My afternoon bake was oatmeal cookies with sweetened craisins just purchased last week direct from the source at W.D. Zawistowski Cranberries. This cranberry marsh is located on the corner of County E and Victory Heights Circle in Sawyer County Wisconsin. Set back from the road, on the edge of the marsh, the small white concrete block building serves as a berry receiving and sorting center at harvest time, as well as a rudimentary farmer-to-customer sales counter. And, it is just a mile from Mom’s Lac Courte Oreilles cabin.
Cranberries grow on short evergreen shrubs and thrive in acidic marshy soil in the northern climes of our hemisphere – with Wisconsin leading harvest numbers (Go Badgers!). At harvest time, the bogs are intentionally flooded so the lighter-than-water bright red fruit will float to the top and can be scooped or raked for collection. This unique harvesting method, often seen in TV ads promoting cranberry juice, leads to the common misconception that cranberries grow in water.
If your only experience with cranberries is mass market sauce plopped from a can at Thanksgiving you are missing a culinary treat. This versatile fruit provides a tasty addition to any course from appetizer to dessert. And, while I have never planned a menu featuring cranberries in every dish, it could easily be accomplished. I was lucky to make my craisin purchase as this year’s fresh cranberries were sold out after last week’s Stone Lake Cranberry Fest.
Among the nearly 1.1 million patterns inventoried on Ravelry, Martina Behm’s Hitchhiker is the most popular and it is one of my favorites as well. Since casting on my first version of this asymmetrical scarf / shawlette in June 2016, I’ve completed 21 projects – the most recent just off my needles. I’ve kept and wear only one, all the others have been shared as gifts or fundraising donations.
Hitchhiker is the perfect design to showcase a single skein of fingering weight yarn and can be easily adapted by adding intermittent lace rows or bead embellishments. The knitter begins by casting on just three stitches, increasing one stitch each row, decreasing five stitches every eight rows to create the zigzag steps and simply knitting until all (or nearly all) the yarn is used. The yarn’s textures and colors take center stage, although the saw-tooth border along one edge offers a unique sculptural effect.
With the perfect yardage, Hitchhiker will deliver 42 points on the saw-tooth edge, Martina’s homage to The Hitchhiker‘s Guide to the Galaxy in which the reader learns that the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” is simply 42. But not to worry, should the yarn run out before reaching the mythical number, the end result will still be perfect.
My across the street and next door neighbors each recently acquired new garden tools. With a cordless power drill and a hex drive auger to serve as bulb bit, my neighbor to the north planted 160 tulip bulbs on either side of the walk leading to her front door. Not to be outdone, my gardening neighbor to the west made a quick Amazon purchase for this same handy tool and scattered 80 daffodil, hyacinth and early snowdrop bulbs among her well-established perennials. Promises of spring – that is assuming the scurry of squirrels that nests in our 80-year elm tree doesn’t dig up the bulbs as winter appetizers or the fluffle of rabbits under the neighbor’s shed across the alley doesn’t devour each green shoot just as it pokes through the snow. Normally all this activity would have inspired garden envy and set me on my own quest to add spring color. And, last fall I would have enthusiastically joined the planting challenge but not this October.
When we first entered our global quarantine, I accepted it as an inconvenience and then joined two new book clubs, enrolled in an Impressionist art appreciation class, and participated in an earth-based meditative retreat led by French knitting designer, Solène Le Roux. But what I am feeling today, 18 months into our shared Covid experience is a bit like the title of the 1971 S.E. Hinton coming of age novel, That Was Then, This is Now.
When mass media began mentioning “pandemic fatigue” I recognized some of the symptoms as my own but also wondered about the power of suggestion. Then articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet validated my feelings. The World Health Organization even has entire publication devoted to “pandemic fatigue” which is defined as:
…an expected and natural response to a prolonged public health crisis – not least because the severity and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic have called for the implementation of invasive measures with unprecedented impacts on the daily lives of everyone, including those who have not been directly affected by the virus itself.
An expected and natural response to a prolonged public health crisis. The validation that what I am experiencing is an international phenomenon may not be a precise recipe for an attitude adjustment but it certainly is a step toward reducing my irritability. Getting back in the garden, if only to put things to bed for the winter, may also help diminish my pandemic fatigue.
Top to bottom: Cranberry Chutney, Sage, Tutti Teal, Speckled Peach Melba & Grapefruit Sparkler
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Throughout the week, we tackled a colorway a day. My original plan was to set up a temporary dye studio in the garage with a borrowed Coleman camp stove as my heat source. But that was me worrying unnecessarily about Kool-Aid spills and stains on the parquet floor. Dyeing in the garage required far too much extra work to move cars, assemble a work surface, and collect tools and supplies each day since the Audi Q5 and VW GTI would need to be parked back under cover at night. Our final production line was in the kitchen with water, heat, and tools all close at hand.
During Knit Camp at the Coast, Heather Best from sew happy jane promised to “turn some pretty skeins into some Pretty Amazing skeins.” While we carefully mixed our Kool-Aid combos and watched the pot (to make sure it didn’t boil) our skeins of bare merino DK yarn artfully shifted from au naturel to subtle hues. As a readily available foodstuff, in a multitude of flavors (which translated into colors) the Kool-Aid packets provided easy to mix, manageable quantities that already contained citric acid, thus they eliminated the need to add chemicals possibly less friendly to the environment. One by one, each skein went through a multi-step immersion process:
Soak.
Simmer.
Steep.
(Speckle & steam – just sometimes.)
Rinse.
Dry.
Two days into our routine, with Kool-Aid Sage twisted into a loose hank and Speckled Peach Melba steeping, I made a discovery – dyeing would not become my new passion. As the work continued, we had fun creating the lovely semi-solid fibers, as well as sprinkling contrasting specks. By skein five, I even concocted my own colorway – Tutti Teal (a variation of Heather’s Tutti Fruiti). But I am comfortable knowing my excitement comes from the craft of knitting – finding the perfect yarn, pairing it with the ideal pattern, and creating just the right gift while, hopefully, learning a new technique rather than playing with pigments.
When I first started buying yarn, facing a wall of color in different weights and textures was a bit overwhelming. Now, I can easily spend an hour or more immersed in tactile and visual sensations enjoying whatever my local yarn store (LYS) has on display. While, possessing only the most rudimentary understanding of yarn production, I already recognized that a lot of work went into each skein in my hand. That appreciation has grown exponentially with this micro-dyeing project. But hand dyeing, to paraphrase the witches in Macbeth, at least for me, is akin to “double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.” Although, in the interest of full disclosure, my fire and cauldron consisted of a white LG glass top stove and a Marshall Field Marketplace stainless steel stock pot. Then again, one does have to wonder what colors might emerge if, instead of Kool-Aid, the pot contained any of the natural ingredients from my high school drama role as Second Witch.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1
And just like that, it is fall. Or so it feels as the temperature this morning was 47 degrees and the trees on First Street have a tired look before they change from previously verdant greens to vibrant reds and yellows. It is just a feeling since, intellectually, I know the earth never paused in its orbit. Today is different because the calendar says so and science agrees. Today the earth’s axis is neither tilted toward or away from the sun and we enjoy an equal amount of daylight and nighttime.
As if Knit Camp at the Coast, a virtual, two-day retreat with Marie Greene, hundreds of other Knit Camp campers, fun classes featuring nationally known instructors, and “get-to-known each other” break-out sessions, was not enough to fill my Friday and Saturday, there is a virtual yarn crawl this weekend and next. Through the wonder of technology (one of only a few benefits of pandemic living), 36 small shops, from distant corners of the continent, will be transformed into the viewer’s local yarn store – LYS. From California to Quebec, Oregon to Alabama with Minnesota well represented.
Using Zoom and Facebook, each fiber entrepreneur will share exciting new products, fun kits, bundles, and unique offerings. And, best of all: Prizes! Registration is free so sign up today and join me at the Have a Ball Fall Crawl.
Released early during our pandemic lockdown, Christina Campbell’s Metanoia Wrap artfully achieves its goal of blending simple garter stitches with classic lace to create a meditative experience while knitting. Ever the teacher, she offers a translation for the Greek title:
‘Meta’ means life and ‘Noia’ is change … A knitted journey during a tumultuous time as our way of life changes.
Calling for two contrasting skeins of yarn, each half of the scarf mirrors the other with rippling color. The repetitive lace segments appear different from each other but this is only an illusion since they match row-for-row. The Boca Chica colorways in rich blue Hurricane and subtle flecked aqua Seaglass artfully capture the vibrant hues of the Florida Keys for which these limited hand-dyed skeins are named.
You will have to imagine (as I didn’t snap a pix) large pink dashes in the center of the lane not the center line but in the center of each driving lane.
During a Labor Day weekend visit to Tennessee for a family wedding, I learned these “road blushes” mark Knoxville’s famous Dogwood Trails. The trails date back to 1955 (nearly as old as me) and cover more than 85 miles, winding through 12 different neighborhoods. A portion of the trails is just steps from my Aunt and Uncle’s front door. For those visiting in early spring, the dogwoods are plentiful on the rolling Smokey Mountains and intermixed with azaleas, flowering crabapples, Japanese cherry trees and a myriad of Planting Zone 7a blossoms. Riotous color after dreary winter days to be envied by gardeners in our hardy Zone 4b.
But not to be outdone by southern cousins, Dad’s Mums are just starting to bloom as I returned to the North Country.
A picture perfect day on the Faroe Islands Rowan Tree Travels and fibercraft
It feels like every suspense novel ever read, every film noir ever screened, this waiting to learn of what will be and will not be in our ongoing Covid saga. This morning’s email made it official — the Rowan Tree Travel Fiber Adventure to Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands has been postponed – AGAIN.
The tour planners, Heather and Suzie, have carefully monitored EU travel requirements, health notices for specific stops along the way and they have even gone so far as to take a trip to Scotland to assess just how difficult international travel might be in these strange times. (Suzie’s blog offers her travel musings along the way with an array of photos such that the reader can almost feel the crisp highland air.) But in the end, with cases of the Delta variant on the rise in the US, the frequent testing points mandated while traveling, the uncertainty surrounding quarantine procedures in situ for anyone testing positive, and time delays required for laying low upon arrival, even when healthy, all became just too many variables to manage. The fun of adventure and exploration lost to the stress of pandemic travel. So I am no longer counting the days and will stay Minnesota bound.
As a faithful reader of this blog, my Mom wondered if her first visit to a name brand coffee shop might warrant a post – and she certainly merits special mention and even a photo! Following an early morning post-op appointment after her second cataract surgery, I suggested a stop at Caribou’s. While I opted for my traditional skinny mocha with milk chocolate, Mom tried the hot turtle version of espresso, steamed milk, chocolate and caramel. Flavorful enough that we even made a repeat stop the following day although I don’t anticipate you will see a maroon 1995 Buick Century in the drive through lane anytime soon.
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