bee creative

looking for a rainbow

I went outside to look for a rainbow.

No rainbow, but the dogwood next door is looking pretty amazing.

My sky scarf is long enough that it is easiest to knit while wrapped around my neck.   Lots of gray right now. 

come for tea?

You could have a bite of yogurt cake with rhubarb sauce:

It's the first stem of rhubarb this year (from the garden) plus a few frozen strawberries to make it red. 

We could tour the garden.  I had to try another batch of lettuce in egg shells as the first batch didn't work so well...

I'll show you my sky scarf:

It's getting quite long.  It seems quite different to me to look at it as a whole rather than close up:

Every little section has something I love.  The colors here are so soft they might not show up on all monitors quite right...and the yarn I spun on Friday night is here somewhere.

And I'd share the thing that has excited me the most this weekend...  The indigo yeast vat that I started last summer and thought wasn't working very well, sat outside all winter.  While I was cleaning the garden last weekend I decided it was probably time to dump it somewhere.  But when I looked closely I realized it was an interesting shade of green and I thought "Hmm, maybe I should bring this inside and warm it up a bit?"  So I did and amazingly enough...it works! 

The yellow is velvet dyed with onion skin.  I love these colors together. 

like a bumble bee...

Oh spring surely did arrive this weekend...

The plum blossoms were the first to open.  I hope it sets fruit this year.  Lots of bumble bees around this weekend so maybe...

Yesterday was the first Farmer's market of the year... I bought cheese, bread, radishes, broccoli, carrots, Brussels sprouts and potatoes.  This year there seems to be more spring veggies, not just things stored through the winter like the potatoes.  There were quite a few greens too. 

Half of the radish leaves went to the chickens and half was used to make pesto for my lunch. 

With such beautiful weather, this weekend really was spent mostly in the garden.

But I did do a bit of spinning and knitting.  I think I've solved one of my problems with my sky scarf.  I've continued to have problems working on it every day and have been mostly just noting the weather and then catching up on the weekend.  This week I'm going to try something new.  I've got a second project I'm going to work on as well. 

While I was cleaning out baskets I found a shawl I had started and then put down at some point (probably to start the sky scarf).  I've decided that after I finish spinning and knitting my daily row for the scarf, I'll continue spinning and knitting on the shawl until I've satisfied my need to spin/knit in the evening.  I think this will make the spinning/knitting more of a commitment for the day. 

sky scarf: 6 months

Six months ago I started my sky scarf.  The plan was to knit a bit every day to match the color of the sky for the hour after dawn.  Has that happened?  Not so much the last two months.  Have I stopped working on it? No.

What I've done is changed the approach.

I write down the color I need to knit every day and then spinning yarn one day during the weekend and then catching up with all the knitting at one time.

Here's what I've realized over the last month:  A daily practice needs to fill a certain time frame, for example the time I'm on the bus in the morning, or it needs to be long enough that I can settle into what I'm doing. 

It is easier for me to spend one hour every night working on a project then it is for me to spin yarn for the day and knit two rows, which takes me about ten minutes.  The ten minutes is a teaser, I want to keep going and it makes me sad to stop. 

I'm at 35 inches now, about 3 feet.  My knitting for the first month is about one inch longer than my current month.  I'm spinning thinner yarn now. 

 

Today I will write "B" for my records.  I came home to find the first of the crocus popping up.  If I'd been a little earlier they might even have been open. 

dark days: knitting and eating and thinking

Somehow my mind has started connecting my sky scarf and the Dark Days challenge.  I think because I am knitting with local yarn (mostly!) and there is so much gray right now...

The sky scarf, month number five: 

 I've been wondering, once the scarf is finished, will someone look at it and think, "Hmm...that reminds me of the sky?"  Will they look closer and see the fat white stripe, and wonder if that was our snow storm?  Will they see the orange stripe and wonder if that was the morning after the lunar eclipse? 

Yesterday as I was knitting, it became very real to me that a story can be told without images or words.  That a color could hold a story...

 

As for food...

I didn't really join the Dark Days Challenge to explore eating locally, I already knew I could.  I mostly wanted to check in with myself to see if I was eating as locally as I thought I was.  To push myself a little further. 

The ingredients that I find myself considering the most as I plan these meals are fats for cooking, sweeteners, salt, baking soda/powder,  and spices.    This is where I am at currently as I consider these ingredients:

Fats:  I am using butter, hazelnut oil (very sparingly as it's expensive), or cooking with water instead of my usual olive oil for the most part.  I have also used some bacon fat and might at some point consider rendering fat (don't look if you are vegetarian!).  I don't eat much meat though.   Today I experimented with making ghee. 

Sweeteners:  Honey or fruit (apple cider works great for some things).  This really changes baking.  Found a web site this morning that I want to explore more.  But really, the bottom line here is that I need to bake less. 

Salt:  I am going to try making my own.  Found this blog post for a resource.   Just have to decide which beach seems best to collect from....

Baking soda/powder:  Well, back to that baking issue.  Sour dough anyone? 

Spices and cultures:  Certainly we could adjust to cooking without spices.  Many wonderful herbs can be grown locally.   I could either give up foods that made with a culture (some of the cheeses I want to make for example) or be really wild and see what cultures are hanging around (that could be dangerous I'm thinking).  But that seems to be taking things a bit far.  I'm pretty sure the shipping of cinnamon is more sustainable than apples from New Zealand to Washington. 

 

 

The other thing that I am looking at is that I've given myself a bit of a break by allowing foods that are bulk to be exceptions to the local rule.  This is the area that I can get better at.  I think I can establish the same rule for bulk that I have for vegetables and fruits.  If I can find it or grow it locally, I have to buy it locally first.  If it's not available in Washington, then it needs to come from the west coast. 

 

This week's Dark Days meal was an experiment in making pasta with whole wheat flour.   This is one of the flour choices that is available to me locally. 

I made a topping by sauteing onions in butter, adding a handful of cabbage and then sprinkling in a bit of rosemary.  Tasted great, looks... well... And I cheated a bit.  Used salt. 

 

dawn of two different years

The pink dawn, yesterday...December 31st 2011.

The orange and gray, today...January 1st 2012.  More gray than orange. A small flock of robins is darting in and out of the holly trees across the road from me.  Another look and now there are a few stellar jays, juncos, and a bird I don't recognize (maybe a woodpecker of some sort?).  

I recently rediscovered a book I've been meaning to read and started it last night.  Dawn Light by Diane Ackerman. 

"Whatever else it is, dawn is always a rebirth, a fresh start, even if familiar routines and worries charge in clamoring for attention."  

"Nature includes both the one and the many, the squirmingly minute and the invisibly huge." 

The beginning of the calender new year is always a bit of a strange thing for me.  I believe any day, any moment can be a new beginning.   January 1st seems out of order when I consider the natural world.  And yet, there is something amazing about a group of people, a community, reorganizing and beginning again...

 

one step back

As a focus word for the year, "one" was a good word for me.  It helped me keep in mind that one act, one stitch, just one thing is a way to move forward.

My sky scarf is a good example of that.  Just a little bit each day.  Even if it's just a word, capturing the moment. 

Today I took one step back to my focus word for 2010, "direction."

I've been wanting to paint a compass rose on my floor for quite awhile.   With a little supervision from the dogs, I got busy and did it.  That's Madi up in the corner, one of my brother's dogs and sister to Lola. 

It made me think about how sometimes having something that is worn and tired gives permission to take risks.  Would I have painted this on a new floor?  Maybe not. 

I thought about the difference between reaching for perfection and reaching for improvement.  Two different things. 

This weekend I hope to stencil N, E, S, W and a rose on the compass.  A good direction. 

My "Dark Days" meal for the week: 

One more step backwards brought me to my word for 2009, "intersection."  I like thinking of intersections as a meeting place.  There is something about joining a challenge that seems a bit like creating an intersection...

sky scarf: 4 months

Two hours before dawn:

Frost covers everything, even the sides of the bus shelter. 

I stand waiting; thinking about my sky scarf.  About routines and habits.

I have been unfaithful to my scarf this month.  Although I knit every morning on the bus, I haven't worked on my scarf for over a week.  I write notes:  "gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, blue, white." 

I've caught up with the spinning.  Tomorrow I'll catch up with the knitting.  Maybe.  At the very least I will write a note.  Probably, "gray." 

three months of knitting the sky scarf

This is the sky scarf at almost three months.  It doesn't include yesterday or today's gray rows.

It is large enough now that it folds upon itself as I knit. 

Practice is certainly making me more consistent.

And strangely enough consistency seems to come when I stop paying attention. 

Which leads me to believe that if I want an irregular texture I will need to be attentive and deliberate.

density

Holding the sky scarf up to the light really shows where I have spun the yarn tightly and where it is looser.  I like this...it reflects how days go.  Some tightly packed and some loosely structured.  It reflects the quality of the atmosphere as well...

I've gotten behind the last few days with my spinning and knitting and will need to catch up (big project at work that is now done).  I knew this would happen sooner or later and that I'd have to decide whether to pick up with whatever day I was on or keep track of the days and make up rows.  I've decided to make up rows, so that there is at least one row for every day of the year. 

The sleeve to the sweater is finished and the pieces are all now joined together.  Moving forward one stitch plus one stitch at a time.

And then there is this: 

Using up the last of the goldenrod dye.  I'll pull this out on Saturday.  The blue line is from paint.  I used this fabric for a bulletin board at work and doodled directly on the fabric. 

And...goldenrod flowers and fabric wrapped around a copper pipe.  The water has turned yellow. 

sky scarf + being local

It was raining so hard this morning that I didn't think I was going to go to the farmer's market today.

But as it happened, the sun came out and off I went. 

And it was good.

Good because there were beet and carrot greens for the chickens and good because I had an interesting conversation with a new vendor (selling hand knits and hand-spun yarn) about locally sourced wool and locally made clothing. 

At some point I would like to knit a skirt and a sweater with locally sourced yarn. 

For now I'll keep working on my sky scarf, with local roving. 

The morning rain meant that the color for the scarf today was gray.

After two months of knitting, the sky scarf is 12 1/4 inches. 

When I started the scarf, I cast on as many stitches as my age.  For some reason I keep wanting to add stitches and have to readjust. 

The mushrooms are increasing too.

Maybe they like the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

today's yarn: fog

This morning.

Thirty minutes later.  I was walking along a chain link fence surrounding one of the schools and noticed it was covered with spider webs.  This was my favorite.  A spider web on either side, billowing just a bit in the breeze. 

Today's yarn for the sky scarf. I like having patches of barely spun yarn  in this projects as it really does create a "cloud like" effect. 

The afternoon was glorious, but no long summer with a touch of fall.  Now it is the other way, fall with a touch of summer. 

I gathered my golden rod for the next dye experiment.

This will be a tale of two pots.  One stainless steel, one aluminum. 

cloud making

This morning's sky.  The wind was pushing the clouds along quite briskly. 

One month's worth of knitting. I am estimating that the length will be about five feet when it is done.   

Today I mixed a few sari threads into my wool. 

Another kind of cloud, the sweet autumn clematis is about to become a wave of white blossoms. 

permission to be tired

  Reality is that some nights being creative is an effort.  Maybe someday sewing will become this way for me too, but for now knitting is what I turn to on those nights.  Something that I can make without too many decisions that have to be made, something that I can give order to (which brings me peace), that I can do mindlessly and yet still feel like I am creating. 

Day 23 of the sky scarf: the blue streak has now been broken by a dash of gray.  Sometimes knitting the two rows for my sky scarf is enough to motivate me to continue making something.  Other nights it's enough.  It is okay to be tired. 

The moon is nowhere in sight tonight, but it has been beautiful the last couple nights.

Just like moon cycles I come back to favorite poems.

"Under the buttonwoods, beneath a moon nailed fast. 

He wanted his heart to stop beating and his mind to rest..."

Wallace Stevens, from "This Solitude of Cataracts

What if making is sometimes about finding a place for the "mind to rest?" 

adding a touch of pink to the sky

Wool roving that I added to the elderberry dye bath.  I knew right away that I wanted to add some to the sky scarf.  It's just the pink-peach of dawn on the horizon. 

Close to the color of Chattanooga's eggs too. 

Scarf at day seventeen.

A fragment of a poem I've recently found (and a poet that I want to read more by):

 

"But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her

barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window

in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.

She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,

offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light."

Billy Collins

 

time for one thing...

Dawn this morning over laid with knitting

Knitting the sky.

And spinning the clouds. 

blue eggs...blue skies?

My mother found some local wool for me from a new source.

Seems that it would be perfect for a project suggested by a friend (thanks Sherry!).

The idea is to "knit a stripe in colors to match the sky" every day for a year.  (Leafcutter Designs)

I'm going to tweak the idea a bit by spinning yarn that is a mix of the colors I see in the sky at some point during the first hour after dawn.  It just seemed more meaningful to me to choose a time of day.  That and on any given day we can have everything!  Started this on Monday so I'm at day three. 

I did start with one stripe of hand spun that someone else did, but I'm going to try to do the rest myself with local wool. 

And then:

Arranged in a nine patch for Jude. 

For the last three days I've collected three eggs.  All the chickens are laying now.  The ones to the left are from Chattanooga and should be blue/green.  Not quite yet.

Does anyone know if Ameraucana chicken eggs become more blue as the chickens get older? 

The other thing that is fun about this is the difference in size.  Chattanooga has been laying for about a week and her eggs are tiny.  Rosemary has been laying for a month.  Her eggs started out small too but are already getting larger.  They are in the middle.  Jitterbugs eggs are on the far right.  She is two years old. 

One more nine patch.  Blackberries arranged on top of wool dyed with elderberry leaves. 

I rolled it up and tossed it back in the dye bath with the elderberry leaves.