Vagabond Shawl

I love autumn. I love the sunny, warm days, and the cool evenings. I like the absence of mosquitos at night. I like putting the puffy duvet on the bed. Now that I am retired, I love not having to start another school year. I love picking apples and making enough unsweetened applesauce for the year. And I love the colours in nature.

When I was a kid, we had to memorize Bliss Carman's  (1861 - 1929) "A Vagabond Song" - a beautiful poem about autumn.

"There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood --

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry

Of Bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir'

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name."

Last fall I spun some beautiful Polwarth fibre.

I chain-plied it to maintain the integrity of the colours.

Then wound it into a yarn cake that looked very Freia-esque.

I thought Susan Ashcroft's Quaker Yarn Stretcher Boomerang would be the perfect pattern for it.

I finally blocked it last night.

And took it for a tour of our yard today... on the fence in full sun.

 A close-up.

And from the side. The 'yellow and the purple and the crimson' are definitely 'keeping time'.

In honour of the onset of autumn, I am calling it my Vagabond Shawl.