happy Armistice Day!

Today is Armistice Day. My grandfather Guthrie was overseas during WWI because he was quite ancient, having been born in 1900 and being 48 when my own father was born. He joined the navy, loved the hammocks, got a lot of tattoos, and dated many girls in Scotland (slightly bribing their parents with goods from the ship's store). I couldn't find the paper poppy I made last year so this time I knit one! Turned out very nicely.

Also I thought I had a picture of my latest finished project but it turns out I don't! Gasp! It is a piece with the Ambrose Bierce quote "Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave- driver." It turned out beautifully and I can't wait to show it to you!

I'm taking a mini-vacation with la madre or I'd take a picture right now. With me on this trip I have the materials to start another Celtic letter project from Mike Vickery's book Celtic Cross-Stitch. This time I'll be doing a G for my niece Geneva.

Here is an excerpt from my favorite WWI poet, Wilfred Owen, and his poem Insensibility. You can read the full poem here.

     Happy are men who yet before they are killed
     Can let their veins run cold.
     Whom no compassion fleers
     Or makes their feet
     Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
     The front line withers,
     But they are troops who fade, not flowers
     For poets' tearful fooling:
     Men, gaps for filling
     Losses who might have fought
     Longer; but no one bothers.

In Search of the Perfect Iris

Because dark purple irises are my favorites I've done the ones in this border that same color. It might have looked nicer in the same blue as the flowers above (keep it less distracting or something) but oh well.

My stitched version is full of imperfection because I tend to be too impatient to make a complete perfect chart before I start working. This is why I'm incapable of starting a line of text in the right, centered, orientation. I am both a perfectionist and unbelievably shoddy at prep work, which is a wholly frustrating combination.

I would be finished with the completed (and perfect) pattern but Photoshop is doing this obnoxious thing that it sometimes does. I'll open a file and it will only do the grabby-hand-moving-around tool. I'll shut the whole program, open it again, same thing. I have to restart the whole freaking computer to get it to revert back. Only I believe I already tried that this time. I would do it in GIMP which I prefer for making needlework patterns but I just can't find a straight line tool on there. There MUST be one and I've been using Photoshop and equivalents for over ten years, so it's not like I don't know where to look. Frustrating!

Apparently it's just one of those days. I needed some cream and things to make some Valentines treats for my mom but my car battery is dead (didn't leave the lights on or anything, so I'm assuming a door didn't quite shut but now I'm worried it's something worse, like aliens stealing my engine. Sigh. Can't figure it out until my mom can come over and can't jump it until there's an empty space in the parking lot next to mine. This is why I've always wanted one of those self-contained jumper unit things. I predicted this day long ago.

Poetry and Biscuits

I am a big poetry reader. I grew up on it, thrive on it, lived for it in high school, and even dabble with writing it. If I had to choose one favorite poet it would be Carl Sandburg. The man was a genius. He writes the most realistic and accessible poetry I've ever read. People who think they don't like poetry should read Sandburg. He writes of the every day in the way we like to think of it in our heads. Like when you imagine how you would draw something - your mind makes it so so beautiful but your hand just can't translate it to the page.

Sandburg also wrote some of the most wonderful children's stories ever recorded (The Rootabaga Stories) and wonderful biographies. The man was incredible and is such a hero of mine. One of his quotes that I especially love is "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." It is literally the first quotation I added to my file of "quotes I might embroider."

Should I babble on about embroidery and color choices and motifs and charts? Certainly not. I'll babble about that tomorrow (the piece is actually finished now but I want to take daylight photos). Instead I shall share with you some excerpts from what is perhaps my favorite Sandburg poem, Honey and Salt. It is found in the book of the same name, which is also my favorite Sandburg book ever.

When boy meets girl or girl meets boy--
what helps?

They all help: be cozy but not too cozy:
be shy, bashful, mysterious, yet only so-so:
then forget everything you ever heard about love
for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn
and it comes as weather comes and you can't change it:
it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came
and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and hands--
and nothing can be done about it--you wait and pray.

Is the key to love in passion, knowledge, affection?
All three--along with moonlight, roses, groceries,
givings and forgivings, gettings and forgettings,
keepsakes and room rent,
pearls of memory along with ham and eggs.

How long does love last?
As long as glass bubbles handled with care
or two hot-house orchids in a blizzard
or one solid immovable steel anvil
tempered in sure inexorable welding--
or again love might last as
six snowflakes, six hexagonal snowflakes,
six floating hexagonal flakes of snow

Bidden or unbidden? how comes love?
Both bidden and unbidden, a sneak and a shadow,
a dawn in a doorway throwing a dazzle
or a sash of light in a blue fog,
a slow blinking of two red lanterns in river mist

I'll post the full poem in the comments. I don't want to overwhelm you. It is worth reading. I meant to read it at my sister's wedding but I was crying too much (which surprised me greatly, I adore my sister and brother-in-law but I'm not the "crying at weddings" sort).