Happy sliding

As expected, I didn’t make it to the Winter Market, and later heard it was only happening on Saturday; Friday was cancelled. Then followed the whitest and coldest of White Christmases I can remember here. The whole country still struggles to repair leaks of frozen pipes. Luckily none at our place.

And no, I didn’t and won’t upload snowy pictures. Here’s one of my resolutions and wishes for the next year:

A poem a day? Okay.
The snow went away.
It took him two days
to go. Where he’s now he may stay!

So I only collected my copies of LEAVES yesterday, and I am delighted about our little book and thank all of our group for making this real.

I look forward to another poetry workshop with Alice Lyons, where we “will raid techniques from visual arts practice and apply them to the composition of poems”. This sounds exiting.

My latest knitting project is a larger wall hanging that is meant to depict the seasons. This will be a project growing over the year.

The postman brought a lovely little present from Erdmute yesterday,

a book about the twelve “rough nights” (Rauhnaechte).

Here is (tongue in cheek) a bit of the advice it gives for today:

If you don’t leave anything over on your plate today, you’ll have enough money next year. But leave something of today’s meal for tomorrow, that will bring enough to eat next year.

Sauerkraut and peas will bring wealth, pork luck. (Schwein gehabt = had pig: means
Glueck gehabt = had luck.) Don’t eat poultry, it means luck flies away.

A little bit of your meal put under a fruit tree brings a good harvest next year.

And finally:

Guten Rutsch! (Happy sliding, not on ice, but between old and new time)

The surprise in the poets' corner...

... is the little book "Leaves", full of our poems. It will be on sale in the Poets' Corner at the Winter Market in the Dock in Carrick on Shannon this coming Friday, 5 to 9 pm and Saturday 12 to 5 pm.

Mind you, I may not make it myself, and that annoys me, but the weather forecast looks bad, and I fear we will be housebound again. Yet those who can access Carrick : There will be Gluehwein, sweet treats, some crafts, poems recited for a donation to Focus Ireland. And the whole market will have a lovely variety of stands and music. So if you can access Carrick, consider going. Seriously!

Surprises November 2010

My yarn has arrived. I’m again so pleased with it and surprised how great it turned out despite the fact that I hadn’t sorted the fleeces as thoroughly as last year. It has a more creamy white than last year. I suppose, as with wine, every year’s crop is different. I also had ordered 2 kg scoured and carded only, to see how that feels, and to do a bit of spinning myself. And I got 4 kg dyed in a beautiful new raspberry colour.

There was also a nice surprise in my inbox this week, and I’m pleased to announce that two of my newer works will be on show in the Open Art Christmas exhibition in the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Manorhamilton.. The opening will be at 1 pm on Friday, 10th December. They are very different to the little hearty tapestries that were on show in the Solas Gallery; being based on my structural patterns, not on double knitting

I also was attending four more sessions of the Landing in Leitrim poetry workshop. A great experience again, with a surprising outcome that will be revealed at the Christmas Market at the Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon which is on from 5 to 9 pm on Friday, 17th, and from 12 to 5 pm on Saturday, 18th December. It looks as if there will be a nice variety of stands there, so those from the area: don’t miss it.

Here’s what was on my crochet hook in the last few days, not without reason. Surprise, surprise.

And before I forget: The winter edition of Lavendelschaf will be out soon; it contains my instructions to make “Sterntalers”. I called them Sterntalers having in mind a short fairy tale by the Grimm brothers:

A poor orphan who has nothing left except a piece of bread goes out into the world. She gives away her bread, her hat, her vest, her skirt and blouse to others in need. As the stars fall as silver coins from the night sky, she finds herself wearing a new, fine linen shirt, which she uses to collect the star-coins.

But there is much more in this edition, of course.
See a preview here.

And I’m really sorry I missed out on this: Rosita Sweetman asked me to contribute “something about Mary”, a symbol of the mother principle, the caring, the female, NOT the religious, for an auction. She had started a collection of these works with a drawing of a Madonna by Shane McGowan. But it was too short notice. I would have liked the subject.

On the Wall Exhibition - Solas Art Gallery

I shortly mentioned the little tapestries I knitted earlier here. All of them incorporate a heart, or several. Knitting them was a reaction to reading the papers, and to current politics reported by them, which made me sick. Economy, finance, budget seemed to be the only things important, while at the same time what is dearest to people is neglected. It seemed that people don't count other than as numbers in financial or budget equations. In this climate I felt the need to create something positive first for myself, to cope, and the hearts in my tapestries are a simple symbol for what I think is really important in the lives of individuals and in their interaction with others. Whatever it is for each one, it cannot be expressed by economic figures alone and the state cannot serve its people by concentrating only on these.

So I wish to tell that I'm delighted that three of my tapestries will be on show as part of the On the Wall exhibition in the Solas Art Gallery in Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim. The opening is next Friday, 5th November, at 7.30 pm. The exhibition runs until 27th November.

I saw only a few exhibits when I brought mine to the gallery, but I think it'll be an interesting exhibition alltogether.

For more information see here:
http://www.solasart.ie/2010/10/on-the-wall-press-release/

I sent my wool again...

for spinning to the Natural Fibre Company. It's already yarn by now, but some of it awaits dyeing. When that's done it will be sent home.

Last year I had a link to pictures of the processing on their website. Now there's a video. You can find it here:

http://www.thenaturalfibre.co.uk/media-centre/video3

Have a look!


And well, I'm back knitting. Here's a picture of some of the things I have on my needles these days.