Feelin' the love

Summer’s flying by…..amidst the business of summer, there is productivity; the whir of the spinning wheel, the rhythm of the beat of the loom…miles of yarn spun, and yards of fabric wove.  and piles of cukes and tomatoes and melons and fragrant herbs and buckets of blackberries to can.  I love the cadence of summer…simply trying to keep up with abundant inspiration all around.

But today i am feeling  the love…the love of crafting in a way that inspires others…. I recently had a visitor at the studio.  a lovely intern from a neighboring farm…she blogged about her visit.  Lovely.

I also recently received a mysterious letter in the mail.  I opened it, and found an intriguing poem, written just for me by a lovely lady who purchased handspun yarn from me at last winter’s Holiday Faire at the Schoolhouse.  The yarn i spun, had inspired the words, and also a scarf which she lovingly knit for her husband.  This is the gift of craft….to make yarn that inspires someone else’s creative muse.  What a blessing. here’s the poem:

A skein of yarn;handspun and hand-dyed.

As I cast it onto my needles it cast me

out into some world beyond the scarf i begin

and the blue and green collide like some kind of

magical map she spun into existence.

nights before the fire

the magma mixing with the oceans,

now the caribbean,

now the seas around fiji

now the crystal blues of the Artic

now the waters swirling around coral reefs

colors deepening as the seas sweep away from shore

periwinkle turning into cerulean

and now a touch of ochre for the dry hills

and the desert and the tumbleweed in the Eurasian plains

and now the seas green of the Aegean transmuting into

the dark green of the pine forest punctuated

with the brown shaggy bark of the redwoods

along the coast leading me out

and onto the moors their gorse of green moss

after a long rain and now a splash of vermillion

the hummingbird’s throat vibrating in my hands

and now cerulean celadon chartruese live agate aqua

the Amazon river weaving its way the the rows

the world she spun slipping now between my fingers

each knit or purl wrapped inside the other and then turned

around the one before it awaiting the next as the needles click

as her spindle whirs

mama spider spinning the world

the colors she painted drying by the woodstove

wound and bound together with pieces of string.

these are the colors of the planet

seen from reaches of space

these are the colors of the earth

seen from cabin windows and bridges

these are the colors of the land

as I walk between the trees

and stop to dip my fingers

into the stream.

—Laura Pendell, for Rowen White.

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