Telegrams From Valhalla
Broad bands of pebbles dull rust red.
Clouds line up in a pleasing row.
Rothko would approve of the horizontal blues.
Vikings corresponding with Valhalla
daily from the offshore windfarm.
Turbines spell out ouija messages from the spirit world.
Constantly turning like ticker tape telegraphs.
Imagine if you could read the runes
what knowledge they would share.
Cotton Candy Mouth
My cotton mouthed candy cane smile
watches the seaside lights sparkle and blink
a man in a flowered suit japes next to the pier
women shouting n showing their knickers due to the drink
the sky is pale blue and the ocean is green
so much unlike the last sea I gazed out on
the water is clouded with sand and it’s flat
no waves to disturb the soft planes of the ocean
My Father, my Family
The stony red earth under my feet is my Mother.
She pushed me out one barren day
and made of good clay, I became fired and hard
under the heat of the sun above.
I bow my head and keep going
Even if the harsh light glares into my watery eyes.
I keep moving because I do not have a home
I rest when I find someplace safe to shelter.
The sky above is my Father. Infinite, impenetrable, distant.
He watches over the universe
He pays no attention to little me.
He cares not for me and takes no time to seek me out.
Yet with the warmth of the sun
And the support of the path beneath my feet
I flourish and grow strong.
I learn that I am capable and willing to do well.
The air I breathe is God. He is all around me
above me, inside me. He fills my lungs and fuels my blood.
My heart pumps stronger, my head thinks clearly.
I burst with dreams and hopes, I’m singing.
Everywhere I am surrounded by God.
He sustains me when I am empty and desolate.
He gave me life, I honour him.
He touches me gently with his Holy Spirit.
On rainy days he hangs a jewelled rainbow
from a tall cloud to remind me of the Covenant between us.
Jenny Grant
Captain Harle’s Hall
Flinging back the panelled shutters
Daylight pours in
Motes of dust
Flicker in the shadows
Old wood and beeswax
Gleaming dark staircase
Painted friezes, rococo swags
Classical mouldings
Centuries rolling back
Into the present, we’re merging
Bringing back times past
Servants and splendour
Carriages, liveried horses
The Groom sees to their upkeep
Maids always busy
I hear their footsteps echo softly
Towards the horizon, tall ships
Billowed sails snapping
I hear the cry of the gulls
Murmurs of long distant voices
Jenny Grant
What is love?
What do you love?
What does it mean to you?
The people in your life, the memories of happy times, a favourite book, a pet?
Is it the feeling of sun on your shoulders as you sit in a chair by the window?
Or the gentle breeze riffling through your hair as you peg out the laundry on a bright morning.
My loves are many and varied. A lot of them are furry narcissists.
I love my family and my friends.
My garden and the park at the back.
The swans and the river birds and the dragonflies.
Hugin and Muninn, the two crows who watch me run about from their tall, leafless tree.
The books I carefully printed out and sewed up.
The things I have made since I was small, like the bargello stitch glasses case and patchwork pincushion I made my Nan.
My Grandad’s potato masher and old photo album.
My two childhood dolls, Chicken and Sasha. But these are things.
I love the potential of the coming days. What will I make next?
What will I do next?
It’s exciting not knowing.
Love is not what you own.
It’s the freedom of breathing, looking, feeling, moving, growing.
Love is everywhere and inside and outside of you.
It’s being able to choose how you behave and react.
Being able to live to your potential.
To see your dreams and then reach out for them.
Go on, I dare you. Be the love.
Making things right
Sometimes you know what you have to do.
For a long time you might ignore the little voice of common sense.
You can persuade yourself that it’s easier to go along with the people around you than break away from the herd.
You might not even realise for a long time that you are in fact hiding in a herd.
But then one day you might find yourself confronted by a truth you cannot ignore.
You might find yourself dogged by pain or disillusionment or something else that rapidly gets your attention.
Then you decide something needs to be done.
Then you have to clear a path through all the obstacles that stopped you in the past.
You have to make yourself accountable to you and make changes.
You might have to find someone who has walked the same path successfully in the past.
You might need to learn some things before you can do what you need to do.
At the moment I am eating really well and exercising regularly.
I’m not doing anything radical, just following weight watchers and running in the the morning before work. I learned to run via the couch to 5k app.
I was recommended by friends with beautiful svelte figures to log my weight on a tracker for success in losing weight years ago and somehow I had no idea how to go about it.
Once I had someone close to me who was doing it, I piggybacked and followed suit. The same with running (kudos to Amber!!).
Likewise, with knitting, when I belonged to a knitting club, if anyone brought their knitting along and somehow they’d gone wrong, gently, the other members would encourage them to fix the problem and provide advice on options to achieve a better result.
And that’s what life is like.
I’m just finishing my blue sweater.
It was way too long when I tried it on so this morning I cut four inches off and redid the ribbing.
Now I don’t like how the neckline sits. So tomorrow I will be fixing that.
You know what you need to do to make your life better. You may be in pain, you might have been given advice when you were not quite ready to listen and act on it.
But you always know what to do. What’s right for you.
It’s making the space around you to think clearly and see the truth. That’s the sticking point for many of us.
So one day you will be ready.
Can you be body positive and exercise/move your body – yes FFS!
via Can you be body positive and exercise/move your body – yes FFS!
Tootimetootime Socks
Hello everyone,
A while back, I stumbled across the idea of knitting two socks at once and I thought it might be a cool technique to try.
Basically, you knit a tube of sock twice the length of a normal sock, and at intervals you knit scraps of yarn in place to take out later and then you knit two afterthought heels then two toes.
This is the pattern I have knit twice now.
It’s well written and I have had no problems with this design and I have enjoyed learning afterthought heels.
After knitting so many pairs of socks in the usual way, it’s hard to adjust to a change!
I’m sure if I was commuting and knitting socks daily this pattern would whip up really quickly.
And because these socks have no gusset, it’s a perfect choice for those people with thin legs, ankles and feet.
They do come out quite snug around the ankles as you don’t have any of the gentle gusset decreases.
And you have to cast off using a stretchy bind off or you can’t get the second sock on at all!!!!
I found it a bit dull knitting a giant tube to be honest.
I have grown to love the rib a bit heel a bit foot a bit toe rhythm of an ordinary sock pattern pattern.
And being of a certain age I think I need a wider ankle space.
But I think it’s probably a quicker way of knitting socks.
One of the things that I have learned about advanced knitting skills, I prefer not to knit fast. I like the regular pace.
Lots of people who knit professionally espouse speeded up techniques, and I have learned a few now, but I like my own pace and I don’t want to rush about for anything!
In the picture below you can see the fast sock and afterthought heel which sprouts up out of a gap made using spare yarn.
Once the tube is knit you take out the spare yarn and knit the heel to cover the hole.
It’s a bit like a shark’s fin!!
Here is my Ruby Socks Project Page
Big News!!!
As long as I can remember I have loved making things.
After my Nanny died, knitting became my way of connecting with her and my hands holding yarn and needles were her hands, and the yarn connected us, past, present and future.
Getting a pc in the year 2000 kickstarted my life, I went to college and learned web design and coding and played for a while with computer science, dreaming of making little robotic pets and thinking machines.
Instead, my life turned around, I learned a great set of skills that led me down a different career path and I was able to get a great series of jobs that challenged me during the day and at night, or early in the morning, or during lunch I would knit.
Whilst working and knitting, an online database was created, similar to the one I work on during the day, but aimed at knitters and encouraging knitters to become designers.
Ravelry.
Over the years I have seen young people who I knew from working in knitting shops become designers and even publishers of designers themselves.
One person brought out a self published book that I bought and I have knit a dozen versions of the same shawl because to me, it is perfect.
Like building a cathedral in yarn.
Watching so many heroes grow from strength to strength I knew I could be a designer myself, because what I love best is couture.
One of a kind, bespoke, priceless perfect things that no one else has.
So over the years I have designed and made bags, sweaters, socks, jewellery, designed gardens, decorated, thrifted and recycled anything to hand to create an entire world that is my own hand made paradise.
Literally everywhere I look I can see something I have made, or something made for me by someone who loves me.
I have a room filled with craft supplies for printmaking and painting and I sew and cook and everything is doable in my universe.
So back to Ravelry.
All the time I have been growing accomplished at things I wanted to be a published designer.
Last week we had the book launch of my poetry anthology. You’d think that would be pretty satisfying, no?
But still I hadn’t published a pattern.
I have so many things ready to make live it became a weight, the frustration of never actually doing the first thing I wanted to do.
So many years of I don’t know how to do it. I’m not good enough. I’m not original. Look at how many things are already on Ravelry. Surely there’s no room for me!
So this year, by breaking everything into tiny doable steps and encouraging myself I have slowly brought myself closer and closer to my goal.
And this morning I did it!!
No bells rang, no one noticed, but I published my pattern.
I can’t put into words how big it feels, I am elevated, euphoric and absolutely laughing as to why the hell it took me so long.
But I can’t help being who I am and all of us struggle with trying to please others, putting ourselves and our dreams last.
So here it is. My pattern for the Gorgeous Beaded Hairclip.
It’s done! I’m dead chuffed.
Erm… I’m addicted.
So for the longest time I have been trying to organise my life and my hobbies.
Then, after kitting out a small room upstairs with cupboards and quadrupling my craft storage and reviewing my yarn stash I have also located all my other hobby materials and have had the best fun putting all the things I like to do exactly where I can find them.
And now I have stopped reading. I don’t want to write or go out.
I’m sitting surrounded by yarn and Kittehs and my craft output has also quadrupled.
I’m glad I reorganised and the whole house has been done and the living room is entirely redecorated with new furniture and curtains.
So my day goes like this. Wake up. Weather is a bit pants. Decide to stay inside. Knit. Work. Knit. Cook. Sleep. Repeat.
I’m living my best life actually and not complaining in the slightest.
But it’s like being in a dream.
Happy to be pleasing myself and I work hard so I deserve to enjoy the spare time in my day as it pleases me to.
There’s so many other things to do but I can’t get the knitting needles out of my hands.
It’s an addiction. I’m addicted to knitting.
Skyscrapers and String 