Summer Knittings

These days, September has turned into a magic Indian summer here in Denmark. All day, from dawn until dusk, my time is spent in the kitchen and in the garden, while taking knitting breaks in a deck chair on the lawn. It is a slippery mess with cherry plums making windfall everywhere. In the kitchen, the best berries are made into marmalade with white rum. The tomato plants too, are wildly prolific now that I have allowed them to spread on the south facing wall of the conservatory, and they reciprocate with new fruits almost every day. It is almost painful harvesting them before they ripen, but green tomato marmalade has to be made with unripe green tomatoes. Later, on a blistering winter day, this will be a great treat on toasted bread with a cup of tea.

As for blackberries, I have given up trying to keep up. I need time to knit too. Now that I have finally finished the summer models (a bit overdue one might say), I work on patterns for small-scale Christmas gifts that we shall soon offer at Danish Knit Design. And they need to be translated....However, an intensely blue September sky, makes it all go so much easier, and every now and then I allow myself to relax in the deck chair while admiring all this 'mellow fruitfulness' which John Keats (1795-1821) describes so brilliantly in his poem:

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,

and fills all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Another part of summer in Denmark is of course the sea and the old fishing boats providing inspiration to those last Matimime summer knittings.

En anden del af den danske sommer er selvfølgelig havet og de gamle fiskerbåde der hardannet inspiration til det sidste maritime sommerstrik.

Maritime summer Cardigan and striped top in Luxor Fino Cotton

This striped top is a good beginner project

Det er det mest vidunderlige vejr i Danmark for tiden, og dagene tilbringes lige fra morgenstunden, til solen går ned, i køkkenet og i haven, ind imellem i liggestolen med strikkeri. Vi smatter rundt i nedfaldsmirabeller, og inde i køkkenet koger vi marmelade med hvid rom af dem, vi plukker ned fra træerne. Og tomatplanterne, som jeg endelig i år har succes med, fordi de har fået lov til at brede sig på orangeriets sydvendte vindusvæg, kvitterer med fine frugter næsten hver dag; men det gør næsten ondt at høste dem, inden de modner, hvilket imidlertid er nødvendigt, når grøn tomat marmelade er et must sammen med en kop te på en sur vinterdag.

Brombærrene og blommerne har jeg opgivet at følge trop med. Der skal også strikkes og laves opskrifter til de julegaver i småtingsafdelingen, som vi senere vil tilbyde på Danish Knit Design - og opskrifterne skal oversættes ...

Det hele går imidlertid meget lettere, når solen skinner fra en intenst blå septemberhimmel , og ind imellem tager jeg mig tid til at slappe lidt af i liggestolen, mens jeg kigger ud på al den frodighed, the 'mellow fruitfulness', som John Keats (1795-1821) beskriver så vidunderligt i sit digt 'To Autumn' trykt oven for dette indlæg.