Blankets, balaclavas, bags. I spent a lot of time knitting this year, getting back into it.
My mom is an avid knitter, teaching classes at her friend’s local knitting store on the weekends and maintaining a steadily growing supply of projects that keep her busy nearly every evening. Witnessing this has instilled in me this belief that any knit item I wanted, could be conjured up by hand, instead of purchased from a store. I remember in high school, I wanted a fur lined hunter hat, the kind with ear flaps - my mom knit me one in a purple, flat, suede-like yarn with a white boucle lining to mimic fur. With a matching cable knit scarf and handkerchief-hem fringe skirt. Insert “we have food at home” meme here.
I’ve always had some disparate knitting projects going, aided by my mom’s help and knitting store discount. It’s been a few years though, since I’ve made something. Thinking about post-op recovery restoked the fire. I thought it would be a great way to pass my time after surgery, and that a blanket would be a straightforward project to work on during that time - bulky yarn, straight knitting, no fancy patterns, just stripes in an improvisational color spread.
Because of how everything worked out, I ended up finishing the blanket before I even had surgery..so then came the dishtowels and my obsession with cotton yarn.
One project has led to another - leftover yarn brings new ideas and each project stretches my skills a bit further.
My leftover yarn pile is growing bigger after each project which prompts new ideas and fun combinations.
And having the supplies around has just oriented my brain back to that “we have food at home” mentality. Instagram ad for a knit bag on sale.. Why don’t I just make that? Problem (manufactured by capitalism) solved.
I have google searched “is knitting addictive” no less than four times in the past few months. I rounded out the year with many more gift projects leading up to Christmas, which is why I’ve waited so long to pull together a knitting round up, wanting to keep many projects a surprise!
I have received many handknit gifts over the years, and know how special they can be. Sometimes the gift is a manifestation of exactly what you wanted for yourself, sometimes it has its own quirks: a slightly off color or fit you wouldn’t pick for yourself, but its always warm and soft and just for you. Things my mom has knit me that haven’t quite felt like me, misaligned with my style or gender, I always keep around for the moment when they might.
The knit objects are instilled with a concentrated meditation of care and embrace by the maker. I sit and I move my hands and I think about how what I’m making relates to someone else’s body, someone else’s movement through the world, someone else’s self image and home. I picture their future and wedge my way into it in a small way. A form of social practice maybe?
I have felt this tension this year (and maybe you can tell from my dwindling updates and twisting justifications) of the question of where my creative interests are driving me next, or if they are driving at all.
Its been a huge year of change and rebuilding for me - new body, new home, first and foremost, but with these ricocheting impacts on relationships, perceptions of me and of myself, and how I fit and move through the world. I have found a huge amount of solace in spending quiet time slowly making things that custom fit my body and the home I am building for myself. Shaping my world around me! A lot of the time I’ve spent in the studio in the last six months has been sewing and tailoring clothes for myself, making things fit anew. There has been something really generative there for me, and necessarily, foundationally securing, making that space in the world where I fit and things fit me.
But, in the way that knitting can be addictively soothing on the verge of dissociative, what I want for myself in the new year is to spend more time probing deeper levels of thinking. The foundation is set, now spring forth. Knitting will definitely still be happening, I still have bundles of leftovers and two just-started projects underway (including my first ever sweater!), but I want to creatively go other places, just further or deeper or wider. I want my brain to go there.