How men’s spring knitting retreats make things better

Dave Sledesky teaches introductory weaving at the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat 2013

I always find it hard to encapsulate what happens at men’s knitting retreats. Aaron Bush did a good job highlighting what we did and the camaraderie felt last weekend at Easton Mountain Retreat Center. Anyone who attended would probably admit coming away with more than inspiration for a project or a new knitting technique, but the personal impact may be hard to verbalize. Gratitude, communion and a shift in respect for self and others might all be part of it.

At the end Jeff Cohen, one of the attendees, passed one of his hand-knitted hats around and asked everyone to touch it. Whenever he knits at home through the year, he said, it lets him feel connected to all of us.

Each year the group raises money to provide scholarships for several men who could not otherwise afford to attend. This year for the first time, non-knitters who wanted to learn the craft were actively encouraged to attend and apply for scholarships. My good friend Jaye Crawford received one, went with us and learned how to knit. He was finishing his first hat in the car on the road back to Guelph. We call the new men lambkins.

This spirit of community and generosity, passing on both skill and wisdom, has persuaded me to consider planning a men’s knitting retreat here in Ontario sometime in 2014.

It would be a considerable personal challenge. My partner, Danny, and I are both strong introverts. Besides that I suffer from anxiety disorder.

Some people get panic attacks from flying on a plane or going out in public. Mine are triggered exclusively by social interactions. It is a hangover from being ostracized and leaving a cult-like religious community 18 years ago. Though the roots of my condition go back much further, since then I have felt uncomfortable in groups of people where intimacy is shared (and potentially punished). Isolation is a curse to a boy whose mother raised him to be kind and open-hearted toward others.

I enjoyed my first two retreats in 2008 and 2012 but found myself frequently exhausted, jittery, needing to remove myself and spend time alone in the woods. However, I also tasted the fellowship and unconditional love certain religions preach but seldom demonstrate well. Besides that I found myself in the company of others who have perhaps experienced isolation and remain guarded in different ways. Instead of foundering on the sidelines, like I did as a “recovering homosexual” in the evangelical church, we find ourselves in the midst, cherished, teaching workshops, showing off things of beauty we have made with our hands. Soaring a little.

This is what society is supposed to do. These retreats have restored my faith in people somewhat: not just a head faith, but an emotional one that frees me to emerge more comfortably from my safe zone, relax, not worry so much about saying the wrong thing or appearing nervous.

Danny and I arrived early on Wednesday. It gave us time to wind down from the trip, greet people as they trickled in and participate in an informal field trip before everyone else arrived Thursday evening. I do not recall when the wave of anxiety washed gently as a ripple on the sand. I expected it. It did not displace me. I rode it in good company without the need to walk away or hide my feelings.

This year’s gathering brought me a step closer to the active, participative person I was in my youth. I first had the idea of organizing a Canadian men’s knitting retreat after we returned last year, but it dissolved in a sea of other challenges, projects and responsibilities. This year I am determined to keep it afloat. So I begin by putting it forward.

The top photo shows Dave Sledesky, a veteran of the men’s spring knitting retreat, teaching an introductory weaving workshop using cardboard boxes for looms. He suggested to me this is also a great way to weave samples when figuring out how to do larger projects. I would like a simple tool like that for envisioning events.

Below is a photo of three friends: John Wise, who I met only last year but it feels like a lifetime, Ron Doughten, a newbie to the East Coast retreat, and Danny Ouellette, my partner of almost 10 years.

Special thanks go to Joe Wilcox who has organized the men’s spring knitting retreat so adeptly for six years. I will never match his grace, candour, energy and good humour, but he inspires me to be more at ease in who I am.

John Wise, Ron Doughten and Danny Ouellette

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An exotic pigeon inspired this handspun, knitted shawl

Bath Time by Sue Demetriou (MadMaxDog)) on 500px.com
Bath Time by Sue Demetriou

Last year our local Guelph Guild of Handweavers and Spinners presented a show at Greenwood Quiltery‘s gallery, featuring fibre crafts inspired by images (paintings or photographs). When I saw this photo of a Nicobar pigeon by Sue Demetriou, I knew what I wanted to do.

Fibre for Nicobar feather shawlI set out to create a handspun, woven item with fibre inspired by the bird’s plumage. At Ontario Handspinning Seminar last June I had an opportunity to purchase the fibre I wanted to blend, shown here (counter-clockwise from top): a variety of hand-dyed tussa silk, more blue tussa silk, black nylon, dyed firestar (a shiny nylon) in shades of blue, green and violet, dyed black Corriedale wool (which would be the primary fibre from the yarn), purple Corriedale and charcoal grey alpaca. In addition I would use some more fibre not shown here including purple and brown merino mill ends and dyed green Border Leicester locks.

So I had my fibre. The problem was, I had only recently begun learning to spin and hardly knew what to do with it. I spent most of the summer practicing technique. By the time the gallery show began to loom on the time horizon in the fall, I realized i had undertaken too challenging a project for a beginner. My Nicobar pigeon went to roost.

Speed ahead to our guild’s January spinners’ meeting, when Kit Fisher gave a workshop on combining fibre with a hackle. Read that post to find out more about hackles, but essentially it is a giant, deadly comb. My partner has a hackle but I had never used it before. I realized it was an ideal tool for creating a heterogeneous blend of diverse fibres.

Meanwhile, I had joined the guild’s lace study group to gain some experience knitting lace. While looking around for a project to undertake, I remembered the Nicobar pigeon and decided to interpret it via knitting rather than weaving. Ultimately I selected Kitman Figueroa’s peacock shawlette pattern because it suggested feathers and the upper reverse stockinette section would show off the variegated iridescence of the yarn.

I set about blending the fibre to produce this dizzed roving, so-called because it is pulled off the hackle using a small tool called a diz, essentially a small concave disc with a hole in it.

Dizzed roving for Nicobar pigeon shawl

Next step was to spin and ply the fibre. I created a two-ply, which is well suited to lace. I could have created much finer yarn for more delicate lacework, but I am naturally inclined to spin chunkier and funkier. This was also somewhat dictated by the properties of my main fibre, the Corriedale wool. The yarn turned out a fingering weight, about 15 wraps per inch.

Skein of yarn for Nicobar pigeon shawl

I finished spinning in late February and began knitting.

First few rows of the Nicobar pigeon shawl

This was a challenge but also lots of fun. With lacework like this you have to pay attention and count stitches constantly. Mistakes were made. Tinking (unknitting) lace, especially dark thread like this, is difficult and results in more mistakes that need to be corrected, a diabolical domino effect. I taught myself how to compensate and hide errors rather than go back and repair them. These improvisations do not affect the look of the finished shawl. I can only see one of them, and only because I know where to look closely.

I finished knitting in early May. Here is how the shawl looked unblocked.

Unblocked Nicobar pigeon shawl

Washing and blocking is the process that evens and shapes a knitted or woven item. With open lacework it involves rigorous stretching to open up the pattern. This can be done using pins on a sheet or towel on the floor, but there are better alternatives.

Matthew Hesson-McInnis of Hyphen Boy Designs has developed a technique involving PVC pipe, paperclips and elastics. The beauty of this approach is that it provides excellent tension and allows you to place a large blocked item against a wall so it will not take up half the living room floor. He calls this the BDSM of knitting. I had seen Matthew demonstrate it at the 2012 Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat, when my partner blocked a shawl this way. I signed up for the workshop at the 2013 retreat, which occurred this past weekend.

The approach works best for scalloped or pointed edges. To prevent the blocking cord from distorting the straight top edge, Danny crocheted a temporary edge for me using waste yarn to provide eyelets. This was completed ahead of the weekend. When I arrived at Easton Mountain Retreat Center, Matthew gave me the cord, which I threaded through each of the lace tails and the provisional eyelets.

Several other knitters had brought shawls for the workshop. On Saturday afternoon we soaked our work, then took turns working as a team to hook our projects onto the frames. Matthew had designed each frame to fit the individual project. Here he is (right) working on my shawl, assisted by Tony Bellville (who was spying—he didn’t bring any lace of his own). It shows how the paperclips and elastics create an easy tie between the pipe and blocking cord. The loose crochet across the top is also visible.

Matthew Hesson-McInnis demonstrates the BDSM of knitting

Here I am (right) with Danny holding the blocked shawl (photo by Steve Rosenblum).

Blocked shawl by Steve Rosenblum

In the background are two other blocked pieces on different shaped frames. This technique works well for circular shawls, rectangles and right-angled triangles. It is more difficult for other shapes. One I particularly loved was this exquisite Queen of Heaven lace shawl knitted by Vincent Ricci Jr.

Queen of Heaven lace shawl by Vince

Now I am back home. I have decided to keep and wear this delicate shawl as a souvenir of community. It came from an inspired idea of my own, but so much went into it from my local guild and the men’s knitting retreat. This is one of my first large handspun projects and my most detailed lacework to date. What a satisfying journey it has been.

Completed Nicobar pigeon shawl 1

Completed Nicobar pigeon shawl 2

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A bobolink sings in the city

Early yesterday evening while planting onion sets in the backyard, I heard a bobolink. It is such a joyful sound, more poignant in knowing the species is declining. These splendid New World blackbirds nest in fields where their reproduction is often disrupted by agricultural practices.

Past a few houses to the west of ours, the landscape opens into some savannah-like parkland, where a migrating bobolink might incline to pause. In a lifetime of birding, this is the first time I have heard one in a place where I lived. It gives me hope.

During the spring and summer, bobolinks can be seen and heard in tallgrass prairie, hay fields and meadows across the northern U.S. and southern Canada from the Eastern seaboard through the Great Lakes region and west to the Rocky Mountains.

Here in Ontario they often share habitat with eastern meadowlarks and savannah sparrows. A good population can be found in fields around Luther Marsh Wildlife Management Area. For example, from the main gate walk west around the north side of the reservoir for about 20 minutes to find a large meadow with numerous bobolinks.

The species is threatened and eligible for habitat protection in Ontario. For more information, with some surprising details about bobolink migration and other behaviour, read the Ministry of Natural Resources fact sheet.

Thanks to musicofnature.org for this video.

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Spring planting

I planted the garden today. This is the earliest I have ever planted tomatoes. It is a risk because chilly weather is expected early next week and then we are going away for five days. However, the alternative was to wait two more weeks and find somebody to look after the plants while we are gone. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, so I hope it will help the plants establish themselves. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the temperature won't dip too low next week.

I did not start anything from seed indoors this spring. It seemed more worthwhile to take our pick of heirloom varieties available at the farmers' market. One tomato plant costs about the same as a packet of seeds. We chose Brandywine, Earl of Edgcombe, Old German, Black Plum, Sweet 100 (cherry) and two Romas. The peppers are Lipstick and Cayenne. You can see them all interplanted with basil and yellow onions on the left. If I am lucky we will have cherry tomatoes ripening by the end of July instead of September.

I established a new bed for potatoes on the far right. We had some big pieces of cardboard, so I laid those down first, wet them well and cut a hole for each potato, setting the spuds on top. Then I added some worm compost around each tuber, piled damp straw, sprinkled bone meal over the top and wet it some more. I'll add more straw as it settles and the plants emerge.

In the middle bed, I planted some leeks in a trench at the far end. At the near end, some of last year's herbs are re-emerging: thyme, sage, anise hyssop, lavender and garlic chives, even a demure clump of lemon balm.

My friend Joan Lambert Bailey says in Tokyo it grows invasively as other members of the mint clan. I have never had that problem with lemon balm. It self-sows, but that is easy to manage. It is such a pleasant herb, I am just happy to see it return.

Since the herbs are flourishing in that part of the garden, I decided to make it the herb area, closest to the kitchen. I added one more plant each of thyme and sage, along with new rosemary, Italian parsley and chives. Planting parsley might be unwise; rabbits and groundhogs go for it like zombies for brains.

Just in view partway down the first bed, a clump of sorrel is filling out vigorously. It was one of the first things to sprout green in early spring, but I never had a chance; the groundhog devastated it shamelessly. Now the creature is leaving well alone. Something more delectable must have sprouted elsewhere in its range. Maybe we can have sorrel soup this weekend.

The middle of the second bed and the far end of the new one remain vacant. I'll plant acorn squash and zucchini there later in the month. I hesitate to devote space to watermelon because Danny won't eat it, but who grows the stuff, anyway? This gardener loves watermelon. I should indulge in one vine this year.

Planting it all took surprisingly little work, less than two hours. Maybe half the time was spent laying out the new potato section. The permaculture no-dig beds established last year remain practically weed free. Still, I'm knackered.

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Time to plant potatoes

Specialty potatoes

This year’s seed potatoes arrived in the mail this morning! I have to pick up some bales of straw and then planting can begin.

Last year’s garden gave an underwhelming performance. Drought delayed the tomatoes, cucumber beetles attacked the squash, and groundhogs eliminated all the peas, beans and greens. The only crops that afforded much pride were the herbs, particularly sweet basil, which thrived in the endless sun, and potatoes.

You work with your successes. This year I will plant more potatoes.

These specialty, mostly heirloom varieties came from Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes in Alberta. Clockwise from top left, they are warba (a delicious, early selection I grew last year), banana (fingerling), pink fir apple (fingerling), all red (late), purple viking (mid) and russet burbank (late). The order included 1 kg each of warba and russet burbank, four tubers each of the rest.

I still have several of last year’s bintje potatoes sprouting like crazy on the basement landing. I’ll plant them, too.

Potatoes are an ideal crop for starting new permaculture beds. Last year I created raised beds, placed potatoes on top and covered them with straw. This year I will follow an even simpler strategy: covering the sod with newspaper, placing seed potatoes on top, covering them with straw and fertilizing with bonemeal.

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Shedding light on celiac disease; seeking a cure

An Epidemic of Absence by Moises Velasquez-Manoff

You can double your value this month. I have two articles in the May/June 2013 issue of Gluten-Free Living. One is based on an interview with journalist and author Moises Velasquez-Manoff. The other profiles Bob Anderson, who is looking for a cure.

In his new book An Epidemic of Absence, Velasquez-Manoff surveys research linking the rise in autoimmune disease to changes in modern hygiene. Essentially, he argues, we are too clean. Our lifestyles are changing the population of parasites and microbes in our bodies, causing conditions such as asthma, multiple sclerosis and type-1 diabetes. In February, he further addressed the connection between gut microbes, breast feeding and celiac disease in a New York Times opinion piece, Who Has the Guts for Gluten? I interviewed him about his personal journey writing the book, and what essential wisdom we should take about celiac disease prevention, for the article, “New insight into celiac disease.”

I also interviewed Bob Anderson, who designed a drug that shows potential for suppressing the immune response that causes celiac disease. It is currently in clinical trials. This article is one in a series profiling researchers who will present at the International Celiac Disease Symposium in Chicago in September 2013.

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Green space makes happy place

Eramosa River trail

How much value can you put on green space? One of the things I love about the city where I live is its parks. The photo above was taken along the Eramosa River within steps of a residential neighbourhood. I used to walk there regularly when I lived there. Now in another part of Guelph, my home backs onto a conservation area full of meadows, wetlands and mixed woods. The networks of trails through these places testifies to the pleasure residents derive from being able to walk there.

A recently published study in Psychological Science quantifies the improvement to quality of life. As reported by Conservation, It amounts to about a quarter the added satisfaction of being married versus unmarried and employed versus unemployed. For an individual it might not amount to much, but considered over a population it can amount to large social value, well worth consideration for city planning.

What is your favourite city park?

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Spring starts with baby goats

Mother Angora goat with twin kids

Spring would not begin properly without a pilgrimage to the annual open house at Wellington Fibres. It is happening tomorrow (April 20, 2013) from 10 to 4 near Elora, Ontario. You can see kids born this week.

On Tuesday afternoon I happened to be there working on a weaving project our local guild has set up in the workshop, and managed to sneak into the barn for a preview. My friend Anne and I were lucky to find a pair of twins newborn within the hour, one still with afterbirth on its coat. We watched the mother lick it off. Donna, the owner, soon arrived on our summons. She said she tries to let the mothers give birth on their own, but coaches the babies to find a teat for their first feeding before much time elapses.

Angora goats are bred for their highly lustrous and somewhat fuzzy fleece called mohair. It is a luxury fibre used for everything from gauzy lace to carpets or heavy outerwear. Wellington Fibre has dyed mohair locks as well as appealing blends with wool, silk and alpaca available in the shop. I wove a lovely shawl from some of their mohair-wool.

Wellington Gemstone Stole

Confusingly, the animal fibre known as angora comes from rabbits, while another goat breed produces cashmere.

Kids are precocious, born with a keen instinct for mischief, closely followed by the ability to walk. Anne and I watched one, born only a few minutes earlier, trying to nose its way through the bars into the next pen. If you need a break from sad news in the world, this is the place to be.

The goat photos were taken at last year’s open house.

Kids butting heads

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City trees hit hard by ice storm

Ice storm damage in Guelph's Riverside Park

Guelph, Ontario, where I live, takes a lot of pride in its green space. Riverside Park has always been one of the prettiest spots in the city, with a certain Old World charm. It took a hard hit from the ice storm Friday morning.

This section of the park is dominated by mature silver maples. They were undoubtedly planted because they are a fast-growing tree. In hindsight, the city should have planted trees with stronger wood. This park is impacted whenever severe weather hits the city, but this is the worst seen in a while.

Ideal or not, I loved those trees. They reminded me of the two silver maples in our yard where I grew up. Their arching branches raised a dense green canopy, creating a cool gallery through which to stroll by the Speed River on summer days. The place will never be the same.

Nature works that way. We try our best to preserve some things the way they were, but succession is a natural process. Even in the city, all these silver maples will eventually be replaced with trees better suited to urban parks.

 

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A photogenic winter

Ice storm

After this week’s ice storm most people around here are more than ready for spring to hasten its late start. I do not object to the weather. It is a reminder to take our time, stop and look. Make the best of the moment, whatever it brings. This has been a particularly photogenic winter, with plenty of old-fashioned snow. Below is a photo I took in Preservation Park on February 28. It was one of the most beautiful morning walks I have had in years.

Beautiful winter morning

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