Trish Knits.com

What a week this has been. I have been so busy and unable to post yet again. And here we are at the end of the summer, I spent this Friday night at the pool, doing what I usually do on Friday nights at the pool.

Knitting.

Except that I haven’t even done much of it this summer, knitting by the pool, and now the summer is drawing to a close. Too quickly. I am finding myself to be grouchy and said about this. It’s been mostly the weather, this hot, disgusting summer. I feel robbed of summer, and angry that this pleasant evening which was at last not too hot, is one of the few memories I will have of enjoying these last few months.

But, this evening was one of the finest. I got several rows done while listening to a Nora Roberts romance novel from her “Chesapeake Bay” series. It was great. And tomorrow is knit group, and then an evening at the pool again. It’s going to be a good knitting weekend.

The Smithsonian Community Reef

This week at work our workplace knit and crochet group was treated by a visit from a lady with the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project’s Community Reef at the Smithsonian. The Worldwide project is making a stop at the Museum of Natural History starting in October, and they are working toward having a community reef as part of the exhibit. I’m late in really understanding the project, and now I am fascinated. The project was started by two sisters in Australia who, when one of them crocheted a bunch of hyperbolic shapes and then they decided that as a collection they looked like a coral reef. Living near the Great Barrier Reef they thought that maybe they could call awareness to the health of our environments and the reefs through their love of fiber.

So the exhibit has now been all over the world and is coming to Washington. My co-worker Annette has gotten excited about the project and has begun making pieces for the reef. The Community Reef will showcase three types of reef: Healthy Reef, Bleached Reef (unhealthy) and Toxic Reef, which is reef that has grown up and around trash and other found objects that lurk in our oceans. Annette’s pieces, which I have photographed here, are examples of toxic reef. Water bottles, credit cards, used auto parts… these are all things which ocean animals must contend with and try to survive in spite of. I’m betting Annette’s piece made with the used auto air filter is going to find a prominent place in the exhibit. It’s a strange beauty.

So, if you’d like to participate in the project, and there’s still a little time, you can join the Ravelry Group or by e-mailing the project coordinator at sicommunityreef@yahoo.com for more information. I’m of course busy on my mystery project that I must remain loyal to until it’s done but I’m wondering how I can squeeze at least a couple of corals in. I think I want to be part of it. You should, too.