Feral Knitter

A Full Life

Abundance and over-abundance, such a fine balance. Valerie's recent blog entry was very good on the subject. I've been sorting through my stash of yarns, books, magazines, and rovings, thinking about how they got here and whether they should stay. For me the line is this: if the things I have spur me to make or do something, then I have abundance. If the things provoke confusion or feeling of being overwhelmed or bored, then I have over-abundance and need to take corrective action.

I've been reading a lot recently. A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg is a gem of a book. Molly blogs as Orangette; the book is a chronological collection of essays about her life and food. There's nothing precious about it, just really good writing--I heartily recommend this one. 

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner was an enjoyable voyage around the world. I really enjoyed this--a humorous (but not facile) look at the serious question: How can we be happy?

And for color fanatics, Kimono as Art: The Landscapes of Itchiku Kubota, edited by Dale Carolyn Gluckman, is inspirational.

This link leads to more information about the artist and pictures of his work.

I've also been knitting a simple cardigan out of Silke Tweed I found in my stash. It is soothing to knit such a plain piece while my head is filled with plans for more complex color work!

 

And I've been spinning up the natural dyed roving that I spoke about a few posts ago:

 

 

Now I will determine how much yardage I have and what I want to make with this!

It's a full life, indeed.

Farewells

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
~Dawna Markova

I flew up to Seattle this weekend to attend the memorial service of a family friend, Jo Youngblood, the mother of a dear friend of mine. Although Jo had lived a long time and was suffering from the devastating effects of Alzheimer's, it was nonetheless sad to say goodbye. Memories of my childhood flooded back as I looked at the crowd who filled the chapel--so many people I knew, so many people gone. Of the neighborhood crowd my mother is one of the few survivors. It was good, though, to gather with Jo's children over the dinner table to talk about our lives then and now.

I came away committed to living my days more fully. Middle-aged women, especially, can be made to feel that their lives are no longer significant. I vow to stand firm against the cultural tide--to make art, to spend time with friends, to help the needy, to laugh, to not spend one more minute worrying about my weight or my wrinkles!

Inspiration Journals

Let your hook always be cast. In the pool where you least expect it will be fish
               ~Ovid

In the past I've written about essential tools for feral knitters: garment design, charts, yarn. But I've forgotten to talk about the resource I rely on just as often: my inspiration journal.

"Journaling" is a big business these days. I see glossy magazines on the newsstand and intimidating books on the Barnes & Noble shelves. Keeping a journal would seem to be a full-time job, to be tackled only by those with plenty of time, money, and god-given talent. Others need not apply.

A few years ago, I decided to ignore all that noise--I needed a way to store and access the many odd clippings and notes I'd accumulated along the way. A large, sturdy, hardcover, spiral-bound 9 x 12 sketchbook proved to be the perfect size (I can't remember who made the one I use or where I bought it, but this400 series Strathmore sketchbook sounds like the one). Like swatching, the goal is not a perfect journal--the goal is a useful tool. With that in mind, I just began pasting in clippings of anything that inspired me. These might be colors in ads or catalogs, postcards of artists I admire, sketches I've drawn while sitting in waiting rooms pondering garment shapes or log cabin square variants, quotes and poems that inspire me, and evocative phrases ("all that the rain promises"). I find material in many different places, but magazines and art catalogs are the best source--National Geographic, Oprah, Smithsonian. Library magazine exchanges or book sales are a wonderful source (I have a love of magazines that could bankrupt me if I didn't control it!). I tried not to get obsessive about making the page look good or even determining whether the particular image was "worth" keeping.

Random pages from my journal:

 

 

 

 

As time goes on, my journal becomes more and more valuable to me. What interests me most is the unconscious preferences that are revealed when I leaf through the pages: over and over again I am drawn to blue-green/orange combinations and photos of roses, for example.

My journal would not be the first thing I would save if the house were burning down, but I'd definitely grab it on the second dash into the flaming structure!

There are no right answers. But there is a right question. It's the one that rubs up against our self-righteousness, resistance, and fears.... When you ask yourself, "Why not?" you may find yourself in motion, across a vivid and unpredictable landscape, over impossible mountains and beyond the water's edge, where you surprise yourself, once and for all, by getting wet.
    ~Karen Maezen Miller, in Momma Zen

Becoming 3D

Whew. This cold has kicked my ass royally. I'm only just now feeling some vestiges of energy, and it's been nearly 3 weeks. But alive I am, and just about ready to have a life to write about in this blog! I'll try to catch up a bit:

I've been spinning a lot--as I sat at my desk I could see the naturally dyed rovings piled onto the wall shelves, and I fell in love with the deep pink next to the warm orange-brown. I found a light pink and two progressively lighter browns/tans--5 Blue Faced Leichester rovings in all, about 2 ounces each. I carded each one and then split it in half. One half was split in half again--these were carded with each other so that there are light pink, pink mix, dark pink, dark pink+deep warm orange mix, deep warm orange, deep warm orange+med warm orange mix, medium warm orange, med warm orange+tan, and tan batts. Each of these was split in half (and checked on my scale) and carded again so that I ended up with two piles of batts. I'm spinning them up separately and will ply them, hoping for a fingering weight yarn for a shawl.

One bobbin down, another to go.

I don't have pictures of Madrona, so I'll have to just say that it was fun. I enjoyed the class I took from Janel Laidman called Spinning a Painted Skein. She had us try several different ways of splitting and plying rovings to get different effects--a way of playing with color that is very different from the color work I do in Fair Isle. This class probably inspired me to try the experiment I'm working on now--even though this was not the focus of Janel's class, there's just something about opening one's mind to new possibililties that spills over into other areas.

On the good news side, Erika (mother of the cutest baby in the world) had a baby girl last week--yet another cute one, if the photos don't lie!

I enjoyed a visit with Sarah Peasely and Karen Frisa, who were here for Stitches West--we spent the day going to yarn shops and eating excellent Mexican food. I love Berkeley!

Oh, there's been more stuff going on, but I won't give you a play-by-play. I want to just move past this period and start blogging about knitting!