Episode 331 Toast to Good Health

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This episode is sponsored by Quince & Co and Knitcircus Yarns. 


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Show notes are found at www.knittingpipeline.com. You can find me on Ravelry as PrairiePiper and on Instagram and YouTube as KnittingPipeline. There are two groups on Ravelry, Knitting Pipeline and Knitting Pipeline Retreats. Come join us there!

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Knitting Pipeline Retreats Group.

caringbridge


Pipeliner Notes

Welcome to our newest Pipeliners who have said hello to us on the Welcome thread.

Ltebrinke who is Lori from WI, NYjets4ever who is Beth from NJ, dmheimer who is Marian from NV, SallyAnnChicago, StewFrue who is Martha in Charlottesville VA, knittertwitter1 who is Ruth in Ontario CN, and LamandaPanda who is Lamanda from GA. Welcome! And that brings us up to date on the Welcome Thread. Thank you to the wonderful moderators in our group who have said hello to those who posted in the thread.


iTunes


Thank you to NYR519 on 6/24 who might be the above-mentioned Beth from NJ.



In case you did not see my post on Instagram, I had my post chemo CT on August 8 and the results were nothing short of miraculous considering how sick I was in January. The CT of my full torso showed no cancer anywhere and my blood work was excellent. Thanks again for all your support, cards, and posts. While my sister was here for the CT and we did a video episode which I think is the best yet. We were a little punchy from quilting for two days. There was a lot of wonderful feedback on the last episode which was Momo’s Knitting and I showed the baby knits and doll knits on the video episode.


Note from Verlyn in Ontario who wrote: …On this beautiful hot last day of July, I’ve come from a walk and was delighted to be accompanied by your podcast of the 15^th. Lovely to hear you again!

Coleus…my grandmother also had it outside and inside and looking out the kitchen window I see at least a dozen specimens in pots. My current favourite is a tiny leafed one that cascades. I shall take cuttings next month for indoor plants to remind me that there will be another summer when winter has us in its icy grip. The knitters are coming this evening so I must go and show the carpet the sucking end of the vacuum. Take very good care Verlyn (steelneedles).



Events


Links to retreats and registration materials are in the Knitting Pipeline Retreats Group on Ravelry. There is also a sticky thread with all upcoming retreat dates.

Maine Retreat Maine Mitten Project

Eagle Crest Retreat October 30-Nov 2, 2019. Also will collect mittens for Threads Hope and Love

There will be no February Retreat in 2020 and beyond. I feel it ran its course and a recent remodel at the church would make it challenging to host the retreat there.


Needle Notes

Cobblestone by Jared Flood. Pullover with garter stitch details. Finishing 2^nd sweater. Missed one of the decreases so I took out a couple of inches.

Barrett Wool Co Woolen Spun

Modifications: Knitting Workshop by Elizabeth Zimmermann. Check out project notes on Cobblestone #1.

Washed, laid it out on the guest bed…a dropped stitch…right in the front of the yoke. Fixed by pulling loop to the back and carefully weaving it in. Does not show at all on the front, which is all that matters…to me anyway.

Plan is to make two more Cobblestone sweaters so my husband and all 3 sons each have one. I’ve tried to get excited about other projects but this is all I want to do right now.

Northeasterly by Melissa Alexander-Loomis. I’m on 4 out of 10, maybe 12.



Nature Notes

This morning we’ve had hours of thunder and beautiful rain. All the birds and insects have been quiet. I heard the call note of a black capped chickadee yesterday morning, which I noted in particular because most of the sounds in Central Illinois in August come from insects. Around noon the chorus starts in. It ebbs and flows with a buzzing that reaches a crescendo and suddenly stops as if a conductor has waved a baton. I’ve never been curious enough to find out more about the insects that are part of our August symphonies but I believe there is a combination of grasshoppers, cicadas, and no doubt more.  Other August sounds are the occasional whirr of a hummingbird as it zips across the deck. The hummingbirds are not afraid of us. There are loads of hummingbirds now as the juveniles are now eating at the feeders. They don’t like to wait for their breakfast so Bob gets the feeder out as quickly as he can in the morning. Right now we are only putting out hummingbird nectar and niger thistle seed. At this time in the summer we take a break from the black oil sunflower seeds to keep the chipmunk population down. There is plenty of food around for the birds that generally feed there. The downy woodpeckers love the hummingbird nectar and they will visit the thistle feeder as well. Mostly we see the goldfinches eating thistle seed. The male goldfinches are still in their bright yellow summer plumage. I still get a thrill seeing the goldfinches as they are such a pop of color. Goldfinches are among the last of the birds to nest and raise their young. When our purple coneflowers go to seed we leave the seed heads. I’ll see a Goldfinch pecking at seeds as the coneflower sways beneath it.

In the last episode I talked about how much I love our coleus that we are growing in pots on our deck. I had been pinching back the blooms but then I saw hummingbirds feeding off the nectar so I’ve let the coleus keep blooming. One or more of our squirrels (we think it is the same one) likes coleus too. We saw stalks that had been bitten or torn off and one day I saw him (I always blame the mischief on the males) biting off a stalk and eating it. Before the summer is over and before the squirrels eat it all, I will take cuttings and put them in water to root new plants to cheer up the winter months.

Every year we plant zinnias as a border in the front garden. This year the seeds we bought turned out to be very short, flat zinnias as opposed to the ones that have a more round flower head. We are not seeing as many butterflies on the zinnias as we usually do. We don’t know whether it is the short stature or the flatness of the flower that does not appeal as much to the butterflies. We do have butterflies though. Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are probably the most common right now. Monarchs and Red Spotted Purples are here too.

We went on our first hike of 2019 at Forest Park Nature Center. This is a hilly nature park on the west bank of the Illinois river. I was eager to build up muscle hiking the hills and it went better than I thought it would. We hiked for an hour and I wasn’t even exhausted afterwards! We saw a doe and 3 fawns. The deer in this park are so accustomed to people that they don’t run away quickly. I also saw 2 Pileated woodpeckers. There were Tiger Swallowtails in the meadow.

The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.--Henry Beston

In the Pipeline

Watching

• ·        This Farming Life on Britbox
• ·        DCI Banks
• ·        Grantchester (over now. Wish there were more episodes)
• ·        Missing  (Joanna Froggatt)

Reading

• The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks 4 stars (Herdy Shepherd on Instagram) 4 stars. Needs judicious editing.
• The Salt Path by Raynor Winn 4 stars
• So Far From Home: The Diary of Mary Driscoll, an Irish Mill Girl, Lowell, MA 1847 (Dear America Series) by Barry Denenberg 5 Stars
• A Line in the Sand. The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence. Gonzales TX 1836 (Dear America Series) 5 stars
• A Year in the Maine Woods by Bernd Heinrich 4 stars
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas 3 stars
• An Irish Country Childhood: Memories of a Bygone Age by Marrie Walsh 3 stars
• A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel 5 stars
• Far From the Tree by Robin Benway (audio) narrated by Julia Whelan. National Book Award Winner. 5 Stars