a long time coming

I cast on for this shawl in the spring of 2007.  I was still teaching high school and my best friend had gotten married in April.  I asked if I could give her something blue, thinking making a lace shawl would be smooth enough, especially if I gave myself enough time; after all, I could whip up a crocheted scarf in an afternoon, why not a knit shawl in a few days?

Oh, how sadly, completely, startlingly wrong I was.  I'm far less naive, though I might imagine myself taking on something like this again in too short an amount of time.  It's a tendency of mine.

Now, I can prioritize knits.  I stay at home with the kids, I edit a poetry journal, I am fairly quiet.  But at the time, I was teaching high school, had just been budget cut from my first job, my own wedding was getting planned, and the musical I was co-directing was culminating.  It was a highly charged time for me.

So I made her a terrible crocheted thing that reminded me of a fishermen's net because it took me as long to cast on with the knit pattern I tried over and over again.  

And with the leftover yarn?  I gradually made this.  

It took so long because I've learned I have a strange swinging when it comes to making--sometimes I'll be intensely in a poetry groove and others, a fiber-ish groove.  

Perhaps this is why I like poems:  they are intense, small, fiddly creatures that require small edits and adjustments to make the largest of impacts.  I couldn't sustain the marathon of a novel.  Same, why I have more success making single pieces, little knit objects, the like.  I like fiddling.  

Mistakes, not so much, and this shawl is riddled with them, which is what happens any time you do something the first time and pick it up and drop it dozens of times over a number of years.

Fortunately, Kelly accepted this marriage gift with good humor, no matter she's been married over seven years now.

woods in autumn

These intricacies of nature are so inspiring to me.  I want to touch everything with my fingertips; I want to remake every ridge.  How is it that we move so? 

an etsy shop

Well, there it is.  A fruit bowl brimming over with felted wool dryer balls.  I'm most popular, it seems, with the essential oils community, which is an excellent way to extend your oil usage.   Just drop some lavender or purification onto your balls and toss in!  What I love the most about them is the eco-friendly nature of them.  A friend of me informed me that dryer sheets are the second most toxic cleaning product in the home, which surprised me.  These are natural and will absorb water, so it reduces energy usage as well.  I'll keep making them for a while; there's a strong interest and they are meditative to make.

dyeing with sumac

I love these clippers.  I tote them around in the bluffs.  They remind me of a torn petal, a leaf gone fierce.

This is my first dye vat.  It looks like boiling tea with ruffage, but smells like my husband's brew kettle.  I urge him to homebrew again; I would drink that.  This, I hold my nose to, but look at the color.

I draw out many of the seed heads.  I leave more, uncertain.  I don't know if I should leave some in to make a richer dye.  Or if I should take it all out to keep it from getting tangled.

I think pasta noodles.  I think we are really cooking now.

I leave the yarn in overnight.  My friend (and her etsy shop is right here) advises me this will enrich the color, and she's right.  I do another yarn with an iron afterbath and it swallows the sumac.

My Minnesota plant blanket awaits its next companion.

planting

It's autumn now, one of the briefest of seasons here in Minnesota, and she is picking little clover sprays from the sidewalk, asking if she can plant them in old jam jars.  She tells me we can water these sprouts, that they will live and grow.  I have to tell her that because they have lost their roots, this is it for them.

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of her grandfather's passing, and I'm still explaining cycles to her.  Last spring, it was water cycles:  here, the rain comes down, the sun comes out, the water rises to the clouds.  She tells stories of streams and crayfish.  I tell her how it's all moving.  Autumn comes, and we watch the leaves fall, and I tell her about hibernation.   

Is Grandpa hibernating?  No, we don't quite know where he is, what he is doing.  Is Grandpa gone?  No, my love.  Because we carry him in our hearts.  Our little, rooted, fierce, fierce hearts.

sweet red pepper

We've finally learned the trick of the sweet pepper:  to cut off the top and run the knife along the inside, pulling out the thin white architecture, popping out the seeds  The flower of this one surprised us.

We're drawing Maya into the kitchen with us more and more, hoping her participation in dinner (and in growing dinner) might help her open herself up to trying new foods.  Her palate is very... oh, I don't want to label her as a "picky" eater, but there it is.  Don't say this out loud to her though:  I don't want it to stick.  

So we continue to rotate things in, show that Mommy digs vegetables, see where it takes us.  Finn is still young enough to pop whatever into his mouth; he's also young enough to cast it to the dogs and puh-puh it right onto his shirt. 

Here's a beautiful recipe for creamy red pepper soup.  Soup season is coming, and I adore any kind of creamy vegetable soup:  butternut squash, asparagus, carrot, you name it.