Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Gentle November Days


Good morning or more like mid-day by the time I edit and publish this post. A downy woodpecker climbs the birch to the suet feeder and a cardinal perches on the lip of the safflower seed feeder. The sky is cloudy and the air is humid. Today will be a warm 74 degrees and then the temperature will drop dramatically - again. Perhaps it will rain. 

In honor of my Mom, I dedicate this week to being gentle and kind with myself and others. Monday, 11/7, was her birthday. I bought a latte in her honor. Mom was smart, hard-working, kind, and gentle. She volunteered for several organizations but especially for the American Heart Association. She taught CPR for years and organized and ran a blood mobile at the community college where she worked. She scheduled the blood mobile drives on Halloween and threatened to wear a Dracula cape over her navy nurse's uniform. She never did wear that cape but she was the best kind of mother and friend. She also liked a good cup of black coffee.

I join Kat and the Unravelers today as we wait on the final election outcomes. I did some negative knitting on Norah's scarf this week. Evidently I can't keep the bias garter stitch straight while knitting during coffee with friends and the Erdrich-along zoom discussion. Somewhere I added five stitches to the width. For heaven's sake. Since I only have one skein of yarn and it was the last one at the yarn shop, I ripped back and reknit. I don't want to run short. In the meantime, because scarves are a little boring to knit, I may cast on Emmett's mittens and alternate between projects. The mittens will be green with a white stripe because he likes green and green and white are his middle school colors. Bonus because his last hat was knit from another skein of this green yarn. This second skein was in the stash.  

I finished spinning this braid of Polworth. The smallest skein contains five knots as a single kept breaking. The twist in the yarn is balanced so I think the breaks came where I joined new lengths of fiber. I am spinning a more consistent yarn circumference on the wheel. Slow steady progress is my goal. Although I didn't plan to spin a gradient, it's almost what happened. Sarah encouraged me to spin a braid with some white areas and watch what happens to the colors. Fascinating. Fiber looks one way in a braid, another as a single, and different again when plied. It changes again when knitted into fabric. I am embracing the transformations. This is good for my Type A organized personality that likes predictability.  I plan to learn more about manipulating color within a braid just because it is so interesting.  Yarn-i-tec-ture by Jillian Moreno is a good resource. Courtesy of my son, I own a copy. 

In the last few days, I read Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. I was going to save it to read during the holidays but in the wee hours of Saturday morning, I needed a quiet book about a character choosing kindness. The writing is lyrical and I enjoyed it very much. Keegan recently published Foster, a short book that first appeared as a short story in The New Yorker Magazine. I look forward to reading it. In other book news, I was just notified that my library hold on The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell is available. I expected a longer wait so hooray. 

Take good care of yourselves, gentle readers. 




9 comments:

  1. I love how you spun up that braid of fiber and am glad that you enjoyed watching what the undyed areas did to the color. Sorry about the breaks, though. I will mention that I do not knot my single when it breaks but rather overlap the ends and allow the twist to lock them into place.

    We woke to pretty amazing election results here. I will keep my fingers crossed that your area and state ends up with some good news!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your mother certainly was active, and for good causes that benefitted many others (even without a Dracula cape)! I feel somewhat heartened by the election results that are counted and known so far. It wasn't quite as bad as I had feared, and the final results will be determined all in good time. Your handspun is just beautiful and I wish you the best in your knitting and negative knitting. May kindness and gentleness prevail in all of us.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your mother sounds like a wonderful woman. I watched the election returns too - stayed up too late, and was somewhat heartened that things didn't turn out as badly as I had feared they would. I think a lot of us feel that way. I love this post. It made me feel peaceful. I do love that colorful scarf! See you again soon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It must be very satisfying to take wool from a braid, to yarn, and finally the hand knit item. Your gradient yarn is beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I still look back and smile at my attempts at spinning back in the 1980s…..I produced something….not quite the same as anyone else. I got a fun prize for ‘the knobbliest yarn of that class’. No way could I get it smooth. But look, I tried, and have a fun memory from it.

    I fancied The Marriage Portrait, trouble is the list at my library is a mile long - I’m 53rd at the moment! It’ll make good summer reading after Christmas at the way that list is diminishing😊

    ReplyDelete
  6. Negative Knitting... such a witty way to describe fixing a mistake!

    I just finished Foster and I loved it. So. Much!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a wonderful tribute to your mother, Jane. I love that you enjoyed a latte in her honor, too. As always, lovely knitting (and knitting "negatively" is often just part of the process . . . ) and spinning. I hope you're enjoying a wonderful week.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love your handspun - gorgeous! And Marriage Portrait just came in for me too!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have These Small Things waiting at the library. I love that memories of your mom have moved you to be kind. That is lovely.

    ReplyDelete