When we first moved into our house three years ago, one of our neighbors reminisced about the teaberry she used to collect en masse in the forest just up the hill outside of town. Teaberry, also known as wintergreen, is native to Pennsylvania and is a popular ice cream flavor that, I belive, you can only find in this keystone state of ours. (It also happens to be one of my favorites--in the top four along with vanilla, coffee and rum raisin.) Pennsylvania is also the birthplace of teaberry gum which, like violet candy, can be an acquired taste.
Little did we know that after three years of trecking back and forth just where the neighbor indicated, that we would suddenly discover a patch of teaberry carpeting the floor of the wood. What a tasty surprise!
We came wholely unprepared for wildcrafting, so we just took a sample and committed to memory the location(s) of the larger villages of the creeping evergreen.
This was also the maiden voyage of my first crotcheted hat. Since I could not for the life of me figure out any of the crotcheted hat instructions on paper or online, I made it up. It's a little short and it certainly "breathes" (ie. has a pretty loose knit), but I really like the shape.
I can almost believe there are little pointed ears hiding under that blue yarn.
2 comments:
That is a most fantastic hat. I can crochet, but I'm hopeless at following patterns, because I can never remember which stitch is which - double-crochets often end up with a few too many loops of yarn, and then somehow I find I've come up with a quadruple or something...
I plan to do much more wild crafting this year.
Though I'll not 'spect to find teaberry.
:)
Post a Comment