I have been thinking about the poetry reading I went to yesterday. There is a wonderful book, now out of print but still available at times on the used market. It’s called “ Miracles, Poems by children of the English-speaking world,” collected by Richard Lewis, Simon and Schuster, 1966.

I love this book. I found it on tape once, too, and I don’t listen to that enough.

What strikes me most is that not only were the children able to put together wonderful words to express an idea, but there was an adult there, listening and ready to put the words down on paper for them. One of my favorites, for example, was written by a child only 4 years old:

Rain
©1966 by Adrian Keith Smith
Age 4
New Zealand

The rain screws up its face

and falls to bits.

Then it makes itself again.

Only the rain can make itself again.

I love these so much that I collected seven of the poems that stood out in my mind, and placed them on the website I made at least 5 years ago, which I call my LDTH Poetry Collection.

This one is even more fun, because I got an email a year or two ago from the person who wrote it. He’s now a grownup himself!

Grownups
©1968 by Marc Duskin
Age 10
United States

Grownups are silly,
They never drink coffee
When it’s served
To them.
They just talk
And never drink it
Until it’s cold.
Isn’t that silly?

I haven’t grown
Since I was five
I haven’t grown at all…
Grownups are just getting shorter.

And we can not end this post without the poem I chose about a cat. After all, yesterday’s event was full of poems about animals. This one is best read out loud, slowly and with feeling:

A Cat
©1964 by John Gittings
Age 8
England

Silently licking his gold-white paw,
Oh gorgeous Celestino, for
God made lovely things, yet
Our lovely cat surpasses them all;
The gold, the iron, the waterfall,
The nut, the peach, apple, granite
Are lovely things to look at, yet,
Our lovely cat surpasses them all.

There are more on my poetry page if you are interested. Or just go find yourself a book. My students tell me they like buying used books at ABE Books online, and Amazon.com and eBay also have used books listed regularly. Or if you are lucky, you may have a used book store in your town where you can get assistance finding it. Or not, your choice.

I hope you enjoy these lovely words today, book or no. It’s sunny again in Lansing at least for the morning and I am fully enjoying that!

Amused

I crack myself right up. I say I will take a day off. I do wear my warmest sweater which is gray (definitely day-off material, my friends and colleagues complain when I’m not my typical colorful self). And then I proceed to not really stop working too much.

Poetry (by Children) at Magdalena’s

For the record, I did stay home all but one hour Friday. I went out to Magdalena’s Teahouse at the invitation of one of my CityKidz. She had a poetry reading with her class, each child recited one poem. There were many berets sported by the children, and my grrrl wore some very cool John-Lennon round wire-rimmed glasses with her black beret, looking oh-so-artful. Cute as a button, sharp as a tack!

I thought I had my camera in my purse, but I’d taken it out to download the pictures from CityKidz this week and so I missed the photo op of the day. Pooh. Trust me, she looked a million bucks.

A poetry reading by children is a fascinating experience. There were many excellent poems. They obviously talked in school about different things that might be part of a poem besides rhyming. One girl did a poem about pink, wearing a pink cape, top and pants. She talked about how pink smells like strawberries, tastes like raspberries, feels like, looks like… very good.

I must say that the most popular subject was chocolate, with a generic “candy” poem and a bubble gum poem. Next in popularity was the category of pets: cats and dogs. My grrl included many animal sounds in her poem. She was very expressive. I find it interesting that none of the kids seemed particularly afraid to get up and do their thing. I know that by the time I was in middle school I was frightened to present material to a crowd.

That was the highlight of my day, and only one hour of it. The rest of the day was cooking, baking, cleaning, making more messes, cleaning again, and the usual computer stuff.

Big Accomplishment

My biggest deal today is that I got all but 10% caught up on my calendar stuff. I need to get with Matt of Threadbear Fiberarts on my classes for next term, and I’ll try to accomplish that tomorrow if I’m lucky. Other than that, I’ve scheduled for Foster Center, Haslett Community Education, Little Red Schoolhouse Yarns and Rae’s Yarn Boutique. The classes I’ve already scheduled are loaded into a Google calendar which I will be placing on my Colorjoy.com website as soon as I get the Threadbear stuff figured out. Yippee! Actually, here is a sneak preview of my new calendar, of course missing the Sunday classes I’ll be teaching at Threadbear from January through March or April.

Geek, Geek, Geek

I’ve also been consolidating websites. I’ve been making web pages now for ten full years! A few months ago I had web pages on four different web hosts/servers. Now I have copied all my sites to the Colorjoy.com/LynnH.com host, and am in the process of making redirect pages at all the old sites (so that if you go there, you can click a link taking you to the new location).

Sockmania

And somehow in the midst of all this I have been knitting socks. I finished pair 138 in Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran purple, on December 3. I finished pair 139 in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky, on December 8 (last night). I started another pair in dusty teal Kashmir Aran today during the poetry reading.

These days my feet just are so cold I am uncomfortable most of the time. Right now I’m wearing two pair of handknit bulky socks, one on top of the other, and my toes are still cold. So I’m obsessed with the idea of more fat socks, and if they are washable (the recent ones are) all the better.

All in All, a Good Day

Day off? Well, I cooked a bit more than when I’m gone and the food was excellent. Dinner was stir fry of shrimp and fresh fennel bulb (chopped up like celery) on top of wild rice. Very tasty! Breakfast was buckwheat (with other flours) pancakes and real maple syrup. After dinner I made a quick bread with barley and buckwheat flours, a texture much like cake but not as sweet. So the food today was extra-nice. Gourmet, as Brian might say!

Brian and I did go for a brisk walk around the block after dinner, just before the sun gave it up for the day. It was about 20 degrees F and windy. Without sun it was pretty chilly but I did dress properly for the occasion. The Norwegians have some sort of saying which has the essence of: there is no such thing as too cold, just insufficient clothing. Today I was able to avoid the too cold idea while on our walk, anyway.

And I did let myself knit on that tealish sock. It’s not as bright as my normal colors but the yarn is almost shiny with the ultrafiber in it and it’s very beautiful. Sort of an icy teal on the green side. Lovely.

Now it’s after midnight and I had a good day. Much good hot tea was enjoyed today, a few nice phone calls gave me nice social breaks from the computer and kitchen, and I finished something I really struggle with. All in all, a pretty nice day.

The CityKidz Knit! program continues to amaze me. The kids push me much further than I imagined they could. Let me show you some examples…

First is my student from last week. She learned how to make fringe this weekend and brought back a fringed-and-ready scarf for photos.

Next is a plate of cookies brought in for us by Betsy (she of the lace bookmark from last December). They were so beautiful and appetizing, that we ate half of them before I realized I should maybe photograph them for you all to see. Notice how many colors of frosting/trim there are on some of these cookies! Betsy said they were a group effort at her house, all family members had a chance to decorate them. Betsy was working on a knitted teddy bear for a family holiday gift, and I wish I had taken time to photograph that as well. It was very busy and I got distracted, because…

...on both Wednesday and Thursday we dyed yarn with Kool-Aid and other brands of drink mix (thanks to Diana for donating some shrinkable white wool for the occasion). On Wednesday I had enough kids that it was hard to just get the yarn dyed and the kids out the door… in fact we took a full hour and a half to vacate the room when we officially have one hour for the program.

The first day we dyed with bright red (punch) and dark red (black cherry). The second day we dyed with pink lemonade and orange. I forgot to take photos until I had one student left on Thursday so she is showing off both days’ worth of yarn (that is, what is left after kids took home their own mini-skeins). Both days I had more dye than I had wool to absorb it, so I added skeins of white yarn after I dyed the mini-skeins for the kids. The lighter skeins went into the dyepot last. They all look nice together, don’t they?

The last photo is the most amazing, however. This is the child who knit a pair of footies on double-pointed needles last year, in 4th grade. This year she is in 5th grade and I thought she was asking me if she could make wristwarmers/handwarmers (a tube with a hole for the thumb). She got started and then before I knew it, I realized she was absolutely determined to make real gloves, with five full fingers on each hand.

So here she is. Showing off the first two fingers she made. The yarn is bulky Encore donated (again) by Diana. This child has wanted black yarn for just about forever and I usually don’t give youngsters black yarn because they can not see the stitches clearly. She is delighted that she is knitting with black, and she is delighted to be knitting gloves. She has a thumb and two fingers left to knit on this one, and she only cast on for it maybe a week or two ago. She would have proceeded much further if she could have met with me sooner, but I’m only at Foster Center twice a week.

And that, my friends, is what kids can do when you don’t allow yourself to limit them. Ordinary kids can do extra-ordinary work if you let them do what they can picture in their minds.

Wednesday was good, we Kool-Aid dyed yarn in CityKidz Knit! program and one of my girls brought a scarf to photograph.

Then I went home and felt wiped out. The kind of wiped out where you need to sleep *now* or you’ll get sick.

So I slept.

And I awoke Thursday morning to a day which is sending lovely sunbeams into my office. And I look forward to lunch with my friend Altu, followed by more Kool-Aid Dyeing with the CityKidz. Followed by the Knit-In at Rae’s Yarn Boutique.

It is going to be a good day.

I have to send out a big thank you to Diane and all the knitters who came to hear me speak at the Haslett Public Library Needle Nuts program last night. We had a wonderful group, several people I knew (a good handful from my adult computer classes, also taught in Haslett just around the corner), and a good time.

I started by showing several ethnic textiles I own and which are so special that they need to be honored by being shared with those who understand. Four Andean hats, four Turkish socks, one embroidered/handsewn child’s hat from the Turkoman ethnic group (this one I am told was purchased in Afghanistan).

It is very cool to see how just showing a beautiful sock might bring up a conversation about how we all knit so differently. For example, one of the socks is knit with “twisted stitches” which probably means they knit in the round by wrapping the yarn clockwise around the needle rather than counter-clockwise which is more common in the western world.

I then turned to combining yarns. It was a talk, not a class, so I had more “show and tell” skeins of yarn and I assembled different combinations of yarns to make my point. We talked color schemes and we talked yarn structure and fiber content, and stitch pattern selection, needle size, as much as I could possibly say to help them do what I do, in the time allotted. I finished my handouts just as the clock hit 9pm.

They listened, asked questions, knit and crocheted while I talked, and clapped when I was done. I allowed myself to feel a tiny bit like Stepanie Pearl McPhee (Yarn Harlot) who does all these talks in libraries and yarn shops all over North America. I’m not funny the way Stephanie is, and she deserves the loyalty of those who go to hear her (myself included) by being her own authentic self in the midst of hordes of fans.

In my case I am typically funny when I’m not trying! I do think I can be interesting even when I’m not funny… and I know some things others don’t know but are interested in hearing. Color is such a lifetime study for me, and we’re all interested in it in some way whether it’smuch of our life or just part of it.

And I am one of the few humans who adore public speaking. I just don’t get scared any more. This in spite of the statistic that most folks are more afraid of public speaking than of dying. It’s an amazing statistic that fortunately does not apply to me in the least. I’m a ham, I love to be at the front of a group, and fortunately I have found ways to do this where the group is glad I’m there.

I’m happy that they are thinking they would like to have me come back again. What an honor. I will look forward to that!

Photos were taken after some people had already left. I was so distracted by all the things I wanted to share with them, that I forgot the camera until I saw people leaving. Phoey! But here you are… I think 5 of these women have taken my computer classes, one I know from church, several found that we have friends in common as I shared. We all had yarn in common! Thank you again for the invitation!

Tonight (Tuesday) at 7pm I’m doing a presentation at the Haslett Public Library for the Needle Nuts group. I’m very excited about this, they did incredibly good publicity for it and it seems everywhere I go, even 40 minutes west of Haslett, they are talking about this event.

It’s a regular knit in, sponsored by the Library (Diane B. is the contact person in Haslett) and anyone is welcome. I’d love to see familiar faces, though I know I already will.

I will be showing some of my incredible ethnic knitted pieces (four socks from Turkey, one embroidered Turkoman hat I think is from Algeria, and four Andean hats (perhaps Peruvian) which are knit so tightly that I’ve been told they were woven, the fabric just does not look like what we think of as knitting.

After that “show and tell” I will be talking about combining yarns. We will first talk about color and then texture. I am bringing all sorts of yarns and extra needles so folks can try to combine yarns themselves if they choose.

I hope to see some of you there.

We know some folks who work at the MSU Student Organic Farm. It is an extraordinary place, where they literally grow produce all year round.

Imagine my happiness to find that when I was surfing about organic produce (it started with a link from a knitting blog), I found myself (on the internet) at Michigan State and the farm that is physically close to the Post Office where my PO Box is located.

They have an online listing of recipes (they call it a database but it’s in order by the title of recipe) which use produce, some types of veggies that many of us did not grow up using. For example, there is a “salsa verde” that calls for tomatillos (yum, we ate a version of this in Mexico City in 2001 and I still adore the flavor).

If you go to the page linked above, you can either look at the list of recipe titles and link down to the recipe, or you can do an Edit/Find (or CTRL-F) while you are surfing, type in the word you want (tomatillo, or chard, for example) and when you hit enter, you will find the first instance of that word in the page.

For the record, if you print in a normal way, you’ll be printing out the entire page and all of the recipes. That could take a long time and waste paper and ink on recipes you will not make. However…

If you drag your mouse over the recipe you want, it will “highlight” (select) the text you dragged over. If then you go to File/Print from the menu and chose “Selection” instead of “all” in the “print range” area of the print box, it will print only the text which has been highlighted.

So you just got a post not only about great recipes from my local friends, but with a few geeky use-the-computer-better hints. I hope you enjoyed that!

I had a great time at the Art for the Soul sale. I got to hang out with friends I’ve known for years. Many of us are similarly focused on color. Notice in these photos that the walls in the downstairs space where the sale was held, each are a different bright color: hot green and turquoise blue are shown here. The house where the sale was held is actually painted purple on the outside. She’s in the woods so nobody sees it from the street so it’s just for her own joy.

Here are photos: Marlene Cameron in front of her incredible silk scarves, wearing a fabulous silk velvet wrap she dyed; me in front of my table, and a closeup of the baskets of my handpainted tiger-dyed socks.

Right now as I am typing this, my helper is taking photographs of the tiger socks that did not sell. I’ll be getting those up on the shopping cart as soon as possible. I am doing a presentation tomorrow night at the Haslett Library so preparing handouts for that will be part of my schedule today and tomorrow, and I’m also preparing my January-March teaching schedule, but I expect I’ll have the socks up by Wednesday night if all goes well.

I work one hour on Wednesday and one hour on Thursday teaching knitting at Foster Community Center to children (ages 7 through 17, usually third- to sixth -graders come most often). On Thursday I also watch a computer lab for 2 hours so when I’m lucky, the knitting kids stay a while longer at the table in the computer lab, and we really get things done.

The three kids pictured here today I’ve known longer than just this fall term. One of the kids I think I’ve had a year and a half, the other about a year, and the middle girl did a little in a summer session and then returned this fall. They are great people as well as good knitters. I like their company as much as I am proud of their knitting accomplishments.

The girl at left (wearing a santa hat, I didn’t ask why) is wearing a very big, very thick/warm scarf that she has been working on since summer. It is to be a gift for a very special adult in her life. She did a really good job on this scarf. She had to join yarns a lot, and I only found a few places where I could make the ends hide better. Her knitting is very even, her gauge is much more steady than mine. She is rightfully proud of this accomplishment!

My life is rich, my friends. These and other kids who join me for the CityKidz Knit! program make me so happy! We have a bit of a “Mutual Admiration Society” going on and I’m grateful for that.

Julie and Sophia are taking a Fairisle (stranded) sock knitting class from me right now. Due to scheduling issues the class sometimes has two people and sometimes one, but they are both progressing well.

Julie and I met on Wednesday and she had this to show me:

Wowie. I seem to attract people to my life who love color as much as I do. Honestly, the sock is brighter in person than it is on my screen. The multicolor is Socks That Rock heavyweight (worsted). I think she chose a good contrast purple (I don’t remember the yarn name). You really can see all the patterns in there.

Good, job, Julie!

I’ll be at the Art for the Soul sale all day Saturday/today, 10am to 5pm, selling yarn and tiger-dyed (commercially produced/handpainted) socks. If you are local and you see this, and want something fun to do on Saturday, do please join us. (I was just sure I had posted this here on the blog previously but can not find it anywhere… I’m sorry if you miss it due to that oversight… it must have been that I remembered sending the press release.)

Where is this? Well, if you go to Google Maps or Mapquest they insist it’s in Haslett, but the Post Office says it’s Williamston. The street address is 6177 Zimmer Road. Find your way to Haslett Road and Zimmer (from Lansing take Haslett east to four-way stop by little white church). Go north on Haslett (left if you’re following me) and go past Gulick Road, it’s on the left hand side. Watch for signs.

Cost:

There is no entry fee. Items for sale span many price ranges starting at greeting cards and working up, there will surely be something you can cross off your gift list if you come.

What:

Glass, fine wood bowls, fiberart, cards, painting, silk scarves, collage, jewelry, ceramics, beads, photographs, hand dyed yarns and garments. Fun & funky, playful, colorful, & affordable handmade gifts. Take a peek at Photos on Flickr that show some glass and wood pieces by two of the artists that will be at the show.

When:

Saturday, December 2, 2006
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Who:

• Marlene Cameron - Hand-dyed silks and other garments
• Sharlene Cannon - Photographs of natural beauty
• Tom Cannon - Wood Bowls
• Margabeth Cibulka - Fused and slumped recycled glass
• MaryJane Helder - Soft Sculpture goddess dolls and other fiberart
• Lynn Hershberger - Hand-dyed wool yarns and Handpainted Garments/Socks
• Carol Lacca - Multi-talented, multi-media artist
• Denise Paquette - Art glass beads, incorporated into jewelry
• Jane Reiter - Collage cards and bookmarks, paper coasters
• Marian Reiter - Ink & watercolor brushpainting - cards, bookmarks, small framed artwork
• Maureen Ryan - Pottery and ceramic masks

I hope some of you can make it.

I subscribe to Robert Genn’s twice-weekly email newsletter for artists. I often do not have time to read it but today it had the title “True Colours” and I had to read.

He is a painter and talks a lot in this letter about paint, which is not my medium (though polymer clay is similar in how the colors mix). Dye is transparent and very different than opaque paint/clay.

It was an entirely new learning curve for me when I started dyeing. Light fuschia plus light turquoise equals medium hot cobalt blue? Wow. If I combined those colors in clay it would likely become a light soft purple.

But my favorite part of today’s letter was a quote from Chromophobia author David Batchelor:

“Colour reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it. To work with colour is to become aware of the insufficiency of language and theory–which is both
disturbing and pleasurable.”