A Red Sweater

Hello Gentle Readers.  Even though Summer Solstice is not for a few days, summer weather has arrived. Tuesday brought thunderstorms and the next few days promise to be hot. I walk a few blocks each morning. After dinner, we take a short walk. I do love the evening light of these June days. We are close to home these days but luckily my husband likes to run errands. I would like to feel stronger but all in good time. I was told to expect a six week recovery (about a week and a half to go) and as my wise daughter reminds me, that is not a date set in stone. The body heals in its own time. 

Today I will link with Kat and the Unravelers. The Red Forager Sweater is officially finished. My Type A personality prevailed and so I unraveled a wee bit on the larger sleeve and decreased down to 44 stitches. I did have to increase one stitch on the 43 stitch sleeve to get an even number for the ribbing. Those adjustments took very little time since the yarn was still attached to each sleeve. I'm pleased with this sweater and the way it fits. The mock cables running down the front, back, top of the sleeve, and two down the side are a nice detail and kept the knitting interesting. As I knit, I marked the row with the passed over stitch with a stitch marker so keeping track of the repeat wasn't a chore - at all. 

I pulled out an older shawl in progress and worked on it but don't have any recent photos. I find I'm wearing shortie socks around the house and could use another pair. I also wanted to try Earthtones Girl's method of helical sock knitting so I cast on a vanilla pair of socks with leftover pink variegated and a mini skein of lime green. My color choices don't really show the helical stripes as the pink is quite variegated but it has been fun to try this technique. I knew the lime green wouldn't stretch the length of the sock so I finished up with the variegated. I'm calling these the Crazy Half-Helical Shortie Socks. I linked the excellent tutorial by Denise DeSantis. 

My reading is a little slow these days. I'm almost finished with All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bingley. I am enjoying the art he chooses to describe as well as the way he brings visibility to the guards, a diverse group of people sometimes overlooked by museum visitors. Looking for an audiobook, I came upon Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by the late John O'Donohue. This edition is read by O'Donohue's brother who has a beautiful Irish brogue. It has a slight Christian bent but is steeped in Celtic spirituality.  It wouldn't be for everyone and I don't know that I agree with everything in the book. However the poetry from many sources and O'Donohue's unique way of looking at the ancient and modern world are soothing to me these days.   

I hope you are finding something to soothe and enrich your spirits these days.  

 

Finding Beauty

Hello Gentle Readers. June is such a sweet month. A friend, now gone, once said to me, "never pass up the opportunity to see beauty." I think of her during the summer, the season she loved.

Lately I take two or three short walks a day.  These days, I am able to walk with more ease but proceed at a leisurely pace. Today I noticed the shadow of a fluttering butterfly on the sidewalk and looked up to find a yellow and black swallowtail disappear among tree leaves. I don't know that I would have noticed that flitting shadow had I been walking at my usual fitness speed.  

Wednesday is the day to link with Kat and the Unravelers. It's always fun to see what others are making and creating. I have an almost finished sweater. After knitting each sleeve, I tucked the ball of yarn into the sleeve so it was out of the way. Flipping those back and forth was comical. Later today I will bind off the neck ribbing. Both sleeves are on waste yarn. After blocking the sweater, I will check the sleeve length, make adjustments, and then knit the cuffs. I faithfully counted and marked rows between decreases on each sleeve. When I got to the bottom of the second sleeve, it had 46 stitches. Just for fun I counted the remaining stitches on the other sleeves and found it had 43 stitches. I was shooting for 44 stitches. Egad. I'm chalking the discrepancy up to recovery knitting on pain medication. If every knitted item tells a story, this one could be a book. 

I knit to the halfway mark on this shawl.  After knitting as far as possible with the rose colored skein, I attached the second one. Now every other row decreases. Although I increased during two more repeats than the pattern suggested, the shawl looks a little skimpy to me. Since the yarns are superwash wools, I hope the piece blocks out a bit larger. Time will tell. The colorway name of the variegated skein is Prairie Flower and it is pretty. 

I'm reading  All The Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley.  What I know about art and art history wouldn't fill a thimble so I am enjoying this peek into the art world. Growing up I was always more interested in music. This memoir is an account of the author's time at The Met as a guard. In that position, he had access to the behind the scenes spaces as well as the magnificent artwork and artifacts. The back of the print version has a list of artworks mentioned and ways to access most images online. There are also some illustrations included in the text. I've visited the museum once and would love to return one day. 

Have a good week. May you encounter June's beauty during the days. 

Slowly but Surely

Hello Gentle Readers. As I write on Tuesday, steady rain falls. The ground is drinking up the moisture in preparation for the hot summer. The past weekend was warm and sunny encouraging flowers and weeds to grow. Prior to surgery I weeded thoroughly but it's going to be a while before I can do that again. The yard is naturalizing this year. I thank you all for your good wishes for recovery. Slowly but surely I'm gaining strength, alternating plenty of rest with gentle walking, stitching or knitting, reading, and light household activities. 

I'll post this on Wednesday and link with Kat and the Unravelers. I finished a pair of scrappy socks that loosely follow a pattern called Cold Brew Socks. I like the slip-stich pattern that gives interest but doesn't tie me to a chart. Sunday I looked at the Forager sweater and decided I needed to rework the sleeve decreases as my sleeve length needs to be shorter than the pattern measurement. I calculated a different spacing for the decreases, ripped out three or so inches and am back to where I started. This time I listened to the voice in my head that says, "this doesn't look right." I also knit on this shawl. 

I continue to add pages to a Stitch Journal. During April, I used the feather stitch to create a poem in honor of National Poetry Month. I liked the connection between a quill pen with a feather and the feather stitch. I'm also intrigued by the shapes of poems and the spaces between words and lines. Possibilities exist in the spaces. The camera overemphasized the weave of the linen fabric.

For Mother's Day, I stitched a fabric collage that includes a piece of my Gram's apron (the pink with the bias tape), a scrap from a quilt my Mom made, another leftover bit from the bridesmaids dresses in my daughter's wedding, and a small heart of fabric I used to make an apron for my granddaughter. I also included a piece from my quilting days. I did my best with the lighting on this rainy day. 

I read The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin. This month's selection of my local group is the story of an unlikely friendship between a seventeen year old Lenni and eighty three year old Margot. Because seventeen and eighty three add up to one hundred, the two women tell each other the stories of their lives while creating art to represent the events. Although both characters are hospitalized with a terminal illness, the story is a celebration of friendship, happiness, loss, and life. It's about living life with grace and humor in spite of circumstances. I enjoyed the novel. 

I wish you a good week with sunny June days ahead.