momentary (month-long) distraction

I fully intended on jumping right into my studies this month.

I got a little distracted by this:

“Forest Canopy Shawl”/ Handspun DK 2 ply Superwash Merino fiber from PigeonRoof Studios

(click on image to see whole thing)

(thats sort of compulsory spinners/knitters footnotes)

Ive been thinking a lot about process while knitting this shawl.

Why did I sit on the yarn so long if I thought I knew what to do with it while I was spinning?

(The fiber was spun over last christmas vacation intended for sock yarn, but the plied yarn was too thin in certain places to make a good sock yarn in the end.)

At what point did I feel comfortable enough to embark on the Forest Canopy pattern?

The pattern actually took a lot of thinking about whether the variations in the colors would look ok, or if it would stripe at all. (it did, is ok.)

Spinning this yarn was during a really stressful period of living at my parents house – looking at it I will never forget the feeling of hiding out on Christmas Eve in our bedroom just taking a moment to spin to calm myself. The light in that bedroom was really terrible. I had no idea how many colors and interactions there were until I saw it when I was done plying, and all the while I was knitting it there was a constant delight at the way the colors played out in the lace pattern.

C R A F T A S A P R O C E S S O F P H Y S I C A L M E M O I R

What then about all these thoughts, and how they get ironed in by our movements and actions. How all of the above is what I am processing as I am knitting the shawl stitch by stitch.

And then questions of intent. Will I still continue to think these things when I wear it? Will I wear it? Did I imagine already while I was casting on that there was one person for whom this shawl was meant for? That made clear to me when I finally was knitting the yarn in its rightful purpose. Not socks. A shawl. And suddenly the purpose of the process, already begun back in December, is realized.

I cant think about craft as anything other than process.

Ive reconciled in the knitting of this shawl that in my interpretation, craft is a VERB.

A transformational process.

The nouns that we collect to start a process are infused with POTENTIAL.

We courier this potential in our leg of the work to its final state which can be in different spots in the lifecycle of the material – for one person the finished material state is the beginning of another person's process cycle.

Also that life gets in the way sometimes, and knitting is the way that I cope and process that.

Onwards.