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

 

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