My First Knit-A-Long

Yaaarrrrrn Ahoy! I've started my very first KAL!

Join me in Crafster's Forum as we knit an item even the scaliest of scalawags can use: a bag for ya booty! Meet under the sign of the Pirate Queen's Booty Bag (and be quiet about it, now, you never know who might be listenin' in)

Why Knit?

While perusing the knitting themed offerings at CafePress tonight, I got to thinking about the many reasons we knitters chose to take up (and still continue) the craft. Some of us do it for companionship, as part of a circle of other women joined by yarn, two sticks, and a lot of shared history. Purl Girls. Sisters of the Sticks.

A related phenomenon are the punk knitters, the wielders of girl power and crafty feminism, who dare to flaunt a traditional hobby and make it their own. These are the rocket chicks with green streaks in their hair, piercings, tattoos, and black shirts with pink skulls over crossed knitting needles. You go girls; I wish I had your courage.

Then there are the craftsters, who grew up making something, anything, every minute of the day. They keep the sheep and shear in season, grow the plants they crush for dye, card, comb, and spin the yarn and never step foot in Michaels or JoAnn's. What would be the point? They are the uberwomen. And they usually scare the rest of us who look on at what they do in awe.

I could go on about the types of knitters that I know or have met and meet every day and never touch all the subgroups, accidents, and mundane reasons for why we do what we do. But it's worth thinking on, sometimes.

I think I was born with the need to make things. If my mother hadn't spent so much of herself in battles with depression, I probably would be one of those shearer spinner types by now. It would have made her happy. But I inherited her depression and my Dad's ADHD, and I've had lots of battles of my own. I've never been able to avoid the need to make things and have tried most crafts known to man with varying levels of interest and success. But when I finally got to the point where I started working on and understanding my inheritance of mental illness, I picked knitting as something I wanted to learn and pursue.

I started knitting like some people start meditation, knowing it was hopeless but determined to try. Even though I often have the attention span of a squirrel and lack a certain dexterity that most folks are born with, I looked at pictures on the Internet and muddled my way through my first scarf. A Harry Potter scarf, if I remember right.

The idea behind this madness made sense to me at the time. Knitting, I thought, was repetetive and tedious, and projects took forever. I was quite sure I'd never last beyond the basic techniques. I could barely figure out how to cast on. And holy cow, how my hands would hurt, my wrists ache, and my fingers knot up if I knit for very long. But I kept at it because repetetive and tedious were things I despised and desperately needed. Knitting, I believed, could teach me patience and the ability to see the long term.

It's been five years and I'm thankful to be past the hated, endless scarf stage. I also told my therapist last week that knitting has saved my life. Whenever I get so upset I feel like I'm going to die or things look so bleak it's hard to grope for hope in a better future, I have my knitting to melt the tempest of thoughts from my head. Repetetive hands work soothing patterns and something slowly beautiful is born. I can look back and remember when all I could do was knit and purl and fumble through casting on. Now I can knit in the round and on dpn's, have learned several ways to cast on (and off), have made hats and mittens and stuffed toys, and am working on my first lace project.

Knitting teaches me what I yearned for most, and more. It shows me that change is not only possible for others, it's also possible for me. Joy, happiness, and peace is not just a future dream but a simple thing in easy reach. It doesn't require big, impossible gestures but tiny stitches that make ripples, spread in moments, and become potent daily doses of hope.

And hey, don't get me started on the positive benefits of yarn fondling. That's a post for another day.

Jack's Back!

'Nuff said.

Mystery Project

I've decided to try double knitting a reversible bag, with an intarsia insert, and then felt the whole thing. Yes, this is tatamount to knitting suicide. Why is it I always try to learn new techniques by jumping feet first over my head into an uber project of impossible difficulty? I can't help it. I see something, I want it, and if it's impossibly hard, then I want it even more.

I'm sure this says something psychologically bad about my personality or childhood. But a friend has promised to be truly impressed if I pull this off and, well, I'm owed. I've started her on some craft once too often and she's pulled off something I can't do weeks later. That just sucks. I hate being pushed off the top of the totem pole.

See? Something psychologically bad... Ah well.

I'll keep y'all updated with the progress of this impossible mystery project.

New Orleans and the French Quarter

Though not related to buns OR knitting, I just have to share some photos of my recent trip to New Orleans. I wasn't prepared for how lovely the French Quarter was, or just how yummy and addictive beignets could be. Cafe du Monde was one of the highlights of our trip. Special thanks to my fellow traveler and dear friend Patricia, the eye behind the camera and the composer of these lovely pics.

We took the Riverwalk Street Car along the Mississippi after stopping for our daily dose of beignets (fresh fried donuts with lots of powdered sugar) and frozen cafe late. The weather was spectacular, warm, clear, and spring like with fresh breezes off the water.

One of my favorite sights: Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. And see, I'm even wearing flipflops. A pity I couldn't sample all the flavors here, but I did bring back a souvenir mug.

Along Chartres street, several blocks from the hotel, we stopped for lunch at a little cafe. Patricia tried the Crab and Corn Bisque and pronounced it excellent. I was busy downing more iced coffee. New Orleanites love their coffee (and so do I!)

We stopped to browse through a labrynth of antiques and other strange things in this treasure shop at the end of Decatur, two blocks from Margaritaville. It was full of jumbled heaps of odds and ends, some priceless, some just odd. Lots of vintage clothing, costumes, and mardi gras mementos of times past. We ooo'ed and ahhh'ed over a set of pink depression glass cups, carved ivory ornaments, fantastical ironwork creatures, and jewelry we couldn't afford. Wish we'd had more time to explore the entire contents, but we starving and trying to find our restaurant. Turns out that Tipitinas is only a music revue these days and doesn't serve dinner.

Though we were never able to make time for a carriage tour of the French Quarter, we did linger in the cool shade of historic Jackson Square. Some of the oldest (and surely the most picturesque) buildings in the city line this square named after Andrew Jackson. While Patricia took lots of photos of the ironwork and lovely house facades, I marveled at the ancient trees that have survived all sorts of wars and hurricanes and city renovations. Shading a variety of lunch goers, itinierant street musicians, amateur artists, mimes, and flocks of tarot card readers, the trees cannot be overlooked or ignored, an integral part of the city's historic legacy.

Conference Wrap-up

Back from the Big Easy, I already miss the whirlwind of parties, lectures, and late night craziness that was this year's Harry Potter Con: Phoenix Rising 2007. My fellow green lanyard wearing, rowdy bunch of outgoing ladies known as Zodico, came in third place in the House Cup competition. Rats! We'll get those Lumiens next year! But despite such a devastating loss, I had the best time! And did I mention I survived the Dueling? Even managed to get my target on the last day, quite by accident, with only a finger available to manage the right swish for the fenix spell. I'd make a very bad wizard, leaving my wand upstairs in my room all the time.

Patricia loved her felted wand cozy. It was shown off all weekend and got lots of admiration. Not bad for my first attempt at felting. It would have been a less than stellar attempt, I might add, if John hadn't made use of the industrial dryers at work. At 200-some degrees, that wool didn't have a choice about felting. Can't wait to get a picture of it from Patricia, so I can show it off to y'all.

It's got to be some law of the universe that, no matter what the circumstance, knitters will naturally gravitate to one another. Or, as Patricia pointed out, sit and knit and other knitters will start popping out of the woodwork. And so they did. I didn't get to schmooze with my fellow fiber lovers as much as I wanted, but I did manage to fit a visit to a local yarn shop in my plans. Patricia was amazed that I left the store without buying anything. Just goes to prove, I can practice restraint once in awhile. I just don't usually choose to

As soon as I get the rest of the pictures from the Masquerade Ball, I'll be posting a few here. Patricia went as a Cornish Pixie and I was a Woodland Fairy. That was the idea, anyway. Thanks to family bungling, I was wingless. Someone sent my (expensive) beautiful green moth wings back to the company I'd bought them from. After many tears, panic, and a few angry words, I made do without and the result was still fabulous. Maybe even more so. I twisted some silk ivy leaves and craft flowers into a hair wreath wound with pale green ribbon. The leftovers adorned the bodice of my forest green fairy dress. Thanks to a borrowed marker and an hour of artistry from Patricia, I had a swarm of ivy growing up my legs. Would have inked my arms as well, but we ran out of time. Still, it looked way cool. The both of us looked way cool. People were taking pictures of us the whole night and we got lots of complements. It was very morale boosting--can't wait to show the pictures we took, of us and all the amazing costumes surrounding us. It was three hours of dancing (yup, you heard it right, I was out there dancing) bolstered by only a single glass of rum and coke. Lots and lots of fun and totally worth all the anticipation.

Not everything was fun and games... ok, maybe it was. But I learned a lot more than I thought I would, from the excellent presentations and lectures from fans and academics. Some of the best (IMHO) included:

• Harry on the Couch: A Psychologist’s Reading of Harry Potter (Erikson’s theory of psycho-social development, augmented by Freud's id, ego, and superego--as applied to most of the major heros and villains in Rowlings' series. Very illuminating)
• The Hero’s Journey (I took notes til my hands hurt. Joseph Campbell and a list of other literary-mythic theorists. My writing will definitely benefit from this lecture!)
• Of Horcruxes, Arithmancy, Etymology and Egyptology: A Literary Detective’s Guide to Patterns and Paradigms in Harry Potter (by far the most impressively researched and put together lecture. I was deeply impressed and that's hard to do. Wish I'd come up with half of what Hilary did.)
• Midwifing the Muse (a panel on beta readers--attracting, keeping, and how to become one. There's now an official certification for betas, how bizarre is that? Fascinating discussion of authorship and when editing becomes collaboration)
• Slash: What Is It and Why Do You Write It? (Patricia went to this and reported back. I could devote a whole page to discussing the bizarre contradictions of this incredibly popular genre, and this answered a lot of my questions and theories)
• In Search of the Fanged Plot Bunny: Generating Ideas for Fan and Original Fiction (writers are all too familiar with plot bunnies. Jennifer Racek was nice enough to talk shop with me after and introduced me to her fav writing software.)
• Rising Above Situational Ethics: Raising Phoenixes in a World of Crows (Piaget and Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Gina Burkart teaches Eng and Creative Writing at the U of Iowa where she's also a doctoral student. We exchanged emails and I look forward to reading her thesis-in-progress. We think alike--scary.)
• Witch Weakly (roundtable discussion on feminism and the role of women in Rowlings' novels. Kinda scary to see how 3 different generations interpret the feminism movement both in the US and the UK.)
• “Yes, but the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.” (how bad are the bad guys, how good the good guys, and--continuing a discussion raised in Gina Burkart's lecture--where should the line be drawn in "the end justifies the means")

All good things come to an end, and now I'm back home, getting back to real life. And back to knitting again. Still working on my twisted stitch version of a wavy fan patterned shawl I'm thinking of calling Waves On A Beach. It's my first major project, that is, the first project to use a ton of yarn--6 balls. When finished, it will be just about as long as I am tall (60") and two feet wide. The yarn is a pettably soft Lavender Blue and I've gotten a lot of complements on the shawl so far, even though it's only a third completed. It's certainly a great, though unintended, conversation piece that attracts a lot of strangers--many of whom are knitters themselves. Pictures in the next day or so.