Fine Craft

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What better way to spend Mother’s Day than visiting a garden? Actually we visited a garden on Saturday as part of the Garden Conservancy’s list for Open Days. It gave me just the inspiration I needed to get down to work in my own garden. There will be another Open Day in June at a different house. I hope to visit then as well! This garden was in deep shade until two years ago when a large tree fell and destroyed almost everything. Now the gardener has completely redone the garden with more sun loving plants. It’s a beautiful oasis in an otherwise pleasant, but unmemorable suburban neighborhood!

My own gardens are giving me a lot of pleasure this year, the second year in a row when I feel there is not much work to do. There is an old saying that if you are happy with your gardens, it’s probably time to move! In my case, I hope to enjoy this satisfied feeling for a few more years before having to start over!

My work for this week includes finishing the historic reinterpretation tapestry (you can bet I’ll take photos when I celebrate the cutting off!), attempting madder dyeing again with my next batch of roots (from Hillcreek Fiber Studio), and spinning more corrie on my little Golding spindle. A great way to spend a week, right?

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Every year the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival shows me a different aspect of all the people who contribute to my obsession with fiber, spinning, dyeing, weaving and knitting. One year I only took photos of crowds. I was completely appalled that the festival was so crowded that you couldn’t easily walk through the pathways between the barns, much less get into the barns and booths….

This year the word ‘devoted’ kept running through my mind. We the spectators were willing to schlep through mud and muck (of course the shepherds are always willing to do that!), willing to be patient in the face of huge crowds, willing to be inspired by the devotion of our heroes who raise the animals, clean and process the fibers, dye the amazing colorways, and create such finished works of beauty that we’ll spend the last of our savings on handwoven, hand felted, hand knitted and hand spun items. The whole festival was a feast of inspiration that stemmed from devotion to a calling.

I am in awe of the shepherds, processors, dyers, designers, and artists who laid their wares before us. I spent a lot of money that I can’t really afford, but if it helps the economy of fiber farmers and fiber artists to continue their devotion then it’s entirely worthwhile!

Here’s a taste:
Sheep

Husband and wife busily grooming their Border Leicester before going into the ring.

First place Corriedale with proud teenage owner sitting nearby. The mother told me that her two teenage sons are entirely responsible for the care of this champion sheep!

My new Golding spindle lying cozily on a pillow of hand-painted Corriedale top from Misty Mountain.

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Thirty days hath April: seize the day!
Don’t trust to luck for darling buds in May.

A little quote from Philip Appleman’s “That Time of Year,” which I found on Kathy Spoering’s blog.  And so passes April…

Tomorrow begins the first weekend in May, and the annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!  I actually thought I might have to skip it this year, but have managed a compromise where will I go down on Friday evening with a friend, and spend all day on Sat.  I have big hopes for meeting with Jody McKenzie to arrange some time to dye with her this summer when I’m in Maine!  Big hopes to find some madder plants (I so do not want to start from seed again!)! Big hopes to be inspired by fiber, yarn, drop spindles!

I’m blocking my “Clapotis” today and might take it with me since it’s supposed to be a little chilly and wet in the evenings.  (It’s not really mine to keep.  It will go to someone at some point, but I like ‘christening’ these knitted items by wrapping myself in them once!)
Last night I was in quite funk, doing chores and having a frustrating evening at home while my husband Bob was attending a second invitation to the TriBeca Film Festival.  This time spouses were not included.  This time there was a fancier reception beforehand, and a reception afterward.  There were gifts.  I was sulking…. then Bob returned home and gave me his bag of gifts:

Do you see that iPod shuffle lower center?  Can you imagine how amazed I was to find that???  Not sure I can fathom any company having the money to take a large group to the film festival, buy them dinner and dessert, and then give away all these great gifts: the tote bag is terrific on its own, so what a surprise to also find a picnic blanket (rolled up on the right), a bag of cosmetics, and a calendar commemorating the festival to go with the iPod!

Another lovely gift this morning!   A rose-breasted grosbeak! Now I understand why I have such trouble getting things done!  I am always distracted!

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In Neglect
They left us so to the way we took
As two in whom they were proved mistaken
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook
with mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look
and smile if we cannot feel forsaken.

I love this Robert Frost poem that my younger son and I decided to memorize together.  “Together” is a relative thing…he was at school and I was here, at home.  It will surprise no one that he memorized it long before I did and had to help spoon-feed it to me.

Painting of Robert Frost
by Huang Xiang

 

 

 

 

 

I want to memorize another short poem, just to see if I can. Here are two I’m considering:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
                       Robert Frost

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Parting
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell
                      Emily Dickinson

I supposed I’ll try not to write about poetry again too soon. I was happy to find two blogs and a website and to share them!
Poetry 180
Red Ravine
Poetry for Children (a happy discovery that this is the blog of one of my childhood friends! She gets the Proximity award from me!)

Ink, charcoal, colored pencil on paper  Edna St. Vincent Millay drawn by
William Zorach

 

 

 

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –
It gives a lovely light.
                    Edna St. Vincent Millay

That poem reminds me of all of you who inspire me, who keep me searching for art and meaning…I see by the light of your candles! Life is short, but so full of passion!

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I found it.  It’s from one of Montaigne’s essays on the education of children, and here is some context:

“History is more my quarry, or poetry, which I love with particular affection. For as Cleanthes said, just as sound, when pent up in the narrow channel of a trumpet, comes out sharper or stronger, so it seems to me that a thought, when compressed into the numbered feet of poetry, springs forth much more violently and strikes me a much stiffer jolt.”

Still, in the little note I found, this quote is handwritten and signed ‘MWC.’ I still think it’s Billy Collins’s handwriting.  Well, why not?  Anything else is less interesting!

And I’m still hunting for my tapestry notes!