Skirt happening, whitlow grass

That skirt I showed you yesterday at Marion's world? I found some cream unbleached muslin, cotton weight, the stuff I used for curtains,  and a skirt is under way.

That batik fabric hanging in the doorway might be another skirt, though I did make one last year from it. We'll see.

So long since I did any hand sewing, this was great. The skirt is an 18th century pattern, with slits at the sides so you can access the Lucy locket pocket that ties round your waist under your skirt. This pose is tricky because I was holding it together with one hand, having run out of pins.

You can make this pocket as big as you want, so it's good under a full skirt. Eighteenth century wearers were known to carry live chickens in these pockets, among other items, but I expect I'll just carry my keys and phone.

Here I've done unpressed pleats, just set by eye, front and back. Box pleat in the middle, knife pleats out to the sides.

The skirt has a waistband at the back which becomes a belt that ties at the front. The front waistband ties at the back. 

This is very easy to make, fits however you fasten it.  It's like two aprons joined at the sides.

I did French seams for the sides, and pre finished the edges of the side openings. This was accompanied by Ash learning to use her new vintage knitting machine. My YouTube watching doesn't get my undivided attention.

The front waistband is under way and tomorrow I'll do the back. After that, hem it and I have a new skirt.

Then I'll make a muslin Lucy locket pocket.

I did do other things, walked and found a natural bouquet, violets with, I think, whitlow grass, tiny white flowers new today. 

The woodpecker was busy chipping out her nest again, and a Carolina wren shouted for ages. We still have a couple of juncoes, usually gone by now, but this year staying longer. They're winter residents, usually October to March.

Home to a pot of tea on the patio, very warm today, in the 80s, no biting insects yet.

So I marked the change of season by summerizing the sofa. 

The warm winter throw is now in the laundry, and here's the white summer quilt in place. Hand stitched pillows. Posh.

Happy day everyone, however you observe whatever season you're up to where you live.

And here's a bit of Basho for wisteria lovers

Wrens, Basho and Accidental Poetry

This morning, within minutes of my throwing out the breakfast crumbs, a wren pair came to sample them. See one wren on the fence to the right of the feeder? They like the lentil bread.

And this week, finally, the woodpeckers and,  today,  the white breasted nuthatch, started using the feeder on the shepherd's crook. It's taken them a year to trust the area after the big dead cherry branch had to be cut before it fell on me. That was their overhead cover from hawks. Very glad to see them back.

Basho haiku today

Skylark on moor
sweet song
of non-attachment

One of my earliest memories is the skylark singing over the moor, so high he was invisible, squinting up to find the little dot in the sky. 

And finally, have you tried the Accidental Poetry game? Pick out books, stack them so the titles  make a little thought. Like this

You can emphasize it a couple of different ways.

But nothing will ever top the wonderful government statistical publication entitled Population of the British Isles, Broken Down by Age and Sex. Well, aren't we all?

Basho for today

In my new robe
this morning --
someone else

I had read this haiku the other day, forgotten about it, then upcycled the sweater. Centuries after he wrote, his words may have unconsciously directed that idea. Cool.

Great addition to May Day and White Rabbits

I noticed a reference on Twitter this morning to Basho, Japanese haiku poet, and the comment that if you read a few a day, it will carry you through quite a while.

You can't really assimilate and think about more than a few haiku of this quality a day, if that. They're so compressed with meaning and suggestion, that they stop you in your tracks.

So I looked for a book of his poems, found this on Hoopla

Read a bit and didn't like it much, full of academic argument and debate pushing the work out of the way. More of a comparative study guide than I wanted.

 I found a better version, he's written a lot, plenty to choose from. And actually bought it for my Kindle, where it's nestling in my file of Austen, Trollope, Anthony not Joanna, and ready for a few minutes quiet study daily.

I was at an online meeting last evening, despite technical obstacles, arghghg, and it opened with a reading from Richard Rohr. I can not read him in print, just find him incoherent.

 But read aloud, suddenly he made sense. Nice discovery. Probably my rapid reading interfered before. And it fits in with the haiku in concept so well. When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Anyway one great bit from Rohr stays with me: life is not about me, but I am about life. I stayed on that for the whole meditation period that followed, until my tablet cut me off (!) I'll be back next week.

The group is sponsored by the convent where I learned goldwork embroidery and met my first Anglican nuns, still in traditional habit, and had a good time with them. It's through their newsletter that I got the invitation.

 So I was glad of the chance to remeet some of the community without driving. I'm neither religious not Anglican, but this seems like a time not to be concerned with divisions, and they were welcoming.  The leader is a laywoman, as are a lot of participants.

And now I'm off for a natter with me mates at our Ravelry knitting group.

I'll leave you with a couple of sky views from under my porch between rainstorms. I had planned to go pick violets for my first of the month flowers, but the weather's telling me to wait.

Meanwhile, Happy May Day, and White Rabbits.