Greetings dear Unravelers and Happy First Wednesday in October!
While my body is firmly planted in October, my mind is drifting away to December and some holiday gift knitting ideas are swirling around. However, if I want to actually get any holiday knitting done, I better move quickly from the idea part… to the making part and quickly! LOL
Also swirling around is “vacation knitting” planning…things not to take mostly. I finished my Blue Jay yarn spin and I was planning on it becoming a lovely pair of handspun socks, but the Yardage Gods have other ideas because I am certain that there is not enough for socks! The yarn needs a bit of a spa-treatment… and pre-wash, I have just 225 yards (and I fear post wash it will poof up a bit and be less yardage than that. Sigh. I need to think about something that is small, easy to pick up and put down… stay tuned.
It looks Blue Jay-ish to me!
Meanwhile in my regular knitting, my second sock has passed the “challenging pattern” portion and the remainder of the pattern is committed to memory and it will go surprisingly fast! I expect that this sock will be done this week! Just in time for the return for chillier weather knitting…i.e. a lapful of pressed flowers wrap!
Sock Two underway!
But!! I was jonesing for a new spinning project so I pulled out a bag of Scrappy Sock Bundles from Wound Up Fiber Arts for an entirely random, spin thicker than my usual project! I got 3 “bundles” done in short order yesterday… it is so fun to see these bright vibrant colors as I spin them! And I have lots more fun to go! I have one more bag to spin as well and my plan will be to spin up each bag and ply them together for a totally crazy yarn!
The reading this week… delightful. Though The Garden of Evening Mists took me a bit to settle in with… once I did, my goodness, what beautiful writing. I don’t know how this book never crossed my radar in years past. I also finished Henry Hoke’s Open Throat… a short story. I don’t think Hoke reaches Clair Keegan’s mastery of a short story, but it was a curious tale (or tail?) and made me think.
Thanks to Netgalley, I started reading Tracy K. Smith’s new book, To Free the Captives. This will be published Nov. 7th and I am about a third of the way in… and loving it. It is part history, part reminiscing, and all the beautiful writing you would expect from a poet.
My daytime listen is a new mystery series I stumbled upon via Pinterest of all places. Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet… the series is about a retired MI-5 agent, Max Tudor, who has begun a new life as a vicar in a quiet village. Yes, retired MI-5 agent becomes a vicar… and someone is murdered! So far, I am enjoying it… and there are a number of books in the series!
What about you? Are you a Soctoberist this month? Or is something else calling to you?
As always, if you wrote a post to share leave your link below and thank you!
October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace! ― Rainbow Rowell, Attachments
Hello dear October… long have I loved you! The show you put on for all the world to see with chilly mornings, changing leaves, that first frost you wish for to kill the plethora of mosquitos… writing all these things down seems a bit silly with the return to summery 80’s we have forecast for this week, but a girl can dream… right?
I confess, I do like the return of a bit of pumpkin spice…although I prefer my own to the über sweet versions found at the drive-up coffee spots. All summer long I drink iced coffee… but I love the return to chilly mornings with a steaming mug of coffee with frothed milk and a dollop of pumpkin spice to sweeten it just the slightest. Oh, October… you delight me!
I also love the change of meals that happens this month! Give me chili, spaghetti, and yes… even a good pea soup with a crusty loaf of bread!
But I do have some things that need to be accomplished this month! And despite the shortness of the list…it is a LOT to complete this month!
An anxiously awaited vacation to Erie! Woot!
Plant! All! The! Bulbs!! This will be the most daunting task of the entire month… sigh. (The order has shipped… on an actual ship and has reached the “due in port” status this morning! I don’t expect them before we leave for Erie.)
Sew… yes, this is a hold over from my September list. I have two tunics to sew.
A short, but very full list!
What about you, what are you most excited for October to bring?
It must be September,
July sun has disappeared
― Charmaine J. Forde
This was certainly true this month… one of the most significant things I noted this month… darker morning and evening walks with Sherman. In the morning we are waiting for the sunrise and though it seems lighter at night, it is just because we are out as the sun is setting…and soon that will be dark as well!
I was fortunate to catch a few migrating travelers at my bird feeders this month. Yes, two different warblers stopped for a snack… a Bay-breasted Warbler and a Cape May Warbler. It was delightful to see them briefly on their long journey!
I took a bit of advice from Kym and went out into my garden with my journal and a pencil…and I wrote down lots of notes! I also did a bit of prep-work for the onslaught of spring bulbs that are on their way (The Slow Boat from Amsterdam!) Of course, they are slated to come when we will be in Erie, but Steve’s mom is our Mail Watcher when we are gone (I think she is the original Nebby Neighbor, but in this case it is useful, LOL!)
I am surprised that my tomatoes have continued to produce all month (despite the cold snap we had!) but this weekend I will harvest what is left (fried green tomatoes anyone?) and pull the plants next week. My pots are looking mighty sad these days… that cold snap did them no favors! I will clean the lot of them, which will be sad… but I won’t have to come home from Erie with that to do AND plant that plethora of bulbs heading my way!
There was less porch time this month… but what days I could, I was out on the porch! And that will be my plan next month as well!
I have just today and tomorrow to go in Squat-tember! And while I did not achieve a perfect completion (I missed a few days) over all, it was a success! I found Petra to be a great motivator! I am going to continue squatting (and doing more floor sitting!)
And there you have my month… it was good but went by way too fast!
Have a great weekend everyone and I will see you all back here on Monday!
Greetings dear Unravelers and Happy Last Wednesday of September!
I got my COVID/flu jab yesterday and this morning I am definitely feeling it this morning. I am happy to say that I have overcome last week’s pattern hurdle with sock one and finished it! Sock two was started yesterday afternoon!
I am also happy that there have been a handful of days that made a lapful of woolly knitting a delight so I have added several repeats to my Pressed Flowers Wrap… the end is getting closer!
I should have gotten some sewing done this month, but thanks to Sherman it did not happen… sigh. But I am happy to say that he is almost 100% again… his hearing has returned, he has had no more “spells” and so it seems likely that it was some sort of middle/inner ear infection. He still has a few days of steroids but he is pretty much back to his normal silly self! I will put sewing on my list again for late October and cross my fingers! Ha!
It has been week of reading highs and lows. I finished what will absolutely be one of the best books I have read all year (My Friends by Hisham Matar) as well as a very good book (The Bee Sting by Paul Murray which was not as good as Matar’s book but ymmv). I also bailed on a book… (Small Mercies… I think this was just the wrong time for this book for me.)
Since finishing those books I have had trouble settling in with another book. I started listening to Mrs. Dalloway and have no thoughts yet about it. At night I started The Garden of Evening Mists… no thoughts on that one either. Good Book Hangover is real, folks. Yesterday, Amazon had a “deal” on a couple of Claire Keegan short stories collections, so I picked them up and hope that a short story or two will cure my hangover! Fingers crossed!
There you have my week… what about you? What are you making and reading this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share leave your link below and thank you!
Thank you, Ann Voskamp for that quote to remind me that practicing is indeed the hardest part of learning… but it is necessary to changing/learning/growing/being.
So this month, I have been practicing… and it has not been easy at all.
I went back and pulled out my Authenticity Manifesto and looked at it to see if I could find my struggles… and almost instantly I did.
Less-Controlling Kat, where are you?
Defining one’s struggles this easily should mean it would be easy to move past them, to let go of them, to release them… but no, I am living proof it is not.
So this month… I stumbled… and I struggled more… and I reacquainted myself with my word and my goals…but it was a challenging month and I will absolutely keep practicing!
As always, I want to thank Carolyn for providing us all a space to share our progress!
So why am I thinking about this today you might wonder. Well, with all this thinking about being “an invisible woman,” a poem by my beloved Ada Limón has been on my mind as well… I like how she reimagines what might be a familiar story for many of us. And yet, even in this reframing, (which I think is brilliant, by the way) there is a degree of invisibility that leaves an unsettled feeling I in me as I read it… but a good unsettled feeling… one that makes me think about reimagining all the things!
A Name
by Ada Limón
When Eve walked among
the animals and named them—
nightingale, red-shouldered hawk,
fiddler crab, fallow deer—
I wonder if she ever wanted
them to speak back, looked into
their wide wonderful eyes and
whispered, Name me, name me.
I have a trio of wee gnomes in my gnome choir! I will get the alto started soon, rounding out my quartet! Ha!
But my bass is finished.. meet Gnolan! He is Gnola’s twin and they have been singing in harmony for eons! Or at least since their cast on! Ha! (if you are wondering which pattern I used, it is this one!)
But for all the joy of Gnome Finishes… I did have a bit of unraveling this week. Sigh. I discovered an error that once I noticed it, I could not stop seeing it. Tinking back 6-ish inches was not happening so I ripped it back to the end of the ribbing and began again. A word of warning… that first chart is not one that is easy to memorize, lol. (or my feeble brain just can’t get it!) But I am now on to the second *memorized* chart and the knitting moves so much quicker. I should be back to my rip back point soon!
Mistake-free knitting… thus far!
I also have my painting place *all ready to go*… now I just need to … well… pick up a paintbrush and begin!
It has been another slow reading week. I have just one finish… Invisible Women which Bonny put on my radar recently. I would challenge men listen to this…really. Listen and learn.
I have also been reading poems from Naomi Shihab Nye and Lucille Clifton… so so good! These ladies have been perking up my afternoon time considerably!
I am roughly halfway through The Bee Sting and almost finished with my nighttime read, My Friends. I have been savoring My Friends… the writing is so beautiful. The story is moving. And I am learning something about Libya and the Libyan people and while the story is based on characters that lived in Benghazi, I have much been thinking about Derna. A timely read, to be sure!
Whew… for not much making or reading, this was a rather wordy post! What about you? What are you focused on this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.
― Albert Einstein
This month’s prompt was challenging: What did your day look like when you got home from school?
I am most certain that it would bring no benefit to anyone and most especially me to go back and recall what my day looked like when I got home from school.
But…
I visited my library on Friday and picked up a book of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poems: Fuel
And of course she had the answer for me… (because doesn’t poetry always?!)
BECAUSE OF LIBRARIES WE CAN SAY THESE THINGS
by Naomi Shihab Nye
She is holding the book close to her body,
carrying it home on the cracked sidewalk,
down the tangled hill.
If a dog runs at her again, she will use the book as a shield.
She looked hard among the long lines
of books to find this one.
When they start talking about money,
when the day contains such long and hot places,
she will go inside.
An orange bed is waiting.
Story without corners.
She will have two families.
They will eat at different hours.
She is carrying a book past the fire station
and the five-and-dime.
What this town has not given her
the book will provide; a sheep,
a wilderness of new solutions.
The book has already lived through its troubles.
The book has a calm cover, a straight spine.
When the step returns to itself
as the best place for sitting,
the old men up and down the street
are latching their clippers,
she will not be alone.
She will have a book to open
and open and open.
Her life starts here.
Friends, we have reached the halfway point of September. I know, it makes me sad too!
I have some finds to share with you this week…so let’s get started!
First up, I really love Kym’s monthly activity share that she focuses on. I actually try and add them into my daily routine…sometimes successfully even! That’s right, I am very vested in my Squat-ember squatting and every time I engage in my daily squat I remind myself that this will make planting the plethora of bulbs the tiniest bit easier! That’s my story… and I am sticking to it (not that I think planting a plethora of bulbs will be easy… at all! HA!)
Anyways, this week NPR brought my attention back to Kym’s monthly activity focus with this intriguing article which led me down a very fascinating rabbit hole! I have been watching a little bit of Dan’s Live to 100: The Secrets of the Blue Zones on Netflix every evening and I have been enjoying it. (I especially love the gardening, the spending time on the floor, the eating… really, I think he talked to Kym before writing his book!) Anyways, if you are looking for something to watch instead of sports, I recommend this (you can watch an episode on the floor… easily! They are short and packed full of fun things!)
Some months ago I signed up for Ailbíona McLochlainn’s newsletter, Nuacht Cniotála (Knitting News) and have discovered a delightful peek into life in Ireland in a small making community. She lives on the Inishowen Peninsula and I am in love with everything she shares. If you are looking for knitting news that is not all knitting, not all selling… you might like to sign up for her newsletter as well. The peek into her community is delightful!
Recently, I also signed up for Ellen Bass‘ newsletter… and this week the first one showed up in my inbox! It is packed full of goodies… one of which is that she highlights poetry from her students. This one caught my attention… I don’t know about you, but I have had several classmates who have walked hiked the Camino de Santiago… and it was an undertaking! This little book of poetry sounds like a good way to experience it… without making the trek!!
And there you have my recent finds! Have a fantastic weekend and I will see you all back here next week!
**Sorry for this late posting, I thought I scheduled it to post, but apparently that did not work out… sigh. Entirely operator error… not at all a WordPress issue.**
It pains me to say this but September is just racing along, isn’t it? This week the temperature switch was flipped… sigh. I was hoping the humidity would depart first. I have little to show for my making this week but I do have a healthy start on a soprano and bass gnome.
Gnola just needs her music and she will be complete. Her twin brother, Gnolan, needs a bit more knitting time. That will leave me with just an alto gnome to knit and I will have my singing quartet! I also have a vision of a tall tree that they can sing around…which should get me to the next mystery gnome! I am not on the bandwagon for all the goodies but I do love the slower pace that the December mystery knit brings!
I “reactivated” my afternoon spinning reminder as well – and those few minutes have been productive! I have one bobbin done of the contrast for the heels and toes and one bobbin of singles for the yarn done… two bobbins to go! I want to get this done to have a handspun sock to knit on vacation next month! This is a “bird” color way from a club that Fibernymph Dye Works did a couple of years ago… some Blue Jay socks will be so fun!
The reading has had a good book and a not so good book. I had two finishes, one I enjoyed: Martin Walker’s The Patriarch with Chief Bruno Courreges. A great mystery, and as always, Bruno’s delectable cooking! The one that was no so good (at least for me) was The Librarianist… a disappointing read. This is a very character driven novel… which is great unless the characters are not so likable.
I am much more enjoying the characters in My Friends… and the writing is so much better than The Librarianist… so much better. I am just over halfway through and loving every bit of it. I also dove into The Bee Sting and am roughly a third of the way in. It is long but I am loving it thus far!
What about you… what is occupying your time this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
