Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | January 2024

January 18, 2024 annbh356Leave a comment

branches of yellow leaves against snowy backdrop

As always, Carrie Newcomer offers inspiration in song and verse. I have been saving her poem, Blessings, to share with you on this third Thursday of January, Gathering of Poetry. Perfect as the old year ends and new days unfold…

Blessings

May you wake with a sense of play,
An exultation of the possible.
May you rest without guilt,
Satisfied at the end of a day well done.
May all the rough edges be smoothed,
If to smooth is to heal,
And the edges be left rough,
When the unpolished is more true
And infinitely more interesting.
May you wear your years like a well-tailored coat
Or a brave sassy scarf.
May every year yet to come:
Be one more bright button
Sewn on a hat you wear at a tilt.
May the friendships you’ve sown
Grown tall as summer corn.
And the things you’ve left behind,
Rest quietly in the unchangeable past.
May you embrace this day,
Not just as any old day,
But as this day.
Your day.
Held in trust
By you,
In a singular place,
Called now.

You can join the poetic fun every third Thursday as shared by Bonnie and Kym.

Photo credit: © Carrie Newcomer

Knitting

Knit Camp celebrating 5!

January 13, 2024January 15, 2024 annbh3563 Comments

two straw baskets holding balls of aqua and cream yarn

Not only is five Marie Greene’s favorite number (Who knew people had favorite numbers? Do you?) but this year marks the fifth anniversary of Knit Camp and I have been a member for nearly every month.

There is both joy and practicality in this small online knitting community. There is a custom app without all the noise and political rhetoric of the big social media platforms. I receive 12-15 free patterns each year, as well as easy-to-follow stitchery tutorials. There are knit-alongs (KAL) that include both a Winter Sweater Workshop and the 4-day sweater marathon in July; an exclusive Fall Mystery Shawl event in October; and, not to be forgotten, the annual Knit Camp at the Coast 3-day virtual retreat.

This winter’s “sweater” is the newly designed Taos Valley Poncho which I am not knitting but I am thoroughly enjoying the weekly online courses that range from an intro to New Mexico textiles, to how to steep white pine coffee, to learning the tuck-stitch. While a multi-toned poncho may not grace my wardrobe, I ordered yarn for the Knit Camp Anniversary Afghan. This is dubbed a 12-month celebration in stitches and will consist of a series of blocks – one design per month; each knit twice (for double the fun) in alternating colors. However, the yarn is simply taking too long to arrive, so my patience is thin as I check the front porch every day.

So much fun and friendship too. Happy knitting!

_{Graphic credit: © Marie Greene}

Writing

Closer than they are

January 12, 2024January 12, 2024 annbh3561 Comment

There is that moment when muscle memory takes over and the body no longer requires a millisecond of extra thought to remember to write a new year. My already growing list of new, one-time tasks has me firmly planted in 2024 even as my mental flipbook retains vestiges of the old year and I wonder if free verse might capture the blur of my December into January days.

As never before, shopping on a rainy, dark Christmas Eve after landing
A one day Christmas with brown paper bag wrappings & shiny sticky bows
Delayed never wrapped presents in Amazon boxes
A year of thirds and seconds
Three Tennessee trips
Two funerals
Two positive Covid tests
Without a holiday letter, unchronicled visitors from Wisconsin, Illinois & Arizona
Weeks of planning and a century of celebration.

Knitting

Pathways to Peace KAL

January 3, 2024January 3, 2024 annbh3567 Comments

A hand knit lace shawl in multi colored pinks and greens on a wooden hanger

A first of the year reporting on an end of the year project.

Earlier Project Peace knit-alongs (KAL) featured an original new pattern custom designed specifically to reflect that year’s theme but simplicity framed this 2.0 KAL. In preparation, Healthy Knitter Christina Campbell suggested choosing from among one of her earlier designs or the Anica Shawl. I chose the latter and paired her recommendation with a wonderful single skein of merino blended fingering from South Africa that was hand dyed exclusively for the 2022 Strickmich yarn club. Yard by yard, the bold Happy Crowd colorway revealed a self-striping vibrancy well outside my normal, often monotone, palette.

The Anica Shawl pattern incorporated a well-tuned balance of restful repetition perfect for Project Peace reflections. Yet, the artful lacework held my attention and produced a comfortable wrap featuring airy eyelets along one side and a picot border on the opposite. The result was so charming that I claimed this shawlette as my own.

Happy knitting!

Writing

A New Year’s Resolution

January 1, 2024January 1, 2026 annbh3563 Comments

number 2024 set against a white and gold background

It has been years, even decades since Richard and I made New Year’s resolutions. We are just not that kind of couple. If something needs changing, we don’t wait for a noteworthy date, we just do it. And, if everything is going fine — well — no resolutions are necessary.

This New Year’s Day I feel ready to commit to more writing. When I began this blog in May 2020 (during the early days of pandemic lockdown) I was simply seeking a creative outlet. Surprisingly, I discovered I enjoy this artful activity and 206 blog posts later, I feel my writing skills have improved. During the past few months, writing and posting have been irregular as life happened, Richard’s broken foot and planning Momma’s 100^th birthday bash but I promised I would not apologize should posting slack off, so no self-recriminations, only a resolution to write more.

Happy New Year!

Other items of interest

100 years ago, today…

December 29, 2023March 22, 2025 annbh3563 Comments

black and white photo of a young girl — Emma Kuster in 1931

white haired older woman — Emma Kuster in 1931

This story began long ago, 100 years ago today, when Momma was born on December 29, 1923, in a little house on 8^th Avenue in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It had been the caretaker’s residence for the big house next door. It did not have running water and Grandpa had to go to the big house with a bucket. He always talked about how tiny she was and how cold it was that day – so cold that ice formed overnight on the water in the bucket.

The changes in those 100 years are so numerous as to be impossible to inventory. Momma remembers riding in Grandpa’s Model T and there is picture proof; their family got their first phone when she was eight, a party line when each household had its own set of rings. (Not unlike today’s customizable iPhone ringtones – the same but different.) A time when train travel was the norm, and it took 400 minutes from Chicago to St. Paul. Men on the moon and women in space.

A grand adventure took her to Washington, DC as a “war girl”. She lived with seven other young women all working for the war effort. It was while living at the 5506 House that she met a sailor from Alabama. Dad was stationed at Patuxant River, Maryland and while on switchboard duty he called the cousin of a friend. Instead of the cousin, Momma answered the phone and that serendipitous conversation became a lifetime.

If I give into the temptation to chronicle her life this will appear more like an obituary rather than a simple celebratory blog post – so just some highlights that will bring us to today.

Two children – My sister Mary Pat (1962) and me (1952); one grandchild, John Lac, a lovely assortment of nieces and nephews now counting into the greats, great-greats, and even the great-great-great generation.

Four houses – 1226 Vine, the red brick house on 14^th Street, The 40 (now owned by good friends) and the lake house, Inseli.

Travel that took her to foreign places – Australia, Egypt, Greece, New Zealand, Switzerland, Venice, and the Virgin Islands. Visits from Swiss cousins brought family connections to Wisconsin. The first two to visit arrived in 1972, not speaking any English, and just last summer, we hosted ten cousins, all of whom spoke English which made easy laughter.

This weekend there will be a party but no ballons. The students at St. James School, where she volunteered in the library for 57 years, sang a birthday blessing; there are jars of Smuckers seedless raspberry jam customized with her picture; and there has even been TV coverage!

Happy birthday, Momma!

Other items of interest

The colo(u)r of peace

December 4, 2023January 3, 2024 annbh3561 Comment

blue hydrangea, green leaves and white fence

A Project Peace meditative nugget asked readers to ponder the color of peace. My immediate thought was blue – like dusty hydrangeas in Gloucester, crisp winter skies after a snowfall on a below zero day, or skeins and skeins of yarn. On deeper reflection, I must admit that I do not ever recall assigning color to such inherent values as peace, respect, or trust. Rather, my mind recalled those places, deeply imbued with color, when I felt peace.

Standing on the edge of a granite precipice jutting into Lake Superior and watching the waves far below shift from glittering copper to root-beer frothy to deep steel gray while pewter gray rain moved across that inland sea.

Sitting under a vibrant green canopy of leaves while John Lac read a book and I attempted to write poetry, albeit bad haikus.

Afternoon 2

vibrating grass blades

mossy oak stretches skyward

dragonflies skim by

Knitting

Project Peace 2.0 – Pathways to Peace

November 30, 2023March 21, 2025 annbh3562 Comments

Green knit shawl with multicolored pink border on hanger — *Peace In Place Shawl – a 2020 Project Peace Knitalong with Christina Campbell*

A little bit of joy arrived in my in-box this afternoon with an email from Christina Campbell. Her knitting patterns always offered that perfect blend of artistic interest and gentle repetition that encouraged self-care, meditation and, yes, peace. Between 2016-2020, I participated in four Project Peace knitalongs (KAL). Then life intervened and her blog was silent. But she has returned letting her readers and fellow knitters know that “… after two years of reading, writing, time in Shetland, walks in the woods, and releasing a lot into the compost pile, it is time to emerge.”

Her 2023 Project Peace theme will be Pathways to Peace. While she will not be releasing a new pattern, she has promised a daily blog post to help guide our steps on that path. She is encouraging knitters to choose their own pattern, possibly one of her earlier designs, like my Project Peace shawl from 2020. Back then we were slogging through yet more days of pandemic distancing and the theme Peace in Place created a textured triangular wrap with a lacy contrasting border.

Happy knitting!

Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | November 2023

November 16, 2023November 16, 2023 annbh3562 Comments

blue vintage china, loaf of bread, and tin coffee pot sitting on a wooden table by a window

I recently found A Gathering of Poetry which encourages poetry loving bloggers to offer a personal salute to a favorite poem or a recently discovered poet by sharing the verses on the third Thursday of the month. (If this is not correct, I hope Kym or Kat will gently nudge me in the right direction.)

As I will help with Sunday morning worship on Thanksgiving weekend, I moved from poem to poem this week seeking that “perfect” reading suitable for this food focused holiday but with a goal not to mention turkeys, pumpkin pie, or marshmallow sweet potato casserole. Our former poet laureate, Joy Harjo, provided the inspiration.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Photo credit: Pexels-pixabay

Knitting

The Tuesday Night Wrap

November 15, 2023 annbh3563 Comments

handknit lace scarf in two-toned gold yarn draped on a wooden hanger

A mystery knit-along (MKAL) requires confidence in the designer that your time and (more importantly) your precious yarn will not be wasted. As I was very pleased with my version of The Aquarelle Shawl (an April 2022 MKAL), I cast on The Tuesday Night Wrap the very afternoon the first clue dropped.

The early details alerted the 100s knitting along that the pattern would be released in four parts, create a rectangular wrap in two sizes (either scarf or larger shawl), and require two different yarns (one fingering and the other a lace weight mohair) best if undertaken in complimentary colors. With Miss Marple serving as the pattern inspiration, lace work was a must as her character is always adorned in lace – lace collars, lace gloves, even lace wound in her hair.

With finished dimensions of 16 inches by 67 inches, this scarf is wider than I would normally feature. Although the softness of this lovely merino fingering yarn, hand-dyed by Heather Best at Sew Happy Jane, will wrap nicely for squishy, cuddly warmth.

Librarian’s bibliographic note: Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s popular knitting sleuth, was introduced to readers in a short story published in 1927 and entitled: The Tuesday Night Club.