The warp and weft of our lives

My tangle of yarns has been living in bags and boxes in france for the last 8 years, a riotous rummage of mixed colours, weights and textures. The project on the needles - both a cause and a consequence of my magpie tendencies - was a "something" based on the carpet pattern by Kaffe Fasset in his 1985 explosion onto the design scene Glorious Knitting.

The mid 80's. I think I was knitting a lot of traditional fairisle /intarsia at that time ... But life was too short and too busy in 1985 with 2 very young children and a thesis to finish writing up to seriously think that I would ever complete the 'Crosspatch' sleeveless pullover in 4 ply Shetland wool. I did about 6 inches ... And then it languished in the bottom of a drawer, as a testament to misplaced enthusiasm untempered by practicality.

I think it was finally culled and sent to recycling sometime around one of my moves.

The fact that it was being knitted for my husband - who at the time of the moving cull had become my ex-husband -probably hastened it on its way.

I don't remember my intentions for this 'something'. It was definitely a post divorce project. I guess it was a symbol of journeying into some sort of unknown.

Whereas in the past I would have played safe by sticking to what the pattern said - even a designer like Fassett gave exact yarns to buy and charts to follow - here I had started branching out by incorporating different weights and textures and following the inspiration rather than trying to complete a garment that would look exactly like the one in the book.

I had been inspired to be more creative with textured yarns by a one-day free embroidery workshop I'd attended in Windsor. That embroidery project called on the same jumble of texture and colour in different weights of wool and ribbons: a far cry from the counted cross stitch and other meticulous embroideries and Honiton lace created by my paternal step-grandmother Dorothy.

Yet both this 'something' and the free style embroidery had been hiding untouched for almost a decade - probably since my impetuously impractical pursuit of the provencal dream. There's not much time to knit and stitch when you have a 200 year old crumbling wreck to restore, while still trying to run a business in the UK and continue helping the fledgings fly the nest. You don't need freestyle embroidery where your whole life is freestyling around you.

But knittery and stitchery are forgiving friends. When the time is right they call to you gently and once more the process of working in their colours and textures is a comforting reminder of how weaving in the threads of our experiences, dreams and memories of others is what creates the rich tapestry of our lives - Our work in progress.

Now I know that the "something" will become a cushion; and it won't take another 10 years to complete. That's a promise to myself that will be a joy to keep.

Blinged up knitted shawl

This piece started out as an idle bit of experimentation while in France, as I was starting to get back into knitting. It so nearly became a designer floor cloth. Odd pattern, straight needles that weren't long to take the necessary number of stitches to make the ruffled edge, textured yarn instead of variegated yarn, and only a half-hearted attempt at a tension square. And as I was in the middle of la France profonde I couldn't exactly hot-foot it to Liberty's or John Lewis.

And yet, amazingly, the addition of a bright red knitted flower, a button and a ribbon and voila, an original creation.

It appears that I have a tendency to bring the same attitude now to my knitting of scarves, shawls and bits and bobs as I often do to cooking. I read the recipes as a start point - and for guidelines on techniques, cooking times etc, and then adapt and substitute as I go along. I'm not so sure about the chefy techniques of artistic plating up (usually because I don't plan the presentation in advance). Dinner's served - now - is the usual cry, and can you lay the table as well. My food presentation wouldn't make it much beyond the first couple of rounds of Masterchef.

And I must here confess that I passed over the task of adding the finishing bling to E (though I had knitted the little red flower corsage myself). And a very nice job she made of it too.

Stolen Moments

When you live a busy life (who doesn't these days) slumping in front of the tv of an evening is sometimes all you want to do. But a diet of sitcoms or reruns of CSI and NCIS, House - or even the Mentalist or Numbers - can leave you feeling just as jaded and life-lagged at midnight as you had been four hours earlier.

Watching soaps can be even worse for the soul - kitchen sink doom and gloom. (Mind you, I must say that I am looking forward to Dallas returning to our screens. I hope the script writers have their tongue firmly in cheek).

At least with a knitting project on the go, you do have a sense of fulfillment at the end of the aforesaid evening of indolence.

However, if your project is for someone else, and has a deadline attached (in this case, the stole in question was the finishing touch for a wedding outfit where E was to be bridesmaid), then it is a question of stealing moments whereever you can, in order to reach the deadline.

This stole was knitted in 2 balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze, a whispy beige colour, on size 5mm needles (I think) from a pattern from the book Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin (available on Amazon here).



The finishing touches (Sarah's idea) was the addition of a few beads at the points of the stole - a bit of bling to weight down the corners, and to finish it off.

The wedding in question was this weekend .... perhaps there will be some pictures of its first outing to follow.

Moebius - a metaphysical approach to knittery and stitchery

Yeh, well, I'm in charge, of this blog, so I can go off on a tangent, or deeply into the fundamentals if I want to: it depends on your own spin on life if you want to read on, or pass swiftly over to the next blog with pictures and pattern details.

The moebius loop is the loop of infinity: what is on the outside affects the inside, and the inside affects the outside.

And yes, the moebius cowl has become a la mode: you knit it in the round and deliberately introduce a twist; or you knit it straight and incorporate the twist in the fabric as you sew it together. Whichever technique you use - you end up with the same result: the inside is the outside and the outside is in the outside (except that knitted in the round means that it is literally seamless).

Even if what we feel or have experienced is 'buried' in our internal unconscious ... it still affects our external self - our actions, our feelings, our motivations, out energies. Likewise, what we choose to do on the outside affects our internal selves.

Complicated, hey!

Yet so simple.

I know that my return to knittery and stitchery is a spontaneous reintegration of who I have been, with who I am currently - and who I will become. Metamorphosis through remembrance and re-integration.

But worry not, dear reader, this blog might be blogging about all things: the journey, the explorations, the metaphysical meanderings; but above all it's about me expressing myself, outside in and inside out ... seamlessly I hope through the crafts of knitting and sewing. Life in the round. Through time. And the time to knit and stitch.