Migration, Knitting, Spinning, and Strength

As you can see from today's picture above, several Purple Martins have successfully migrated back from Brazil to our site this season. We currently have approximately 40 or 50 adult Martins back in residence with many more expected. Last year we hosted 76 breeding pairs and we hope to top that number this year! We fledged just over 300 young Purple Martins from our colony site last season.

What a joy to host these wonderful birds! For more information about the commitment and responsibility necessary to become a successful Purple Martin landlord, please visit the Purple Martin Conservation Association for information.

Knitting

Lace knitting on the Trellis Scarf from the Spring 2006 issue of Interweave Knits is back on track. I'll be posting an updated picture soon. This is really a delightful knit and I am enjoying watching the lace materialize from the ends of my bamboo needles.

I can also highly recommend JaggerSpun Zephyr Silk Wool laceweight yarn. As you can see, this past week I found a wonderful bargain on a 1 lb. cone of Zephyr in the Chanel color. I have great plans for this yarn. One of those projects will be a Faorese shawl from the book, *Stahman's Shawls and Scarves*. I just need to narrow down which beautiful pattern from the book to knit.


Spinning and Strength

You can see that progress is being made on spinning my Cormo roving (on the left) on my Bosworth Drop Spindle. I have Polly Garvey to thank for this....THANKS POLLY! I wish I could claim the beautiful, thin twisted fiber you see draped across the cone of Jaggerspun Zephyr Silk Wool (color Chanel) as my own, but Polly was helping me at a Knit In on Saturday and made this beautiful strand. Do you see the thicker and lumpier strands wrapped around the shaft of the spindle. Well, those are mine. I'm definitely not a natural spinner like my friend Polly, but I am stubborn and determined...which will hopefully work in my favor eventually. : )

It is amazing to realize the amount of skill and technique required to make fine yarn. Spinning the fibers is necessary for strength and stability. Too much spinning and the fibers will be hard and overspun, too little and the yarn strand will be weak and easily broken. It takes just the right amount of spin to make a fine quality, soft, and strong yarn that reveals its full beauty.

As I sat at a spinning meeting tonight, trying to learn the skill of spinning with a drop spindle and using Cormo fiber, I realized that we are each very similar to a fine fiber. If we are spun too tightly we can become brittle, inflexible, rigid, recoiling and overspun. Without enough structure or twist in our lives and we are prone to weakness, not able to reach our potential, and may easily find ourselves broken. So, how are we to know the right amount of *spin*, or twist, in our lives to provide our maximum strength and beauty?

I am convinced that it is only through the loving care and grace of our Heavenly Father, for each of us, that strengthens us and sustains us as our lives are *spun*. It is His hand that is the skilled spinner of our lives. He knows just what to provide for each of us with His love, direction, strength, and grace to reach our potential ... if we just stop trying to spin our lives ourselves, and choose to welcome and follow His loving direction.

I'm leaving you with a picture of one of the strongest examples of God's wonderful creation. The tiny Hummingbird also migrates thousands of miles each season, returning to its North American nesting territory across oceans and miles of rough terrain on tiny wings, to mate and raise their young. Who could imagine that something so very tiny could make such a journey twice each year?

True strength is not always as we imagine it should appear.

I pray for each of you to have a wonderful week of blessings, health, strength, a deep contentment and joy in your heart and a closer relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Your Friend,

Shelly


NKJV
Jeremiah 9:11-13
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

II Corinthians 12:9
And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."