When the grandkids think they are lost in the back woods I ask them if they can find our house, which looks like this from the back. Here it stands, a sprawling old farmhouse full of quirks and charms on two and a quarter acres of land. The place was built at some unknown date before 1900, and  little by little over the past thirty years we have furnished it with shabby chic  antiques from a century ago. 

 Since yesterday, The Private World of Tasha Tudor has been lying on the bed in the Grandmothers’ Room.  Tasha shared a birthday with my mother, which both would have celebrated tomorrow. In honor of the occasion the Tudor family is offering the chance to win a hand-cranked ice cream churn. Wouldn’t homemade ice cream be a delicious treat? We expect very warm days this weekend.

 The perennials rushed into bloom this summer, leading me to expect an early frost. For all these thirty years we have heated with wood. Ten cords of stacked firewood stand ready for the comning winter.  but thus far the leaves remain green and we pick high-bush blueberries every day.  The balmy weather does not stop me from collecting  new yarns and needles for the winter’s knitting, or from exploring further into Barbara Walker’s  Treasury of Knitting Patterns , anticipating quiet hours in an antique rocker near one of the woodstoves, where I plan to knit a shawl in the Rose Trellis pattern using Lorna’s Laces yarns.

After years of spinning with a wheel I forgot how to use a drop spindle. Several how-to videos later, I finally figured out how the thing works. Raw fleece spun up far better than carded roving. I’ll wash the yarn after making a skein using my niddy-noddy. Don’t you love all this old-fashioned equipment that works without electricity?

The yarn comes from Mexicali Blues in Newcastle, Maine. This skein contains every bright primary color you can think of plus a few more. I picture it being handspun with a drop spindle somewhere in Nepal or Tibet, starting as thrums and finishing with this rudely-spun and handsome yarn that I now knit into a cheerful scarf. Bits of plant matter fall out of the strands as I knit. I noticed a seed and planted it in a small pot that now sits on a sunny windowsill. Do you imagine that I will soon sprout an Asian plant of some sort? Perhaps a gigantic beanstalk? Perhaps a vine that purportedly encircled a castle of old, something entangled that a prince had to  hack through to reach his lady love? Or if it sprouts, will it be something I can easily identify using my Newcomb’s wildflower guide?

This morning I finished knitting another starfish pattern scarf from the OCEAN BREEZES book, subtitled “Knitted Scarves inspired by the Sea”, by Sheryl Thies. For this scarf I chose a Jo Sharpe discontinued yarn,  offered on sale at Knitting Experience in Brunswick. The scarf is photographed on my Davis antique treadle sewing machine, (which I still have not tried out,) and rests on an art book with many glorious paintings from the Musee d’Orsay. I picked up the book for five dollars at Gloria’s Flea Market.

What a wonderful fiber for the creation of doll wigs! Lately I  prefer kid mohair. Some of the adult mohair I have acquired and dyed over the years is not suitable for wigs. Over the past few days Nadia and I carded and spun mohair. She chose the pinks and purples in my stash. I spun up one skein of golden browns and am working on a second. ’The first is a bit overspun but will still knit into a beautiful scarf.

Usually cashmere yarn comes from other countries but this camisole is knitted from Maine cashmere. I completed it several years ago. The results were disappointing because the finished article seemed to have a sideways stretch. I tucked it away in a drawer.

 Last night I remembered that a technique called blocking might help. I soaked the camisole in warm water, squeezed it damp-dry in a towel, then pinned it to my cutting board. This morning the camisole is dry and shaped the way I want it.

This scarf pattern is a design by writer and knitter Jesse Loesberg of San Francisco. His work can be seen at  yarnboy.com.  Jesse’s Danica Scarf is my practice run for the Lady Eleanor Stole. I knitted the scarf with Noro Silk Garden yarn, and since only ten stitches are worked at a time I was able to use my short and long walnut Brittany needles. Both would have been the same length if I had not sat on one and broken it.

     The pattern is from the Fall 2004 issue of Interweave Knits, a design by Evelyn A. Clark. I used a double strand of dark green Misti Alpaca laceweight yarn bought at Eva’s shop in Fair Haven, Massachusetts. The yarn has a wonderfully silky hand.

      Begun with four stitches at the neck edge and worked downward, the design eventually filled my circular needle with over 250 stitches in a complex pattern. I was anxious to finish without mishap. This morning I completed the ten rows of edging and bound off all my stitches successfully.  

     On to my Entrelac Scarf in Silk Garden, nearly half-completed!

The yarn is Kathmandu Aran from the Queensland Collection. Made in Italy, it is a merino, silk, and cashmere blend with a beautiful hand.

Today for the first time this year I visited Nezinscot Farm, the scene of the poem below, written several years ago.