Another week in the bag and this one brought our first 90+ degree days. If this is a taste of what is to come…sigh. Honoré commented yesterday on my “summer sweater” and it not being very wearable in 90+ degree weather. And that would be true if it were wool, but it is linen and yes, I can and will wear it all summer long. Sorry I did not get a photo of it yesterday, but it was exactly what I hoped it would be! Light, airy, and so comfortable! I finally added my modifications to the project page if you are interested.
It was a week with lots of reflection and inward looking… and listening. So much listening. And that is where I am going to start this post.
And this is a fantastic 8 minutes and 33 seconds. Thanks, Casey Neistat!
Get Going —
Katie gave me the inspiration to cast on my Mystery Shawl. I did start. I am on Clue One. Clue Three is out. I am not stressing about being “behind” (okay, maybe a little especially when I have this list of things I want to knit and wear yet this summer!) what yarn? I am using Jill Draper’s Ansel in Forget Me Not 1 and 3. And this yarn… oh my. It is scrumptious. I just love woolen spun yarns… and this one is perfectly done.
And then Julia Farwell-Clay had this temptation this week! Oh boy. WANT!! I am planning on this to be the perfect August Knit, you know for those days when the constantly running AC makes the house feel like a deep freeze and a nice lap full of wool is just the thing you want!
Inspiration —
This year I have been spending time reading poetry. Each month I try and find a “new to me” poet and settle in with their words. It has been inspiring in ways that I never imagined. And these days poetry becomes more and more vital to my day. I am in awe of poetry writers and their ability to put their words and feelings on paper. I think it would be so much fun to take a poetry class… and perhaps a socially distanced poetry class!
Finally, open your eyes —
Yesterday’s episode on The Slowdown was brilliant, go listen… it will be the best 5 minutes of your day! (and it was the perfect thing to have listened to before seeing this:
“I can’t breathe.”
“I don’t care.”
Six words that say so much. Because of cameras, the world is finally seeing in vivid detail the brutality that Black communities have known for generations. Derrick Scott’s family deserves justice. https://t.co/cetEZUWQTd
That’s it for the week, I hope I shared some things that will make you stop and think, some resources to help us all be better, and a little knitting… because sometimes it is the only think keeping me (somewhat) sane.
Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. — Pablo Neruda
Well, that was an odd May, wasn’t it? But it’s over and this morning June greeted me with a chill in the air, a brilliant sunrise, and a riot of Weigela blooms!
I reveled in #MeMadeMay all month long. And I have not stopped! This morning I emptied out my closet with the intention of downsizing to just me-made clothes. May also had a wide variety of weather, so I could wear flannels, wool, and yes, even sleeveless tops!
I made note of things that I “need” (okay…I am pretty sure I don’t really need anything, but I noted some items are well loved and often worn, so I have started a list of “makes” for the coming months.)
I tried to take a photo of “life” every day in May, but I was not successful every day and I have given up on 1 Second daily videos for the time being.
What is there to say… there was an awful lot of drinking in May and lots of staying home. However, we have gotten creative with Happy Hour – I am going to try and “take us out of Pittsburgh” with cocktail and food a couple times a month. Hopefully these “stay-cation” Happy Hours will feel different, since the surroundings sure as hell aren’t! Ha!
Also, when you can’t go anywhere you begin to notice other things, or at least I have. The greening of my neighborhood was truly a site to behold and May’s chillier temps made that greening up a gradual affair, rather than over and done with and for that I am profoundly grateful!
What did you notice about May? What was good? Bad? Better?
It’s been a quiet couple of weeks around here, at least until we went “Yellow” last Friday.
Yellow for my house looks a lot like Red. Unlike my neighbors, we are not racing out to dine in a restaurant, shop at the mall, or get our hair done. It will be interesting to see in the next few weeks if the cases in the county reflect the colossal stupidity I see happening all around me.
But enough with the rant, how about some distractions!
While I have been gone, I have been doing lots of thinking about this blog and how to make it feel fresh to me. Some ideas are percolating around, but nothing concrete yet. For the time being, I will continue stopping in here at least a couple days a week.
Yesterday, we had a swarm of special visitors (who were welcomed, admired, and applauded). This immense swarm of honey bees is festooning on our trimmed bushes waiting for the Bee Scouts to come back and direct them to the new location of their hive! Somewhere in that swarm is their Queen, who left her previous colony and took about half of her workers and set off to find a new place to live. In a week of absolute shit news, this swarm lifted my spirits. I did not know that swarming is evidence of a healthy bee colony…yep, they don’t swarm if they are sick! I wish you could see the size (and weight!!) of these bees – the size of the swarm is about 15″x10″ in size and they are weighing down the sturdy branches so much that they are resting on my neighbor’s chain link fence!
My iPhone does not quite do justice to the magnificence that these bees are!
As you can see above, sweater knitting is moving right along, I have divided for the sleeves and am now just mindlessly knitting body. I am hopeful to have this done by next Wednesday!
These past couple of weeks I have been mourning the loss of singing – specifically choir singing. The realization that there won’t be any choir, or singing in church (if and when ‘in-person’ worship resumes) makes me very weepy. Who ever thought that singing would spread germs faster…certainly not me. So I spent a good bit of time watching all the “separate but together” choirs on YouTube – and there are lots of them, but this one kind of sums of how I am feeling…
I also have been practicing with “the big camera” this week. However, the weather conditions were either too windy, too sunny, or today – too rainy!
Lamb’s Ear makes me smile
Even in the rain, they don’t let go of each other. There is a lesson here for all of us!
That is all I have for today. I will be back next week to share an update on my word next Tuesday with Honoré! Have a good weekend everyone!
Sweet May hath come to love us, flowers, trees, their blossoms don; And through the blue heavens above us, the very clouds move on. — Heinrich Heine
While March was eons long, April has just sprinted on by – hasn’t it? I guess when each day is the same as the last, at first they seem to drag and then they pick up speed!
May, I hope you do come to love us with more sunny days, mild weather, and some patio happy hours!
I spent more time this week outside with the big camera, practicing more! Better? Maybe not so much, but I enjoyed every moment and was inspired to keep trying! And May ushers in Macro May!! Look for more photos during the month! We had a very rainy April (only 12 days without any precipitation) but grey days are perfect for taking photos! And getting outdoors after the rain and capturing it dripping off the lilacs made the volumes of rain *almost* worth it! Ha!!
I don’t know how many of you use Nextdoor (I use the app on my phone), but over the last week or so there has been an uptick in people women in my neighborhood trying to find a hairdresser who would break the rules to cut and/or color their hair. I was happy to see that these posts have been met with no success (or at least no one openly offers in the post to provide these services). And then Julia Farwell-Clay posted this on IG! I just want to ROAR with her with my own Badger-striped hair!
And The Poetry of Home is just the inspiration I needed to gather some yarn bits to start Susan B. Anderson’s Little House pattern that Kym highlighted this week. My plan is to make one for each of my children with a little Pandemic Tag on it, but I think I will also include the words of a poem too! (FYI, Little House pattern is currently discounted…so if you are thinking about it, don’t think too much longer!)
Mary is a voracious knitter and I think I found her next sweater to devour! And the Ravelry Hive Mind must all be of the same thought because this sweater from 2017 is in my “Hot Right Now Top 20”!
Starts with a trip down the loveliest rabbit hole!
Clara started it, but that led me to this and this and finally this! These kids… PURE JOY (and you can believe me when I tell you that because joy has been a scarce commodity in my life these days!!)
Perhaps, a trip down a rabbit hole is the perfect thing for today since I spent much of the weekend with things on repeat!
I could not get enough of this and I listened to it several times on Saturday and again on Sunday.
Which led me to “Google” Pádraig Ó Tuama and I discovered he has a twitter account! (My twitterverse just grew infinitely richer!)
Ode to Patrick Swayze
‘the perfect proletarian / butt in the black pants of you’
I finished Clue One of the Genius of Romi! My brain loved every bit of everything I thought I could not understand – that is until I broke it down and just did what the direction said to do, and not worry about that next step until its turn. (I am knitting this with a heavy-lace weight yarn and a bit of a smaller needle than the pattern calls for, but oh my do I love this start!)
I also did some “repeats” knitting and finished a long lingering UFO* (I saved the pattern in 2015 and I think I cast on shortly thereafter, but never started a project page.) Today, a good soak and some blocking to reveal the beauty! (My yarns are about a half a ball of Zauberball Crazy – in the colorway that the designer used, and almost an entire hank of Lorna’s Laces sock yarn.) There was something entirely satisfying about knitting alternating repeats of welts and wedges.
I hope you enjoy these rabbit holes! Happy Monday!
