Hearts On The Bonker Loom

Day 18: Now that the October Weave-along is over and both my waffle-weave projects are complete, my thoughts returned to the Bonker Loom, otherwise known as a Swedish band loom. Mine was made by Glimakra, one of very few companies offering this type of loom for sale. Why "Bonker?" Well, the warp threads run from right to left (east-west), as opposed to being strung vertically (north-south) from the weaver's perspective. The weft-bearing shuttle is passed away or toward the weaver's body rather than back and forth. On a regular loom, a beater of some sort would pack the throws against the fell, but in the case of the Bonker Loom, the thread is "bonked" into place with a band knife (wood or metal) using the hand not employed with running the shuttle. It was a little disconcerting at first, and my early bands had rather wobbly selvedges, but muscle memory and a sense for the tension of the weft came with practice. These little hearts are one of my favourite patterns. They are worked over five doubled warps (i.e., the pattern threads) and can be flanked with any number of variations depending on the desired width. The pattern warps could also be singles of a heavier thread. The idea is to have enough bulk that they appear embossed against the plain background weave. Some one of you is bound to remark, "But they're PINK!" and you'd be close to right. The colour is actually called Very Berry, and it's a light magenta. Besides, I didn't say this band was going on anything for personal use! I may not approve of their colour preferences, but some of my friends like it.

Bleeding-Hearts

Day 202: Before you even think about saying it, yes, they're pink, but who doesn't love Bleeding-hearts? These are Lamprocapnos spectabilis, Asian Bleeding-heart, a cultivated species separate from our wild Bleeding-heart, Dicentra formosa. But back to that opening statement. While it's not 100% by any means, it has struck me over the years that at least here in the lower altitudes of the Pacific Northwest, blooming periods tend to be dominated by one or two colours. First, we have daffodils and dandelions. Yellows give way to pinks and red in character of Bleeding-hearts, Red-flowered Currant and the early azaleas and rhododendrons. Pink is followed by blue delphiniums in the garden and camas on the prairies, a touch of purple creeping in around the edges. Lastly come the whites, as if Mother Nature had exhausted her palette. She scrapes at the corners for elusive touches of tint, applies them sparingly if at all. When summer closes, she's had time to make a trip to the store and goes hog-wild on autumn foliage instead of flowers, holding back her whole range of blues for that pure and rare September sky.

When Pink Is Permissible

Day 284: I take a lot of flak from people who know I detest pink when they see these flowers in my garden, but above all, I respect Ma Nature, and since she's insisting that these self-sowing, persistent volunteers be given their time in the sun, I'm not going to object too loudly. All four (Rose Campion, Deptford Pink, Cosmos and Nigella) are on the "magenta" end of the scale, not even close to the "baby pink" which causes my gorge to rise. They give a bit of colour to the flower beds now that the blues have mostly gone by, and for the most part, they remain below the taller yellows and golds (Snapdragons and Gaillardia) which currently dominate the Barren Wasteland. Bright reds are woefully lacking in my yard other than Crocosmia, somehow brushed aside when I was planning a "no-theme" planting scheme. My one main consideration was to avoid pink, yet here it is, and though it pains me to admit it, I'm glad to have them. Magenta...I'm tellin' ya, they're magenta! Shut up with the "pink" already!

Bending Rules

Day 205: My friends all know that I don't like pink. No, revise that. My friends all know I despise pink, so they are always surprised when I post images of pink-flowered plants in my garden. While I would hardly want to choose pink as the theme for the beds I see most frequently from my windows. I am willing to excuse it in quiet corners if it comes on a plant I particularly like. I have fluffy pink-skirted Columbines, Bergenia (only because I've been unsuccessful digging it out), heathers which lean rather toward rose than to lavender, fuchsias in both bright pink dresses and pale blush-tinted ones, and Bleeding-Hearts. No garden should be without Bleeding-Hearts, whether plump-flowered ones like this cultivar or the dainty natives. I'll bend the rule for Ma Nature. If her fashion sense dictates that she should wear pink to Spring Fête, who am I to say otherwise?

Mood Knitting

Day 142: Let's put it this way: I'm already in a vile mood. I might as well get some more of that damn pink yarn out of the way. I am an Angry Bird, and there is a pending Crow-'splosion just waiting for an opportunity to afford itself. I'm sure I don't need to point to the major factor in my discontent (mild word, that), but there are a myriad of other smaller thorns festering in my side, most of which have some connection to the internet. The social media scene is not my cup of tea, and reading daily about things I am powerless to change is depressing in the extreme. That said, the internet is like an addictive drug. It pulls you back, no matter how hard you try to struggle out of its grip. I use the excuse "I have to do my blog post," and the next thing I know, I'm swearing at Facebook, not just for splashing my screen with the Fat Bastard's ugly face on every page, but for salting my feed with material in which I have no interest at all. My patience and tolerance are suffering even outside the world of my computer, and my temper is on a three-star short fuse. At the very least, I need a Facebook vacation, but somebody please alert me when the impeachment proceedings begin.

Stranded Knitting

Day 135: This is what happens when Crow is housebound: pink knitting. I'm going slightly stir-crazy, and I have to get rid of the leftovers from the pussy hats...I have to! I don't want to see them when I dive into the stash. Even so, this has been good practice in the technique of stranded knitting which, when all is said and done, is almost as pretty on the back as it is on the front. However, there's only so much pink I can take at a time. Even though I wasn't looking at my reflection in a mirror when I head-tested the hat on the left for fit, I could feel my gorge rising at the very thought. Seriously, I charge $2 more per pair of socks if somebody wants pink. I need green, people. I need trees and lichens and the smell of the forest and my boots pounding a trail. Lemme out of here before I go totally nuts!

Chance And Choice

Day 232: The columbine pictured here is one of the "pinks" which came with my house. While the yellow skirt makes it almost acceptable, it is still one of the colours I have been systematically relocating to other parts of the yard because when I see it, I think "pink" despite the fact that it is almost dark enough to qualify as red (if not the bright red of our native variety).

On the other hand, this is the calibrachoa ("Million Bells") I selected to go with bright red geraniums in my hanging baskets this year. Okay, it looked redder at the nursery, but even so, the overall palette is almost identical to that of the columbine. I think I owe the columbine an apology; clearly, my logic is not consistent.

Love-Hate Relationship

Day 90: I can't decide whether I love to hate this jigsaw puzzle, or hate to love it. I will admit that it is a favourite, although I don't do it nearly as often as others I like for the same reasons. I enjoy difficult jigsaws, and this one certainly fits the profile. The problem is that it's...PINK. It may look like it has a good range of colours when you look at the box, but the bottom line is that all but a very few of those 1000 pieces are PINK when you pour them out on the table. And we all know my opinion of PINK. It even disgusts me to write the word.

I bought it from Burpee Seed Co. years ago. It came with a packet of seeds bearing the exact same picture. I dutifully sowed the seed in the "barren wasteland" between my house and garage, and quietly rejoiced when it failed to germinate. Don't get me wrong. I like windflowers...as long as they're some other colour than PINK.

It will take me a few days to put the puzzle together. I find it difficult to work on under artificial light. In sunlight, I perceive the subtlety of shades; however, occasionally when I walk out of the room in the evening and return with a fresh eye along with my coffee, I may manage to fit in a PINK piece or two. Why couldn't Burpee have chosen nasturtiums?

Purple When Purchased

Day 335: It was a pretty lavender colour when I bought it. I swear it was. I would not have bought a pink-flowering heather (or a pink-flowering anything else for that matter because I despise pink). It was a nice shade of greyish lavender, the colour one expects heather to be. Maybe it's the pH of my soil, although acidic soils generally influence flowers toward the blue end of the spectrum, as anyone who's ever tried to grow a pink hydrangea in western Washington will know all too well. Maybe it's taking up some of the red dye in the bark mulch I laid around it. That seems a more likely explanation. In any event, when I put in new plants this last spring, I added not one but two pots of heather. The second one isn't quite as rosy, but it's definitely not the same purple it was when I put it in the ground.