Sourcing wool ethically?

 

A word about mulesing.

Having a Vegan orientated daughter I have been challenged on my use of wool. According to my research shearing sheep does not harm the sheep and is usually done in Spring relieving the animal of a heavy winter coat. However, how the shearing is done is of importance and the practice of mulesing is something to know about. According to Wikipedia:

Mulesing is the removal of strips of wool-bearing skin from around the breech (buttocks) of a sheep to prevent the parasitic infection flystrike (myiasis). 

It is done with out anaesthetic and is now illegal in the UK

Australia is a major offender in this practice.

On my last visit to Winnies wool shop https://winniethewoolwagon.com/  I asked for wool which was sourced ethically and was told that Drops Wool is sourced from South America where mulesing is not practised.

I did find a wool that was sourced from plastic! and another made up of recycled wool.

It is all something to think about....

For more on the subject follow the link..https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/17/nobody-likes-mulesing-the-market-shift-changing-australias-wool-industry

I used Drops Karisma to make some wrist warmers.

And have started a pair of wrist warmers with Stylecraft recycled wool.

My daughter will love this wool by Scheepjies made from recycled plastics

And finally a poem to share. I read this recently at our neighbourhood gathering and by coincidence a friend sent me an audio version of it by email. It's the time of year for The oxen by Thomas Hardy. You can listen  if you click on link The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

The Oxen

BY THOMAS HARDY

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

Winding the Skein

 

Have finished the fingerless gloves. I had to look at  the video relating to the m1L and m1R several  times. Also forgot to do the final rib over the knuckles and had to go back, pick up the stitches and make that rib!!!

Another problem was the thumb, but using the video below I managed. 

how to knit thumbs in fingerless gloves

This pair is fairly flawed so I won't be gifting it but I love these mitts all the same....

You may remember the Norse selection of wool by King Cole,that I blogged about. This is a gorgeous blend that definitely does look very Scandinavian. I use the same Regia pattern referred to in the last blog.

These are the Skoll blend, called after the wolf that chases the sun.

And finally and why not, a poem about winding the skein. Many of you have done this with your mother perhaps so it may trigger some memories....

Winding the Skein

My mother bought wool by the skein.

It lay in great looped hanks

that coiled like a snake on our kitchen table.

 

Once released from its parabolic curves

it stretched too loose and unruly to be worked

to pattern and needle.

My outstretched arms, a skein looped distance

between them, anchored the hank
while she wound, first from one hand and then

 

from the other, ladling the wool into balls,

unravelling my yarn dressed hands
that tilted up and down,

 

to the figure of infinity.
Firm but not taut.

Loose but not free.

If I missed a step the skein would tangle
and I would let go ‘til she set the pace again

strummed to the beat of her heart

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

In through the Bunny Hole

 

It being the season of goodwill I've been knitting like fury to put together some presents for the nieces/nephews/grand nieces etc etc.

So not much yarning of my usual sort. HERE are some pieces, some patterns, pics and a poem I wrote decades ago which was published in Cork Literary review.

In Through the Bunny- hole

 

My mother never taught me how to m1L

 

I can slip knitways and knit two together

even through back of loop.

I can pick up and knit and turn and purl and turn and slip

and pass slip stitch over.

Enough to make bobble and cable.

Enough to make story.

 

They say that every Aran pattern tells its own tale.

I see us sitting, generations of women,

clicking fluently with our fingers

of where we’ve been and where we are going

while our tongues trip over new syllables.

 

My mother never taught me how to m1L

She never needed to speak of village clearance

or emigration

or a woman in white foreboding ill

or a thrush heralding good fortune…

 

But what if I do?

 

These socks are knitted using yarn from my favourite company, West Yorkshire Spinners. Fairy Lights Sparkle. And though you can't see it these socks do sparkle. For pattern details see...Regia sock pattern

And here is a new project. A pair of wrist warmers  in worsted, which means Aran weight, and I use another yarn from WYS, Shetland Croft tweed. 

For the pattern See a fabulous link which includes detailed instructions and videos.

https://blog.tincanknits.com/2013/10/03/lets-knit-a-mitten/

So far have just completed the cuff but I did make a scarfette in this yarn which will give you an idea.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/paulas-scarfette

Now I just need to find a little reindeer brooch...

Pigeon Post

You were more colourful than my usual pigeon visitor.

At first I thought-magpie rump?

but with your oil- slicked throat and chest 

and your plummage of black, white and brown contending

I reached for my Canon Powershot and google icon.

You turn out to be a feral pigeon-descendant of  rock dove

once native of rock cliff and mountain only

domesticated by monk and liege alike for your fine meat

cliff face becoming dove cote, 

but your tireless, fearless compulsion to reach home

even through war zones, trenches, and no man's land

carrying missives of great import, made you

a name for yourself, making history, making peace.

Today you straddle city street and just occasionally,

if lost or tired, suburban garden.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2024

For an interesting video clip on feral pigeon gallantry during the two world wars follow the link below.

How does a pigeon know where to go?

Wintertime

 

A wood pigeon is doing a solo

performance in the bird table

its head nodding to the beat of its beak

pecking like a maestro on the keys of a piano

up one scale and down the other

while robin sits hopeful in the wings

and blue tit sways to the rhythm

of a wind strummed branch

and Mama pigeon on the table roof

sways and orchestrates the pit

and despite the allure of such temptation

the cat has taken, permanently it seems,

to the chair beside the stove

preferring the hiss, spit and roar

of fire and air complying

and the kettle whistling on the range

signalling another pot of tea.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2024

Self Publish?

 

Am not writing much these days because I'm doing a course in self publishing and apart from the onerous task of trying to follow all the technical stuff we also look at traditional publishing.

 The big five publishing houses :Penguin random, Macmillan, Simon and Schuster,Hachette and Harper Collins only take submissions via an agent. 

You can research an agent via a free platform called Query Manager but it will probably throw up hundreds of possible agents in your genre.

If you do find an agent to take you on and if they are successful in finding a publisher they will take a commission of 15-20%

In the end you as writer will receive 5-8% commission for a paperback, 15% for a hardback, 20-25% for an e-book and 25% for an audio book.

If you self publish the royalties for a print book are much higher at 60%

and 70% for an e-book on a platform like KDP AMAZON

BUT 

Then you have the task of advertising and promoting your book.

Some of the benefits of self publishing are that it is quick compared to the traditional route

and you have complete creative control.

Costs are not that high.

But You will need an ISBN- International Standard Book Number.

You don't need one for an e-book.

https://www.nielsenisbnstore.com/

A single one costs 93 euro while a block costs 174 euro. As you would need a separate one for a hard back and you are likely to write more than one book it may be more cost efficient to buy 10. 

Amazon will provide one free but this means that your book is only available through Amazon.

COVER

You can download a free book cover using a free tool from Canva.com. 

Start with a template and modify. Make sure you avoid the images with the crown on them as these have to be bought. 

This whole business of cover design I found very tricky so a tech savvy friend would be a big asset.

You can also find a free image on Pixabay.com

and customise it using Canva

For interior design and typesetting a free tool to use is Reedsy.com

EDITING

Most of us will ask friends to read/edit but bear in mind we need

A content edit- the one that takes in the big picture, the structure of the narrative

A copy edit for clarity, coherence, consistency

And a line or style edit for grammar, repetition and style.

It is advisable to have an author website if you want to develop  your audience and you need to do this if you self publish

A website will tell about us, have links to other social platforms, social media links , a mailing list and perhaps a blog.

I started to sign up with Wix.com but ended up with Weebly.com as I found it easier to use 

You can set up a site for free but once it's up and running you will pay a monthly maintenance charge of around 8 euro.

Mine is not yet published as I have links to develop etc. 

I hope aspiring writers find this useful. It is meant only as a guideline. Will keep you posted on my progress!

On reading AE Houseman

 

And of my three score years and ten

most will never come again

and take from that my sixty- nine

that only leaves me one more time

to get it right and get it good

this walking, dreaming in the wood

and watch the tree from bud to leaf

to flower to fruit and then to grief.

I'm hoping four score years and more

become the twenty first century norm

that way I can at least enjoy

for one more decade Nature's lore

desport itself with nonchalance

despite our blatant carelessness.

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

A word about Norse Socks

 I came across this gorgeous blend in a craft shop in kenmare. 

https://www.kenmare.ie/kenmare-item/kenmare-craft-hobby-centre/

75% Superwash Wool, 25% Polymide.

It's a King Cole product and knits up to a lovely pair of Nordic looking socks.

This blend is called after Thor, a hammer wielding God in Norse Mythology. God of fertility, thunder, lightning and storms!!

I was so pleased with the result that I went back and bought a few other Norse Gods.

There's Loki, son of a Norse giant, a trickster God and shape shifter

Then there's Vali, son of Odin who is the main man in the Norse canon of Gods. Vali is the God of vengeance!

Modi, son of Thor, is likewise formidable in his associations for he symbolises wrath

And finally I purchased Skoll, synonymous with treachery and mockery, a wolf that chases the sun.....

Not for the faint hearted these Norse socks.

From left to right Loki,Vali,Modi and Skoll

(Thor is a light blue than Vali)

Autumn

 At the seaside I notice a last desperate flurry of activity before the demise of summer.

 I also notice our elders beginning to don gloves and socks, specifically designed to deal with colder climes.

While the rest of us scurry for comfort, they'll stick it out all winter long...or for as long as they can. This poem is for them.

Autumn

The park has been shorn of its summer mane

and wears a razed pate, smelling of meadow- sweet

and nettle and yarrow- strewn across its salon floor

 And in the garden I practice euthanasia

root out jaded lobelia, cut back and secateur all

that is stooping and failing

And at the shoreline mothers stand lifeguard

while their young take a final plunge

before the tyranny of school timetable begins

And though the temperature is dropping

and lifeguards pack away their red and yellow paraphernalia

our elders wade in, ready to embrace and endure 

This change that has begun to shift 

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

Irish Weather Forecasters

While some appear apologetic, and others defensive,

even defiant to the point of alarming

with gritted teeth and threatening brow

and a tone that defies contradiction

(latter day Cassandras, endowed

 with the gift of prophecy but fated

 never to be believed) 

there's something reassuring about Joanna Donnelly.

Whether she's forecasting an approaching hurricane

with a Saffir-Simpson wind scale of 3 to 4

or weather warnings: red, orange or yellow

or fronts passing in and across and out, 

or hazy sunshine followed by persistent rain...

you almost feel like thanking her for it.

And when she says,"Whatever you had today

you'll have more of the same tomorrow,"

with a shrug that adds,"Suck it up!"

you may as well just order another pint.....

 

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

Water Colour by Marie-Helene Brohan Delhaye Lamb's Head,County Kerry, Sunset  Sky

To Air or not to Air?

 

"It's  more like watching the ads," you say,

"with Olympian breaks in between.

And someone has written to The Times to complain about it!"

And a lot of the ads aren't even themed on sport,

though performance is alluded to, by the by, uneven as it is-

For there's the fellow brandishing the magic duster,

the one with the electromagnetic charge

that grabs and retains dust particles as if they were gold- 

Versus the woman who scent-boosts her shirt instead of washing it,

she can repeat this in training up to a hundred times,

I hope she doesn't, for when it comes to the test

a clean, fresh shirt will surely pip her at the post.

But most of the hype is about spraying rather than airing

so back to that air time where we'd rather be pondering depth

 of field and cadence in stride than Busting the Must-

Though the word cadence, when you look it up, 

comes from cadere meaning to fall

which isn't so great for an Olympian hopeful

for there's no repechage for a DNF...

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

Transience

If I hadn't read about those Tibetan monks

sweeping their sand mandalas into an urn, 

and dispersing them in flowing water

to symbolise the transience of art and life,

reminding me of Banksy's Balloon Girl

shredded during auction,transmuted by the hammer

 into Love is in the Bin,

I might have enjoyed the sun setting alight 

the under leaves of my Smoke Tree

from royal purple to claret red

or the reflection of hot lipped Salvias

through a window pane half ajar,

their open mouths prone to the suckling of honeybee

or the sun highlighting a ball of wool from West Yorkshire Spinners

catching the promise of Christmas in its Nutcracker glitter

and thought about the socks I would make out of that...

That's the kind of morning I could have had...

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

Merlin to the rescue

 After days of being perplexed by a cry emanating from  a copse of trees I resorted to the wisdom of my Merlin bird app. I'd been thinking fox or fox cub, maybe in distress, and had been trawling through the thicket at 7 a.m. looking for a wounded creature. 

The creature turns out to be a sparrow hawk and far from distressed I'd say it's making a meal of it, surrounded as it is by wrens, robins, blue tits and siskins....

Am reposting a poem I wrote a few months ago about the sparrow hawk that visited our back garden.

https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/sparrowhawk/

The Killing Field

He would have had his head tilted listening for earthworms.

He wouldn't have noticed a shadow hugging the ground

or heard the short wings swooping the air 

propelling the raptor forward, its long tail fanned out 

to break speed.

The last thing the blackbird saw was the yellow eyed sparrow hawk

fixing it in a deadly stare before claws descending 

left shorn feathers blacken the air.

What we saw looking out our kitchen window

was a hooked beak delve into bird skull 

and strong yellow legs pin their prey to the ground.

It was too late to save the songster 

and probably unwise.

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2024

The Flying Fox

 

Something is moving in the attic.

You can’t see it but you can hear its echosound 

the whoosh of papery, velvety wings

whirling in elliptical orbit around your head.

 

If you were in the city you’d think you were dreaming,

You probably would be.

But here in a country loft you’re thinking birds,

the Alfred Hitchcock sort, and all you need is the soundtrack

to jolt you into Tippi Hedren terror.

 

And when you do turn up the lights

the sight of what looks like a flying fox

wheeling past your ear in pursuit of its daily intake

of hexapod invertebrates is not reassuring.

 

You do not delay to determine its genus

whether it’s a Common Pipistrelle or a Soprano

but high tail it promptly out of rustic bliss.

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

Cat Alarm

When I say I'm an early riser

I don't mean this early

for  I've been listening to Kitty overhead

kneading the carpet upstairs with gusto,

I will meet half of its wool fibres

in the stairwell later in the day,

and despite rolling over on my side

he has now moved on to scratching 

the newly painted sitting room door

adding white claw polish 

to the satin gloss highlights 

he acquired yesterday

when I was painting it-

when  I say I like rising early

I don't mean on this type of day.

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

A Day Off

Having  a "day off" strikes me 

as an odd way to put it, as the poet says, 

angling across broad leafy avenues,

being engulfed by the green of a park*

Even when applied to knitting socks or doing cross-word puzzles,

for there's a lot of mental effort exerted in turning 

that heel or retrieving a word like creel from your memory bank

if it was ever there in the first place-

And what is leisurely about identifying those wildflowers

that bedeck the side of the road or woodsy trail 

while engaged in angling across avenues 

or engulfed in that green park?

while dealing with the nagging questions that ensue

from your perusal of Plantnet-

like whoever thought to name that flower

a blue button haze and that grass a Yorkshire mist?

And so begin your travails in the area of etymology

taking you through Middle English, old English,Anglo Saxon and beyond.

And what with all this ruminating and time travelling...

I'd rather call it a"day on"...

And ruminating, if you want to know, 

comes  from the Latin word ruminatus

coming from rumen meaning gullet 

and refers to cows chewing the cud.....

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved

* Billy Collins, of course. Sirens in his collection The Rain In Portugal, Picador Poetry

Merlin Magic

My Merlin bird app can't locate me

which is hardly surprising, for my Galaxy A54 

sets the time at 5.17am, August 1st, a year ago

and I don't even know where I was then.

It would probably help 

if I actually did pay as I go

but Merlin being a wizard of course

has managed to conjure regardless

And so I have apparently, and likely enough,recorded 

the call of oyster catchers and red billed choughs 

and meadow pipits and sand pipers 

on my sojourn along Lamb's head

But the non migratory Appalachian ruffed grouse

and the sapsucker,likewise of Canadian ilk 

and migratory only as far as Central America

seem a conjuring feat too far

(Though Merlin was a shapeshifter himself

from man to fish to squirrel to turtle to hare,

not forgetting caterpillar,mouse,crab and goat

and always in blue)

So it might be a plan next time I stroll

to the drumroll of the Atlantic

along Derrynane Bay 

to actually pay as I go...

Copyright July 2024 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved

Hat Talk

 

A visit to Kate Betts' workshop in Harold's Cross with a couple of  friends turned into a bit of an adventure and prompted this little poem. For info about Kate and her work follow the link below.

https://millinery.info/2019/06/kate-betts/

Hat Talk

Today in her workshop we don boaters and crowns

fedoras, pill boxes, visors and perches

and the talk is of sinamay, hemp and parasisals

and net mesh and linen, wool, straw, angora

and the power of steam and pins to launch the two dimension,

from bend- to stretch- to rise- to jump- turn and glide -

and of fibres that lean to their own liking.

 

And so we pirouette before the full length mirror

talk of high couture, wedding allure and gala invitations

and A day at the Races crowned with feathers and fascinators

and the power of the hat to propel us in our imagination

to banquet hall- to cat walk- to red carpet gathering-

but we come home elated with our homely visors

patches of shade for Summer meanderings.

Oil painting in the background is oil on Canvas. A day at the Races by Claire Bunbury

https://www.facebook.com/p/Claire-Bunbury-Art-100063628504188/

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard

The Immortals

 

 

My neighbour tends to buy me plaques

ornamental garden ones

metal versions of the creatures that stalk my garden.

 

There’s the pink cat on the back fence

paw perpetually  poised 

but doomed to never catch its prey

 

And below him the butterfly pinned

in seasons’ rusted hues, wings extended at full span

graced to ever evade pink cat’s maw.

 

I have added to these a quartet of cats

in a neat row but facing backwards

tails curled for an adventure never to be embarked upon

 

Much like Yeats' birds of hammered gold

eternally endeavouring

to keep that drowsy emperor awake

 

All this straining futility, immortal as it is,

is enough to remind me to savour

this morning’s breakfast tea and toast.

Copyright 2024 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved