August's End

Hello Gentle Readers. Summer with hundred degree temperatures over the weekend and Monday has another story to tell. Day by day, this week will be slightly cooler. The zinnias, cosmos, cone flowers, and butterfly bush continue to bloom. Monday morning I walked at 8:00 a.m. to beat the heat. I heard a ten minute chorus of blue jays from all over the neighborhood. I know jays sound a predator alarm for other birds but this was a friendly call and response. 

My handsome Texas grandson moved onto Tarelton State University campus this past week. His text messages, with the y'all, make me smile. All the university students mean hope for the future. I wish all of them the best year and college experience. 

Wednesday is the day to link with Kat and the Unravelers. I finally have a finish. After a consultation with Bonny about binding off in the middle of a repeat, I finished the hitchhiker. As I came to the end of the yarn, I didn't have enough to complete the full repeat and asked for her expert advice. I decided to use as much of the yarn as possible and bound off on Row 6 instead of a Row 8. I pinned out that last point and it's fine. Someone who has knit a hitchhiker could see a slight difference but knitters are too kind to point out the discrepancy. This one-skein hitchhiker finished with 35 teeth. 

I also finished the embroidered watering can block to go with Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks. I need one more block of some description. I'm considering designs that came from the Depression Era of quilts. Since finishing these two projects, I went back to another shawl in progress and a Christmas gift project. 

Right now the library hold list is in the feast stage. I have four books on my desk but am reading Enlightenment by Sarah Perry. At two-thirds of the way through, I have mixed feelings about this novel. Mostly the writing is excellent, although there is repetition in the rustling, hissing etc. of silk. The story set in modern England has a Victorian/Gothic bent that feels disjointed. At times I marvel at the way the author weaves themes in and out of the story and at other times I wonder why I'm reading it. She has combined some interesting ideas - unrequited love, fundamentalist Christian beliefs, homosexuality, and a mystery/ghost story all loosely tied together with astronomy. I will finish it though. 

I'm off to water. Have a good week. 

 

Mid-August

Hello Gentle Readers. Sunday we picked up coffee on the way home from church. About noon, a light but steady rain began to fall. I read a bit and also listened to the end of a Vera Stanhope mystery while knitting. I can't remember the last time we had a rainy day. Swallowtails and a small Monarch come to the zinnias and butterfly bush. The bees are buzzing in the cone flowers and zinnias. They think they own the oregano so I've let it go to flowers and seed. Next Spring I will significantly prune that plant as it is very overgrown. I saw the sweetest little bird house in a neighbor's new tree. I'm sure their preschool daughter made it and her Dad helped her to hang it. It's probably not practical but I love the idea that parents and maybe a child care provider are encouraging preschoolers to think about the birds. There is hope. 

Today is Wednesday, the day to link with Kat and the Unravelers with posts about making and/or reading. I am knitting away on the hitchhiker. It's a fun knit, especially at the end of the day. My plan is to knit until I run out of yarn. I considered finding some stash bits to make it slightly longer but decided the yarn looks best on its own. I'm embroidering a watering can from Stitches from the Garden by Kathy Schmitz, the book in the photo. It has flowers in it and will go with the Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks I wrote about previously. 

I'm reading the nonfiction work, The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives, 1660 - 1900, written by Barbara Barman and Ariane Fennetaux. The authors explore the history of the tie-on pockets worn by all classes of English women. Pockets in women's clothing have an interesting and controversial history. Although this book is somewhat scholarly, I think their textile research is fascinating. In an era when women could not hold property, they could own clothing and some textiles. Court records and newspaper advertisements for lost pockets list items women carried and tell stories about the lives of women from all classes. 

I'm also rereading So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014-2018 by Ursula K. LeGuin. Although LeGuin is most known for her science fiction, she began as a poet. As you might expect, these poems reflect her thoughts on mortality at the end of her life. A note at the beginning of the small volume says LeGuin sent off her revised manuscript of these poems on January 15, 2018. She died on January 22. What a remarkable woman. 

The tomato harvest is beginning to wind down although I have several dinner plates full of fruit to blanch and freeze. I'm seeing the first few yellow leaves in the Linden and looking forward to the change of season. I hope you are having a good week. Take care. 

Ravelry Link

Hitchhiker

Summer's Bounty

Hello Gentle Readers. A thunderstorm blew through in the wee hours of the morning. When I walked, rain drops hung from the petals of lavender hostas and soft yellow roses. I heard but didn't see a northern flicker. The neighbors' maple tree shows the barest hint of autumn color although I don't know if that is a sign of stress or the changing season. Last weekend, the temperatures were cool with just a hint of fall in the air. 

Wednesday is the day to link with Kat and the Unravelers to post about knitting and reading. Although the tomato harvest takes most of my time these days, I've done a little knitting here and there. I managed to knit to the sleeve split on the summer top. I plan to knit a couple of inches and check the fit again. In between and to give my hands a rest, I knit on the hitchhiker. It's a joy to knit the garter stitch in an easy pattern with variegated yarn. Sometimes it pays to hang on to deep stash. Bonny commented that the yarn made her think of sunlight on a creek. I often think of that image while I'm knitting on it.

I read Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy this week and throughly enjoyed it. The charming story is about recovering from grief and healing that comes from small kindnesses. There was a surprise (at least to me) turn in the middle of short novel. If you are looking for a sweet easy read, this one might be for you. 

Have a good week. I'm heading back to my regularly scheduled saucing, roasting, and freezing. 

To Make a Garden

Hello Gentle Readers and Hello August. The month is new and has been all about the weather. Lincoln and Omaha are recovering from last Wednesday's storm. Wind up to 90 mph in Omaha and 80 mph in Lincoln damaged and destroyed many large trees and wreaked havoc with electricity. Fortunately we did not lose power or have any outdoor damage. Still, as of Monday about 20,000 customers were still without power in Omaha. Some volunteer cosmos in my garden were snapped off, the zinnias were blown around, pots of herbs blew over so the basil was jostled, and a few tomato vines needed more stakes. They were heavy with fruit so it's surprising they didn't break. The high heat of Friday through Monday broke sometime in the early morning of Tuesday. A drop from 100 degrees Monday afternoon to 66 on Tuesday morning was enough to make my head spin. 

As I link with Kat and the Unravelers to post our making and reading, I'm including my garden harvest. The photo above was taken Monday evening so excuse the poor lighting and the basement floor with gardening paraphernalia. Abundant sunshine, hot days, warm nights, drip hoses, have created a good tomato crop. Fresh tomatoes with basil, garlic, and olive oil (garlic removed for eating) served over warm pasta and sprinkled with grated parmesan is my favorite summer dish. I also freeze an easy tomato sauce and blanched, peeled, chopped tomatoes in 2 c. amounts. There are more tomatoes on the kitchen counter and in the garden. If you need me this afternoon,  I'll be in the kitchen. 

I'm enjoying knitting on my summer top and hitchhiker a little at a time. Photos and an update next week. This summer I've been working on these quilt blocks. A long time ago, I bought seven Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks in an antique/second hand shop. The fabrics are in surprisingly good condition. The small pieces were sewed with tiny even stitches and a 1/8th seam allowance. From time to time, I looked at them and put them back in the box. I didn't want to recreate the pattern and I knew that seam allowance would be enough to make me pull out my hair. Since I am not making a quilt for a bed or a baby, I decided to appliqué them, raw-edged, to muslin squares. I used a new-to-me invisible basting technique to make sure they stayed flat and then stitched around the edges with the blanket stitch. I throughly enjoyed the process and not fussing about turning under the edges. I need two more blocks for a square top. I'm looking at a few books about feedsack and Depression era quilts for inspiration. 

I'm rereading The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson, a charming story many of you have read. I'm enjoying the leisurely ride in the canal boat and the three women characters. I had forgotten one of the minor characters is a knitter, a bonus. I'm listening to The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear. Again, as most of you know, this is the last in the Maisie Dobbs series. Winspear is wrapping up the story nicely. 

What are you making this week?   

  

TGIF 8.2.24

Hello Gentle Readers. The second week in July, when the euphoria of our in-person visit with family had faded and the news of world felt oppressive, I set an intention to find one "delight" each day. By delight, I mean some simple pleasure, a moment that stopped all the background noise in favor of being. Today I am framing the TGIF prompt around this intention. I keep a list in my journal. By design I don't have many photos but I do have two. 

Thinking how this simple intention has brightened my days. Of course it doesn't hurt that Kamala Harris is most likely the 2024 Democratic nominee for President of the United States. Even before that occurred, I noticed a shift in my outlook and ordinary days. As I walked this morning, I wondered what delight I might encounter today.

    July 13 - A sparrow caught in morning light changes ordinary beiges and browns into beauty. A white patch contrasts with brilliant rust wing.  

Grateful, more than grateful, for the safety of my air conditioned home. The intense heat was broken by a storm with 80 mph winds on Wednesday evening. Many lost power but we did not. We also did not have any extensive tree damage. 

    July 16 - On this hot evening, the setting sun is framed by streaks of pink light in the western sky. 

Inspired by the neighbors helping each other with the clean-up. Next door half of a large ash landed on a parked car. Many helped to chop off enough foliage and branches so several men could lift the limb off the car. 

    July 22 - Finding one perfect daisy in the otherwise spent flower bed of a neighbor. She has a large glorious bed that begins blooming in early Spring. Now, stalks are all that remain of iris, columbine, and lilies except for one small fresh daisy.

Fun.  The more I notice, then more I notice. Many of my entries recall a sensory experience and a good number of them are visual. The continuing part of this intention is to use all five senses more frequently.

    July 19 - The smell of chopped fresh parsley. It smells of the soil and the earth. When I unwrap it next winter and slice off a portion to season soup I'll smell the green of summer. 

Wishing you a peaceful weekend in a comfortable summer place.