Sad

Today, I had planned to post something about Mr. Greenjeans. It's finished, it's blocked, it's lovely.

But I don't really care. Today, I received news that my brother David died during the night. Since my mother died a couple of years ago, David has been a lost soul. He attempted to soothe his hurts with alcohol and medications. Sadly, they are the things that took his life last night.

At one point, David and I talked every day. Although he's been in his own world for a while, I will miss him every single day.

Spring?

Remember this?

We are almost there --

I have about 3/4 of a sleeve left to do before Easter. Because of course, for Easter I want to wear something springy -- like the cotton/silk blend of this yarn

But when I woke up this morning --

I wondered whether I need to dig Mom's fur coat out of the back of the closet instead.

I'm trying to keep a hopeful thought:

g8

April is Poetry Month

And so ... a poem about spinning --

A Spinner's List
The old woman whispers -- come to me
and I will tach you to make magic,
cast the spells of Gideon and Arachne.
She folds my fingers around a stick
of warm basswood with a maple whorl
and slides wool across my palm,
shows me how to draft each curl
into a feathered fan, and feel the balm
of thick fragrant grease
and breathe the incense of lanolin.
I flick the spindle and release
the fragile fibers into thin
air, where they embrace emptiness and make it whole.
Now, she murmurs, chant the spell --
qiviut, bombyx, tussah, merino,
rambouillet, jacob huacaya, suri.
She whispers again, be slow --
the spider at her web does not hurry.

Wonderful weekend

There was a meeting of the Spinner's Flock --

I hadn't been there in a long time. I mean, a reaaallly long time. I was warmly welcomed -- and I got to show off my Irish Diamonds shawl during show and tell. The group is growing --we're at member number 800 and something.

And yesterday, it was 82 degrees. It was short-lived, but gave me hope that yes, indeed, somewhere out there is spring.

I'll know it's really spring when there is a sighting of these --




But best of all, I had both of these in my house this weekend --



Doesn't get better than that.

Not my grandmother's knitting

My grandmother didn't knit. But she did sew. If there was a scrap of fabric lying around, Grandma made into something beautiful or useful, or both. My Skipper doll (Mom didn't believe in Barbie) had the best outfits in the neighborhood. My favorite was her fully-lined red wool suit with bracelet-length sleeves -- it would have done Coco Chanel proud.

I think of my grandmother a lot around Easter -- a time of year that usually meant a new outfit from her Singer. I still have a few of the dresses, and a gorgeous designer suit. My daughter wore them on her own Easters, and, like my mother before me, all I had to provide was the round hat and patent-leather shoes.

I am sure my grandmother would have been thrilled if I had learned to sew. She tried -- but I was not only abysmally untalented with a needle -- I also loathed it. As a mother, I made sure my kids learned early how to sew on buttons, mostly so I could avoid it myself.

But mostly, Grandma was a maker. She took next-to-nothing and made it spectacularly "something." And she encouraged me to find my own way to be a maker too.

When I saw a neighbor girl knitting, and thought I'd like to give it a try, Grandma got me needles, cool flecked yarn, a pattern for two -needle mittens and a little workbag.

She knew enough to show me a backward-loop cast-on and the basic knit and purl stitches. And she knew enough not to nag me about my little project.

I didn't finish the mittens -- and I don't know what happened to them. I didn't take up knitting again for 20 years, when books taught me all the techniques and tricks my grandmother didn't know. And then you couldn't stop me from making things -- baby sweaters, Christmas stockings, Aran sweaters, intarsia, lace -- even the top to my wedding dress.

So, my grandmother didn't exactly teach me how to knit ...

But I still have at least one of the needles she gave me

and the pattern book -- somewhere.

and have acquired the love of making things that my grandmother passed on as her legacy.

For that, I am forever in her debt.

Starting over in the frog pond

I spent most of yesterday turning this, the Mirage pullover from More Big Girl Knits,

into this

and then this

and finally this

Now, it is becoming Mr. Greenjeans.

When I began the Mirage, I weighed 30 pounds more than I do today, so I knew it was no longer going to fit the way I'd originally envisioned. Not that that is a bad thing, you understand.

As the swift was spinning, and the sweater was raveling at my feet, Scott asked me if I had regrets about all those hours of work being undone.

Yes and no. I'm sorry to lose the work -- it does feel a bit as if it's time wasted. But I learned something from the process and I'm fired up with the vision for Mr. Greenjeans, so I'm looking ahead more than looking back.

I've done that a lot, I realized. With education, with work, with marriage. Once upon a time, I began each of those things with a vision for the finished product, the happy ending. Eventually, though, I looked at them and realized, "That just doesn't fit right." I pulled the loose thread and raveled. And then made something new -- I went back to school, I got a new job, I met Scott. I learned to take nothing in my new life for granted -- having experienced the worst, I am grateful every day for the best.

I had a vision for this sweater when I began. I knew what pants to pair with it, what jewelry I would wear. I could see myself wearing it. Then I couldn't.

Now I am imagining a new sweater--can't wait to try it on!

A yarn about yarn

Irish Diamonds is finished.

And it's huge.

It's more like a cape than a shawl. I think I love it.

I made this from Bartlettyarns 2-ply fisherman's wool in Blackberry. It's not the recommended yarn for this pattern. And it's not what I originally intended to make from the yarn. My plan was to knit an Aran sweater -- a twin to the one I made my brother almost 20 years ago, during the summer I really became a knitter.

My 3-year-old son and I had gone to a cottage in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. It belonged to my ex's aunt, and she wasn't using it that year. So we were blessed with a free stay in a home overlooking Boothbay Harbor, on a balsam-covered island, during a summer that was, at least in my memory, sunny every day.

My ex was supposed to join us after two weeks, and then we'd drive home together.

He "forgot" to get his plane ticket.

Which meant I had 11 weeks alone in Maine with a 3-year-old, no TV to speak of, and not enough to read.

But there was a yarn store in town. All she sold was Bartlettyarn from Harmony, Maine. It may not have been the softest, but it came in heathery colors and still smelled a little like sheep. Somehow, it went with the rocky coast. I bought enough to make a sweater from Maine Island Kids. It had a little sailboat and some fir trees on it.

Then I made two more -- with apple orchards and chickens.

I made a Christmas stocking for a new nephew.

I made a sweater with intarsia loons on the front for my then-husband. The irony does not escape me.

Then I began the Aran sweater.

It was for my brother, who was my best friend. He came to visit me in Maine and we shopped for just the right pattern. He wanted a cardigan, no collar, and classic creamy wool. The Bartlettyarn was perfect for this project, and the yarn store owner had the perfect, out-of-print pattern, which she gave me.

I cast on that summer, and knit about half of it -- but then life and other, smaller sweaters got in the way.

When I finally picked it up again, the pattern was gone -- tossed in the trash by my then-husband. I was not as yet proficient enough to carry on without a clear map, and thought I'd have to rip back. But, amazingly, I found the pattern in a tiny, old yarn store in Tecumseh.

I finished the sweater just in time for Christmas that year. My brother loved it, took it to work, and wore it often.

A couple of years ago, I was on a fiber and winery tour in the Fingerlakes region of New York and bought this yarn. I planned to make the exact same sweater as my brother's.

Then life intervened again. My mother died. My brother, who had struggled with alcohol for a long time, gave into grief in the most destructive ways. He survived, but our relationship has not. He no longer speaks to any of us, least of all to me.

When I picked up knitting again, I knew I wanted to do something with this yarn. It reminds me of when I first learned to knit. It is simple and warm and its smell takes me back to long quiet evenings in Maine -- when I knitted while my son slept.

I didn't have the heart to make the Aran, though -- and so I chose something else. I wanted to keep the Irish theme, and I wanted something warm enough for chilly Michigan or perhaps for visits to Maine. I also wanted something that would wrap around me like the hugs I miss from the people I have lost.

This will have to do.

Mildly annoyed

I am almost finished with Irish Diamonds. I'll post photos tomorrow or the next day.

And there are things about this yarn I really love -- mostly having to do with the memories it holds -- more about that tomorrow or the next day as well.

But there is one thing about it that really irks me --

This skein alone has had at least four.

I have had a lot of practice untying them and grafting the yarn with the "Russian join." My mouth is getting dry.

A time for fiber fun

Friday, I drove to Grand Rapids to see my daughter's play. We stayed up until 2 a.m. talking, and then I hit the road at 7 a.m. so that I could get home in time to go to the Black Swamp Spinners Guild fiber event.

Scott chatted with the people who make spinning wheels and spindles.

I chatted with fiber and yarn.



Briar Rose was there --


I managed to resist the temptation at their booth, but I did buy a couple of skeins for felted slippers from Amazing Grace FarmsThey had other stuff, too --




I could not resist some gorgeous English Angora fiber from Prissy --one of Jan Vandenhout's lovely bunnies:

And what about the shawl?
I knitted in my hotel room before my daughter's play, and afterward, while we talked.
I knitted while Scott drove us to Bowling Green for the fiber fest.
I knitted last night.
I knitted this morning.

I started promising myself little rewards for completing a row -- like a couple of these:
or a trip to the bathroom.

I am on the last patterning row, followed by two rows of stockinette, an eyelet row, two more rows of stockinette, and then 12 rows of garter stitch -- which I am referring to as the Bataan Death March edging.

While knitting, I've been singing --
"This is the shawl that never ends; it goes on and on my friends;
some knitter started knitting it, not knowing what it was, and she'll continue knitting it forever
just because
this is the shawl that never ends ..."

You know the tune -- feel free to sing along.

This is the shawl that never ends ...

Why do so many shawl patterns begin at the neck?

Is it because the construction is more efficient?
Will the shawl fit better?
Does it make the stitch pattern line up correctly?

No.



It's because nobody in her right mind would voluntarily start a pattern that began,
"Cast on 810 stitches."



That's why.

It's never going to end.

More yarn?

When I came back to knitting last month, I virtuously proclaimed my intent to knit only with stash yarn. After all, I still have yarn. A lot of yarn. When I went to visit the stash, it was like greeting old friends -- the Cherry Tree Hill silk in the Dusk colorway (so pretty), the Fleece Artist mohair and worsted combo skein for mittens (so warm), and of course, the balls of alpaca roving (so soft)

So how come the mail delivery personnel brought all this to my house?

Zen Garden 20

Knitpicks Gloss Knitpicks Palette

The Zen Garden is for socks for a friend who had surgery. Merino, cashmere. How could I resist?

The Knitpicks yarn came with a delivery of these. I thought I'd use them to block the Irish Diamonds shawl, but I think I'll need a few more sets.

Can you see how long one row is? I put a pen on the floor for comparison -- hundreds of stitches .

But back to the yarn. Obviously, I had to avoid shipping charges, right? So I needed to get up to $50. I was being thrifty.

Holy cow, it's been a long time since I've posted ...

A really long time. Until about a month ago, I hadn't really knitted in almost three years. I'm blaming it on the family tragedies/drama of the last couple of years. But really, I just didn't care about anything woolly for a long while. I still liked yarn, I just didn't want to do anything with it. Then suddenly, a month ago, I got interested again. Really interested.

I went on a knitting retreat at Sauder Village in February, and just was inspired by all the creative knitters. And the yarn everywhere. I was supposed to take a workshop on knitting lace mitts. But when I started to do the three rows of homework, I got carried away -- I picked a lace stitch pattern and just winged it. By the time the workshop was supposed to start, I was here:

And then I just got carried away -- I made two pairs of these:

one for me and one for Caroline!

I made these for my darling sister in New York:

And I'm about 2/3 of the way through the Irish Diamond shawl from Folk Shawls. I am making it in Bartlettyarn in blackberry -- it's going to be really warm, and the perfect alternative to the Aran sweater I thought I'd be making with this yarn.

Although I've been away from blogging, I've been writing a lot, and have had some poems published. And I have a new favorite activity:

Scott wouldn't camp in a tent -- but he will in this little beauty! We bought a pop-up two years ago, and I am in it every weekend I can be. This year, it's going to Allegan with me for the Michigan Fiber Festival in August. Hope to see you there!

Been gone so long

Sorry I have been gone so long. My mother died last year, and that event seems to have frozen all of my interest in fiber arts. I haven't knitted anything except one lonely sock for more than a year. However, I am writing profusely -- the poetry seems to be flowing. So, for the moment, I am only maintaining my poetry Web site. (And really, I've just started doing that).

Thanks to all of the readers who commented, or contacted me. I know that I will be back in the world of spinning and knitting at some point -- but not just yet. Hope to see all of you around!

There are days ...

You know, it's amazing what happens when you let $350 worth of parking tickets accumulate over, say, a six-month period.

Want to know? Ask my son.

I spent more than a fair share of today bailing his car out of police impoundment purgatory --sent there by the nine unpaid parking tickets he'd accumulated. And then, of course, there was the tenth ticket he was receiving when he called yesterday -- as the tow truck driver was hoisting his battered little VW onto the winch. What with the towing charges from the city, the towing charges from the company, the state charges, the unpaid tickets -- we were looking at a $610 bill.

And how does one finance such a bill when one is broke? National Bank of Mom, of course.

So now, the car is in a different impound lot -- ours. The fee for release? Lots and lots of hard labor -- painting, mowing, gardening, and so forth. Ad infinitum.

I did go to my "Ladies Who Knit" group this evening -- and actually got some knitting done. On socks for me -- fall will be here before we know it at the rate summer is going.

For those of you who have requested poetry, I can only post previously-published work, or I lose a lot of ability to submit it elsewhere.

So, I can give you this one --

First Supper

Burgers glistening in grease
cheap fry – no steak
Table not set for four, but three
three forks
three plates
three milks, no scotch
at table or sipped
surreptitiously at sink
We eat – our first words clumsy
mouths lumbering
We’d forgotten how
not to sit in silence
not prompting rage
We’d forgotten how
to pass salt without
waiting for head to fall to plate
In this new empty space
our bruised voices
swell to chatter, staccato laughter
raucous peace.

The good old summertime

Is clearly not a time for me to blog.

In fact, other than work, I have not even been online at all. I do check my Ravelry messages every so often, but I am finding myself spending no time in the forums.

Of course, this may be because I'm also experiencing a bit of a knitting lull. I haven't really done much with the pink pullover from More Big Girl Knits -- and I just need to finish sleeves and yoke. I've knitted a little on socks, but that's about it.

What have I been doing instead? I seem to be in a writing mood -- right now, in my world, it's all poetry, all the time. When I'm not writing it, I'm reading it. Or listening -- for our anniversary, Scott gave me a copy of Poetry Speaks. It is amazing to hear poets read their work -- especially old recordings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Yeats, and so many others.

We went to Berea, Ky. for our anniversary in June -- the craft studios were wonderful and we bought some handwoven table linens from the students at Berea College. If you like crafts, it's worth the trip.

And for the first time in years, we went on a full week's vacation -- to Glen Lake and Sleeping Bear Dunes.

This was the view out the back door from the porch --

I kayaked -- We watched the sunset from Sleeping Bear Point -- The moon made dizzying circles in the water -- I didn't want to go home.