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Restingmotion

Looking Back 2: The Knitting Front
Another glance over my shoulder perhaps, this time looking at my knitting progress in 2022.

Let's get the statistics out of the way first. In 2022 I finished 10 projects and used up 71 skeins of yarn totaling 10,909 yards. On first glance, it looks like I knitted less than the previous year in that there were two fewer finished objects, but the objects were larger and used more yarn. Technically, it is not about yarn use, although that was one of my goals, or number of finished objects, but both of methods of accounting serve a purpose.

More specifically, the project breakdown was as follows:
- two blankets
- one soft-sculpture (toy)
- four shawls
- one pair of socks
- two sweaters
Now let's look at that more thoroughly.

There were no photos taken of the two blankets or the toy. The toy and the first blanket was started in 2021 but never really photographed or blogged. This was probably because I had mixed feelings about them from the get-go, but I was too pig-headed to give up, rip out, and start something new. Instead I forced myself to finish both and promptly gave them away. The second blanket was one of those crazy ideas where I decided at the last minute to knit a baby blanket, finished it in a desperate rush, and immediately presented it to the new parents. I really liked that blanket, but I was too overwhelmed at the time to deal with record-keeping.

After that experience I decided I would never force myself to finish something again. I would admit defeat or I would rip and repurpose. Luckily, my remaining projects of the year turned out to be far more satisfying, although admittedly there were some false starts and some ripping out. Each false start then became a challenge and an opportunity. Not all of those opportunities have yet been realized as projects, but I have found a certain satisfaction in the simple act of swatching, in letting a yarn tell me what it is, even if that initial exploration does not yield immediate results.

But now that the disappointments are out of the way, what about the successes?

I knitted four shawls, the first three of which were blogged (shown above). Shawlography, (pink, purple, green wool) was started as part of Stephen West's 2021 MKAL. It was challenging, often fun, and sometimes maddening. None of the techniques were particularly difficult in and of themselves, but West did put things together in ways I would not necessarily have thought of if left to my own devices. Knitting this shawl was both fun and a constant struggle. This was partially due to the fact that my fingers, beset with lingering chemotherap-induced neuropathy, struggled to maintain tension, and partially because I was constantly fretting about my color choices. Half the time I was convinced that the resulting shawl would only be suitable for a clown show, and it was not until I knit the final border that I could admit to being happy with the result. Even so, it gets the least wear of the three, primarily because it makes the boldest statement. Still I think it was the accomplishment I was most proud of. I learned a great deal knitting it, mostly because the brioche was not kind to my hands. The brioche was ripped twice and reknit, even with the ripping and reknitting, I struggled. The sense of accomplishment I feel for this shawl is primarily due to that brioche section. Not only did I come to love brioche, I taught myself how to drop down to repair individual errors in brioche without ripping back and entire section, an accomplishment of which I am still proud even though I can honestly say that if the mistakes are many and frequent, it is still easier to simply rip back. Skill-wise, this shawl was my greatest accomplishment of 2022.

The cream striped Nantucket Summer shawl was the biggest shawl I knit in 2022, at 22 x 120 inches. It is almost a blanket and it has admittedly seen me through many cool evenings on the patio as well as early mornings watching the sun rise, coffee and hand. The yarn was originally intended for a cardigan, but as I have a long-standing aversion to heavy cotton cardigans, I feared it would be a cardigan I would never wear. The shawl is wonderful and I wrap myself up in it all the time, a perfect choice for me.

My absolute favorite knit of 2022 was the Artyarns silk wrap I named blue wave. This was an absolutely fun knit, full of short rows and changing colors. It required attention but was not particularly difficult and it was so exciting that I raced through it. This shawl was completely fun to knit and the results are absolutely gorgeous. Using 766 yards of Artyarns beaded silk and sequins light, knitting this wrap is an indulgence but well worth it. If I could justify having two versions of such a distinctive wrap, I would happily knit it again. It was that much fun.

My final finished project of 2022 was the fourth shawl, seen above. This shawl was knit in Noro Kakigori, a mostly cotton and silk yarn, using the "Stormy Sky" pattern by Ksenia Naidyon. Originally purchased for use with another yarn in a different project, it became evident upon swatching that I hated the two yarns together and felt that this yarn was completely unsuitable for its originally intended use. Upon further swatching I decided that I liked the fabric the yarn created and that it would be lovely as a relatively simple shawl. It is a not particularly large shawl, with both drape and a touch of crispness, which I think will prove very versatile in Knoxville's climate. I would happily knit with more Kakigori, because it creates a lovely fabric, although the yarn itself tends to want to twist up on itself while knitting, so it does require a bit of patience.

The one pair of socks knitted in 2022 have proven quite satisfactory. I intentionally knit them longer than my usual, perhaps a tad too long, but they still get worn. The Mominoki Finnwool, used for the body of the sock, is 100% wool without the nylon usually added for sock yarns. It was a remnant from Shawlography and put to good use here. I actually prefer socks that are pure wool without nylon, but they don't tend to wear as well, and so, as it true for so many things in life, represent a trade-off. These are holding up well, except for a bit of wear at the back of the ankle above the heel. I suppose it is a bit early to see that much wear after less than a full year's wear, and that area will be mended when the time comes. I love the socks nonetheless.

As I look in my sock drawer, I see that I need more socks, and I am loathe to purchase them. It seems that there must be sock knitting on the horizon. I have thought of exploring breed specific wool, looking for hard-wearing wools that hold up better for socks and I may well do that. In the end, however, I will probably mostly use nylon reinforced sock wool, which comes in many pretty colors. Although I may struggle with a brightly colored shawl, I have no issue with wearing carnival-colored socks. The first pair of socks I ever knit are still going strong, after 13 years, knitted with KnitPicks simple stripes, 75% wool yarn, a ringing endorsement if ever there was one. I will admit that the tutti-frutti color palette of that first pair is not one I would chose today, but those socks simply will not die. That specific yarn has been discontinued, but I would think KnitPicks' sock yarn would still be a good economical and hard-wearing option if that is a consideration. But longevity is not my primary criteria when knitting socks. I am all for knitting, and wearing, what one loves and we each make the compromises that best suit us. I am fine with balancing practicality with comfort in my sock wardrobe, but also admit that there is nothing quite as nice as cashmere socks on a cold evening, even if they are not practical for everyday wear. Perhaps my sock wardrobe needs a touch of softness, as well as an indulgence in frivolous colors.

Even though I was once almost exclusively a garment knitter, I only knot two sweaters in 2022. The first, a cardigan finished in June, was not really worn until fall, when the temperatures had cooled. Although it is not a winter cardigan, being knitted with cotton/nylon/polyester novelty yarns, this was not a sweater for hot humid summer heat. It may have been had I followed the pattern as written, which was for a cardigan with more ease and drape.. After knitting my swatches however, the hand of the resulting fabric reminded me of the kind of light drapey boucle that is often used for soft Chanel-style jackets, and I decided that a short, more fitted cardigan was required. I altered the pattern accordingly, individualizing it by taking in some of the asymmetry I was finding in my sewing pattern sloper development. There was some fudging, and some ripping and reknitting, which is not easy when three rather snaggy strands are held together while knitting. But I am absolutely enamored of the finished cardigan. This is not a hard-wearing everyday sweater but more of an occasional item. I need to take care not to catch the rather fine sequined filament that runs through the sweater on buckles, latches, or even rings and other jewelry. This cardigan wants to be the star of the show in its own understated way. It is a sweater I can imagine myself wearing for a long time.

The second sweater was for a wool shell or vest, knitted to be worn as a layering piece. The pattern was Carol Feller's Trellis top, and I used the recommended yarn, Stolen Stitches Nua Sport. Even thought I used the designer's yarn I did not quite manage to get gauge, My gauge was slightly tighter in stockinette, but the same as the recommended gauge in the pattern stitch. Since I wanted to make my sweater a bit more close-fitting than the pattern, this was easy enough to manage. Aside from size issues, I more or less knit the pattern as written with the exception of the shoulder shaping and the finishing. The original design is looser and more casual, with button bands in lieu of seamed sides. As I was seeking a more classically close-fitting silhouette that could also be worn under a jacket, I simply seamed the sides. I am very happy with the result and this sweater has already proven to be a favorite. I wore vests frequently in my 20s and early 30s, did not wear them in the intervening decades, and find I now reach for them again and again, something to consider as I contemplate future knitting.

As to 2023, who knows.

My plan is to begin the year by finishing the temperature blanket I started at the beginning of 2022. This started as a whim, but I have mostly stuck with it. I put the blanket aside during the hot months and picked it up after Thanksgiving, trying desperately to catch up. When the year ended, I had knitted the blanket through the last day of September, or three-quarters through the body of the blanket.

I am determined to finish this blanket before finishing anything else this year. Since January 1 I have knitted 47 garter ridges, which finished out October and put me half-way through November. I should finish the body by early February and then I need to pick up and knit the borders, As you can see from the blanket, spread out on my bed, the borders will be long, and I am thinking now that I do not want them to be particularly narrow, although I am considering the idea that the side borders may be wider, perhaps, than the top and bottom borders. I haven't yet calculated what color the borders should be, but if I am serious about finishing this, I should figure that out and make sure I have the yarn in house before it is needed, simply to avoid further delays. I do know that should I put it aside, it will be difficult to pick back up again, so best to keep knitting until it is finished. The blanket itself is fun because I love watching the color patterns unfold. The border of course will be more tedious, but the reward will be in the joy of curling up under it on chilly evenings.

Also on the schedule for this year is to finish a modular, log-cabin style blanket I started knitting out of Plymouth's Baby Alpaca Grande, I do think I will take a short break between blankets, finishing something smaller. I have another sleeveless cotton sweater on the needles, although I am not devoting much time to it at the moment. The cotton sweater is my portable project, but the blanket remains my main focus and the center of all my crafty energies at the moment. Expect that knitting updates may be few and far between at least for the first quarter of the year.
January 18, 2023
Looking Back, Moving Forward
Below is a post I wrote for Restingmotion. I am cross-posting again because basically I am considering retiring this blog again and rolling everything back into a single space. I will still write about sewing and needlework, but under one heading. I very much think I broke everything out into separate boxes again just because I was generally struggling.

Anyway, let me know if you have thoughts, any thoughts.

—————————-

Somewhere around about the time of my last blog post my brain started working again. I felt as if a switch that had been jammed for a long time suddenly slipped back into position. It was that sudden. I was still tired, I was still recovering from my fourth cardiac procedure of the year, but suddenly it felt like a cloud had lifted and whatever remnants of my old self that were still hanging on stood up and listened,

As I was suddenly finding myself increasingly alive, increasingly doing, I also found that I stopped writing. I had no urge to write. As is evidenced by the erratic nature of this, or these, blogs over the last two years, this was part of an ongoing struggle. In many ways I write to make sense of who I am. And yet, in many ways the "me" in me was in hibernation. As that dormant part of myself began to reawaken, I found I needed time for reassessment and nesting. Writing would come in its own time.

Anyway, I am still here. I can honestly say the last 3 1/2 months have been the longest period of good, at least in terms of health, since July of 2020. I don't yet feel like I am out from under the mountain because the simple truth is that I was barely coping and there are tons of the daily stuff of life with which I was barely managing. I did what I needed to do. I tried to explore my creative instincts. I read a great deal, but I am not convinced that all the circuits in my brain were functioning. Of course they weren't functioning. My brain and my body were in siege-mode. I was doing what I needed to do to get through it all, and now I am dealing with the wreckage that surrounds me. But the wreckage is the past. All that matters is now.

I am a different person than I was on the eve of my 62nd birthday. Pain, cancer, heart issues, all these things changed me. And although we like to say that getting through these things is a journey, and when we come out on the other side we have achieved something, the truth is that for the most parts these are journeys we would really rather not take. We are changed. And parts of us are lost in the process. A part of who I was before has been erased, and a part of who I am today has yet to be discovered.

And yet, the need for an assessment prevails. Not an assessment of illness or health, nor necessarily either an accounting or an owning-up. I suppose I simply feel the urge to reflect on a few trends.

I read 83 books, fewer than in the previous few years. My reading slowed considerably in the last three months of the year and I found myself beset with an urge to reread, even books I had recently finished. I reconned this a shift in my mental landscape, perhaps an acknowledgement that something essential had been missing. This is not surprising. I have always been a collector of words and ideas, of books, not just a reader. For me reading is relationship, and a worthwhile relationship, like a good book, grows with the retelling. Primarily however, my reading slowed because my ability to do increased. In the business of resettling and rebuilding, there is peace in the slow progression of words on a page, of ideas filtering through the interstices of thought.

2022 was also a year that I managed to do more sewing, and more in the studio than I had in the entire time since George died in 2013, more than since I left Hyde Park at the end of 2011. This despite flirtations with heart failure and four cardiac procedures. This despite long weeks where I felt very much like I was living at the bottom the ocean. Small though my accomplishments were, they were very much a good thing.

The photos in this blog post are mostly gathered from various posts on my sewing blog, which is once again being retired. I will never be the world's greatest seamstress, embroiderer, weaver, any of that. I don't care and it doesn't matter. Nor do I always want to maintain a blog devoted to a single subject. You will simply have to put up with me. The original decision to retire sewdistracted was sound, its resurrection arose from my own feelings of division and loss, feelings that are best returned to the past.

Here also is an accounting of sorts.
1. I did a lot of alterations. I needed things to wear and I was stubbornly resistant to going out and buying things simply because I could. Some things were bought, it is true, but many things were taken in and a few were completely reconfigured. I only posted two of the many items I altered, (a linen tank/tunic that surprisingly is still in my closet, and a pair of slacks).
2. There was a steady stream of church related sewing, both in terms of mending and making new items.
3. A friend and I made a plastic-wrap sloper/muslin and I worked with that somewhat, although not enough, both modifying knitting patterns and working on sewing muslins.
4. I sewed three simple summer dresses.
5. I fitted five muslins for future dresses, all basic styles that I will be made and worn, perhaps in multiple iterations. This was done during a fabulous seminar at PaperMaple Studio in New Orleans, another experience that did wonders for my state of mind and improved skills.
6. I organized my pattern stash.
7. I organized three corners of my studio. There is more organizing and sorting to be done. Yarn remains only partially unpacked and there is an entire closet to design and put to use.
8. I went to the boro stitch workshop at Arrowmont.
9. I went on a sewing retreat with friends and I thread traced a dress.
10. I finished said dress only to decide I didn't like it. I proceeded to take it apart, and redesign it in a way that I think works better. I have not yet completely put it back together.
11. I made gifts, mostly quilted, mostly small projects, but not all.
12. I started to refresh my embroidery and hand-sewing skills. At first I despaired that my fingers would ever work again, but eventually my fingers began to cooperate, stitches became more even, the feel of a needle and thread became calming rather than stressful.
All in all I sewed 39.6 yards of fabric in 2022. It is not much, and yet it is more than I have sewn in many years. For the most part I was happy with the projects I completed. I sewed more fabric than I bought, also for the first time in years.
January 12, 2023
Hello New Year, A Brief Look Back
Somewhere around about the time of my last blog post my brain started working again. I felt as if a switch that had been jammed for a long time suddenly slipped back into position. It was that sudden. I was still tired, I was still recovering from my fourth cardiac procedure of the year, but suddenly it felt like a cloud had lifted and whatever remnants of my old self that were still hanging on stood up and listened,

As I was suddenly finding myself increasingly alive, increasingly doing, I also found that I stopped writing. I had no urge to write. As is evidenced by the erratic nature of this, or these, blogs over the last two years, this was part of an ongoing struggle. In many ways I write to make sense of who I am. And yet, in many ways the "me" in me was in hibernation. As that dormant part of myself began to reawaken, I found I needed time for reassessment and nesting. Writing would come in its own time.

Anyway, I am still here. I can honestly say the last 3 1/2 months have been the longest period of good, at least in terms of health, since July of 2020. I don't yet feel like I am out from under the mountain because the simple truth is that I was barely coping and there are tons of the daily stuff of life with which I was barely managing. I did what I needed to do. I tried to explore my creative instincts. I read a great deal, but I am not convinced that all the circuits in my brain were functioning. Of course they weren't functioning. My brain and my body were in siege-mode. I was doing what I needed to do to get through it all, and now I am dealing with the wreckage that surrounds me. But the wreckage is the past. All that matters is now.

I am a different person than I was on the eve of my 62nd birthday. Pain, cancer, heart issues, all these things changed me. And although we like to say that getting through these things is a journey, and when we come out on the other side we have achieved something, the truth is that for the most parts these are journeys we would really rather not take. We are changed. And parts of us are lost in the process. A part of who I was before has been erased, and a part of who I am today has yet to be discovered.

And yet, the need for an assessment prevails. Not an assessment of illness or health, nor necessarily either an accounting or an owning-up. I suppose I simply feel the urge to reflect on a few trends.

I read 83 books, fewer than in the previous few years. My reading slowed considerably in the last three months of the year and I found myself beset with an urge to reread, even books I had recently finished. I reconned this a shift in my mental landscape, perhaps an acknowledgement that something essential had been missing. This is not surprising. I have always been a collector of words and ideas, of books, not just a reader. For me reading is relationship, and a worthwhile relationship, like a good book, grows with the retelling. Primarily however, my reading slowed because my ability to do increased. In the business of resettling and rebuilding, there is peace in the slow progression of words on a page, of ideas filtering through the interstices of thought.

2022 was also a year that I managed to do more sewing, and more in the studio than I had in the entire time since George died in 2013, more than since I left Hyde Park at the end of 2011. This despite flirtations with heart failure and four cardiac procedures. This despite long weeks where I felt very much like I was living at the bottom the ocean. Small though my accomplishments were, they were very much a good thing.

The photos in this blog post are mostly gathered from various posts on my sewing blog, which is once again being retired. I will never be the world's greatest seamstress, embroiderer, weaver, any of that. I don't care and it doesn't matter. Nor do I always want to maintain a blog devoted to a single subject. You will simply have to put up with me. The original decision to retire sewdistracted was sound, its resurrection arose from my own feelings of division and loss, feelings that are best returned to the past.

Here also is an accounting of sorts.
1. I did a lot of alterations. I needed things to wear and I was stubbornly resistant to going out and buying things simply because I could. Some things were bought, it is true, but many things were taken in and a few were completely reconfigured. I only posted two of the many items I altered, (a linen tank/tunic that surprisingly is still in my closet, and a pair of slacks).
2. There was a steady stream of church related sewing, both in terms of mending and making new items.
3. A friend and I made a plastic-wrap sloper/muslin and I worked with that somewhat, although not enough, both modifying knitting patterns and working on sewing muslins.
4. I sewed three simple summer dresses.
5. I fitted five muslins for future dresses, all basic styles that I will be made and worn, perhaps in multiple iterations. This was done during a fabulous seminar at PaperMaple Studio in New Orleans, another experience that did wonders for my state of mind and improved skills.
6. I organized my pattern stash.
7. I organized three corners of my studio. There is more organizing and sorting to be done. Yarn remains only partially unpacked and there is an entire closet to design and put to use.
8. I went to the boro stitch workshop at Arrowmont.
9. I went on a sewing retreat with friends and I thread traced a dress.
10. I finished said dress only to decide I didn't like it. I proceeded to take it apart, and redesign it in a way that I think works better. I have not yet completely put it back together.
11. I made gifts, mostly quilted, mostly small projects, but not all.
12. I started to refresh my embroidery and hand-sewing skills. At first I despaired that my fingers would ever work again, but eventually my fingers began to cooperate, stitches became more even, the feel of a needle and thread became calming rather than stressful.
All in all I sewed 39.6 yards of fabric in 2022. It is not much, and yet it is more than I have sewn in many years. For the most part I was happy with the projects I completed. I sewed more fabric than I bought, also for the first time in years.
January 12, 2023
Cross-Posting

The following was posted to restingmotion yesterday. Because it is about stitching, I have decided to double post it here.

I don't yet know if this will be a regular occurrence, or in fact what direction my blog entries will be following as I am finding myself on new ground and am settling in. Still sewing, still playing with thread, just evolving.

Thank you for your patience.

———————–

A week ago today I came home from a workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in nearby Gatlinburg. This is what I took: The Boro Stitch as a Brush Stroke, taught by Deborah Fell.

I had been looking forward to the class all year, and although I had ended up missing other classes due to annoying health issues, I was determined not to miss this one. I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't think I would learn a lot, technique wise, but I hoped this would ignite a creative spark. I was right and wrong. Oh so very wrong. And yet completely on point.

In fact I found the workshop overwhelming. I was tired. One week post my third ablation and fourth surgery since March, I was very tired. But sometimes it seems that exhaustion allows cracks to appear that otherwise might have been remained firmly shut.

I had been wanting to play for a long time. I had dreams and ideas and I would sketch them out in my crude fashion, dump my fabrics and yarns in a pile and stare at them in frustration only to pack them up again and go back to something tried and true and familiar.

Our studio space was filled with inspiration. Deborah brought many samples. I took many many photos, most of which seemed to have disappeared, although I am certain I took them. That doesn't really matter. It seems to me, and I do not think my brain is the only brain wired this way, that inspiration files both inspire and limit. Perhaps better that ideas become fleeting memories.

Some photos remained though, and I made a collage of some of Deborah's work that she brought to share. For me, perhaps the collage itself, both in the act of combining the images and as a reference piece for my own folder, is greater generator of ideas than the individual works were, as much as I admired them.

That first day, I was very overwhelmed. I was tired. I was dehydrated. My pulse was erratic. I perhaps had too much to drink the night before following a very stressful drive. I was too literal in my intent and that is quite a statement from a woman who believes life itself is a metaphor.

We were supposed to let grow of rules but I struggled with that idea. I wanted to make neat orderly controlled embroidery stitches, exactly the kind of stitching I used to make, but at the same time the kind of stitching I have been struggling with lately. My hands do not work they way my younger hands worked. But eventually something snapped in place and I realized that it is not just my hands that do not want to do what they used to do; my psyche also wander in new fields, fields of random stitches and overlapped collages of life.

Things started to loosen up on the second day. I had always been happy to be there, in this workshop with my fellow students, but something started to become easier. At some point on Wednesday I was bubbling with excitement. An idea had cropped into my head, and as I pursued it, sparks started firing and one little patchwork sampler took on a life of its own. Black canvas, various upholstery fabrics, thread, bronzed wire, sisal twine. This was the first piece that I felt was really finished, was itself, and came from some place outside my conscious control. It is still perhaps my favorite piece of the workshop, although I did not say that at the end, when we were supposed to evaluate our own work. It was all too emotional for me then, too connected to what I wanted it to be, too connected intention and desire, struggle and hope. Even a day later my perspective changed.

Honestly, I think everything I did was a success, even those pieces that are not successful in and of themselves, not successful as something I want to save. I suspect that some are simply unfinished. Some might be cut up again and take on new lives. Who knows. But the success is in the play, in taking those first steps and sometimes in learning that forcing the issue is the wrong path to take. There are one or two pieces I want to love, that started off with promise, and which I initially was quite satisfied with, but which now I see took a hard turn in the wrong direction, where I forced the issue, letting my conscious mind determine the direction the work should. Somewhere, subconsciously, it knew what it wanted to be. But I lacked trust.

Looking at the photo above, at my own body of work, I see things differently than I did at the time. Distance. Perspective. I see connectivity that I had not noticed; potential as well.

That one week at Arrowmont was probably the best thing I did this year, even at the risk of exhaustion, or as mentioned above perhaps because of that very same exhaustion. It wasn't just me. It wasn't being inspired by Deborah Fell's work, but by the entire class, by the people I met, the work I saw around me both in the studio I was working in, in artist's presentations, in odd corners here and there. I had misplaced something and I found it again. My hold is still tenuous. But that is part of the journey.

My other favorite piece is not in the photo above. I finished it the last morning. It started out as a stitch sampler, an attempt to solve a problem in another one of the sampler squares (which is on that wall), but it suddenly took on a life of its own, becoming its own thing. It doesn't matter what kind of thing it is, or in a sense if it is "art" or not, if it is "good" or not, simply that it is what it needs to be.

I see a lot of playing in my future. Everything is a new spark. Everyday is a new ignition point.

October 23, 2022
Opening Doors

A week ago today I came home from a workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in nearby Gatlinburg. This is what I took: The Boro Stitch as a Brush Stroke, taught by Deborah Fell.

I had been looking forward to the class all year, and although I had ended up missing other classes due to annoying health issues, I was determined not to miss this one. I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't think I would learn a lot, technique wise, but I hoped this would ignite a creative spark. I was right and wrong. Oh so very wrong. And yet completely on point.

In fact I found the workshop overwhelming. I was tired. One week post my third ablation and fourth surgery since March, I was very tired. But sometimes it seems that exhaustion allows cracks to appear that otherwise might have been remained firmly shut.

I had been wanting to play for a long time. I had dreams and ideas and I would sketch them out in my crude fashion, dump my fabrics and yarns in a pile and stare at them in frustration only to pack them up again and go back to something tried and true and familiar.

Our studio space was filled with inspiration. Deborah brought many samples. I took many many photos, most of which seemed to have disappeared, although I am certain I took them. That doesn't really matter. It seems to me, and I do not think my brain is the only brain wired this way, that inspiration files both inspire and limit. Perhaps better that ideas become fleeting memories.

Some photos remained though, and I made a collage of some of Deborah's work that she brought to share. For me, perhaps the collage itself, both in the act of combining the images and as a reference piece for my own folder, is greater generator of ideas than the individual works were, as much as I admired them.

That first day, I was very overwhelmed. I was tired. I was dehydrated. My pulse was erratic. I perhaps had too much to drink the night before following a very stressful drive. I was too literal in my intent and that is quite a statement from a woman who believes life itself is a metaphor.

We were supposed to let grow of rules but I struggled with that idea. I wanted to make neat orderly controlled embroidery stitches, exactly the kind of stitching I used to make, but at the same time the kind of stitching I have been struggling with lately. My hands do not work they way my younger hands worked. But eventually something snapped in place and I realized that it is not just my hands that do not want to do what they used to do; my psyche also wander in new fields, fields of random stitches and overlapped collages of life.

Things started to loosen up on the second day. I had always been happy to be there, in this workshop with my fellow students, but something started to become easier. At some point on Wednesday I was bubbling with excitement. An idea had cropped into my head, and as I pursued it, sparks started firing and one little patchwork sampler took on a life of its own. Black canvas, various upholstery fabrics, thread, bronzed wire, sisal twine. This was the first piece that I felt was really finished, was itself, and came from some place outside my conscious control. It is still perhaps my favorite piece of the workshop, although I did not say that at the end, when we were supposed to evaluate our own work. It was all too emotional for me then, too connected to what I wanted it to be, too connected intention and desire, struggle and hope. Even a day later my perspective changed.

Honestly, I think everything I did was a success, even those pieces that are not successful in and of themselves, not successful as something I want to save. I suspect that some are simply unfinished. Some might be cut up again and take on new lives. Who knows. But the success is in the play, in taking those first steps and sometimes in learning that forcing the issue is the wrong path to take. There are one or two pieces I want to love, that started off with promise, and which I initially was quite satisfied with, but which now I see took a hard turn in the wrong direction, where I forced the issue, letting my conscious mind determine the direction the work should. Somewhere, subconsciously, it knew what it wanted to be. But I lacked trust.

Looking at the photo above, at my own body of work, I see things differently than I did at the time. Distance. Perspective. I see connectivity that I had not noticed; potential as well.

That one week at Arrowmont was probably the best thing I did this year, even at the risk of exhaustion, or as mentioned above perhaps because of that very same exhaustion. It wasn't just me. It wasn't being inspired by Deborah Fell's work, but by the entire class, by the people I met, the work I saw around me both in the studio I was working in, in artist's presentations, in odd corners here and there. I had misplaced something and I found it again. My hold is still tenuous. But that is part of the journey.

My other favorite piece is not in the photo above. I finished it the last morning. It started out as a stitch sampler, an attempt to solve a problem in another one of the sampler squares (which is on that wall), but it suddenly took on a life of its own, becoming its own thing. It doesn't matter what kind of thing it is, or in a sense if it is "art" or not, if it is "good" or not, simply that it is what it needs to be.

I see a lot of playing in my future. Everything is a new spark. Everyday is a new ignition point.

October 22, 2022
Hello Blog

Well, geesch. I feel like I have been on a journey even though I haven't been anywhere at all.

I feel like this blog has lost its way. Or perhaps I have lost my way and I have nothing more to say. I am not sure how completely I believe that, but I also must admit I don't completely disbelieve it either. I am tired of how constrained and deeply inside my head my life seems to have gotten over the past few years. I'm sick of it and sometimes sick of myself.

But hey, let's just shake out the cobwebs and see where we are.

A couple of weeks ago now. Garbo and I went to dinner and a jazz concert on Market Square in downtown Knoxville with a friend and her pup. It was a lovely cool evening, perhaps bordering on crisp. The jazz was fabulous. This was really the third or fourth musical performance I had heard this fall, as the Symphony and Opera seasons had also begin and I admit that I have just been revelling in the ability to go out and be enchanted and inspired by live music. I just sat back and enjoyed the flow of music and the happy atmosphere.

In the photo above I am waring one of the three summer dresses I made in May using the same pattern but different fabrics, and it may be my favorite of the three. This one is the least crisp and polished of the three dresses and also the one made of what is, to. my mind, the nicest fabric, a drapes, almost slouchy 90% linen, 10% tightly spun mohair blend. I always thought it might transition well into fall due to its muted color. It was deliciously cool all summer long and it was deliciously comfortable on this chilly evening with boots and a light turtleneck. I might not have done much sewing over the summer, but those dresses have served me well and made me happy.

I am back to snapping odd photos of bits and bobs of things that are meaningless to anyone but myself. Arches.

Bits of roof lines perhaps.

New clothes. (finally) A soft new blue sweatshirt for chilly morning walks with Garbo.

Playing with fabric.

Sunsets.

This isn't a normal blog post. But frankly I am not sure what normal is right now, or even if normalcy is a desirable goal. I just know that I am changing and simultaneously staying the same. Maybe insisting that there is a difference is the illusion. Maybe I didn't know it but this is where I've been heading all along. Does it matter where the path forward leads? What if the familiar has been the radically new all along and we just haven't opened our eyes to it.

All photos by me except the second one, on me and Garbo on Market Square. That photo courtesy of Cynthia Moxley, here

October 13, 2022
Booker Reading Part 1

This year it felt like I was making great headway on the Booker. Prize long-list. At one point it even felt like I might finish all the books before the short-list was announced. Considering that I had read none of the long-listed titles before the announcement, that was probably unlikely, and this proved to be the case. As the date of the short-list announcement approached, I realized that I would be far from finished, yet I still fully intended to write a post listing and rating the books I had read. This is not due to any pretensions that my opinion matters in the scheme of book prizes, or anything really, merely an exercise in pursuit of mental clarity.

However I found myself slowing down and unable to corral my thoughts.

The short-list was announced (above in title order). I was simultaneously thrilled to see that four of the books I had read made the cut and frustrated that I had failed to write. I thought the opportunity was over. Then I realized it wasn't. I still like the books I like. In the end, I think it will be interesting, to me at least, and since this is my blog nothing else matters, to note my own comparisons, ratings and thinking on the matter

Still it took me over a week to get myself to a point where I felt I had energy enough for my brain to work in a somewhat coherent matter and then another week to actually get words to take shape. That is just the way my life rolls at the moment. Hopefully my brain and I will get through this intact.

So what did I read? Before the short-list was announced I had finished seven novels on the long list, and was in the middle of an eighth. I have since finished the eighth, but this post is only about those initial seven novels.

These are the novels, shown above in order of my preference, from first (Small Things) to last (Booth). I thoroughly enjoyed all the books except one. Even though I had not read the entire list, I thought my top three were strong short-list contenders and I was rather on the fence about the fourth, Glory. I found that rating these books was very difficult because they are all quite strong and the distinctions that make one book more meaningful than another are often minute.

And now my thoughts, in reverse order.

7. Karen Joy Fowler: Booth. This was the third Booker-nominated book I read. It was, and continues to be, the least in my estimation by a rather wide margin. I suppose what I struggled with the most was that there was little that was literary about this book, other than its intentions perhaps. Booth is about the Booth family, the family of the infamous John Wilkes, and the times that led up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Ostensibly it is supposed to be about how the forces of the time and culture shaped the outcome and how the family itself both contributed to, and dealt with, the aftermath of President Lincoln's assassination. The author has stated that she wanted to write about how a family deals with their own culpability and all of the questions of might-have-been or could-have-done. She has also spoken about her own struggles with current political turmoil in American life and her attempt to reconcile her feelings through writing this novel set in another time of great political and social turmoil. In fact there is no shortage of interesting ideas and big questions in this novel. The problem is that these ideas are dealt with in a rather heavy and plodding way with conventional language and really rather pedestrian prose. They remain, somehow, "ideas that we are supposed to address" rather than something seamlessly revealed in the story itself. This novel captured me with neither literary allusions that opened new insights or a story that captured my imagination.

6. Leila Mottley: Nightcrawling. This novel, based on a real-life case of institutional misconduct, was a fascinating, thought-provoking, enlightening and thoroughly enjoyable read, even if its subject matter is ultimately upsetting to my own comfortable middle-class illusions.This is the story of Kiara, a seventeen year old girl who lives alone with her older brother following the death of her father from cancer, possibly exacerbated by his own sojourn in prison, and her mother's incarceration following the drowning of a baby sister due to neglect. Her brother is a talentless wanna-be rapper who has abandoned caring for her in pursuit of his dreams. Kiara also serves as babysitter and ultimately the primary caregiver for a nine year old boy whose mother is a junkie. She is a girl with no options. Faced with a tremendous rent increase and a series of happenstances, Kiara drifts into prostitution and quickly finds herself in a situation from which she cannot extricate herself. The writing here is brilliant, and Mottley, who is really a teenager herself, captures the combination of innocence and scathing bitterness that define the world of her protagonist. The action and the feelings are often hyperbolic, but to me this both works for and against the novel. It gives a sense of urgency and loss to the story, and it captures completely the way a teenager, a teenager who has seen far too much of the bitterest side of the world, deals with what she sees around her. Hyperbole and teenage angst go hand in hand. The amped up emotion however is a dual edged sword; it is both a strength in terms of drawing the reader into Kiara's mind and heart, and a profound weakness, because there is no way to delineate issues, no way build emphasis. When everything is overwrought, there is little room for nuance or clarity. I am grateful for having read/heard in my mind this voice, but at the same time there were times when the story would have had even more power had a little more distance been maintained. I do recommend this powerful novel, and Mottley is a rising talent. I hope to read more from her in the future.

5. Hernan Diaz: Trust. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, and it has remained on my mind but I give it more points for ideas than for actual execution. Trust is a novel written in two parts, or is it four parts? There are actually four short novellas which make up the novel, all of which revolve around the story of a Wall Street Tycoon and his wife during the time leading up to the crash of 1929. But there are actually two parts to this novel, and the first two stories are divided from the second two stories by a rather significant shift in point of view, and in fact reflect a greater cultural shift, although the stories are not necessarily told in strictly linear order. Sounds complex no?

The novel opens with a short, roughly 100 page novella written in the style of Wharton, Wharton with a perhaps a touch of Theodore Dreiser thrown in, about the life of a wealthy New York financier and his wife. I found it quite interesting and engaging, but flawed. It is not completely successful, either as a nineteenth-century novel, or as a modern pastiche of a nineteenth century novel. But that is, at least in part, the point. The second novella tells a very similar story of a Wall Street tycoon and the mental instability of his wife. The third version of this story is told by another narrator, Ida Partenza, who tells the story of how she wrote the second novella, combining this with the story of her own life and choice to become a writer. In Ida's novel we make a transition toward the a more modern approach in novels, and from this point Trust becomes a far more engaging read. The reader might wonder why the author did not interleave these stories in alternating chapters, but I do think the linear progression and delineation is part of the story, even if I feel the technique was not entirely successful. Diaz is giving us a deconstruction of the novel which is simultaneously a deconstruction of the myth of the American dream and the stories we tell ourselves. Diaz deconstructs not only the division between art and science and art and finance but also the divide between the stories we tell and the realities we portray, especially as they concern capitalism, free markets, the idea of the self-made man, and the common good, as well as the even bigger question of trust. The reader trusts the writer, must trust the story being told, must trust the myth on which a society is being built. But this novel consistently calls that trust into question and raises the issue not only of who gets to write the stories but of how and why the story is written. This grand scheme also references all kinds of side issues around which this novel revolves: finance and markets, the suppression and co-opting of women's ideas and voices, and an interesting discussion of music as well as art. In once sense, I can also see this novel as a musical composition in four movements. I need to follow that idea a bit further, which means of course that I will be reading this novel again.

4. NoViolet Bulawayo: Glory. Glory is a viciously funny satire that seeks to portray the events in Zimbabwe following the coup which deposed Robert Mugabe. Despite my laughter, I admired it more than I actually enjoyed reading it. The author has stated that she initially considered writing non-fiction or perhaps more conventional novel but eventually decided to write something more satirical taking her inspiration George Orwell's Animal Farm and utilizing local animal-based mythologies. I can perfectly understand the choice of Orwellian satire, and although I do feel that Bulawayo has successfully updated the Orwellian tradition for a perhaps younger, twenty-first century audience, writing a novel full of wit and humanity. I do not think the novel quite measures up to the level of art seen in Orwell, other African writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’, or even some of the other writers on this list. I also think that her use of the animals, the constant references to twitter, and the repetition of short sound bites have made the novel more of-the-moment and accessible, even if ultimately less profound as art.

3. Percival Everett: The Trees. This is a powerfully explicit and confrontational novel about lynching in the United States, specifically connecting our history of lynching and police violence against people of color, which the author explicitly links to genocide.

Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over 100 years, no one notices. Where thee are no mass graves, no one notices. American outrage is always for show. It has a shelf life.

This is accomplished in a novel that successfully wraps a brutal expose in a cover of genre convention, in this case a crime procedural or detective novel. Short chapters, snappy dialog, and laugh out loud stereotyping and humor lure the reader into its circle. The novel is outrageously funny while simultaneously being deeply unsettling. In one heartbreaking section there is a list of names of the victims. It is a sobering list, coming as it does in the middle of the action, the impulse may be to skip over it, but instead one should take time with these names, google them, think about the implications. Everett does not pacify his reader with with pat answers or easy solutions. In fact the novel questions the entire idea culpability for the past and the role of justice, of its necessity, of the way it makes us uncomfortable because it often defies morality, defies societal convention, societal secrets. I did have some issues with this book, although not with its subject matter. If anything Everett played to my own biases and understandings. But I do think this is a pointedly inward looking and pointedly American novel. Although the need for justice is universal, and historically this need always erupts somewhere, somehow, into something deeply unpleasant, the novel does not feel as much universal but deeply specific. Still it stays on my own short list because it is so brilliant at what it does.

2. Alan Garner: Treacle Walker. Treacle Walker is the story of a young boy of indeterminant age, Joe Coppock, who is convalescing at home, when he encounters Treacle Walker, a rag and bone man "able to cure all things except jealousy", which caused this reader think back to the etymology of the name treacle itself, which harkens back to Middle English as an antidote to venom, where it is derived through old French from Latin and Greek thērion or wild beast, a derivation aptly relevant throughout the course of this short book. Treacle Walker is also probably the most elegant literary exploration of quantum mechanics I have ever read. As might be expected from that previous statement, there is a plot but it is follows a rather thin, definitely non-linear thread. I find the book thought provoking and thoroughly enchanting, but I also acknowledge that it may be difficult for many American readers as it is rife with colloquial language, references to British culture from the mid 20th century, and a heavy use of local (English) folktales and myths and literary traditions. Still, it is worth the effort. Alan Garner has written a novel that seems to capture the magic of reading.

Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These. Keegan's novel has already won the 2022 Orwell prize for political fiction. Set in Ireland in 1985, the story, on the surface, has all the makings of a sickly sweet holiday feel-good novel. Christmas, Ireland, A protagonist who does the right thing and helps a girl in distress. And there are probably people who will read this short novel as just that, but it is so much more. This is the story of Bill Furlong, the father of five daughters, a man who runs a successful coal and timber business, and also the child of an unwed mother who was taken in and helped by a widow who employed her as a domestic servant. Bill, who is an introspective thoughtful man, who is already disquieted by the poverty he sees around him and the comfort displayed by the Catholic Church, is thrown into a deeper crisis when he visits the local convent to make a coal delivery and is shocked by the appalling physical condition in which some of the girls under the care of the nuns are treated. Keegan captures this man, his history and his struggle, as well as that of his country and his church, in spare, elegant, pitch-perfect prose. Not a word is wasted. Rarely does the reader come to know a character so deeply and thoroughly in such a short time. It is a beautiful book, and yet one that does not pander to the reader with easy answers and a perfect ending except that Bill knows that his action is not an ending but a beginning, and not an easy one at that, but one upon which he has no choice but to embark.

Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?

September 20, 2022
Swatch Happy

I spent a few days playing with swatches. Rather than being tedious, I found the process to be quite a bit of fun.

Now I am excited about knitting new things, even if some of these particular swatches don't end up leading directly to specific projects. The whole process made me think about saving my swatches, about starting a notebook with information regarding yarns and fibers and notes about ideas. I've never been consistently good at this. I start, then abandon the attempt and toss everything away. Why? I really don't have an answer but suspect it lies along the spectrum of not taking my creative explorations seriously enough. That has changed, and so perhaps has my need to just play and record ideas, successful or not. In the past, my need to declutter, to not be overwhelmed by stuff, won out over the need for maintaining notebooks and swatch ideas. Perhaps that dynamic is shifting. At the moment I am as happy with the processes of exploring the nature of knitted fabrics, planning, and techniques as I am with the actual making of wearable garments.

But onto swatches.

The whole thing started with these two — Noro Yukata (pink) and Nora Kakigori (blue-purple). When I f first saw the Yukata, I thought of Stephen West's Spectra scarf, which I have been itching to knit again, and I bought the Kakigori to use with it in that project. The Yukata is classified as a sport-weight yarn and the Kakigori as DK. I thought the combination would give a rustically casual vibe to the wrap. Since I was uncertain, however, and the scarf is knit in garter stitch, I decided to go the swatch route rather than just plunging in and starting the shawl. I am happy I swatched.

The Yukata, ended up knitting into a thicker fabric and a larger gauge than the Kakigori, the opposite of what I expected. Also, upon wet-blocking, the Yukata grew even larger, and softer, which is good for a wrap, but the Kakigori maintained its size, shape and drape. Since the Yukata sections would be surrounded by the smaller Kakigori, I ended up not liking the way these yarns would work in this project. Yukata, might work nicely on a larger needle, perhaps a size 6 or a 7 instead of a 4 with a different DK or worsted weight yarn. I am thinking Mad Tosh now, but this project is on hold because I also decided that although I love both of the swatches, neither of them says "Spectra" to me, and they are destined for different paths.

I have decided the Yukata wants to be a sweater. Although I have noted a couple of ideas, I have not yet moved forward on those. I do know that I am not fond of the Yukata in garter stitch, at least at this gauge, although I may find it acceptable on larger needles.

As to the Kakigori, I loved the garter stitch swatch, love the weight and the drape and think it would make a wonderful fall cardigan or pullover that would work for many of the cooler months in Tennessee because of its predominantly cotton base. I spent some combing through my pattern books, hoping to find a pattern that was similar to the idea in my head, and in the end just decided to do the math and come up with my own pattern. I determined that I needed one more skein of Kakigori, but alas another skein of my colorway was not available. The other colors in my local yarn shop do not shout cardigan to me, so, for the moment, this project is on hold. I am going to keep my swatch page with my various notes though. In the meantime I have found another shawl that I think will work and will use my one, roughly 700 yard skein.

And so, no current project yet in hand, I moved on to other swatches. The photo above is of Nua Sport by Stolen Stitches. I purchased the yarn in the spring of 2020 to make the Trellis Top by Carol Feller, and it has been at the top of my Ravelry Queue ever since, even though I had developed mixed feelings about the project. Swatching seemed the best place to begin. I started with size 4 needles because I once knit loosely, although that is not always the case today. Carol Feller recommends a gauge of 22 stitches and 33 rows to 4" in this yarn in stockinette. I got 24 stitches and 33 rows. Woo Hoo, I got row gauge, which is rare. I liked the fabric but worried that it was perhaps slightly too firm. I knitted another swatch on size 5 needles and got 22 stitches and 29 rows to 4" in stockinette. This fabric felt too loose. I thought that switching needle materials might make a difference. The first two swatches were knit on Signature Metal needles, and I thought I would try them on a wooden needle, but my only non-metal circular in a size 4, a knitters pride dreamz, was otherwise occupied. I wondered if trying different metal needles would make a difference. It is possible. Sometimes I see a difference, sometimes I do not. This is why I like to have multiple needles in multiple materials.

But I dithered and couldn't make up my mind, so I just decided to knit the pattern stitch swatch on the same size 4 needles and see where that got me. I ended up getting gauge: 26 stitches and 33 rows to 4 inches. Since the bulk of the sweater is in pattern, and I actually would prefer the final garment to be slightly smaller than the listed dimensions for my size, I decided further swatching was not necessary and I could move forward with this project.

Between those two sets of swatches I also swatched another Noro yarn, the aran weight Uchiwa. This yarn is a combination of cotton/viscose/and silk and knit to a light and lovely fabric in stockinette on size 7 needles. The yarn is lightly plied and does bias but is light and wearable. I would not use it in a particularly fitted garment but in something with more ease and drape, and I have a project in mind.

But first, the Trellis Top in Nua Sport. More to come.

August 29, 2022
Hello From The Studio

There have been some happy hours spent in the studio this summer and yet at the same time there is very little to show for that effort. Much of that was spent in handwork practice that I am not ready or willing to share, or that is not mine to share. Some time was also spent with some older textiles, refreshing my memory regarding textile restoration, hand work, and organizing thoughts and plans. It always seems like the planning bit is the longest part of anything really, and in many ways the least amenable to blogging because it can take me days to organize my thoughts into a path, and longer yet before that path becomes coherent.

Why should it be so complicated you ask? Don't I just want to make clothes? Well, yes. Yes I do, but being myself, I can even manage to turn that into a maelstrom of musings.

First however, I finally finished the bookcase that goes in the Northwest corner of the studio. It had been partially assembled, and I had some piles here and there, mostly on the pressing table, making it unavailable for current projects.

Here is the finished corner now. Well the rubber mallet is no longer on the floor; it has been properly put away. I added four cubes, and shifted the bookcase slightly so it occupies that entire end of the room between window and wall. This required moving the white plastic cubitec unit that I had built in the laundry room, and later found to be less useful than I had hoped, out of the basement and across the way to the studio. Then of course I had to remove all the books, expand the bookcase and put everything back.

This all took place over a series of days. The books were sorted and put in order. Then there was a mad frenzy of searching because it seems very apparent to me that a box, or two, of books is missing, and yet I cannot find them anywhere. I am certain I had certain books, equally convinced that I would not have given them away for anything, and yet they are nowhere to be found. It is completely illogical that, of all the things that could disappear in a move, two boxes of books would be the items that would "fall off the truck". I have no explanation. I probably never will, and really it is irrelevant.

But it was a great deal of fun to reacquaint myself with my knitting, sewing, and fiber books. Many happy. hours were spent reading, looking at patterns, dreaming dreams. I still think I want to come up with some plan for cataloging the patterns in the various volumes and magazines, as well as the notebooks full of patterns I have clipped over the years but I am really not sure if I will ever get to that. The world is full of patterns, and yet, I also discovered there remain many things I still want to knit, or to knit again.

There is still a lot of organizing that must happen before the studio is fully functional but increasingly it is becoming a space that works for me. I really like what I have achieved so far, and it has proved functional and maintainable. There are still some boxes of things to sort through, and the two bins of UFOs are larger than I would like, but at least everything is together in a coherent way.

I did get all the sewing patterns organized, or most of them. There is a small basket of about a dozen patterns that have turned up here and there on my desk waiting for me to get around to cataloging and filing them. I also got about 1/3 of the yarn stash photographed, catalogued, and put away. The remainder has been corralled but I need to work on plans for how to organize the storage closet. I got started, changed my mind, and temporarily abandoned the project. I can't resume cataloging until I have a coherent way to sort and store the cataloged yarn. I rearranged the sewing tables, but haven't yet shifted the way I store tools and small things so that they work with the new sewing arrangement. Actual sewing then, as opposed to cutting and flat table work, is still a little bit of an adventure.

I bought fast-dry foam and sunbrella fabric to make new cushions for the outdoor seating, but then, when I had the time and energy, we were drenched in rainfall. Now that it is dry, I once again do not have the energy. Sooner or later it will all come together. In the meantime the materials are in their own corner, waiting peacefully.

The last time I wrote, dress patterns were on my mind. They still are. I ordered more muslin because I was out but I have not made much progress on the dress front. The five dress patterns are dresses I will wear again and again, and I have no problem with that. I am living in the three dresses I made. They are pretty much worn, washed, and worn again. I am perfectly content. I could simply make more dresses and continue on my merry way.

But I also have a closet, a closet that contains clothes, mostly separates, that need to be worn. Sewing dresses is easy because I don't have to coordinate them with anything else. But what do I do about my other clothes? I do want to wear them. And I don't particularly want a closet full of widows and orphans. In the past I just sewed, and knitted, whatever it was that I felt like sewing or knitting at the time, and hoped that eventually it would go with something in my closet. But I think I want to take a more organized approach. I want a closet where everything works together, or at least with its own capsule of items. And this means both more time thinking about what I have and what I need, and also more shifting to a more organized approach.

It started with these slim stretch cotton ankle pants. They fit now and I very much like them. Except that, as you can see, they were initially too wide at the ankle. I don't recall if that was the style when I purchased them, (whenever that was; I am surprised I held on to them) or if I just have narrow ankles in comparison to my hips. But I don't think the combination of this width and this length is flattering.

So I thought I could take them in, tapering down from the knee. I didn't want to take up too much, because doing that would require dissassembling the entire pant, recutting it and putting it back together. It would be easier just to make new pants. The pants are now about 1 1/2 inches narrower at the ankle than they were in the photo above (see lower two photos). And the blue thread is really not that bright in real life.

I think they look much better. But the process of altering the pants made me think about what I have in my closet and what goes with what. Although I was thrilled to find something I had forgotten that fit me now, I was also frustrated to see a closet full of clothes that do technically fit, but which I have no idea how to wear so that they work for the person I am now, with the body I reside in now. I need to figure it out. I need to let go of what doesn't work, regardless of whether it fits, and I need to have a plan to make and/or buy things that I will actually use together with the things I have.

And so it seems I have a whole new project. I have started working on that: pulling clothes out of the closet to see what goes with what, trying on outfits, photographing them, putting everything back away. It is daunting because I have to try everything. I've been avoiding buying new things or making new things because I didn't know what I had, and opening the closet was overwhelming. It is one thing to add a new item to an existing wardrobe that woks well together, and to create outfits and play with ideas. It is somewhat more exhausting when when I don't know how anything goes together, and many of the things I once wore no longer work for who I am now. Sometimes it feels like this closet belonged to someone else and I am, in some ways, starting from scratch. It is all exhausting. It is also very rewarding as I have a much better sense of who I am now and what I want to wear now in this stage of my life. I am gaining a more focused sense of what I need and what I want.

For example, one thing I noticed is that the above pants look much better with the pointy toed flats than they did with the ankle-high buckled sandals. I discovered that I like a necklace that sits much closer to my collarbone. The 18" strand of pearls in the top photo is too long and needs to be shortened, probably to somewhere near 16". Pearls that are never worn because the lengths of the strands are wrong can be restrung.

I am developing a catalog of sorts of what works, and series of lists and plans. I don't want to make, or even spend money buying, something that doesn't work. Oh one of the things about making is that not everything works, and I am sure I will make many duds, but at least I won't be flying blind. I am not sewing now and yet, finally, I am becoming increasingly focused and excited about the options ahead.

August 27, 2022
Nantucket Shawl

The Nantucket cotton wrap is done.

Yarn: L'Atelier Joy

Fiber: cotton

Pattern: None really. Stripes consisted of alternating 16 rows of white with 8-row stripes of the colors. I had twice as much navy as the other two blues, so the navy was alternated between each color.

Gauge: roughly 15 stitches and 16 rows to 4" on size 10 1/2 needles in seed stitch

Finished Dimensions: 22" by 120".

I actually finished knitting it about a week ago, but the time from completion to photo session dragged on for several reasons. The wrap occupied much of the length of library for several days while blocking. The thick cotton was not the fastest to dry, but I also must admit I did enjoy just admiring it while it lay there, and I may have delayed unpinning slightly longer than was necessary. By the time I did release it from its bonds, my energy for a photo shoot may have waned, although not because I was at all unhappy with the shawl.

.

It is unusually large and bulky for a wrap. Wider and shorter and it would have been a blanket. And in fact it may still fulfill a blanket-like role as an oversized snuggly wrap for evenings at home. I love it anyway even if I am not necessarily convinced it will see tons of wear outside the house. It may. I don't yet know. It is long enough that its function, while providing warmth, would fill the role more of a statement piece than an accessory.

In fact, I would have made it a foot longer given my druthers, not necessarily due to a wish for additional length, but merely to use up more yarn. One full skein of the white remains. It was the navy that petered out. In fact I was able to knit 3 fewer rows of navy than of white per skein. Assuming the skeins were the same weight this means that the navy was heavier than the white, and yielded fewer yards per skein. This is not particularly unusual for dark-hued yarns, at least in that it has happened to me enough in the past that I am not surprised. But my math did not account for this, although I did weigh the initial usage in the stripe sequencing. Based on weight, I calculated that I could get one more navy stripe and one more medium blue stripe (for which I do have enough yarn) as well as two more long white stripes. This would have left me with less than half a skein of white, and only small bits of the three other colors. The best laid plans.

Never mind. It is a deliciously cool morning, and I enjoyed my first espresso of the morning, wrapped in this new shawl, watching the sun rise.

August 24, 2022