Cuteness Progress Report

Things are moving swiftly on the baby sweater, but then this is the first time I'm making something this tiny. In fact, yesterday I knitted an extra stripe of the Lime (4 whole rows) for the right front that I ended up tinking. *grrr* I forget how little babies are. Guess I'll have to hang out with them more (if I can find some without getting arrested). The left picture is the body with the right front all spread out and the right picture is with the fronts closed like they will be when it's done. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish the sweater by the June 28th shower, but I'm thinking it won't be a problem.


And I knit a few rows on my Red Licorice sweater back last night while watching Season 2 of Bones but the sweater back looks the same as it did in Monday's picture, only a bit longer. You don't really need to see that, do you? If you do, it'll have to be another day since I'm at work (I can't believe I'm here on a Saturday--and I have to work tomorrow too. Is there such a thing as employee abuse?) and I don't have the sweater back with me.

Windswept

So far so good with the romance, Barbara. Who is Lucia? We know she is Anneka's niece, but whose daughter is she? (I'm guessing that Susanna is the servant.) At first I saw her with dark hair, but since it's a Dutch colony, her hair would be blond. Right? Or strawberry blond, perhaps. She has clear blue eyes and a wide mouth. She was teased (perhaps) as a child because it was too wide for her face. She has since grown into it. Her smile defines her. It is a beautiful smile.

I've read your poems through a couple times, though I haven't been able to form any clear impressions of them. Maybe the next time through.

Bob ;-)

ps: yesterday was Maxine Kumin's birthday.

Prickly Pear

Okay, here's the deal. I met a man from Bonaire and his Wisconsinite wife at The Clearing (what are the odds?) and talked with him one afternoon picking his brain for setting information for the romance novel I started in Bonaire last January. Now I'm sort of fired up to start working on it, but I promise not to dive in wholeheartedly until I have the Horizon rewrite done. Cross my heart. Just so you know I'm really working on the rewrite, I crossed the 100 page rewritten mark yesterday. (wait while I pat myself on the back *twist, grunt* okay, moving on) So my idea is to use the 2008 Bonaire calendar pictures to write little bits of the romance before bed each night. Here's the first one:

Lucia walked out the back door of Aunt Anneka's house after Susanna left. The hot blue sky arced overhead, not one whate cloud marred it from horizon to horizon. She climbed the slope behind the house, walking carefully to avoid the prickly pear cactus that was everywhere. "Looks like it's the only thing that grows here," she said. "Too bad it's not worth anything." When she reached the top she could see both coasts. She watched the waved pound the windward shore and explode into the air in foamy white spray until her shadow lengthening in front of her told her that sunset was coming fast. She turned to face west, shading her eyes with her hand, and watched a fast white boat turn toward her and race toward the shore. It kept coming until she was sure it would crash into the rocks but it slowed, rocking as the wake caught it, and motored slowly toward the boathouse she saw far below her. Must be Burke, she thought as she carefully made her way back down the hill, hurrying now to get back before darkness fell.

It's not much, but it's a start. Whew, am I glad I went to The Clearing and got my writing mojo back! Be warned, Jenny & Bob--a pack of poems is coming your way tomorrow night.

--Barbara

Ooh, This is Going to be So Cute!

When I got home from The Clearing a baby shower invitation for Kendall & Pete was waiting. I could go to wherever they're registered and buy something but that's too easy and impersonal. I searched online for a cute baby sweater pattern using this yarn and found this one. I checked it out on Ravelry and lots of people have made it and each one was cuter than the next. So I went to Michaels and got one skein of Violet, one Berry, and one Lime. (The pattern called for Stone with the Berry and Lime, too boring in my humble opinion. Stone's okay for grown-ups but not babies.) Pete said he made a girl baby so I was okay with the Berry. I couldn't wait to cast on. Love the colors, love the yarn.

Back Writing

Finally. Finally I feel like writing. Finally I awake eager to get to my desk. Yesterday and this morning I rewrote on Horizon and I'm up to 102 pages rewritten, which means I'm about a third done. After the dentist this afternoon I plan to muster up my guts and tackle new writing. Here's the first "official" poem I wrote last week.

The Green Shoot of One Word

Hopeful yet delicate,
quivering in a sweaty hand,
tendrils curled round knuckles,
roots twining past a wrist,
leaves unfurling like butterfly wings,
damp and crumpled.

Pale yellow-green translucence
of hope and bravery,
stubbornly refusing to wilt
back into the silence,
eagerly quivering toward the light.

A single word with the power to
keep alive the name,
Writer.

--Barbara

Re-Fountain! *fun fact added*

Look! Look! I thought about it and thought about it, and I decided to resurrect the fountain that DH and I made last summer that scared the birds. I left the birdbath on the edge of the patio for the scaredy birds and nestled the fountain under the honeysuckle. And I also finally figured out how to put copper pipe together to cover the plastic tube the water pumps up in so it looks a bit less dorky. One little chickadee doesn't think it's dorky, he/she took a nice long bath in the top saucer almost as soon as I got it plugged in. *sigh* I love my fountain.

This morning DH was outside and saw a female hummingbird take a bath in the middle saucer! How cool is that? Wish I'd seen it.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig-Jig *edited*

Okay, I confess, I got home just after noon on Saturday and I've been doing stuff, not yarn-ish stuff, since then that kept me from the blog. My week at The Clearing was awesome in the poem writing sense, even though it was chilly (one night it got down to 29 degrees F!) and rainy. I wrote the 10 poems that were on the syllabus (sometimes I wrote 2 in the allotted 20 mins., not that I'm bragging or anything, but some poems just came pouring out) plus one freewrite poem each day, so I came home with at least 25 poems, some for shredding, some to be rewritten. It's my turn to submit at writer's so they're getting a wad of poems. Those mainly prose writers will be so thrilled. They're good sports though.

Knitting content! I finished another pair of Landscapes slippers



and I worked on my Red Licorice sweater back.




I wasn't the only knitter there. In the evening after supper, I'd take my knitting up to the Lodge where Judith would be working on her cotton sweater and Carol would be crocheting a chemo cap. Carol is mainly a quilter; she put together a Sudoku quilt top last week. She had 9 different colors of the same nearly-solid fabric, gave each one a number, and arranged her little squares according to the solution, then banded it and edged it with black strips. Very pretty and cool looking. I'm thinking that would make a nice summer afghan made in Cotton Ease. Hmmm, does that come in black? *Nope, but it does come in charcoal. That'll do. *sigh* another project in the queue