Isolation knitting - not all bad

Hi, here we are in our week ?, whatever week of isolation this is, I think it is 8 now, but have lost count, unlike the stitches on my needle, I am very well aware of those!  Sitting at my laptop with the rain lashing the window panes, waiting for this week's provisions to arrive from the supermarket, wondering what will actually arrive and what, will not be available, flour I am sure will be absent for the 5th week running, and planning my next project.  Toddler C's jacket is nearly finished, just the sewing up to do, Miss J's cardi is coming on swimmingly, and I cannot wait to start on the Rowan Elder Throw, this is a free pattern from KnitRowan, and is a monthly release, I have saved them to my laptop and will be starting very soon, can't wait.  I love Rowan patterns, beautiful to knit, good easy to follow instructions.  Happy knitting, crocheting or sewing.  I found this poem by Cory Wade which I love and wanted to share with you, also photos of current and future projects below.  Thanks you for reading and see you all next week.

Knitting Litany

by Cory Wade

Most agitated hands, be my salvation.

Most restless eye, look only here.

Most anxious heart, trust in this singular fact:

something can come from nothing.

The miracle turns on every stitch:

with every whispered row,

leaves, waves, flowers and stars

drop from my fingers.

In this, the crest of the wave, my heart

rises up and drops as I roll the wave.

Row after row I make the wave,

rising and dropping stitch after stitch;

there is no end to the waves,

to the world in my hands:

cockle shell, wolf's claw, wasp nest, bear's paw,

apple leaf, lamb's lettuce, pine tree, gull wing,

honeycomb, cloud and mountain, four sisters,

frost flowers, summer fountain, hyacinth,

sycamore, granite laurel, lynx eye,

drooping elm, wheat germ, cakes and waffle,

clover leaf, blue bell, bell rib, banana tree,

ant egg, rosebud, terrapin, butterfly,

barley ear, beehive, lady's lace and willow bed,

per omnia saecula and saeculorum.

These are the prayers I say these days.

A simple co-creator, I trust in simple decorum.

Wanting something to come of nothing,

I make only slight demands:

Let starfish, berries, and foxglove

fall now from my hands!

Knitting keeps me from unravelling!

Hi, my name is Siw and this is my first step into a stitching blog, my previous blog was poetry based, and I intend to add a bit of fun by peppering the blogs with a little poetry that somehow ties into knitting and sewing.

I found this on the good old interweb the other day and I thought how appropriate to our current situation with Covid-19 this is.  People are sewing scrubs and bags, others knitting mask guards to save sore ears, all to help our wonderful if impoverished NHS.  Everyone is doing their part, either sewing, knitting, caring for others and staying safe in these unprecedented times.  

For me, knitting and sewing are my lifelines, reborn with the advent of my lovely grandchildren J and C, and this love is saving me from descending into gloom and despair as I miss my children and grandchildren and all that they bring, the hugs, laughter and boundless love.

  

Have fun and happy stitching.  

I Stand Quietly (anon)

I stand quietly while you do somersaults on the bed as you aren’t being naughty, you are just trying to get your out of sync body under control.

I stand quietly by the toilet door every time you need to go, and come with you around the house, and sometimes even just across the room, because I know you can feel truly frightened when you are not near me.

I stand quietly at the supermarket checkout while everyone stares at you barking like a dog and blowing raspberries on my arms to cope with the buzzing lights.

I stand quietly while you tell the baffled shop owner that you are looking for shoes that feel hard like splintered wood because your skin can’t bear soft things.

I stand quietly when the attendant gives us scornful looks when I ask for the key to the disabled toilet because the hand dryer noise is too overwhelming for you.

I stand quietly while the nice old lady who lives over the street tells me you wouldn’t be like this if you had siblings.

I stand quietly watching the part-cooked dinner flush down the toilet as the smell was becoming too strong for you to bear.

I stand quietly as you diligently brush your teeth even though it feels like the toothpaste is burning you.

I sit quietly while you scream at me, trying to control the panic you feel because I gently touched your head when brushing your hair.

I sit quietly while the teacher tells me she knows about autism and that you are not autistic and asks if I would benefit from some parenting classes.

I sit quietly while the GP, the occupational therapist and the paediatrician agree how bad it is but say that there are no resources to support us further.

I sit quietly while you cry because your friends say you can’t play with them any more because you tried to change the rules once too often, even though it was only so you could cope.

I sit quietly watching you desperately try on countless items of clothing, searching your cupboards, feeling the textures, knowing that we will have to cancel your beloved horse riding lesson again because they all feel too bad to wear.

I sit quietly as you explain to me that you can go to no more birthday parties and no more clubs as people are just too scary when they are excited.

I sit quietly when my family tell me that you will grow out of it, you just need more routine and earlier bed times.

I sit quietly and rack my brains for something for you to eat as everything you try today makes you gag and wretch until your eyes stream with tears.

I sit quietly when an old friend suggests I would be better off putting you on the naughty step and taking away a beloved toy.

I sit quietly all night whilst you sleep on the cold wooden floor with your head on my leg as you are really poorly but the warm softness of the bed that should be a comfort is making you feel worse.

I sit quietly while you try to regain some kind of control over your body in a meltdown, scared and sobbing and writhing about, hitting yourself harder and harder and begging me to hit you as hard as I can too.

I lay quietly with my back to you as my smell makes you feel sick and although we both desperately want and need to cuddle, you can’t bear to.

I lay quietly beside you when you tell me that you are the wrong sort of special and the wrong sort of different and you want to die.
https://www.justgiving.com/autism-awareness-jill-finch/

Bags, Tops and Bracket Fungi

Hi Everyone, I hope I find you all well.

I have had a busy week, sewing and walking as well as the normal daily household chores.

My week started with the completion (minus buttons which are on order)  of my mini sewing carry all, mini is really a misnomer here as it seems able to carry quite a lot, a bit Tardis like really, and it was admired by my sewing friends at Knitting Sew and Natter last night. Finally we have found a home, having been a bit nomadic over the last few months, cafe's church halls aside, we are now established in The Heath Citizens Community Hall, Heath Park Cardiff, where we meet every Thursday from 7 to 9pm, a small but very friendly group happy to share our expertise as well as learn from others, may we go from strength to strength. Next labour of love, was Jessica's bug top, I still have to get the correct colour zip to complete it but it really does look lovely and I am really pleased with it.  My friend Bunty loved the material and asked for the supplier, Dowtys of Hereford, Bunty is opening a new workshop near Tavistock, Devon and will be running workshops, contact information below beside picture of Jessica's top and the mini carry all.

Whilst walking this week and watching the seasonal changes to my local park (Fairwater Dell) I spied a beautiful fungal growth on a small tree trunk, it turned out to be a Bracket Fungi, information instantly supplied by my husband, and of course I Googled and found out more about the fungus itself and plunged myself into a plethora of poetry about fungus, and found this lovely one about Bracket Fungi by William D Hamilton, an English evolutionary Biologist.  I hope you enjoy it along with the photo I took in Fairwater Dell of the Bracket Fungi.

THE BRACKET FUNGI.  published 1952

(W D Hamilton 1936-2000)

The beechwoods on far hills are turning gold,

Suns shall light them, and in evenings

Red suns on red horizons rolled

Shall stain them deeper, sweeter and less cold.

Soft rain shall drench them, mists shall drown,

Leaves through stagnant stillness spinning

Go drifting quietly down and down.

Wet earth is black, the piled dead leaves are brown.

The stately trunks snake-coloured, and on these,

Live, or dead but still upstanding

White hands of bracket fungi seize

Hands tough as leather, soft as cheese

Quietly encircle, quietly pull and kill.

And when that cobweb-shattered sun

Sinks huge to a yet more distant hill

The pallid hands grow fleshy, pink and fill

That beauty with their growth. 

Thank you once again for joining me, have a lovely week wherever in the world you are, and I will be back again next week.

Daisychain

Spring days and Bamboo

Hi everyone  I hope I find  you all well.

On my walk in the local park checking up on and feeding the local wildfowl, at present 6 drakes, 3 ducks and 2 moorhens on the dell pond and 2 drakes and 1 duck on the lower pond stream, I have observed the stirrings of spring, crocuses  daffodils and swathes of bamboo lining the stream banks, wonderful.  A lovely daily walk enjoyed by me plus many other locals, mostly of walking their dogs.   The day is clear and sunny, the wind brisk and cool, causing the bamboo and the trees to rustle as it passes through their branches. The bamboo is striking  and luxurious interleaved with red and green dogwood  making a really colourful backdrop to the path on the one side and stream on the other. My thoughts turn to the bamboo and it's many and varied uses, such a versatile plant, although some would say too rampant for their liking, never in my estimation, you can always tame a rampant plant if necessary.  There is a lovely poem (anonymous) that celebrates bamboo and I have chosen that for my offering this week.

Beautiful Bamboo (anonymous) 

From Chinese chop-sticks to rice-paddy hats,

So much depends on flexible bamboo,

That’s used to fashion floors in humble flats,

Forms fans as well as woven welcome mats,

And helps to lift aloft the teahouse too.

While from Tibet and far-off Katmandu,

To where the Geisha girls are seen with suits,

It forms the fishing poles and scaffolds you

See on the sides of buildings in the blue,

And lends its hollow length to Buddhist flutes.

And giant grass whose rapid growing roots

Have multi-purpose versatility,

It feeds the multitudes with yellow shoots,

And formed for holding fish and nuts and fruits,

It bends to make amazing basketry.

And from that plant with pliability,

That serves the world like selfless Buddha’s do,

We sure could learn to have humility,

To bend and lend a helping hand and be

Much more like bowing, beautiful bamboo.

I have spent the last week cutting out and preparing dress patterns ready to use the wonderful material I have, and am looking forward to showing you the results very soon, my last offering was a fleece top I made, the first zip I have fitted since I was in school, and that was quite a while ago.  I lined the accent pocket with fleece material to make it cosier to slip little hands in, all in all I was really pleased with my efforts.

Thank you everyone, as always, for joining me and allowing me to share a little insight of my life with you, have a wonderful week wherever in the world you are.

Daisychain

Tasmanian shelves

Hi everyone and I hope I find you all well and rested after the weekend.

Why Tasmanian shelves, I hear you ask, it is a tribute to a fellow blogger Jo, in Tasmania whose weekly blogs inspire me, I look forward to opening her blog on a Monday morning and reading about her thrifty life.  Last November she had some shelves built in her office which did not come up to expectations or design, and she has finally made these acceptable as well as reclaiming and old set of shelves and the items on it are an art form in themselves.  Thanks Jo, for the inspiration, and the joy of reading your blog.

We had a wonderful weekend in Plymouth with our gorgeous granddaughter, walks on Plymouth Hoe and on Roborough Down (the gateway to Dartmoor), lots of fun and laughter and an ample sufficiency of cuddles to bottle and bring home to keep us going until next we see them all.  The highlight of her weekend was getting her grandfather to draw around her hands and feet, repeatedly, no-one could do it quite as well as he could.  Thank you for a wonderful weekend, and thanks to our son for looking after Wiffles the cat for us.  I am blessed with a truly wonderful family.

Today dawns wet with some much needed rain, but is clearing for a nice week, I am planning what to do with the garden, and when I can start on my granddaughters dresses, material having been checked and thoroughly approved of this weekend. So a full week ahead of me, but I want to try and spend a fair bit of time searching through my ever expanding poetry collection for more inspiration and coupled with Classical music seeping softly and reverentially from my sound system and into my pores I feel calm, rested and ready to absorb all that I can.

So I leave you with Jo's shelves, and a lovely thoughtful and provocative poem by Krishnakumar Chandrasekar Nair, thank you as always for joining me and have a wonderful week wherever in the world you are, speak to you next week.  Daisychain xx

Pictures, courtesy of http://alltheblueday.blogspot.co.uk/

Those dusty bookshelves of childhood by krishnakumar chandrasekar nair

Oh, give me those dusty bookshelves of the past

Where books held raptures that would last

A dry crushed flower or perhaps a frayed leaf

A worm eaten love story with an ending so neat

And all those fancy tales of faeries so good

Who lost their wands and cried in the woods

And of goblins who stole tulips and roses

All from the valley of love and happiness

And when the moon rose at the midnight hour

I would turn in my sleep and suddenly smile

Lost in a place of spells and charming power

And my cat settles softly between my legs and curl..... 

Hi Everyone, I hope I find you all well  and enjoying your week.

For those of you in the northern hemisphere have you noticed the clamour of the dawn chorus is getting more musical by the day?  I certainly have, the lone Robin's call has been joined by the Blackbird, song thrush and sparrow over the last few days, heralding the glorious onset of spring, sun and spring growth, I love watching for the signs appearing, don't get me wrong, I love all seasons, especially the start of each one.  Our local pond in the Dell is still half frozen but the ducks are greater in numbers and very hungry as are the garden birds, a good sign that nests may soon be built. 

I have bought some new material this week to make dresses for Jessica, and a workbag for me, trouble is I keep changing my mind as to which to use for what, all patterns are suitable for both, have to make up my mind next week as I have to start making them.  In the meantime I have two carrot cakes and two chocolate cakes in the oven ready for the next couple of weeks, one of each for our packed lunches and one of each for Jo, Andrew and Jessica.  I will also know whether my fleece fits Jessica nicely, which will be my guide for the dress patterns.  I am set to become very busy in the next couple of weeks.   

This weeks offering is "Dawn Chorus" by Sarah Dugdale, I hope you like it.

Dawn Chorus

BY SASHA DUGDALE

March 29, 2010

Every morning since the time changed

I have woken to the dawn chorus

And even before it sounded, I dreamed of it

Loud, unbelievably loud, shameless, raucous

And once I rose and twitched the curtains apart

Expecting the birds to be pressing in fright

Against the pane like passengers

But the garden was empty and it was night

Not a slither of light at the horizon

Still the birds were bawling through the mists

Terrible, invisible

A million small evangelists

How they sing: as if each had pecked up a smouldering coal

Their throats singed and swollen with song

In dissonance as befits the dark world

Where only travellers and the sleepless belong

Bye until next week, thank you for joining me once again, have a wonderful week wherever you are, Love, Daisychain