Knitting

Seashell Shawlette

December 14, 2024 annbh3561 Comment

handknit shawl with rows of lace stitches in lavendar and green hues on a wooden hanger — Seashell Shawlette

close up detail of handknit shawl with rows of lace stitches in lavendar and green hues on a wooden hanger — Seashell Shawlette

With an observant eye, whether on a sandy stretch of coastline along the Gulf or walking on a rocky Lake Superior shore, a beachcomber can always discover rock and shell treasures. While this winter we will stay cozy and close to home, we will enjoy vicariously the sun of warmer climes through our friends’ travels and as depicted through knitted imagery.

Designer Shaina Bilow describes the Seashell Shawlette this way: “The lace stripes are inspired by the repeating patterns on seashells and the soft, expanding, curled shape is also a nod to these lovely natural formations.” I knit this version using a wonderful blend of Merino and silk yarn dyed in subtle colors (reminiscent of the iridescent hues of mother of pearl buttons) that will drape elegantly across one’s shoulders.

Happy knitting!

Knitting

Mystery Knit-a-Long: Bubble Wand Shawl

December 3, 2024March 22, 2025 annbh3563 Comments

Only the barest details were revealed before the start of the fall Knit Camp mystery knit-a-long (MKAL).

The title: Bubble Wand Shawl – inspired by the whimsy of bubbles flowing gently through a wand.
The yarn: Fingering weight in five contrasting colors. Ahead of time, designer Marie Greene, shared recommendations for fiber content, including the brand and colors she chose for her initial sample. Sleuthing knitters were welcome to make their own choices. I opted to match the Knit Camp sample rather than resorting to the color wheel to find complimentary and contrasting colors that, when put together, played well.
The schedule: Five clues released, one per week in October. MKAL participants graciously kept undercover the developing design by posting progress pictures only after a new clue was revealed. As my early October schedule included hosting visiting Swiss cousins this led to my late start so I benefited from seeing my fellow Knit Campers’ progress reports.

The Bubble Wand Shawl began with a five-stitch cast-on. A four-stitch increase on every right-side row – one stitch added at the beginning of the row, two along a central axis, one at the end of the row – provided the shape and size. From that simple cast-on, the stitch count grew through the final lacy edge and a bind-off of 389 stitches. The Stroll Fingering blend of 75% merino wool and 25% nylon, knit using a larger than recommended needle size resulted in an airy fabric with a lovely drape that wraps nicely around the neck and shoulders. Now, I just need a lucky recipient.

Happy knitting!

Knitting

Traveler’s Club: A Knitter’s Journey

December 2, 2024March 22, 2025 annbh3563 Comments

four picture postcards with postmarks and the words traveler's club 2025

After hosting a Kuster cousin in July and Müller cousins in October, my knitting will vicariously take me to the land of my Swiss grandparents. In 2025, knitting maven Marie Greene will guide knitters on virtual travel tours to Switzerland, Germany, France, and British Columbia. Each quarter, she will share culturally specific patterns, history lessons, and recipes. As with her other workshops, there will be instructional videos to help participants learn new techniques, suggested books to read, and a music list, as well as random prizes, possible even in situ knitting notions. In January, along with my fellow travelers, I will begin this knitting journey at Kleine Scheidegg in the Canton of Bern. It is a magical place which I visited in 1982 and 1991 as the Jungfrau was my grandmother’s favorite mountain. While the sweater that will be the focus of the coming year’s annual Knit Camp sweater knit-a-long (KAL) is still being designed, a sneak peek at the top-down cardigan reveals slipped stitches in red and white, just like the Swiss flag.

Happy Knitting! Or, more appropriately, Viel Spaß beim Stricken!

Spirituality

The Paradox of Both-And

November 27, 2024 annbh3561 Comment

A recent weekend retreat provided time to feed my soul through calm introspection. Together, with more than 50 women, I explored the theme (Be)Coming: Meditations on Sacred Intersections.

At a time when it feels as if every decision is – this or that, right or left – it is unusual to consider a both-and opportunity rather than either-or choice. The retreat theme, the keynote presentations, the small group discussions, and our activities explored paradox. The idea that at first blush something may appear contradictory but with closer reflection a beautiful, intermingled tapestry may be discovered with the prospect of both-and.

As previously experienced, the sound meditation and “walking” a labyrinth, if only with my fingers on paper, were refreshing. New to me was the mudra we repeated throughout the weekend which incorporated symbolic hand gestures as used in various spiritual and cultural practices while reciting peace-focused words. Our time together provided a nice balance between quiet reflection and intellectual content all with the added attraction of staying in Rochester and sleeping at home rather than a conference center dormitory.

Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | November 2024

November 21, 2024November 15, 2024 annbh3561 Comment

wetlands in the early morning light - book cover of poems by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

With the conclusion of an emotional campaign season and election results that presented a clear dichotomy between progressive inclusion and conservative isolationism, this poem written on November 6 by Steve Garnaas-Holmes served as balm for my wounded spirit. For those still reeling and wondering what the future holds, I hope you, too, find comfort in these words for the third Thursday Gathering of Poetry.

 When news is bad 

Take seriously your grief.
It is love, stripped bare.
Let it flow through you.

Trust that you are held.
We all are held by the Beloved, 
the Broken-Hearted One,
the One who Suffers most Deeply.

Know you are not alone.
Millions bear your sorrow.
Ancestors and even unborn generations
walk with you gratefully.

Seek others who are tenderhearted.
Receive all the grace you can.
In the flesh is best, but even in spirit,
know we are here.

Trust the Goodness.
God has not given up on us.
Through every disaster grace remains.
Refuse to despair.

Choose courage over selfishness,
trust over fear, love over anger.
You do not know the end of grace.

There is much you cannot change,
but bring healing where you can.
We are not promised to be given light,
but to shine with light.

Don’t become an enemy of the world
and its brokenness. Stay tender.
Become a source of comfort and joy for others.
Let this purpose bear you through the darkness
and you yourself will become light.

Take courage; trust grace;
stay connected; practice love.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes is a retired Methodist Minister living in Montana who shares daily reflections at Unfolding Light. His weekday thoughts are “rooted in a contemplative, Creation-centered spirituality … which invites readers into a spirit of presence, compassion, justice and delight.” His blog is Unfolding Light, which is also the title of several volumes of poetry.

Writing

On the theme of repair and the care of my fragile psyche

November 16, 2024 annbh3561 Comment

white pottery covered cookie jar with colored decoration at top and bottom edge

My Dad could fix anything. Or so I believed as a child as I saw the bits and pieces, he made whole. In the fourth grade, I fell on the ice-skating rink at school and broke my blue glasses that were only three days new. He closed the break near the hinge (a tricky spot), and I wore those glasses for the next two years. Or, when he glued together the lid of the Red Wing Pottery Cookie jar, not once but twice. Both times, years apart, I had dropped the lid while sneaking Pecan Crisp Christmas cookies. Only the nearly squished frog that I rescued when crossing Vine Street was beyond his saving. Somehow Momma convinced me, in my very distraught state, that the frog was not really appropriate for a “glue job.” We waited patiently for the small green creature in my hand to stop wiggling. Then, with care, we dug a hole together for the frog’s safe resting place under the apple trees in the back yard near the black tire retaining wall.

Unfortunately, the certainty that one’s parents control the whole of the world is an illusion left behind in childhood. Through years of growth and decades of study, right directions and missteps, love found and health challenges, I realize there is very little within the realm of personal control. We find reassurance but not control in the predictable (fall leaves cascading in riotous color, the coolness of November days at our 44° latitude, or bluejays frolicking in the neighbor’s crabapple trees.) Even as I acknowledge those scenes are beyond my control, my brain drifts to November 5 and I slip towards dismay again, shocked by the name of another nominee; worrying about the safety of friends who choose to love differently or whose faces are not the color of mine.

As a result of this month’s assignment for my writers’ group, even in the midst of these anxieties, I experienced a positive mental uptick. Yesterday morning, while waiting in the Physical Therapists’ lobby, I realized that my malaise over the election has altered my behavior. Suddenly, I have been “doom scrolling.” Spending far too much time scanning social media for an uplifting image, an inspirational quote, or just watching random clips from previously viewed HEA movies. I mean – really – who needs to watch disjointed scenes from Pretty Woman?

Today, I am expanding my self-care regime hoping to repair my bruised psyche. My plan already included drinking more water and limiting the time spent reading the news. I will replace “doom scrolling” with reading poetry. And, following the advice of poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes, I will “seek others who are tenderhearted” rather than cocooning. Today’s gathering of my writers’ group served as my beginning.

Photo credit: Red Wing Collectors (Please note: The cookie jar from my childhood is yellow, still in regular use and it will be filled with Pecan Crisps next month.)

Other items of interest

Baking Away Worries: Reflections after the election

November 6, 2024December 8, 2025 annbh3566 Comments

On a lethargic morning suffering from an election induced migraine, I found it easier to concentrate on the old Betty Cocker recipe for chocolate chip cookies than to contemplate the former president’s re-election to a second term. His promises for the “first day” of his administration are chilling and include initiating mass deportations of migrants, pardoning January 6 insurrectionists who violently sought to overthrow the Constitution, and cutting climate regulations despite evidence of ever more severe weather conditions.

All day, ping-ponging worries bounced through my brain while I creamed the butter and stirred in the chopped pecans, all the while trying to breathe deeply and to re-direct my focus.

Worries that eliminating Head Start will enlarge an already existing education gap between those children ready for school, those who can count and know their colors and those who have never held a picture book.
Worries that the end of prescription price caps will only serve big pharma’s bottom line and cause those on tight budgets to have to choose between paying the rent, putting food on the table, and buying lifesaving drugs.
Worries that a greatly curtailed National Weather Service will return us to the “old days” when checking the sky and feeling the wind on our face were our only weather alerts rather than using science to identify the path of approaching storms.
Worries that banning books, like giant book bonfires of earlier generations, will chill the creative spirit of writers and artists and curtail the mission of public libraries as the “people’s university.”

Then, late this afternoon, I listened to Vice-President Kamala Harris offer a gracious concession speech that acknowledged the exact range of my emotions. She advised, “Do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands, this is a time to roll up our sleeves”.

I began to shift my energy from worry by focusing on her words and a prayer shared by Rev. Robin Tanner, “Beloved One, hold the pain and the fear, hold the dream and the fury, hold us as we hold one another. Call us into being with a love that does not let go.”

And more words of encouragement from this evening’s Election Vespers:
Mary Housh Gordon – “I think humans in western cultures often need to feel there is an upward arc to history and some promised arrival in order for there to be meaning. But the place we are going is just around the sun on a miracle of a planet – and we are still alive in a world that is so beautiful and so brutal all at once and always has been. And it is all drenched in meaning no matter where it is headed and it matters that we love each other well and drink up the beauty and resist the brutality.”

Other items of interest

Civic Duty: Two votes cast

October 30, 2024March 22, 2025 annbh356Leave a comment

two people sitting in the car with sunglasses each with red I voted stickers

I am proud to have voted in every election since I became eligible – from local primaries and school referendums to presidential elections. There is an excitement and a patriotic satisfaction in that simple act of going to the polls. Whether as the four-year old who, in 1956, was allowed to pull the large metal lever that closed the curtain of the mechanical voting booth at Lincoln Elementary School, the Ninth Ward polling place, or standing in long, long lines in 2008 waiting to vote for Hope.

Only once, when a national library conference conflicted with a Minnesota spring primary, had I ever voted early. Of course, Covid changed that and health issues again this year factored into our decision not to wait for November 5. Richard served 20 years as an election judge, always working the early morning shift, 6:00 am-2:00 pm; part of the team responsible for setting-up and covering the early morning and lunchtime rush. Rather than take a chance of not feeling at our best on election day, we took advantage of Minnesota’s early voting option and voted at the County offices. Twenty-six minutes from ballot to voting booth to seeing a flag on the optical scanner.

Join us in the vital democratic process! Vote early or vote November 5. Just VOTE!

Other items of interest

50 years ago…

October 28, 2024March 22, 2025 annbh3561 Comment

… it was legal to deny a woman credit without a male co-signer.

I don’t have any recollection of knowing it was a momentous day for women when President Gerald Ford signed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) on Monday, October 28, 1974. I may or may not have watched the nightly news that detailed a new Federal law making it illegal for creditors to discriminate on the basis of sex or marital status. At the time, I did not possess a credit card and thus had never been denied. I was living at home and carrying a full credit load. I would have been focused on a full schedule that included methods classes and other subjects required for my second Bachelors – the Elementary Education degree. When I finally applied for an AMOCO card so that I could pay for gas when traveling to and from Brodhead, I signed the application myself never realizing that just 14 months earlier, my Dad would have been required to sign for me. So much has changed in my life and so much is at stake in this election.

“We are not going back.”

Writing

Charismatic Leadership

October 19, 2024 annbh3563 Comments

My parents met John F. Kennedy in Eau Claire as his campaign swung through Wisconsin in 1960. My sister and I stood in a sunny hay field near Augusta, waiting over three-hours, for the arrival of Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al and Tipper Gore. The newly nominated presidential ticket and the soon to be First and Second Ladies had embarked from LaCrosse on a national bus tour that morning. Richard and I joined a small rally of only a few hundred people at the Rochester Civic Center when Amy Klobuchar first announced her run for the US Senate. Accompanying her on this round-robin journey to Minnesota’s small bergs, large cities, and the Metro was the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

What struck me in July 1992 and stays with me today is the genuine excitement engendered by these candidates, a palpable energy that exemplifies charisma. While I know there are behind the scenes speech writers refining the text of each presentation, the core message and certainly the delivery belongs to the speaker. In each case, these campaign stump speeches, whether spoken by the men who would be president, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, or presented by unsuccessful candidates, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders, the speakers clearly conveyed complex concepts, presented plausible policy developments, and inspired hope. Tim Walz has this same rousing ability.

While they may appear folksy – Tim wearing a red-and-black flannel shirt and Kamala ready to cook in her kitchen – I believe they are ready to tackle complex national and international issues. Together they already possess comprehensive knowledge of complicated topics and are quick-studies when presented with updated information. They each have a history of developing effective strategies in their work towards justice, often with bipartisan cooperation. And, as a librarian friend described one weekend during those days of speculation when we wondered who Kamala would select as her running mate, Tim really is the kind of guy you invite to your backyard barbeque. I cling to a fragile optimism for the Harris-Walz ticket, despite a constant barrage of negative news.

But even as I try to maintain a degree of positivity, I am not so naïve to think the world uncomplicated or our societal challenges easily remedied with one election. Near to home, there are increasing demands on the local community food shelf and growing numbers of unhoused even as we move into frigid months. TikTok videos reveal unprecedented devastation brought by Hurricanes Francine, Helene, and Milton, each having made landfall within days of each other. Gaza still holds the nightly news spotlight as death and destruction occur daily and nearly two million people are suffering from severe malnutrition while living in famine-like conditions. Mentioned less often, despite deaths numbering in the tens of thousands, are the wars in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria and other never mentioned places around the globe.

When compared to the gravity of local, state, national, and world issues, my vote feels but a nanometer (that is a measure of only one billionth of a meter) and yet I persist in believing that each vote matters and we won’t go back. Armed with poetry and a votive candle, I accept my congregation’s invitation to daily reflection using Poetry for Politics ~ Care for the Soul in the days leading up November 5.