor inconvenience. Vaccines and boosters did their job even though the latest variant is sneaky. I'm thankful for the making that helped pass the time. 

Today I'm easing back into my routine by linking with Kat and the Unravelers. I hoped I'd have this shawl finished but continue to experiment with color placement. A cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie helped me on my way. Doesn't everything go better with a chocolate chip cookie? The stitch marker is a dropped stitch. I plan to finagle and secure it on the wrong side after the shawl is finished. I wasn't sure I could drop down and work my way back across the eyelet section and didn't want to rip out that many rows. 

I continue spindle spinning two braids of fiber. I spin singles from one braid and while they rest I spin singles from another. I plied 90 yards of this raspberry BFL on Sunday. When I began to read about spinning, I heard about classes for spinners who wanted to spin something beside their "default" weight of yarn. I recall thinking that I'd be happy just to have a default kind of yarn. Well I have arrived at a fairly consistent default - two-ply yarn at sport/dk weight. 

As far as reading, I listened to The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and thoroughly enjoyed it. Although some of the story takes place in Cyprus in the 1970's, there is a lesson for any kind of civil conflict including those of our own time. I enjoyed the Fig Tree as a character and didn't see the ending coming until almost the end. The audio voices were excellent. 

I read Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium by Helen Humphreys. Although this nonfiction may not be for everyone, I loved it. Humphreys wrote about a year (2020) she spent visiting Fowler Herbarium located at the biological research station of Queen's University in Ontario. I enjoyed the look into citizen collectors. This elegant little book is organized around the seasons and illustrated with photographs and labels of plants as well as a few drawings by Humphreys. I appreciated Humphreys' looking for and writing about the few women and Native Americans she encountered in her work. As the news goes from bad to worse, this book was just what I needed.

Spring, although cool, has arrived here. The double lilacs are blooming and so is the bleeding heart. I watch a robin sitting on a nest amid blossoms on the neighbor's apple tree. The tree and the nest are visible from my kitchen window. I hope you find just the book, project, or flower you need this week. Thanks for reading.