Crochet The Weather

Conceptualizing the weather has now become a habit and in 2016 we are creating a crochet block for each day this year. 

The centre of the block is the temperature

and

the outer block is the sky.

In 2016 we will also be featuring the poetry of

Dawna Proudman

Wondering

while February lurches

forward into March

if bird song is destined forever

to be recalled

but never again heard

like stories from our childhoods

we tell and tell and tell

until they are smooth worn

familiar and strange

like wave polished glass

memories of the time before

the ice banished all but the crows –

cavorting like old country widows

their magnificent distraction

from snow upon snow

cloud upon cloud

cocky victory struts

charm and confuse

graceful wings trace drifts

like pirate flags over frozen seas

welcomed by default

by those of us left land locked

(even so,

winter could last a hundred years

and still the crow’s raspy throated scold

would always be the antithesis of song

wouldn’t it?)

will there ever come a time

when windows gape again

like the mouths of youngsters

yowling with glee and awe

catching the notes of sparrows,

doves, warblers, finches

spiralling, billowing upwards into

the blue dome of the universe?

will robins ever come again

to drown the tumble and huff

of wind and wires,

the scrape and grate of snow ploughs,

the whirr and whine

of my unoccupied mind?

six months ago so many birds

regaled us from stands of birch and ash

their notes entwined

like grasses, dog hairs, yarns and twigs

in one nest, I could not guess

which bird sang which lilt

as I wilted in the unforgiving heat

now the sounds they made

elude us, the memory

hollow as bird bones

the words mock our losses

no “tweet” “chirp” “thrum”

disrupts the silence

struck dumb like children

waking to realize

the thing we loved and clutched

– teddy bear, blanket, feather or hope –

has once again disappeared

in the night

this then is the time of faith

for there is nothing else

but prayer and blindness 

we give up wishing for ears of glass

search out a hint of sunlight

don armour sufficient

to fend off bitterness

then stand

just there

where the light erases everything else from view

everything else from memory 

close our eyes

listen 

fervently

for whispers and wings

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Crochet The Weather

January 2016

Conceptualizing the weather has now become a habit and in 2016 we will be creating a crochet block for each day this year. 

The centre of the block is the temperature

and

the outer block is the sky.

In 2016 we will also be featuring the poetry of

Dawna Proudman

January breeds gratitude

blowing snow

black ice

frozen windshield wipers

then dry pavement

for the drive home

beneath clear benevolent skies

screeching winds

dance the dance of seventeen veils

night after night

then perfect stillness

diamond studded snowbanks

swathed in moonlight

sinus infections, colds, flues,

carpets littered with crumpled kleenex

every task an uphill odyssey

then an entire week when nobody

not even the cat

coughs, sneezes or pukes

monochrome day after monochrome day

everything turns old potato gray

even the cat stays indoors and sleeps

then one unblemished blue sky

cracks smiles open on every face

every tongue sings hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

~ Dawna Proudman

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Crochet the December 2015 Sky

December 2015

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

Blow, blow, thou winter wind.

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:

Then, heigho-ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,

That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,

Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remember'd not.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! ...

~William Shakespeare 

With this crocheting the 2015 sky comes to an end, however the project is not finished as I am left with 52 granny squares that now need to be used in either a single or multiple projects and with 2016 a new project begins where I am incorporating both the sky and daily temperature into a single granny square.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Crocheting the November Sky

November 2015

My November Guest

~ Robert Frost

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane.

  

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted grady

Is silver now with clinging mist.

 The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so ryly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

 Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell he so,

And they are better for her praise.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Crocheting the October Sky

October 2015

October

Across the land a faint blue veil of mist

Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober

Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist

The drooping cherry orchard of October

Like mournful pennons hang their shrivelling leaves

Russet and orange: all things now decay;

Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,

And sad the robins pipe at set of day.

Now do ye dream of Spring when greening shaws

Confer with the shrewd breezes and of slopes

Flower-kirtled and of April virgin guest;

Days that ye love despite their windy flaws,

Since they are woven with all joys and hopes

Whereof ye nevermore shall be possessed.

~ Siegfried Sassoon

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Crocheting the September Sky

September 2015

Fall, Leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night's decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Emily Bronte

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Crochet The Sky August 2015

August 2015

There is a Zone whose even Years

There is a zone whose even years

No Solstice interrupt --

Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon

Whose perfect Seasons wait --

Whose summer set in summer, till

The centuries of June

and centuries of August cease

And consciousness -- is noon

~ Emily Dickinson

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Crocheting The 2015 Sky

July 2015

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

A boat beneath a sunny sky.

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream

Lingering in the golden dream

Life, what is it but a dream?

~ Lewis Carroll

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Crocheting The 2015 Sky

June 2015

A Red Red Rose

O, my Luve’s like a red, red rose,

Thant’s newly sprung in June.

O, my Luve’s like a melodie

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair as thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

I will love thess till, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run;

And fare thee well, my only luve!

And fare thee weel, a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile.

By Robert Burns

 

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Crocheting The 2015 Sky

May 2015 

Add caption

The Merry Month of May

By Thomas Dekker

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,

So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!

O, and then did I unto my true love say,

Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,

The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,

Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale:

Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;

See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:

Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo

Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,

So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;

And then did I unto my true love say,

Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer's Queen.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Crocheting The 2015 Sky

April 2015

April 2015

An April Night

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

The moon comes up o’er the deeps of the woods,

And the long, low dingles that hide in the hills,

Where the ancient beeches are moist with buds

Over the pools and the whimpering rills;

And with her the mists, like dryads that creep

From their oaks, or the spirits of pine-hid springs,

Who hold, while the eyes of the world are asleep,

With the wind on the hills their gay revellings.

Down on the marshlands with flicker and glow

Wanders Will-o’-the-Wisp through the night,

Seeking for witch-gold lost long ago

By the glimmer of goblin lantern-light.

The night is a sorceress, dusk-eyed and dear,

Akin to all eerie and elfin things,

Who weaves about us in meadow and mere

The spell of a hundred vanished Springs.

Compare 2014 to 2015 

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2015 twosnydergirls