knitting and tea

i spent a quiet day at home with my online knitting group. they had a flower arranging workshop today with a woman who has a floral business. it was interesting, and i learned how to use florist's tape to help hold the flowers in the vase, and how to arrange the branches (and that it's good to strip the leaves from the bottom stems so they don't rot in the water). (greg actually went uptown to see the winslow home paintings . . i thought he had seem them already, but he hadn't!)

i first visited the green market for veggies and fish and the requisite chocolate croissant (and i actually had a grain coffee and not tea this morning).

in the late afternoon i went for a walk, looking for new jeans as mine are worn and splitting in various places. the sky was so beautiful.

a poem for sunday and a little about the day

 sunday shines again

with warm spring air and

st. veronica bells on christopher street.

tea sits on the table 

with past tea times not far behind

and passed souls 

sitting in my heart

while a persistent black cat

claws my leg

for tea too.

----

we listened to first unitarian of brooklyn's palm sunday service and then i spent the day knitting and connecting with denise bayron's wave of change shawl/blanket knit-a-long (both via zoom) while greg went for a bus ride/walk to the lower east side and chanda rested in bed (she's had the flu . . the home covid test she took turned negative). 

it's a pretty day with the sun hiding behind clouds and then poking out bright and cheery. i was inspired by lorraine on the knit-a-long zoom to write two poems . . which feels good as its been a long time . . and i'm writing while listening to a beautiful first u of brooklyn song from march:

at home and out and about

figaro keeps extending his range of things he can get into and bat around. he now likes to sniff out my little wooden mice on the piano (seen on either side of the photograph) and knock them to the floor. i don't know where he takes them. one is still missing. it might be underneath the stove. 

i met my knitting friend evie today at chelsea square diner for a bowl of matzoh ball soup and a yarn skein gift that she gave me so i can finish a yarn project (short just a few yards wool!).  now i just have to take an hour to finish it!

a view of morgan's walk home from the new design classes which have been interesting and challenging and fun.

 

 ----

helping out with aurélien's bath this evening. tomorrow greg and i will head east to check on the furnace and meet with a neighbor to see about getting a window replaced.

a grey day for running errands and walking along the high line

at the union square farmer's market . .

i met kendall here for lunch at the bread's bakery where i also finally bought the chocolate babka which i've been wanting to try. (it's very good!)

and then in the late afternoon i walked along the high line to the mall at hudson yards where there's been a knitting group meeting for the past month.

it's a very fancy mall with many expensive stores. two of the food cafes i visited with greg when it first opened have already closed. there doesn't seem to be anything just as casual to replace them, only several upscale restaurants and bars. however, there are two clothing stores i like very much: uniqlo and muji, both are japanese owned . . afterwards it was raining quite heavily and greg picked me up since he had to move the car anyway.

tea time and bingo

here's the lamb pie from mah ze dahr, and it was delicious.

this evening i played bingo with a knitting group (indie untangled spotlight) and won a round! i'm excited as the prize is a skein of the wandering flock's hand dyed yarn. i'd really like to make morgan a pair of socks with it, so i hope it arrives soon.

meeting korrina on tuesday afternoon

 at 2:30 pm i met korrina standing next to patience (the lion) at the main library branch on fifth avenue.

 we walked around to the back of the library to spend a little time at the outdoor knitting circle that meets on tuesdays in bryant park (hosted by the yarn shop knitty city).

 they like to meet by the gertrude stein statue . . gertrude is looking chic in her knitted orange scarf that she gets to wear for a few hours each week.

spinning . .

 afterwards, we visited the walt whitman exhibit at the library.

the schwarzman research library's main lobby . . 

constructed all of marble . .  . . perhaps from tennessee, which is where the marble for the lions came from.

walt whitman's personal copy of his book leaves of grass which was published in 1855. on the right side is pinned a homemade notebook (one of eight) with notes for future printings.

 a letter to his mother written in 1866. they were very close and corresponded frequently, discussing family matters and current events.

 korrina and i then visited the japanese bookstore, kinokunia, on sixth avenue, just a block away.

a memoir and a cook book . . 

an adorable cloth . . i'll have to ask again what it means. she had looked it up for me.

 we then ended up downtown in the neighborhood for a glass of rosé at a local place called entwine . . which i always think of as ent-wine . . as in tolkien and ents and treebeard (and their special elixir).

in this photo i'm admiring her special summer stitch markers. she's participating in the knit-a-long for the shelley summer top, by nancy ricci.

a poem for sunday

chanda picked the poem for this morning:

october's party

october gave a party.

the leaves by hundreds came--

the chestnuts, oaks, and maples,

and leaves of every name.

the sunshine spread a carpet,

and everything was grand,

miss weather led the dancing;

professor wind the band.

the chestnuts came in yellow,

the oaks in crimson dressed;

the lovely misses maple,

in purple, looked their best;

all balanced to their partners,

and gaily fluttered by;

the sight was like a rainbow

new fallen from the sky.

then in the rustic hollows,

at hide-and-seek they played.

the party closed at sundown

and everybody stayed.

professor wind played louder;

they flew along the ground,

and then the party ended

in jolly "hands all round."

by george cooper (1814 - 1927) 

 it's been a dark and rainy day. i made apple yogurt pancakes for breakfast (the recipe is from my moosewood cooks at home book and initially it called for cottage cheese, but we didn't have that today) and even though it was about 10 am, it was dark enough for a candle.

 i finally blocked my shawl from the martina behm (strickmich) knit-a-long that i finished in san francisco this summer.

 the yarn is nature's luxury, sheep en soie, colorway: remembering rose.

chanda hasn't felt well this weekend (she's had a headache and chills, though no fever) and has stayed home from her all dance classes and rehearsals (including nutcracker rehearsals). it has poured rain all day and she doesn't have a good pair of rain boots, so it's just as well she didn't go out. she would have gotten soaking wet. if she doesn't buy rain boots, it'll rain more like today, but if she does buy a pair of boots, it probably won't. (i could use a new pair of rain boots also.)

the library and summer reading, a knitting project, dinner and getting ready to leave

the librarians at the bernal heights branch of the san franacisco public library allowed me to open a visitor's account with which i was able to take out one book at a time (a very difficult task for me, and one which i don't think i've ever done, until now!). today i turned in my story guide showing i had completed twenty hours of reading, and received this lovely sf public library bag.

 it's a really nice branch and i've enjoyed picking out books to read these past few weeks. a few that i've read are:

the gnostic gospels by elaine pagels,

the evolution of calpurnia tate, by jacqueline kelly,

great dream of heaven, by sam shepard

the bohemians, by ben tarnoff (this last i have not finished, but i think i may purchase from a local bookstore as my nypl doesn't carry it, and i would really like to read it while inspired by being here in  san francisco. it's about mark twain and his time living in san francisco amongst other writers during the civil war.)

the penderwicks, by jeanne birdsall (this last one chanda and i have been listening to together with the audible app on my phone.)

it's time for the last of the library books to be returned as we are getting ready to leave on our return cross country trip home on saturday. 

these are my two shawls that i've managed to finish. i have not blocked them yet, as this house has all wood floors and for some reason i don't think laying out towels will work as well. at home i lay out a towel and then pin through everything to the rug. i should ask korrina, as she has all wood floors.

  i consider this my summer shawl . . i love the colors, and it's a very soft cottony feeling wool.

it feels great to have them done!

 the library book bag i'm looking forward to using in manhattan . . i have a wellfleet, cape cod, book bag also.

the river of doubt is also a book i finished here that i had started ages ago at home. it's about theodore roosevelt's south american journey along an uncharted river in the amazon in 1912. what an adventure! jason, my nephew, lent this copy to me as my library copy kept coming due (it's a popular book and i could only check it out for two weeks at a time . . and it has taken much longer than that for me to read). i just loved it and i highly recommend reading it.

we're trying to finish up our food, but it's not easy because people still need to eat well for classes and work! chanda's last day is friday and we leave on saturday. i originally had wanted to leave on sunday and have saturday as a packing and cleaning up day . . but we needed more time for traveling.

knitting project

my christmas present this year was a subscription to martina behm's strickmich club. my package arrived a week ago and i finally cast on yesterday. the yarn is a beautiful blend of wool and silk by nature's luxury, with an exclusive colorway for martina's club. i'm really enjoying this!

 i watched her little online movie that she made for the folks at home who couldn't travel to her town for the cast-on event.

 opening the package . .

the beautiful yarn and pattern . .