knitting pictures

Here’s a quote from the introduction to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knitting and Crocheting:

Like many crafts, [knitting and crocheting] grew out of necessity: People needed a way to take simple tools and supplies and craft them into usable items. Today, base survival barely figures into knitting and crocheting. Your family members aren’t dependent on your knitting skills to keep their feet toasty; usable socks are easy enough to buy from a store.

And yet, more and more people continue to learn these crafts. In fact, their popularity has escalated substantially in recent years. Young adults are looking for a creative, relaxing outlet are turning to knitting and crocheting as an after-hours escape from life’s hectic pace. The choice to stitch or not to stitch adds a new freedom to the crafts that wasn’t there either at the turn of the century, when women felt compelled to stitch for survival, or in the liberated ’60s, when women felt compelled to make a statement and not stitch. Folks are now knitting and crocheting because they choose to.

I remember reading somewhere, either in this book or another (it could be Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair), that knitting seemed to skip a generation, from our grandmothers who had to knit out of necessity, to our mothers who decided not to knit simply because they didn’t have to, to this generation where people are picking the needles back up. Whoever wrote this also said that it shows that people want to make things with their hands. Sometimes this world of technology leaves us feeling a bit disconnected, but knitting and crocheting, and other activities like gardening, bring our bodies–and souls–back to the good earth.

And another quote from Idiot’s Guide:

Some experts believe that working with your hands, following repetitive motions–such as those in knitting, crocheting, and needlepoint–actually fuel the creative process in other areas of your life. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, believes that by allowing your hands to work repetitiously your brain can simultaneously think through solutions creatively.

Cool! So many of my daily activities (school, work, etc) require both my hands and my brain, especially when I do editing work and my brain is filled with words and punctuation marks. I often feel like when I’m on my own to think, my brain is so tired that I usually just want to sleep instead. But I have found that activities just using my hands, like knitting (or, for some strange reason, scrubbing the bathroom), keep my body busy so I stay awake, but they let my mind roam around so I can actually think.

Okay, enough introspection. Here are the pictures I promised. (You can click on each one for a short explanation of why I think that picture is important)

I’m such a grandma

new old hobby

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was a child, say, probably six. The first pattern she taught me was for a cotton dishcloth. As a result, my mom gets a kick out of telling the story about how I stood up in show-and-tell in school and announced proudly, “My gramma makes rags!” Well, over the past fifteen years or so, I made lots and lots of dishrags and the occasional plain-stitched rectangular scarf. I also learned how to crochet and made some pretty plain hats and scarves. My dishrag knitting turned into saving these similar-sized squares to make an eventual sort of patchwork afghan thing. Which I am still working on. But I love knitting! I always have. I have a habit of knitting during General Conference as a way to stay awake. I’m not bored; I’m just narcoleptic if I don’t have something to do with my hands.

I have a point to this. This summer I’ve been working at the Hallmark Store, and we carry a delightful book called Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: the true-life misadventures of a 30-something who learned to knit after he split. Crazy Aunt Purl is the working nickname of Laurie Perry, the author. It’s kind of a self-help book, not something I usually go for, but the stories she tells are true and heartfelt and often funny. Basically, in her antisocial funk after her husband left her, a friend dragged her to a knitting class just to get her out of the house, and she got hooked. The knitting side of it was what originally caught my eye, but it talks about things that anyone can relate to. Starting to date again after the horrific end of a long-term relationship. Insecurities in growing older. Learning to be a whole person on your own. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So her discussion of her knitting adventures, only a minor part of the book, made me think about my knitting, and how I’ve been making the same things over and over since I was six. And I thought, well, I’m on summer break and have nothing better to do, maybe it’s time to go back to my old hobby and learn something new. I already own The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knitting and Crocheting, a fantastic get-started book that lets you go at your own pace (which, depending on my mood, can be rocket-fast or snail-slow). I bought it years ago (and by “bought it” I mean “asked for it for Christmas”) because it had both knitting and crocheting, so it was like a 2-for-1 deal. So I pulled that off the shelf a few weeks ago and learned how to purl, which as knitters out there know is basically the backwards of knitting. And then I learned how to do stockinette stitch (which, if you look closely, is the weave t-shirts are made out of), and then ribbing, and then checkerboard, and then (gasp) cables! I’ll take some pictures of my work soon and upload them because it’s awesome. It’s amazing what you can do just by alternating two very easy stitches (knitting and purling) in different patterns. Wow. I love it. I love knitting. I made a beautiful ribbed scarf, and now I’m working on a checkerboard one and a cabled one. After that, I want to do a couple more chapters in my book and learn increasing and decreasing and knitting in a circle, so I can make hats and that sort of thing. My brother really wants me to make him some mittens. We’ll see if I have time before I leave on a mission. If not, I’ll learn how when I come back!

I love picking up old hobbies and giving them new life. I’ve also considered painting again this summer, ever since I read Asher Lev. But I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I just want to have fun making things with my hands. It’s productive.

book angel

I just read an article in the San Jose Mercury News this morning about a teacher who saves books that his school library throws out.

This week, Wright, 57, rumpled in sweatpants and a T-shirt, rushed to Morrill Middle School after the Berryessa school board had declared 686 library books surplus. The teacher browsed through volumes laid out on tables. He filled boxes until the custodian turned out the lights and chased him out. He returned Friday morning, his triumph mixed with amazement and distress.

“Why get rid of ‘The Yearling’? Or ‘Leaves of Grass’! How could anybody say there just isn’t room for ‘Leaves of Grass’?” he asked. “If they were throwing out ‘Captain Underpants’ I’d understand, but not ‘Leaves of Grass.’ “

Granted, I haven’t read Leaves of Grass, but I have read The Yearling. And one of the pictures showed a few of these reject books laid out on a table, including a book by Ray Bradbury. Which really got me riled. The article also mentions such titles as The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey.

Apparently this guy takes the books home, puts them in his classroom, or takes them to another school library that is happy to receive them. All three are much better outlets than the dumpster. It’s too bad the school doesn’t have access to some kind of donation program for the books.

Here’s something else that’s scary:

He glances at the spacious library with empty shelves and counters of computers, and laments that the room that once held many more shelves of books now is labeled “the media center.”

I went walking past my old elementary school a couple of weeks ago, and noticed the same thing had happened to the library there. It was a “media center.” As useful as computers and other media can be, I find this incredibly disturbing. It’s a trend of belief that with the advent of the internet, books are suddenly obsolete. It reminds me of something Ben said on a recent post:

I’ve noticed it in myself, watching my attention span shrink as my mind reshapes itself in order to digest bite-sized meals instead of the full nine courses of a Tolstoy or a Melville or even the ordinary single-course meal of an Austen or a Hardy. I gravitate towards shorter books, I shy away from the long. (And “long” grows shorter by the day.) I’d rather read blogs than books.

But don’t worry, he redeems himself:

Wrong wrong wrong! Blogs are great, and the Internet’s a wonderful thing, but I will not let it suck away my capacity to enjoy books.

Let me remind everyone that books are the most enduring data storage device in history, our friend since the dark ages.

So this teacher is one of my personal heroes.

Only one thing:

At home he’s got bookcases, a steamer trunk in the basement, and soon plastic bins for his crawl space, all filled with books.

Packrat. Reminds me of me. And Ben. And Mike. Plus maybe a little OCD on the side. Let’s hope someday I have enough shelving so nothing has to go in boxes

wheels

I love riding my bike. It is one of my favorite ways to get from point A to point B. Two days ago I rode my bike to work, something I do pretty often, and then I rode my bike to the library, another thing I do pretty often. But this is the first time I did the two together in one trip. Like, from home to work to library to home, in a nice triangle. I loved it!

I especially love riding my bike to the library. It combines three of my favorite things: biking, the library, and getting outside. So biking to the library is a great summer activity. You get some exercise, you scope the shelves to see if any good literature jumps out and grabs you, you get a chance to sit and read while munching on an energy bar (and my local library has a lovely little garden courtyard where I love to read), and in my case it’s a pretty easy ride home because it’s more-or-less downhill. You get endorphins AND some mental stimulation.

Granted, I am not an overachiever when it comes to bike riding. I’ve never been mountain biking, and I’ve never ridden more than a couple miles in one go. My bike is a pretty average 21-speed, neither a road bike nor a mountain bike, but something in between. And I don’t know any of the cyclist lingo. But my “pretty average” bike can get me to the places I go most often that don’t require too much cargo, that is, work and the library. Anywhere else I can usually jockey for one of the family cars.

But I would love to be one of those awesome people someday who have decent road bikes and ride them 10+ miles to work (or ride partway, take the train partway, etc.) every day. It doesn’t burn fossil fuels (conserving resources AND cutting down on pollution), it’s good exercise, it lowers traffic, and it’s a great way to experience the outdoors. City streets aren’t as much fun, but at least you’re not cooped up inside. The only drawback is I can’t listen to books on tape when I’m riding my bike. But it’s a great time to think.

And as far as exercise is concerned, just like biking, I am no overachiever. But that is why biking is so great. I have learned in past years that I have to trick myself into exercising, and biking, as a way to get from one place to another, is one of the most practical ways to do that. That and dancing, because dancing is just fun.

Asher Lev’s heart

I’ve been reading Chaim Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev, in which the title character is an artist going through a deep inner struggle. I think I saw bits of my own inner struggles in it, and it inspired me to do this picture. It’s in Prismacolor soft pastels. I haven’t used pastels in a couple of years, so it’s pretty rough. And I was just kind of messing around, so there’s no foresight in it in terms of design.