Knitting on Impulse

Waiting

As October fades into November, there is a sense of ending, finishing, finality. 

The last of fall's glory lies mouldering in the shallows, the show is over, the closing credits are almost done, and the world lies waiting. 

There is nothing more to do - the growing is complete, seeds scattered, leaves fallen, the cycle ended, and nature seems suspended in a sort of trance.  Waiting for winter, for a blanket of snow to give closure to summer's skeletal remains... waiting for the next big thing, just..... waiting.

 

BFL:

Merino-silk:

Sock yarn:

 

Themohair/silk (sold out - sorry):

 

There is some wool-silk laceweight coming, too, but it is taking its own sweet time.

I am continuing to play and imagine and unvent techniques for self-striping, and I'm very excited about the possiblities of these gently melting-together washes of colour:

 

 

It opens up so many possibilities for painting colourways beyond the semi-solid - I think I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks playing with this idea exclusively.  Sunsets, fall foliage, wildflower meadows... my head may explode.

Yarn's Up

Over here.

From the Sweat Shop

Actually, that wasn't too painful.  I don't mind so much when I can make stuff up on the fly, it's repetition that makes me crazy.

The cowl was created from a bulky weight silk and a silk/wool blend, both hand dyed/painted.

 

Fisherman's rib gives it structure, but it's still a pretty drapey fabric.  Left to spread as it will, it covers the neck and drapes gracefully from shoulder to shoulder, adding a layer of warmth, and an attractive accent inside an overcoat (sorry, I'm just not in the mood for modelling at the moment.  Maybe another day.)

 

With the drawstring snugged in, it stands up smartly to around eye level, keeping nose and cheeks protected from the chill.

 

I'm trying really hard not to think about the Time to Create: Time Remaining ratio right now.  One piece does not a display make, but it's a decent start.

Orange.... I think I'll paint the cupboards orange

Is it time now is it time can I scoop have you finished cutting the top hooray can I scoop now?

 

Bwahahahah take that you vampire pumpkin - I shall scatter your evil guts everywhere!!!!

 

EVERYWHERE????

 

Clearing

There - sinuses are clearing, and my brain is just about back on line.  (Seriously - have you noticed that a head full of snot makes your brain work slower?  Makes you wonder if it really does ooze back in there between the synapses.)  Just in time to panic over how much there is to do in the next month and the impossibility of achieving it.

During the days of sluggishness, I made some progress on this:

 

I am fascinated right now by the design potential of simple things - knits and purls in the most basic of combinations, yet they smudge and blend colour so brilliantly, and sweep the eye along with their subtle lines and shadows. 

I am also fascinated (perhaps morbidly so) by the notions of fit and ease and my apparent mental block about my actual dimensions.  It seems that when you spend much of your life wishing and/or imagining yourself invisible, it becomes difficult to accurately assess how much physical space you occupy.  More on that another day...

The Sky's the Limit

I haven't posted sky pictures for ages.... so here's a little collection from the past month:

From dawn:

 

 

'til dusk:

 

Warning: cryptic stream of consciousness blogging ahead.  Possibly influenced by antihistamines and dextromethrophan.

I've been giving some thought lately to matters of change, uncertainty, pushing my limits, trusting my instincts, the nature of belonging and individuality and the habits and illusions that pervade those longings.  You know, small stuff.  

There's the precarious state created by this period of economic... sluggishness (disaster? upheaval?) - on a personal level, I think I can choose to see it as a breathing space for artistic growth.  (Though perhaps more psychological than temporal, since DH is going to have to give up many of the supporting roles he currently fills and find some auxilliary ways to keep us afloat.)  It's the paradoxical thing about monetizing creativity - when it becomes successful, you find yourself on a bit of a treadmill, scrambling to replace the "products" that customers love, sticking to the groove that works because paying the bills and buying groceries is a pretty good thing.  After a while though, comes a creeping sense of sameness and wistfulness for paths not taken, adventures not pursued for lack of time.  Then the world economy implodes and one is left to reflect on the adage "be careful what you wish for."  (Though I'm pretty confident I didn't wish for that.)

Naturally the opportunity for adventure brings up the business of belonging, of inside and outside the box, of unquestioned assumptions and genuine self-confidence.  It's a journey where discomfort provides valuable signposts - the opportunity to ask myself what I'm avoiding, what I really want. What would happen if I did a thing the way that makes eminent sense to me, even though nobody else does it?  Would it be so catastrophic if I really were the only one whose mind works that way, and wouldn't it be better than avoiding it altogether because I can't relate to the status quo? 

Onward.

Coneflower Tweed

I love the effect of autumn on the natural palette.  The processes of decay and change and ripening combine to soften summer's saturated monochromes, creating subtle, rippling blends of hue shot through with golden light, crimson highlights and dreamy creams.  I'm seeing tweed everywhere this season, and I'll explore several in the coming weeks, but here's the first that caught my eye:

The coneflower has always intrigued me with its audacity - that oversized globe of rusty orange spikes plonked smack in the middle of a circlet of graceful pink. 

 

But it works, and even as the hues fade to pastel and lavender whispers, that fierce glowing centre lends the petals a certain dignity and substance, when they might otherwise be merely insipid.

 

 

I chose to interpret this colourway with the petals as background, liberally sprinkled with the colours of the cone in a random, tweedy fashion.

The BFL:

 

The merino/silk:

 

The sock yarn, engineered to alternate plain and tweedy rounds:

 

and the wool/silk laceweight:

 

I can't resist showing off the particularly divine skein of mohair/silk, although it was snapped up rather quickly:

 

And last of all, the reason why this post is 4 hours late (I think a certain re-engineering of the methodology is in order for next week) - Palindromic Pleasure Sock No. 2.

 

One of the few instances where the reskeined version does not approximate the knitted result, there are 13 different colour blocks in a non-repeating sequence that precisely reverses at the halfway point of the skein, creating a palindrome.  In other words, if you knit a sock from each end of the skein, the pair will be identical (assuming your gauge, etc. is precise.) The dyeing technique I used this time created a bit of a wild tie-dyeish effect, with the orange sections looking very much like candy corn - I think these will be great Hallowe'en socks.

Yarn's Up

Over here.

(Everything except the palindromic sock, which takes forever to reskein and will have to wait until tomorrow.)

The Luxury of Feeling Sick

So I've got this cold. A full-on, eyes watering, non-stop sneezing, coughing, aching... you know.  But yesterday, as I knit quietly on my couch, I pondered the luxury of being able to fully feel and care for all those symptoms, and the stark contrast with my former experience of illness.  The 14 hour office days I used to stagger through because they would have been far more hassle and angst to rebook than the day off was worth, the peer pressure from equally overworked colleagues who coped with stomach flu by popping into the office washroom to vomit between patients, dutifully apologizing for running behind by day's end, the knowledge that student loans were due and a day's lost billings was not an inconsequential thing.

In those days, I bought into the prevailing belief that a sick body was like a spoiled child - best dealt with by ignoring it until it shut up and quit complaining.  (I have some opinions on that theory of child rearing too, but that's another post.)  So it was full speed ahead, until the coughing fits brought speech to a halt - a quick drink, another lozenge, more apologies.  I recall having no sense of progression or healing, of better or worse, only dogged survival from minute to minute, task to task, patient to patient, as days melted into weeks. Somewhere along the way I would vaguely notice that I wasn't coughing so much, so it must be better.

In this new life, I am more aware of the sensations of illness, but also of the sense of healing - the white cells fighting the good fight, the ways I can soothe and assist my body in its marvelous work.  Furthermore, I have the ability to choose how I structure my workday (within reason - I am a parent, after all) and I can decide to do quiet work, take breaks, put off a thing or two.  It sounds so trivial and ordinary in words, but I do feel the need to name this luxury, to say to the universe that I am grateful, that I do not take it for granted.

Not Bored Yet

I tend to tell anyone who will listen that I hate production knitting.  That it makes me unhappy, because it is boring, repetitive, and sucks away precious hours that could have been spent working up designs for publication, making my family warm, rounding out my own wardrobe.  I can enumerate the reasons why it is a dead end as business (other people's success notwithstanding), the futility of attempting to compete with Third World sweatshops, my reluctance to utterly devalue my time and labor to reach a saleable price point. 

  

 

But Bizarre Bazaar is coming up fast, and scarves are an awfully nice visual complement to the jewellery (and the yarn), as well as being a nice wintery sort of thing, and... truth is, I'm bored to tears with my current inventory.  I've been tossing a bit of this and that in the dye pot over the last several months, with the result that I now have a reasonable stash to play with.  My goal is to have fun, indulge my imagination with funky details, and try hard not to flinch at factoring in something approaching a living wage.  It may still be futile as a business proposition, but as long as it continues to entertain me, I'll keep production knitting in the WIP rotation.