KKQ 2016: Friday Morning, Advent

Yarn and Jesus and mountains.  Y'all, for a retreat, it just doesn't get any better.  Unless you throw in 100+ knitters and quilters, the best toast you'll eat anywhere, and snow on Sunday morning.  Then you've got the Kanuga Knitting and Quilting Retreat, at which I have had the privilege of serving as chaplain for the past few years.  The posts that follow are the "homilettes" (so, a homily is a short sermon; a homilette...) I shared at our morning and evening worship services.

The theme was officially "Turning and Re-turning," a lyrical thread from the Appalachian tune, "Simple Gifts."  I had been thinking about the liturgical year, which had begun in Advent, and we were only just in Epiphany.  And it had been a year since we had seen one another, and so many things had been begun and ended between when we had last been at Kanuga and when we returned.  In our stitching, we turn and re-turn to the start of rows or strips of fabric; in something of the same way we turn and re-turn to the start of the story of salvation every time Advent comes around again, always building on the story with another year of our own lives, of new experiences and perspectives and rows or strips of faith.

What ended up being the "unofficial" theme, because it was the refrain I kept returning to in my reflections, was "For everything there is a season."  Some of what is here will have made more sense if you were there, but I hope it is still enough familiar that you might turn and re-turn to similar seasons in your own years and projects and faith journeys.  So we begin with Advent...


Canticle 15 (Luke 1:46-55); Luke 1:39-45

And blessed is she who believed...

Seredipity Needleworks, Tuscaloosa, AL

We stopped at a yarn shop yesterday, on our way from Jackson, Mississippi, to Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina.  We actually stopped at two yarn shops.  Now, this is problematic for several reasons.

First, perhaps you have not seen the car in which the three of us, sometimes four, travel to this retreat.  It's not a small car.  There's plenty of room for plenty of things, and yet with all the yarn, and books about yarn, and things for working with yarn, and things made out of yarn...and suitcases, if they fit...there's only just enough room for people, if we hold yarn in our laps.  The last thing we need is more yarn.

Second, perhaps you have not heard about how we travel.  Someone said yesterday that we always manage to squeeze a nine-hour drive into around thirteen hours.  Sometimes it's because of where we eat on the way.  Sometimes it has something or other to do with the car or its gas tank.*  There's really not time to stop for yarn even once, let alone twice.

*We may or may not have run out of gas on the way last year.  Twice.

I think one of the reasons we stop for yarn anyway is because we know what will happen when we open the door and step inside the shop.  It has happened to all of us, I'm certain, walking into a yarn shop or a fabric shop.  Or don't you have to pause for just a moment on the threshold to catch your breath, overwhelmed, even if you knew exactly what you came there to fine?  All that color!  All those textures!  All those patterns!  All those possibilities!  You could make anything!

Perhaps, like me, you wander among the displays, touching with reverence the fibers or fabrics, smiling with involuntary delight at a particular print or at a color more saturated than any we have every seen.  Can it really be that yellow?  Perhaps we pick up a skein or a bolt, or see a shop sample, and begin to imagine something we might make something beautiful, something bold.  But then reality sets in, whatever it is about our daily lives that makes us too busy or too tired or too fearful, whatever limits our possibilities, and we put it back down and walk away.

In the Making, Birmingham, AL

But what if...

In the season of Advent, we pause for just a moment on the threshold of what some have called the greatest story every told, the story of how God opened the door from heaven to earth, stepped inside, and became Emmanuel, God-with-us.  The possibilities were endless, as in a yarn shop or fabric store.  But not every yarn works for every pattern; not every fabric can take every shape.  You wouldn't knit something with scratchy wool to go around your neck, or quilt with flannels or thick batting for a Mississippi bed.  God could have picked any pattern for the Savior of the world - a blue whale, a dogwood, a cumulus cloud, a warrior, a king.  But God chose humility and a sense of humor (Jesus could tell a joke!), ordinariness and passion, calloused fingers and dusty feet, and devotion as a shepherd to his sheep.

It was not a new pattern.  God had made a person before, with the same hands and feet and shoulders that sometimes get cold, with ears and a mouth and an eye for color, and bearing God's own image.  But there would be a new thread this time, the perfect yarn for God's pattern of salvation.  This person would not simply bear God's image.  This person would be God from God, light from light, true God from true God, love from love...

...if Mary would believe it was possible, if she wasn't too busy, too tired, too afraid, if she wouldn't put down God's invitation to do something beautiful, something bold, and just walk away...

More In the Making...

Blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of all that God has spoken, Elizabeth said when she embraced her cousin.  That God would do something as extraordinary as becoming as vulnerable as we are.  That God would choose reality - our busy-ness and weariness and fears - as the place where God would do more than we could ask or imagine.  That God would piece salvation together from humility and humor and ordinariness and passion and kindness and community and welcome and relationship and prayer and creativity...from the kinds of things that will be happening right here at our retreat...

More In the Making... This yarn may or may not have come home with me.

For everything there is a season.  For believing that anything is possible, for preparing as best as we can, for waiting for the marvelous things that have been promised, that season is Advent...and the first morning of the Kanuga Knitting and Quilting Retreat.  We're waiting for the warm scarf or yoked sweater or bowtie quilt that will soon be born.  The patterns and yarns and fabrics are chosen.  What if, today, we believed that God will fulfill all that God has spoken?  What if, instead of putting down what we think cannot be done, we believed that God-with-us will be with us?  What if reality is as full of color and texture and promise as a yarn shop, or the quilting room, or heaven?  Amen.

The Third Time...

...is not a sock.

It is a ball of yarn.  Again.

It was almost a sock.

The pattern is Twisted, and I love it.  It is perfect for this yarn, little rivulets of slipped stitches crossing purly waves of blue and purple and gray.  I don't think I have ever purled so much in one project before.  In fact, by the time I got to the heel...again...I had purled more than 125 rows of cuff.

That would be 125 rows that don't fit.

But the third time is a charm (this is what I'm telling myself to keep from crying).  I've learned a few things.  I've learned that purling isn't so bad - in fact, I'm sort of fast at it.  I've learned that I can pick up dropped stitches (and then I can pick them up again...).  I've learned a new way to knit a heel flap.

It's flatter than the heel flaps I've knit before, and I'm not sure how it would hold up to wear and tear.  But it's pretty.

This has been my problem, I think - pretty.  I have pretty yarn that brings back pretty memories, I have found pretty patterns that knit up prettily.  But I haven't been carefully reading yarn labels carefully reading patterns paying attention to the suggestions of wiser knitters knitting a pretty sock that fits.

The yarn and the pattern are taking a break from me while I think things through.

The fourth time will be more than almost a sock.

On the Road Again...

Momma J and I are back on the road, heading with my mom to Little Switzerland, NC, for the Spartanburg Knitting Guild's annual Knit-a-Way Retreat!  Two and a half days of knitting, mountains, mom and me!  And a bunch of other amazing, talented, funny, generous knitters...

This is my third year to go to the Knit-a-Way at the Big Lynn Lodge.  I can't wait to see our little cabin with rocking chairs on the porch, to taste the hot oatmeal in the morning and the delicious homemade desserts after dinner, to hear the sound of knitting needles clicking away, and to feel to cool mountain air.

Last year the workshops I signed up for were canceled because the instructor was sick.  That was okay, though, because I had hauled some preaching work up the mountain and spent several lovely late afternoon hours on that front porch reading and writing.

Mom and I took a side trip to Mountain Farm, an organic lavender and blueberry farm.  They also raise sheep, goats, chickens, and fluffy bunnies.  Everything was out of season, but it was still just beautiful, especially in the lavender labyrinth.

In a little shop between the lavender and blueberries, they sell soaps and teas and sachets filled with lavender, and when its warm out they provide ice cold lavender lemonade (it was chilly when we were there).  They also send fleeces from their goats and sheep and bunnies out to be processed and spun into yarn.  

I didn't get much knitting or purling done last year, what with all the preaching I had to do.  But I loved being at the Knit-a-Way all the same.  This year my bag is full of needles and yarn - no books or Bibles or commentaries!  Just tuck me away on a porch, spread out a mountainview in front of me, and let me start knitting!

Ewwww!

Now, very rarely, if at all, has my response to anything knitting-related been "Ewwww". I've said, "Awwww," and "Ohhhh," and "Ughhhh," but not "Ewwww."

Not long ago, though, I was listening to a knitting podcast about ways to join new yarn in a knitted piece. You can simply loop the new yarn around the need and begin knitting with it, which can be a little unwieldy and does leave ends to be woven in later. You can tie the new yarn and the old yarn together, but then there's no telling whether the knot is going to end up on the front or back of the piece as you go, and you still have ends to worry about. You can do a Russian join, in which you loop the new yarn and old yarn around each other, but as you knit both tails in you can end up with small section of the piece that's a little bulkier than the rest. Or you can spit splice.

Yes, spit splice. Here's where the "Ewwww" happened for me.

This works only with wool yarns, or yarns with high wool content (but not with superwash wool, which doesn't felt). Take your two ends, and fray them back an inch or so. Remove one of the plys on each end.

Gently twist the two ends together.

Spit into your palm. I know. I'm sorry. That's how you do it (although, my "Ewwww" factor being what it is, I discovered that warm tap water works just as well). Moisten the twisted ends of yarn, and gently rub them together between your palms.

The yarn felts ever so slightly, locking the fibers of both strands together and creating a strong and seamless join with no ends to weave in!

Ooooo!

Entrelac means...

...according to Wikipedia, "a knitting technique used to create a textured diamond pattern. While the end result resembles basket-woven strips of knitted fabric, the actual material comprises interconnected squares on two different orientations."

And according to a knitter who was doubtful about entrelac at first ("all that knitting, turning, purling back, switching colors, changing angles, picking up and joining...") it means "a series of building blocks, one row leaning right and one leaning left."

Another site defines entrelac as "a pattern of squares where each square is knit at right angles to its neighbor. The resulting pattern resembles a basketweave pattern. In knitting books, the pattern is also called basket stitch, birch stitch, trellis, lattice stitch, woven lattice, and diamond weave." It comes from a french word meaning "ornament composed of interlacing figures."

I say entrelac means knitting that you never want to put down! I learned the technique at the retreat last weekend, and I absolutely love it! My work in progress is going to be a shawl, using 8 skeins of Noro Silk Garden, color number 268. I picked the color because it reminded me of Iona, but it also has all the colors of the misty mountaintop in North Carolina.

With this yarn, entrelac means "I have time for just one more square, because who knows what color it will end up being." It means "Maybe I can just finish up this row of squares before I stop." It means "I think I'll just spread it out in my lap and gaze at it..."

It's just a hotpad...

This was our mantra as we struggled through learning the technique of double knitting up at Big Lynn. When the workshop started, the table was covered with a rainbow of balls of cotton yarn, a bright contrast to the dreary gray weather outside. We each chose two colors to work with - I picked lime green and lavender.

So, you cast on your stitches with two strands of the first color, increase them on the second row, pick up your second color, start knitting with two strands of it, slip with yarn in front, with yarn in back, purl, knit, color A, color B... I think the pattern is really some kind of secret knitting incantation, because what you end up with is two interlocked fabrics, one solid and one striped.

The magic at my end of the table fizzled at first. We couldn't figure out where we were in the pattern, or our rows ended up opposite of what we were certain we had done, or our hands ached from working with so much cotton. It's just a hotpad, we told ourselves and one another as we wondered whether we would ever warm up to the project. We decided our mistakes wouldn't be noticed by our stoves, and stuck with it through the end of the workshop.

A new friend invited me to visit a nearby lavender farm the next afternoon - more purple and green! The Mountain Farm folks grow lavender and blueberries, care for goats and angora rabbits, and make soaps and sachets. On top of a mountain, with breathtaking views of Blue Ridge beauty. Surely it is God's residence on earth, where God breathes deeply in the lavender air, bakes blueberry cobblers (pulled gently out of the oven with a double knit hotpad), walks the lavender labyrinth, and knits cozy angora sweaters. We didn't get to visit the farm, unfortunately, but I'll think of it every time I pull out my hotpad!

She's no angora (which is a good thing, because she surely would have felted in the rain), but this little bunny and her friends visited the lodge often while we were there, her whiskers and cottontail twitching at the thought of an entrelac shawl all her own...

I do still knit...

...In fact, this weekend I've done nothing except knit at the 6th Annual Spartanburg Knitting Guild Knit-a-Way in Little Switzerland, NC. My mom invited me to join her for the event this year. We're high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just a stone's throw from the Parkway, along with some 50 or so other knitters.

Many of the people who are here have known each other for several years; others of us are here for the first time. All together, though, we are very much like the beautiful prayer shawl being passed around, on which everyone is knitting for a guild member recently diagnosed with cancer. It lives in a basket, nestled in a bed of various purple balls of yarn. Knitters take turns choosing a yarn from the basket, and knitting a row lengthwise on the shawl, leaving the ends as fringe.

Here we all are, nestled in the fog at the Big Lynn Lodge, a wide variety of people like so many balls of yarn. Knit us together, though... As we sit in the great room of the lodge, women's stories and laughter are becoming a thread woven into each blanket and sweater and scarf and shawls we hold half-made in our hands.

I've learned three new techniques: magic loop knitting, double knitting, and entrelac. The magic loop is lots of fun, at least for the little project on which I learned it. The guild is sponsoring a Christmas tree for a hospice program in Spartanburg, so we learned to make little knit hats to use as ornaments. Here, then, is my very first knitted hat, no more than two inches high...

More on double knitting and entrelac tomorrow, after I've had a little more time to work on them! Look what else is being knit on the front porch of our cottage!

Moths and Yarn...

...but not in a bad way.

This beautiful moth stopped by for a late afternoon respite. She graciously spread her wings for me to see.

I looked her up online, and think that she was an Io moth. She didn't open up her wings all the way, then - there were wings underneath with eyespots on them. She must have had them shut tight against the bright sun, because Io moths are nocturnal, only flying about during the first few hours after nightfall.

Miss Io reminded me of a yarn that has been in my stash for years - Dolcetto (of blessed memory) from the JoAnn's Sensations Bellezza Collection. I have lots of of it, in a variety of colors resembling a roll of Sweet Tarts.

The yarn feels as soft as the moth looked, and I think she would love a blanket made of it if she didn't already have such a lovely coat of fuzz.

Aloha

Perhaps another reason I'm moving more slowly on my log cabin squares (although I did finally finish square number 15 this weekend - take that, you turtles!) is that I've run into a few distractions. One of them is this.

A colleague is moving away, and I wanted to give her something in gratitude for her friendship and her support of my ministry. She is so gracious and kind-hearted and passionate in her work, balancing perfectly the airs of authority and femininity. I will miss her.

Cozy isn't a traditional prayer shawl pattern, but I'm certainly thinking about my friend and thanking God for her as I knit it. The yarn is Luster Sheen from Red Heart, and is all acrylic but has a look and feel like linen or mercerized cotton.

The color ("medium blue" according to the label) belongs both to St. Andrew's School and to my friend's native Hawaii ocean - her office walls are covered in pictures and postcards so lovely you can almost hear the surf. (The first picture actually shows the color more accurately.)

I didn't cast on enough stitches, even though I cast on more than the pattern suggested, so I'm going to have to create a border for the two long sides in order for it to be wide enough to wear as a shawl. I'm looking forward to indulging in the pages of Nicky Epstein's Knitting On the Edge! After all, in the words of our school motton, "we will find a way or we will make one..."

Green Being Easy

With all due respect, Kermit, it is easy being green.  Just hop off the lily pad and start knitting this scarf.

The pattern is Palindrome, named after a word or phrase that spells the same thing forwards and backwards.  That's not easy.  And not necessarily green.  But this is.

Palindrome is a ribbed cable pattern that produces the same pattern on the front and back of the scarf so that it's completely reversible.  If I don't think too hard about it, I can just barely understand how the ribs allow the cables to appear on both sides (normally they only appear on one side, and the other side is smooth).  It's pretty easy - K2, P2 over and over again, with the occasional cable row thrown in (and even those are just K2, P2).  

And the green!  I don't know where the lily-pad-like longing came from, but I had such an urge to knit a green scarf!  I searched high and low for the perfect green, and ended up with this Cascade 220 in green heather.  I love that the heather doesn't darken but rather brightens the green with golden hues.

Green is the Maker's Favorite Color

by Kevin Kummer

Green is the Maker's favorite color

to judge by where I walked today.

Not one shade or texture to be sure...

the fresh pale green of new grass thrusting

up through crusty earth

the almost yellow glow of moss beneath

the feet

dark holly, polished and mature, winter's 

survivor.

Green is the canvas upon which the Maker paints

a profusion of living color -

crocus, purple and white lavender

laced with deep purple lines

primroses, yellow and pink

six-petaled stars of blue trumpeting

on tall stems...

Leftover Surprise

No, it's not a mysterious combination of things from the freezer, and it isn't served the day after Christmas.  I'm talking about leftover yarn, and a surprise for an eight-year old.

When my brother and I were little, mom would sometimes wrap a handful of small toys (the happy meal kind) in layers of tissue paper - a surprise ball.  We'd tear through layer after layer and every now and then a little toy would be revealed until we got the the toy at the center.  Fun!

Well, she's at it again - this time with yarn.  If you, like me, and apparently like mom, have a hard time throwing out those leftover balls of yarn too small to realistically do anything with (but it's YARN - how can we throw away YARN?!?!) then here's the recipe for Leftover Surprise.

  

Tie the end of the first tiny leftover ball to the arm of a very small toy.  Wrap the yarn around and around, and when it runs out tie another leftover ball on.  Every now and then, hold a little page of stickers or a penny or another small toy on the ball while you continue to wrap the yarn around.  When you have run out of prizes, or yarn, or patience, attach a tag to the end and write "To Charlie, Love Nana".  That's what mom wrote, but of course you might write something different.

Serves one.  But entertains several.  When it's all unwound, the toys and trinkets are treasured, and the leftover yarn apparently becomes some kind of alien for Star Wars figures to defeat.  The fun never ends!