These Needles for Hire!

Everyone who knits anywhere near me has had an earful of me & my “Yarn Diet”.

I might should oughta cool off about it, right?

Well… I will eventually, but last night I received a “squeaky wheel” boon from the yarn gods.

My fingers have been yearning to work some lacework with (Blue Sky) alpaca silk ever since it came into the shop! Would I REALLY ever actually WEAR the gorgeous product of such an experience? Probably not. If my cat or coffee mug didn’t do something horrible to it, Sam would.

A wonderful Lady who intermittently comes into the KN has commissioned me to knit this project for her! (Clementine Shawlette by Michelle Rose Orne, which was published in Interweave Knits Magazine, Spring 2007)

Get paid for indulging my yarn lust? How does this happen?

Why am I writing this now? I should log off & get back to it tout de suite!

Later in July...Here is the Finished Product!!!

I hope my patroness wears it in happiness & good health!

Knitting as Therapy???

"I'll take "The Rapists" for $200, Trebek!"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Jeopardy!_(Saturday_Night_Live)]

I've only had a successful brush with therapy ONCE. I've tried many times. I run into the basic problems. (i.e. My therapist is not as smart/creative/well educated as I would hope... They do not trust that I will not harm myself when I admit to thinking about it but say I refuse to indulge in my thoughts (aka "ideations")... Or, worst of all, I am able to charm them into talking about something else other than my issues for the hour I am with them...)

I know I SAID I'd avoid my personal issues in this blog. However, there is a disclaimer in the 1st post.

So, considering I have not had much success in my search for what society calls therapy to combat the stresses, depressions, & evil intrusive thoughts... Why am I still here? Art. Quite Simply, I have not made all the things I want to yet.

Summer Vacation (which is really a "Staycation") often results in a depression for me. I am overjoyed to have my Sam, but there is still a lot on my mind & weighing down my heart from the rough break-up with his deadbeat father (Hence-forth referred to as "The Sperm Donor")... Plus myriad other bugaboos from my squirming toad of a maladjusted psyche.

I have some "Capital A" Art ambitions, but it is difficult to follow up on those when you are completely broke & devoting the best of your energies to an adorable little Sprout.

Even though I have been knitting since an early age, it seems to be the go to Art/Craft, lately.

Expensive? Heck, yeah! Right now I am on what knitters call a “Yarn Diet” (since I pay more for my son’s day care than I do for my mortgage). As I have to work only with the yarn I already have… I’m finding that it forces me to be a bit more creative in my stitching choices & emphasize getting my thrill from designing my own stuff!

The Knitting Groups (Quills Knitters & The Knit Nook... even ravelry.com online) I go to keep me from "isolating" & giving in to the indulgence of a depression.

Recently, I've been making EVERYTHING out of dishcloth yarn & scrap. For the cotton, I can thank a wonderful woman at my LYS who gave me a big bag of it! (Thank You Liz!) Anyway, Peaches & Creme or Sugar & Spice is a colorful, washable, comfy & indestructible knitting medium! (Once again, ask Liz, whose man cleaned a grill with one of her dishcloths… ostensibly to show how “useful” it was… She did say it was a pink one he never liked…)

I've been designing a Lion Stuffie out of the aforementioned cotton to be my part in the Quills Knitters Summer KAL.

I will finally finish the many little projects I have started & put on hiatus this year.

I'm gonna make a dreamy version of the Mr. Greenjeans Cardigan out of stashed Malabrigo I had even forgotten I still had. Fellow knitters, IMAGINE my delight when I discovered THAT hidden in an unassuming plastic grocery bag during my latest yarn closet reorganization! Sigh.
[http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall07/PATTgreenjeans.html]

I wish I felt this way about a FOOD diet!

Yes. Yarn addiction is a sock monkey on my back.

But, I will say this: Knitting is cheaper & more effective than psychotherapy!

Jesus' Seamless Garment... Raglan?

Okay, I’m not trying to start a religious discussion here (because , apparently, “the seamless robe of Jesus” is a code phrase for some pretty hot button issues I don’t want to argue with anyone) , but isn’t this cool?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamless_robe_of_Jesus

Some sources even say (though most historians say it cannot be supported by fact) Mary was a knitter! Apparently a seamless knitter, at that!

There is a famous painting of Mary working some dpns! Now, Renaissance painting is notoriously historically inaccurate... usually each artist made a point of putting the historical figures in the latest of European fashion/architecture & engaged in daily European activities... So, don't be mislead here...

Apparently, according to textile historians, crochet came first.

Then, a hybrid of the two called “Nalbinding”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A5lebinding

When I say textile historians say crochet must have come first, they are citing examples of ancient fishing nets, which are made by something that looks a whole lot like a thick & manly wooden crochet hook or else a sort of proto-macrame technique.

Most crocheters hold that the craft as practiced today started in the 1800's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crochet

When I research the topic one thing keeps coming up: textile experts seem to be a highly specialized bunch. (Mark Twain said “To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail.” Weavers see everything as weaving, etc.)
Anyway, nothing conclusive seems to be able to be determined by the scant surviving textile examples. Knitted/tatted/crochet items were loved & used unto rags… then reclaimed by nature. It seems you have to find something buried with the dead to get a sample of anything…

Plus, stitchers are very clever. Every time I come to Ravelry, I see an inspired innovation to overcome knitting/fiber technique limitations. I love the thread about adapting patterns to seamless versions!

One thing I will say… Nalbinding seems like a total pain in the rump! It seems a backward way of doing anything to pass the whole of the thread/yarn through each loop. I can’t imagine that any busy stitcher would settle for it, especially for all those thousands of years those experts say they did. I’d love to ask an expert if they weren’t just trying to unravel that sock backward. A toe-up pattern makes so much sense for people who wanted to use the least thread/yarn possible for the job… Or, did not know if they had enough for the project on hand.

I’ve tried to frog something from the wrong end by accident (I was reclaiming some wool from a thrift shop cashmere) & because I didn’t know any better at the time, I thought it was strange that I had to pick out every stitch (... as if the entire length of thread had been passed through the loops!).
Oh well, I guess I’ll have to do more research & start stalking textile experts…

What I have found so far (controversial Dura-Europos Fragment, notwithstanding...): the earliest documented example of what we call knitting is a sock (See? Seamless!) from Egypt 1000 A.D. It's pretty complex, so it's safe to infer that knitting has been around for much longer than that... sorta like thinking that Egyptians or Sumerians started out their civilization making pyramids & Ziggurats!

Here is an excellent article about knitting history:

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEAThistory101.html

It even has a link to the Folk Socks version of the Coptic Sock pattern!

I started a thread in the Seamless Knits group on Ravelry & have gotten some pretty astute discussion from some pretty sharp stitchers. However, I don't have permission to post their writing, so if you want to be privvy to their comments, then check it out there! Apparently, Jesus was one stylin' rabbi... wearing the latest in fashion!

"I used to be an Intellectual..."

“I used to be an Intellectual… Then I had children!” -Bill Cosby

I will be the first to admit something happens to your mind when you spend most of your conscious time with a non-verbal, breast obsessed male… Lately, I’ve been fascinated by Norah Gaughan’s Celestine pattern for Polyhedrons (as you can see in my other projects). I hope she (or Buckminster Fuller r.i.p.) is not too taken aback by my Fiber Art homage to Motherhood, Breastfeeding & Baby Boys.

Any hoo… I have taken Celestine as a starting point & then went off the rails with the “Boob-a-Hedron”! This is the first piece of art I've felt COMPELLED to make since Sam's birth. I mean the kind of driven, stay-up-late-and-not-care kind of art I love to make. The kind of art that causes you to have an internal dialogue like a child making mud-pies... when time has no meaning & you only love your present moment kind of thing... Sigh.

I changed the increases to make for more rounded breasts & modified the closures to shape out the nipples.

Yes. I know it's absurd.

If you’re not laughing… Then you just don’t get it.

There are stars in the structure!!!

I also think it rather odd & beautiful that the unstuffed Boob-a-hedron looks a little bit like a Lotus Flower!

Sam really enjoys the piece. I waited to unveil it at my Tuesday night knitting group (Quills Knitters)... Not only did I want to show off the piece, I wanted the ladies to get the full enjoyment of watching Sam's first impression. Thankfully, our fearless leader, Sonya, was there with her camera. I adore the sequence of Sam's reactions: Astonishment, Infatuation, then... Frustration with Artifice ("Hey! These things don't work!").

I did do a "serious" art piece on the multi-breast theme two years ago, when I still had some ambitions to capital "A" Ahrrrt! (Those ambitions are currently dormant... not dead!)

It was well received as a performance art costume/performance & I was really proud to have it hang here in Louisville at the Zephyr Gallery for a few months as part of a show the performances curator/coordinator Michelle Kellond Amos was having... I'm sure more than a few of the visitors that came there thought she did every piece in the show... I was just thrilled to be out there showing at all!

I don't know if the Artist's Statement is readable here... During the Performances, MKA read our words & there was incredible improvised jazz by Ut Gret while we danced around in our costumes. It was probably ridiculously pretentious. I don't care. I had a blast!

I'd love to do more Art. Each Summer I swear I'm gonna get enough stuff together for a gallery show of my own... Perhaps this is the year...

You knowwhat? Why is knitting never given gallery space? I see tons of things on Ravelry that would definitely qualify as Art rather than Craft (I'll write an entry about Art vs. Craft later, I suppose...). So... Why no knitting?

In Thee Beginning...

So... I'm taking the leap.

At the urging of friends I'm putting together a blog.

I have no intention of tiring anyone with my personal noodlings or anguish (Though I am sure they will creep in no matter what...). I want to share the products of my creative process.

Perhaps the "pressure to publish" & the external validation that a blog provides will spur me to create when I would rather be lazy. Who can know?