Friday, December 10, 2010

A Balm for my current Malady

Braided Cable Fingerless Gloves.  A respite from a busy day.



Sometimes all I want to do is sit and knit. My hands start to itch at work when there is too much to do and too many voices and I am starting to feel a bit grumpy. At these times, I can best be treated with a small dose of knitting.



Yes, knitting is my prescription for grumpiness. Variations in strength and specific directions are needed for different emotional conditions. Now,  if I am feeling blue, its best if I knit in the round and do a straight stockinette. When agitated, I am better with a simple lace, not too much of a challenge but enough to be a little diverting, just enough to take the edge off. But there are other times, when I am desprate for a respite and some balm of comfort is desperately sought.  Its at these times I want a substantive, detailed piece of work to feed my spirit and calm my nerves. A good cabled piece is good for this. Perhaps a sweater project. using a very soft yarn, like a merino silk blend or a Katmandu tweed (Cashmere blend)

With boredom, comes the need for a more challenging course of treatment. Normally a definitive prescription when a sense of accomplishment is the objective. . That’s when I bring out the Lace chart, stitch markers, and lifelines. I prepare myself for a challenge in making the puzzle come together with a pattern becoming ingrained in my brains synapses. A rhythm starts to be first indentified, then made normal, then become so secondary that my fingers know its course, even if my brain decides to go elsewhere for the duration.

Its for these reason, I argue, there are normally 4-6 projects on the needles waiting for whatever state I am. I can face the stash cabinet, looking for just the right ministration to soothe and calm and steady myself. My stash closet acts as a medicine chest, a treasured one with tried and true tonics within either colorful or neutral, rough or strong, or soft or crisp.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Traveling Sweater ... but the end of the road is illusive.

Traveling Down a Long Grey Highway - a knitted Woobu one

The Designer, Karen Alfke, said it (the pattern) is called Traveling Sweater because, like the pants of "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", this sweater looks good on all who wear it.  However, I think its because by the time you complete the horizontal 2ft wide, 8 ft long strip which makes up the bulk of the item, it feels like one has travelled a very long road before finding its completion.  Since the color of my version resembles the gray asphalt of the street this metaphor is visually reinforced.

A great piece of cloth has resulted from this very marvelous yarn (Woobu) and pattern from Blue Moon FiberArts.  A tad of knitting was also involved in the transformation from skein, to gray strip to what I hope will become a sweater I will wear and appreciate on cool nights. The raw material is wrapped around me in the photo above.  I was most pleased.

But I have to resort to copying the picture of the completed sample created for the RAVELRY website because although I loved knitting the project, I have not yet spent time to actually complete seaming the pieces together so that it can be worn and I can't proudly model the sweater myself.

And this fact brings me to the dilemma of the kind of knitter I am and what it may or may not reveal about me as a person.

I love to knit and I knit often.  I like the feel of the knitting in my hands.  I love going to yarn stores, and enjoy talking about it and sometimes I write about it. I feel it settles me, keeps me centered and calm. But only about a third of my knitting results in products. And to a disturbing extent, given how much effort and resources are spent in this activity, I am ok with the lack of results.  I am reaching for the lesson this fact is supposed to teach me.

I would like a few more completed, knitted items.
This lesson will be continued.....