Here’s what I’m planning this Thanksgiving:
And a turkey roast in seasoned broth for my dad. Done. Happy holiday!
Knitting this for my neighbor’s birthday. Happy happy happy. Winston comes home today!
Read this first, or the following may not make much sense unless you already know what I’m talking about. Or maybe it won’t make sense anyway.
(I put this picture and the picture below in because they have something I made in them. Well, I mean because they have something I made out of yarn in them. The thing I made in my womb is just an added bonus. Anyway, I’m too lazy to take pictures that relate more to the subject matter.)
Okay. I rarely hand-make gifts. Because for me, a handmade gift is a big deal. If I make you a sweater, it’s not just a sweater. It’s packed with my feelings for you. Concentrated gratitude, love, dismissal, worry, adoration, devotion, confusion … you get it. It’s more than just the time and materials needed to make you this gift. I can’t make a sweater as a gift if I don’t have enough emotion to fill every last stitch. If I try to make the gift and the emotion isn’t there, the knitting doesn’t work. I run into technical, tangible difficulties because of the intangible deficiency of feeling. It’s different for commissioned pieces or things I make for myself – those things don’t come with as much subtext.
This is pretty selfish of me to not disclose. Because from my perspective, if you accept my gift, you implicitly accept the feelings that come with it. So, for example, if I knit you a hat that comes with my love, and you reject my love but still wear the hat, it’s hurtful to me. But since I (hypothetically, still) didn’t tell you about the love in the stitches, it’s hypocritical and selfish of me to feel hurt or betrayed.
So anyway, here I am trying to justify my feelings, with this blanket statement: I take my handmade gifts very seriously. I put my unguarded heart into them. So please be gentle. You’re not only wearing wool.
I wrote this before Grady was born, and it’s been stagnating in the drafts pile for a bit too long.. I was going to toss it, but I think you need to read it before I can accurately convey what’s on my mind today – I’ll write that post after publishing this one.
I recently (well, maybe two months ago) wrote an article concerning the ethics of asking students to use their bodies, image, voice, and existence to convey a message instead of just their written words. And then (still two months ago) I saw this movie. The documentary is about Alex Caldiero an artist-in-residence at my college, and in it an interviewee talks about how Caldiero becomes the thing he is portraying. All of this has me thinking more comfortably about using non-traditional media to communicate.
I say “more comfortably,” because I’ve always kept my views on this closeted. I’ve been embarrassed about putting ideas into stitches, and have never told anyone what my hats and wallhangings and sweaters actually meant. But if I’ve given you any handmade thing, you can bet that I also gave you an embodiment of my feelings towards you.
This is different than dance or theater or poetry or visual art – when is the last time you heard of anyone interpreting a dishcloth? I’ve been using fiber arts as a sort of invisible ink. It’s self-serving. But especially when I design my own pieces, I’m more prone to increase or decrease or add design elements because that’s how I feel or that’s what I’m saying, than to do the same thing for the sake of the design.
After getting more comfortable with this idea, I’m kind of proud of myself for it. I love making something with a meaning that is also functional. It represents what I want my life to be – a blend of practicality and significance. Blending the two chemically, so that they can’t be disconnected. A vegetable garden that’s also an essay on heritage. An embroidered blanket that is also an expression of gratitude for music. Cleaning the kitchen as a declaration of equality. That’s what I want my life to be.
I also love your comments. Thank you for being such fantastic readers/famiy/friends. Sorry I suck at replying to them – I don’t know how to adequately respond to such lovely sentiments!
I really do want to write an outfit post. Really. I really do. But putting together outfits that are breastfeeding-friendly is exponentially more difficult than dressing myself while pregnant. I haven’t wavered from the basic jeans/t-shirt combo. Dresses are out of the question. Skirts are possible, but intimidating. I have to be able to bear my entire stomach at will. Grady has a fun habit of rejecting random mouthfuls of milk all over my torso while feeding – it’s like she changes her mind about that mouthful, and would rather look at my face for a second instead. So I can’t bear the boob from the top, if that makes sense. I’d draw a diagram, but this post is a bit too booby already.
Next time Grady’s asleep and I don’t have any chores to catch up on (ha) maybe I’ll do a “what I’d like to be wearing” post. Because I stocked up on clothes to wear post-pregnancy and practically none of them are practical. Also I never leave my house, so there’s not much reason to get dressed up.
Sorry for those who come here looking for a fashion blog, and are only getting baby and crafty posts. Here’s a pretty picture:
Via.
Via.
What is this?
It was going to be a cowl, but now it is not. And I don’t want to rip it. So now it’s just an unblocked unfinished rectangle – about 6×10″.
I love the texture so much. The blue is a hand-dyed shetland wool, pictured below. The brown is Berroco Ultra Alpaca – and the mixture of the brutally scratchy shetland and the soft and cuddly Berroco is making a wonderful fabric. And the depth of the texture and the little v’s created by the dropped purls … I just love it. You can kind of see the transition to green at the top of the picture above, but there will be some more obvious color changes:
So. What should I make out of this? It’s still a bit too scratchy to be a baby item. And like I said, I don’t want to rip it and start over. I have one more skein of the shetland and plenty of the Berroco, so it can be quite a bit bigger. Help!
Oh, by the way I got the stitch pattern from Super Stitches Knitting.
… apparently it’s been four days since my last post. Feels like I pressed “publish” about two hours ago. No, wait. Two months. Yeah, definitely feels like two months. Anyway, look how cute Grady is:
I’ve been so lucky with this girl. She’s ridiculously well-behaved and healthy so far. We’ve found a rhythm that makes nighttime and morning downright pleasant. Which is just ludicrous.
She’s gained one pound and one ounce since we were discharged from the hospital. She’s so much better at focusing on things now – I can really tell when she’s looking at me. It’s insane (you know, in a completely ordinary and expected way) how fast she’s growing.
I’m considering a blatant vain look-how-skinny-I-am post. Because as much as I loved being pregnant, having my body back is wonderful. And I think it would have been calming if I could see how easy it can be to reclaim your pre-pregnancy body. You know, if you’re just insanely undeservedly lucky. And also I want to show off the skinny.
