- December 26, 2003 Friday
- I am knitting again. It feels like I never stopped; my hands don’t miss a stitch. How could I have not been doing this for so long?
- I have been a knitter as long as I can remember and got very serious in 1986 in an attempt, eventually successful, to reduce how much I smoked (now not at all). Everywhere. All the time. All styles. Then I finished a wedding-present lace tablecloth for my brother and his wife (6 MILES of thread), went to Antarctica knitting, bought yarn in New Zealand (knitter’s heaven), came home, and put it all away. I didn’t understand it at the time and still don’t fully, but I think I needed to get the knitting out of the way to make room for the sculpture. It wasn’t that neat, of course. I stumbled around for almost a year between the not-knitting time and the day I picked up the chainsaw, and there was the lightning strike which played a role too.
- But now I am clearly a sculptor. Two weeks ago, the thought came to me that I wanted to knit, and I was glad I hadn’t clutter-cleared my wool stash when I recycled my old contra-dance clothes. Then my best friend gave me The Knitting Sutra for Christmas. Hadn’t talked to her about the impulse at all, but they don’t call it the “universe” for nothing. When the time is ripe, the impetus appears?
- Read the book straight through over breakfast, cast on before lunch, and now I have an inch of the back knitted up. I am knitting differently from before, though: I can feel it. Looking through pattern books, knowing generally what I wanted (Fassett). Using my favorite sweatshirt as a size model. I’ll work out the sleeves and the neckline when I get there and if the gauge is wrong, there’s always the sewing machine. Knowing this will be MY sweater in a way some of the earlier ones weren’t.
- I don’t know where this is going, or why it picked now to come back into my life. Thought I was going to be like Barbara Walker, who studies one thing intently then puts it down and never comes back. Guess not. The recurring thought in my mind this Solstice has been Make More Art. Put my own art out in my yard. Put my own art on my back. Fill my house with art where ever I can find a place for it. I am not driving this bus, and it is an interesting ride.
- PS. I can knit during day-job conference calls. Yippee!
