The Decency of Snails

Well, summer is still hanging on for dear life here, but fall has reclaimed the early mornings. The end must be near...



I have not given in to the wooly shawl yet. Instead, inspired by the a) amigurumi of a crocheting classmate on Ravelry and b) a long-abiding desire to use up the last of the Rowan Calmer that gave me such trouble in Christmas 2007, I pulled out my copy of Amigurumi Knits and knit a snail. Hansi is a knitter after my own heart in her unwavering dedication to grafting and picking up stitches rather than seaming. That whole snail has one seam that is not kitchener--where the shell attaches to the mantle. Genius.



When I started the project, I thought I could make it just a slug. It would be a sort of knitting therapy to get over the plague of slugs that coated the walkway to Dalkeith Estate. And the fields surrounding the estate, and the forest surrounding the fields. As a general rule, I'm ok with gross, but these slugs were too large, too slimy, and too numerous to be viewed with anything but a sort of horrified fascination. Seriously, there were so many slugs you had to keep your eyes on the ground walking in, out, and around the estate. Unless you happened to be ok with the thought of stepping on multiple slugs in the course of your walk, which I was absolutely not.



I got the slug part done and discovered that it looked quite indecently naked. How that is possible with a knitted toy, I'm not sure, but it was undeniably indecent. So it had to become a snail. There were some snails at Dalkeith, too. They were far fewer and farther in between, and somehow, less ugh-worthy than their shell-less cousins. Maybe I just like my gastropods clothed. Whatever the reason, it was a small matter to whip up the shell, and voilà--snail.

Pinky the Snail has quite happily taken up residence on my nightstand beside the Hansigurumi Loch Ness Monster, and I'm even thinking I could round out my collection of strange knitted toys--and use up the last of that Calmer--by knitting a little pink nautilus, or perhaps a go traditional with a chubby pink mouse. The possibilities!

Crossing Paths

One of the many things I love about blogging is the way you can cross paths with other bloggers in another state or another country without even meaning to.

This summer, I became intrigued by the flora of the UK. As my springtime forays indicate, I am reasonably familiar with the plants that grow here in the Sonoran Desert, but most of the plants I saw in gardens and fields in the UK were total strangers.

I like to know things, just for the sake of knowing, so not knowing the names of the plants all around was driving me nuts. This was especially the case with those tall, spiky plants with the purply-pink flowers. We saw them all over--on the embankments on the side of the road, in the waste beside the train tracks, and cutting purple swaths through fields around Dalkeith.



My first thought was that they were thistle (perhaps the one UK flower I can identify), but getting a good look at some real thistles (picture taken at Dalkeith Park) proved they were not. I had resigned myself to shelving them at the back of my mind with the UK hills, monuments, and villages I had seen but whose names I would never know.

Then I read Kate Davies' post about the Braids.



There the flowers were! And Kate knew their name: rosebay willowherb! (Her pictures are much nicer, too)

So utterly random, so utterly unessential, finding that name totally made my day. Now I know. I can go back to all my pictures of those swaths of purple and add the tag: rosebay willowherb.