Wordless Wednesday or A Year Gone By

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For All Daughters (but especially mine)

This wonderful poem appeared on my timeline a little while ago and as I prepare for the Playful Baby's first birthday, I have been re reading it constantly. If you want to learn more, please visit the Mighty Girls website, a must for mother's of strong daughters everywhere. 

"For My Daugher" is written by Sarah McMane, a poet and English teacher in upstate New York with a two-year old daughter. Clementine Paddleford, who is quoted in the poem, was an American food writer and journalist active in the early 20th century.

FOR MY DAUGHTER

By Sarah McMane

“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” – Clementine Paddleford

Never wear only pink
Never play the princess when you can
be the queen:
rule the kingdom,
swing a scepter,
wear a crown of gold.
Don’t dance in glass slippers,
crystal carving up your toes --
be a barefoot Amazon instead,
for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.

when you can strut in crimson red,
sweat in heather grey, and
shimmer in sky blue,
claim the golden sun upon your hair.
Colors are for everyone,
boys and girls, men and women --
be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,
not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.

Tramp muddy through the house 

Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,

fierce and fiery toothy monsters,
not merely lazy butterflies,
sweet and slow on summer days.
For you can tame the most brutish beasts
with your wily wits and charm,
and lizard scales feel just as smooth
as gossamer insect wings.

a purple tutu and cowboy boots.
Have a tea party in your overalls.
Build a fort of birch branches,
a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of
Queen Anne chairs and coverlets,
first stop on the moon.

Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,
Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,
bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,
not Barbie on the runway or
Disney damsels in distress --
you are much too strong to play
the simpering waif.

paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.
Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.
For the ground beneath will hold you, dear --
know that you are free.
And never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.

Among Stones

Welcome to the last stop on the Among Stones Blog Tour! I've been eagerly waiting to write this review up since Carol sent through my copy a few months ago. Having interviewed Carol Feller, the designer behind the label 'Stolen Stitches' some time ago on the podcast, I have a great fondness for her work. She creates with a passion and commitment to quality knitting patterns and knitwear and is really rather lovely to boot. 

As my part in this tour, I have been secretly working on a project both inspired by a theme of Carol's work as well as an actual pattern. I'll explain as we get going....

The Collection:

Among Stones contains nine patterns - four women’s sweaters, one child sweater, a beaded scarf, a shawl, socks (in adult and child sizes), and a hat and mitten set - all photographed in locations in Ireland and Scotland. In the designer’s words: 

“This book is filled with some of my favourite kinds of knits: simple, interesting, wearable. All 

photographed in some of my favourite kinds of places: secret, beautiful, tranquil. I hope you 

enjoy them as much as I do.”

The Inspiration:

Carol's work is often photographed in wonderful locations that have a special meaning to her so I started thinking about my own knitting stories that I've not yet shared here on the blog. The most obvious was that Carol lives not far from much of my maternal side of the family in Southern Ireland and I recognise much of the landscape in which she creates. 

(c) Buffy Toughie in 'Messenger'

However, an experience this Summer kept springing to mind that I wanted to share. I had the pleasure of visiting Asti, the founder and master dyer at Juno Fibre Arts this summer while staying with very close friends. The combination of a wonderful afternoon talking about knitting and dyeing with Asti, in the company of a close friend and the Playful Baby clucking along happily is an extremely pleasurable one for me and I wanted to knit something that reminded me of my own personal knitting geography. I chose Buffy Toughie, one of Asti's wonderful sock bases to work with. I'll be talking in a little more detail about this visit and yarn in my next podcast but Carol's commitment to sharing her favourite places through her knitting was such an inspiration that I couldn't resist adding this element to my post. It's something I think I would like to do more of in the future: commemorating and marking the special stories we create thanks to our knitting community. I owe a big thank you to Carol for making me smile every time I reach for my project. 

(c) Buffy Toughie in 'Messenger'

The pattern:

Such a variegated yarn demanded a very particular pattern and luckily, with Carol, you're in safe hands. I chose Pyrite, a sock that is worked from the top down in a subtle slip stitch pattern, It's an ideal way to smoothly blend a variegated yarn or just add a little textural interest to your sock. I've tried a few slip stitch sock patterns now to break up a variegated and either found them lacking in enough rhythm to memorise or just bored me to tears. Somehow, Carol has got it just right with this pattern. I just want to sit and work on it all the time, (time however, is quite a barrier these days). 

(c) Joseph Feller

As I would expect from Carol, there are multiple sizing options, clear instructions and explanations of techniques where necessary. There are multiple pictures of the project too so I have a clear idea of what my final socks will look like. Carol is an experienced pattern writer now having published two previous books, (Contemporary Irish Knits and Scrumptious Knits) as well as being widely published in books and magazines, such as Twist Collective, Interweave Knits,  and Knitty among others. She has also taught at numerous international events and for Craftsy.com so there is something reassuring about Carol's pattern writing. There's no hidden surprises and you can navigate around the patterns and pattern notes easily do to the intuitive layout. 

I will be knitting many more of these socks!

To find out more about Carol and her wonderful new publication, tune into the next podcast where I'll be talking about the other 8 patterns or visit Carol's website to pick up your copy.  Carol can also be found on Twitter (@stolenstitches), and Facebook. 

A heartfelt thank you to Carol for letting me review the book, the inspiration and the many socks I will be knitting. 

Amongst Stones

RRP: €17, £15, US$22
ISBN:978-0-9571212-2-5 (print) 978-0-9571212-3-2 (digital) 

Direct Customers: Order from www.stolenstitches.com 

US Wholesale: Deep South Fibers http://www.deepsouthfibers.com/among-stones/

Europe Wholesale: Contact carol@stolenstitches.com

Episode 42: So.... How Are You?

A Playful Day is kindly sponsored by NorthboundKnitting, uniquely hand dyed yarn, spinning fibre and modern knitting designs. Please show your support for our playful friend by clicking on the link above.

A Playful Day is proudly sponsored by Candy Skein, hand dyed yarns sweet enough to eat! Please support our playful friend by supporting the banner above.

Show notes:

I experiment with a short podcast this time just to see how I'll work things around my hectic working life and child care. Hold onto your hats for further offerings....

I review Coopknits new publication 'Coopknits Socks'. Details can be found on her website or on Ravelry. 

Off the Needles

Perfected Fume my own hat pattern using scraps of fingering and sport weight yarns. Pattern to follow.

Charade Socks by Sandra Park in Nerd Girl Yarns 'Shimma' in the 'sexy' colourway.

Plume by Lisa Mutch in The Uncommon Thread in The Uncommon Thread Posh Fingering in the 'Nimbostratus' Colourway and Silky Merino Fingering in 'Cerulean' Colourway.

Frogged Dryad and instead cast on Setzer using The Uncommon Thread Lush Worsted in 'Bois' colourway.

Sock Yarn Sweater by Hannah Fettig in September Yarns Merino Silk Fingering, Amber colourway.

Munch, Burp, Schlurp

I make a call to ice cream makers to lead me into sin.

Songs:

Fly, Fly, Fly by Adrina Thorpe, available on Noise Trade
Water Landing by Amy Speace, available via Noise Trade

Contact me at: aplayfulday@gmail.com

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Scrappy Challenge For a Fabulous Cause

We'd all like to do more to help out others whether it's fundraising, donating hours of our time or making something that helps to make someone else's life that little bit better. I received an invite to a group recently that I thought was so thoughtful and ideal for time poor knitters that I wanted to share it here. 

The ever so talented Dani from Lioness Arts is leading the charge on creating a Handdyed Beekeepers Quilt to raise money for Great Ormond Street and MSF. Some of you will recognise MSF as the charity supported strongly by the knitting community for years thanks to strong advocate, the Yarn Harlot. Meanwhile, over 150,000 children are treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital every year and it does fantastic research into groundbreaking medical treatment that transforms lives of children around the world who present with complicated medical needs. I've seen the support they give families first hand and believe me, they are everyday heroes each and every person who works there (and attends). 

The plan is to create a double bed sized Hand-dyed Beekeepers quilt. The entire quilt will measure approximately 7ft x 6ft and will be made up of about 750 hexipuffs! Once enough hexipuffs have been collected Dani will join them all together and there will be a Live Prize Draw (at a venue to be confirmed). In the meantime you can donate to the challenge and at the same time enter the raffle for the quilt by donating to the dedicated Virgin Giving page!

For more information and to lend your support, please visit the group page here and get involved! Blog and tweet about it too- let's get this fundraiser heard about because knitters are amazing and have achieved wonderful things to help people in the past. I know we can do it again.