Goddesses

Kali

Today is the beginning of Navratri - nine nights of meditation on the Divine Feminine in three aspects as embodied in Kali, Lakshmi and Sarasvati. On the Spirituality and Practice site, Ami Bhalodkar has a page about this Hindu holiday that is a nice guide to observing it.
Om Bhavani.

Lakshmi

Sarasvati

I like it that I'm working on my copper wirework Goddess pendants during this time:

And speaking of Goddesses:
...this is one of my personal favorite goddesses, Yarn Goddess Martha of RiverWools, my LYS.
Here is she unpacking bee-you-ti-ful hanks of Mountain Colors Weaver's Wool, Mountain Goat and their silk/merino lace yarn.
It all smells good, too.
And she's in front of my beloved Noro section! (It's okay, Dream in Color, you know I adore you, too.)

Om Bhavani,
Zann

The "B" Be Done!!

Here's my "B" - fresh off the needles, waiting for me to weave in the last ends, pick the stray Clover hairs off, and give it a steam treatment to make it presentable.


After that was done, I pinned it to a piece of corkboard (I have no proper blocking equipment) and admired and admired it.

Then Raven took my picture with it.

Yesterday, after sewing a tag to the back with my name and city and the name of my favorite poet-Pablo Neruda-I carefully packed it in an International Priority Mail envelope and set out for the Post Office.

There I was treated to a snort from Fred the always-amiable clerk. He managed to snort and say "Hah!" at the same time (do you suppose they get training for that?) which succinctly conveyed the message that even paying $12 International Priority Rate will not ensure my "B" will arrive by the deadline of the 14th. I am hoping that they factored in the certainty of late arrivals when they made the deadline.

In any case, I'm proud to be one of the 850 knitters now counted in the project and am looking forward to seeing the whole piece come together.

I enjoyed everything about this little project. I even liked weaving in ends every so often, and the final tasks to complete it. Its size was manageable, I learned how to do intarsia. And best of all, I felt the energy of being part of a project that engaged knitters worldwide that was also about poetry.

Here's a link to the project page: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/knit/
Take a moment to read the knitting-related poems they've selected, one for each week.
Oooooh, I see this week's poem is Pablo Neruda's Ode to My Socks !

And I just remembered that at Sophia's pre-K class, this is the week for, yes...the letter "B."

Synchronicity. I love it!
Zann

Knitting the "B"

Here's my first experience with intarsia knitting.
I'm knitting a "B" as part of the UK Poetry Society's Knit a Poem project.

It's slow going, but not as awful as I've heard from The People Who Loathe Intarsia.
Of course, I'm not doing a whole garment with 15 different colors of intarsia dots. And I don't think I ever will. But I won't say never...

The big help for me was Martha at RiverWools saying to not bother with bobbins for each color (and sometimes I'm working with 4 yarns even though it's just 2 colors), just cut a decent length of yarn and let it hang. It's much easier to sort them out from the tangle once in awhile.

I'm close to being finished and then will ship my "B" off to the UK and await the revelation of the poem.

I love participating in these group projects - especially when they involve knitters and crocheters from all over the world, like a global village bee.

Namaste,
Zann