Clearly I *am* crazy…
After getting through two repeats of the Branching Out scarf, I took a good long look at it and promptly ripped out the whole thing. It didn’t look good — I have no photographic evidence of this, but trust me it just wasn’t pretty. So clearly, I was crazy.
First, the handspun was all wrong for a lace project. It is a bit too uneven (I’m still learning…) and also I apparently haven’t mastered the oh-so-complicated (please note sarcasm) art of plying, because I am fairly certain the tightness of the ply is partly to blame for the lack of yummy softness a merino yarn ought to have.
Second, I’ve somehow lost interest in making other people’s patterns. And it isn’t even that I want to design my own patterns so that other people can make them. I just want to create my own things. My own originals. One of a kind. Unique. And it’s all her fault. Well, not entirely her fault, but she got me thinking…
Some of you may be familiar with her as “She of the knitting tarot fame.” I happened to stumble across her blog (how much do we all owe to a few luckily followed links…) right about the time that she started talking about Knitting Revolution (If you want to check it out, start with March 28th and work your way up). She asked people about it, explored what it might look like, gave us a glimpse into her ideas and her art, and touched on what knitting might be if we were all artists and there were no patterns and everything was a unique creation. And in that moment, my knitting brain expanded and I was done for.
And now that I think about it, it might have been right around that time I started to lose interest in Rogue. Ideas for some creations of my own have been swimming around in my head since I first picked up two sticks and some yarn, and I don’t know what has been holding me back. I guess I still feel like a novice — inexperienced and foolish, utterly lacking the skills one needs to create something of their very own. How very wrong I have been. If you don’t learn by doing, then how ever do you learn? How have I even gotten this far?
Of course, this is just one more piece in the whole grand puzzle of things. And since I tend to think in terms of evolution, I can see that this all started long before I taught myself to knit. Long before I learned to crochet, even. And, thankfully, it will still be in process many years from now. We are never “done.”
I think that the true nature of a knitting revolution is singularly unique for all of us, but one thing that she brought up that I come to again and again is that primary to all of this blogging, and the knit-a-longs, and the shared trials inherent in knitting the same patterns, and so on, is ultimately connection. We are longing for community and pressed for time, and somehow it culminates in this common obsession with fiber — aided, of course, by technology. What a strange and marvellous world.
April 28th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
The thing of it is, is…sometimes you have to knit stuff that isn’t thought up entirely by you just to learn a technique that will later enable you to create entirely what you had been thinking of creating. Know what I mean? Process is very important. Same thing with writing…you write a lot down but not all of it gets into the pieces you consider to be good. You have, however, learned something with every single word you write, no matter where those words end up: the circular file or the submitted manuscript. So, something ended up in the frogpond. You discovered a few things about what you do and don’t want something to look like.
You’re doing a fine job, Ms. Knittiot (I can so picture that on the blackboard ;-)))
April 29th, 2005 at 9:41 am
I wish I had more time to write. I just had to tell you quickly that while your entries are always fun and thought-provoking, this one was especially so.
If you want to knit with no pattern, you go for it. If not now, when? There won’t ever be a perfect time to take a leap like that. And even if it means a few false starts or odd finished pieces, what will you lose? Nothing, really - the hours and yarn invested will be more than compensated by the education you’ll get.
And THANK YOU for the link to the Knitting Tarot. I have a secret fantasy involving letterpress, and I have been poring over every word of the site.