Lovers of the written word:

The late Mary Oliver’s poetry is both brilliant, down to earth, and so often quoted. I’ve seen literary scarves with text from Pride and Prejudice, Alice in Wonderland, the Raven, and even Maya Angelou’s poetry, but I haven’t found anything with Mary Oliver’s. My solution: hand letter a literary scarf myself.

I used a yellow and white infinity scarf from a local boutique. The material is a nylon/polyester blend, but a smooth cotton might work well, too.

A few tips:

1. Iron the fabric to the shiny side of a piece of white freezer wrap (buy it at any grocer’s). The material sticks just enough to the wrap to keep from slipping or bunching up while you write. This is a must. Keep the iron handy in case you miss a spot. For the infinity scarf, finish a section of writing, pull the scarf from the paper, and iron down the next section. For a rectangular scarf, iron the entire scarf down. You can reuse one piece of freezer wrap a couple of times.

2. A fabric pen from the craft store ensures permanence. Apparently permanent markers don’t hold up to washing. Be careful not to hold the pen to the fabric for long because it will to bleed. Be swift and light. I did get some bleeding, but I feel this adds to the authenticity of a handcrafted item.

I used Mary Oliver’s inspirational poem The Summer Day.

3. Here’s a little trick I learned from writing and teaching calligraphy: practice writing on a sheet of paper first. This warms up your hand, believe it or not. After a few minutes, your arm, hand and fingers loosen up and you’ll find a pleasing rhythm.

I really had no idea whether the entire poem would fill the scarf, but I was sure I wouldn’t run out of space. As it turned out, I had plenty of scarf left, so I rewrote sections of the poem going in the other direction.

After I made the infinity literary scarf, I tried lettering the same poem on a rectangular scarf. First I taped together sheets of paper the same length as the scarf, and wrote the poem out to see how many lines it would take. I’m pleased with the end result!

This would make the perfect gift for a bookworm or poetry lover. The possibilities for a literary scarf are endless — you can use poems, song lyrics, paragraphs, or quotes!

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

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Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of the award-winning literary novel In the Context of Love, a story about one woman’s need to tell her truth without shame. Discovering who you want to be isn’t easy when you can’t leave the past behind.

2017 New Apple Book Awards Official Selection
2016 Sarton Women’s Fiction Finalist
2016 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist
2016 Readers’ Favorite Finalist
2016 USA Book News Best Book Finalist

“…at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey.” ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed Once Upon a River,and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters

“With tenderness, but without blinking, Linda K. Sienkiewicz turns her eye on the predator-prey savannah of the young and still somehow hopeful.” ~ Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of the #1 NY Times Bestseller, Deep End of the Ocean

Buy now: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

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