AHHHH SUMMER...

....having said that, let's be clear:   I HATE SUMMER.  I hate heat.  I am not a tropical plant.  At the slightest HINT of a temperature higher than about 75 degrees, I head for the nearest air-conditioned space.   So I am, at best, ambivalent about the central feature of summer -- high temperatures.  It is important to remember that I grew up in Minnesota, where I really do think people become highly intolerant of heat, and a good deal more tolerant of cold than lots of other people. 

But summer has other, important attributes.   Summer is the time for lots and lots of work that some of us cannot do the rest of the time -- in my case, the completion of books and articles and other things that I have promised to write and postponed because of all of those students who keep showing up at the office door (!). 

And summer is a time for long, beautiful drives to festivals, fiber expos, and conferences -- such as the TNNA conference upcoming -- all of those gorgeous displays of yarn and new designs, and a round of hugs....It's a wonderful event, and this year, I will be going with Ellen Taylor (manager at Artisan Knitworks) and Lynne Wardrop (ex-manager of City Knits Detroit and a once-in-a-while sock teacher at my place).  If we want, we can stay up all night.  Or not.  Nobody will ever know.

Summer is also a time for knitting and crochet.  Yes, I know.  It's hot.  The warmer temperatures (refer again to air-conditioning reference above) have never slowed me down.  I even like to sit at picnic tables and especially at bistro tables outdoor at coffee shops with a big ball of wool and something beautiful in my head........watching it  happen with no particular time limit.....It is a time of pure  joy.  I like to take some yarn I've never used before, an array of needles and hooks, and play with it  until it starts to speak ("YES.  That's what I want to be...DO IT").  You laugh.  Yarn speaks.  If you don't believe me, take a ball of it to a quiet place and start to make swatches.  Then, if it wants to be a sweater, I make a little drawing of a possible garment (you have to make provision for the possibility that the yarn will change your mind about what it wants to be as you go along) and start making something like a size 40......beginning with the back.  (Sadly, I have lots of backs, or starts of backs -- what I lack is not ideas, but time).

At places like Artisan Knitworks, we don't entirely look forward to summer -- It's a time of dropping revenue because people don't think of knitting in summer.  So there is a bit of anxiety until maybe August about how to pay rent.  (If you have  a favorite shop, for god's sake buy something this summer!!!!).  But what a lovely time for people to come and just sit in the cool -- talk with friends -- make new friends.

Up with summer.

svb