Ravelry?

I've been a member of ravelry for two years, but I really just started getting familiar with it today. I added some projects, searched for patterns, and linked some blog posts. I have a sense that I'm on to something really big, but I can't quite figure out what else to do with it.

Any of my dear readers out there want to give me some tips on how to use this exciting new tool?

Oh yeah... my user name there is mserta, if'n you want to be friends.

On Easter Dresses: or, Why Do We Tear Each Other Down When We Could Build Each Other Up Instead?

When I was a very young mom, with no car and few social skills, all the women I knew were either single college students or the wives of my only-just-former college professors and had busy schedules and a million children. As a result, I was alone, a lot. My husband had two jobs and was trying to finish college himself, so he had only so much to give me, and my baby was All Things Miraculous, but even she couldn't talk in full sentences until she was 18 months old, plus she is an introvert. She didn't like even mamma getting all up in her space.

So I learned how to sew.

It was an uphill road. Being the clever person that I am, I assumed I knew better than the pattern designers, mostly because I didn't acknowledge things like grain lines, and my early efforts were mostly Lessons Learned The Hard Way, and not actual usable pieces of clothing. But because I was lonely, bored and desperate, I kept at it. I probably learned twenty or so lessons The Hard Way before I produced a single thing I could use or wear.

One of the things I have continually dedicated myself to over the years is the creation of Easter Dresses. I love Easter, and all the things it promises. I didn't have the budget to make it more special than Christmas in the same manner as Christmas, so I had to get creative (my specialty!) and one of the ways was to make matching dresses for all the girls, beginning with my first and myself. (I stopped making dresses for myself after two, though.)

Easter Skirts

As my skills developed, the dresses got nicer and nicer. My adorable three little girls all had completely different coloring - a blond with grey eyes, a redhead and all that that entails, and a dark brunette with alabaster skin. My approach was to find the same print in different colors, and make dresses from the same pattern. In later years, when they started to have vastly differing tastes in clothing, I went exactly the other way, and started choosing a color palette, and making them totally different styles of dress. But I kept it up, year after year, even if it meant doing everything during Holy Week. It is a project that means a lot to me.

Well, one year my ever-expanding repertoire of skillz reached the stage of including smocking, thanks to one of my crafting gurus - Maureen, who also helped teach me to quilt and has inspired me in so many other ways. I was pregnant and feeling sick during Lent, so I spent many hours curled up in my chair, hand-smocking some muslin panels. It's probably the earliest I ever started on dresses, and it took a lot of time, but the results were deeply satisfying, and I dressed them in t heir smocked dresses whenever I had an excuse.

One day I took them to the library, because our wonderful dear children's librarian had asked me specifically to show her my Easter Dresses. In we filed, splendidly arrayed in smocked dresses and little white gloves and straw hats with matching ribbons. (Hey, when you go to that much trouble, you take it all the way, right?) It was Story Time Day, so a lot of other moms were there, and one said to me "Please don't tell me you smocked those dresses by hand." So proud of myself, I told her that I did.

She said "I hate you."




Looking back on it, I know why she said it, and she meant to be funny, I'm sure. She was tired, she had that difficult blend of older children that keep you running and tiny babies that keep you up at night, and she is also a woman that loves beautiful things - she grows a lovely garden in the spring - and not enough time to fulfill that love. She didn't know what I gave up to make those dresses, because it's not like I go around showing people pictures of my mountain of laundry or the unswept kitchen or the uncategorized piles of papers and books... I sacrificed to make this a priority. I knew she didn't mean it. But wow, did it hurt. In fact, I'm sure she's forgotten the incident completely. (Hey, it might be you!)




The Thing is, just as we don't see those background sacrifices, that different ordering of priorities, we also don't see what kind of power our words can have. I carried that "I hate you" around for a long time in my heart, believing that I must have done something wrong, that my creative drive was somehow blameworthy because of the things I let go. I often lock myself into a place where I'm "not allowed" to make anything or buy anything until I've done X amount of housework. It never works. In fact, one time I actually got my entire house clean AT THE SAME TIME but still didn't sew because of the guilt block. Every time I sat down to make something, I felt badly. That "I hate you" became the Voice of Bob. He was right on top of that one. Alongside "You never finish what you start," it's one of my most deeply rooted Bobisms.


I'm working on it, though. I'm learning to let myself be, to recognize what people mean when they say things like that. And I'm trying to be very, very careful about what I say when I wish I could do what someone else can do.

My beautiful Audrey, recycling dresses from
last year. This year, I actually DIDN'T MAKE ANY,
and my lovely Helen wore this dress.

On Getting Bored

There are two virtues I associate with creativity: Cooperation with inspiration, and Perseverance. Correspondingly, there are two blocks to creativity: failure to respond, and Getting Bored. These two features of being a creative person are often at war with each other, in my case, in this particular way:

Lace Stole as of April 11

Me: Oh, I bet this hat would look cool if it was made out of such and such a yarn...

Bob: Don't you already have a project going? You can't start a new project until you finish your old project, otherwise you'll never finish. You never finish anything you start. (This is one of Bob's favorite proverbs.)

Me: Oh, OK, well I'll just sit down and finish my old project so I can get to my new idea... yeah... old project...

New Project: Hey, over here! I'm flashy and interesting, and I won't take long...

Old Project: Look at me, I'm familiar, and comfortable! You can follow my pattern without thinking now, it's like second nature!

Bob: This new project is irresponsible. This old project is boring. Knitting is dumb. Go wash the dishes.

Me: (washing dishes) Maybe if I had two different colours of self-striping yarn... 

Anyway, there's a lot going on in my head. My lace stole looks much the same as it did, only somewhat longer. It's true that I can now follow the pattern without thinking, and I barely need to check the chart now, but it's also true that it's getting long enough to be unwieldy when I go out, and the hairiness of the yarn makes it a bad outdoor project.

And then I saw the Entrelac Hat. Oh wow, it was cool. Furthermore, I could sort of make it an old project: see, I have this yarn. I bought it to make my eldest daughter a Christmas present, but I bought it without inspiration, only liking the colour combination. I had a vague idea for a project, but after multiple attempts, I just surrendered, showed her the yarn, and promised her an item made from it when I thought of a good one. And when I saw the Entrelac Hat, I knew what I was going to do.

My uninspired Bag of Yarn

Entrelac is a knitting technique where you make a bunch of small squares, working back and forth in very short rows, and connecting them as you go. The end result looks like knitted bands woven together. While you're working, it looks very odd indeed. I wasn't so sure I'd picked a good pattern at the start, but after a couple of tiers of blocks, I knew I was on to something. There's no picture with this pattern, so here's the one I made:

I did it slightly differently, of course - I got really bored with the ribbing right off the bat, so I didn't bother with the turning ridge, I just did twelve rows of ribbing and went from there. (Oh, and I had to learn a new, stretchy cast on method in order to make this, too! Yay, new skillz!) Then, I alternated between turquoise and purple yarn for the A colour changes.

My plan was to have a small project for my car-knitting bag (the hat) and a home project for watching TV and drinking tea (the stole). But instead, I started the hat on Tuesday and finished it on Thursday. And got only one pattern repeat done on my lace this week. Again. But that's OK! I have no deadline on my lace. I knit for fun and relaxation. As long as it is fun and relaxing, I can continue to strive for balance between Inspiration and Perseverance. I can't let Bob take it away from me.

Notes on the pattern: I used a worsted weight yarn, and had to use size 9 needles to get the suggested gauge. While I'm happy with the result, if you examine it closely, or you have a friend like Bob who will examine it closely for you, you will see that the gaps in the ribbing are pretty large, and where the squares join together, the edges look pretty ragged, and it wasn't because I knit loosely. I think that this problem could be solved by using a chunkier yarn, or by using smaller needles and increasing the number of blocks in each tier to get the right size. The adjustment would be pretty easy - you cast on 5 sts for each block. Next time I make it, I'm going to use a finer yarn and tiny needles, and see if it comes out baby or toddler size.

About Knitting

Knitting is the newest tool in my beauty box. I tried when I was a kid, but my work kept getting wider and wider as I went. It wasn't until I was teaching my own child how to knit with rainbow variegated yarn that I saw where I had been picking up stitches - there, right in the middle of my yellow stitches, was a loop from the purple row below! Now I had the Key!

It was still a while before I realized the versatility of my newfound skill. It could be functional:

(but really, really boring to make - 
those last hundred hours couldn't have gotten any slower. 
I still can't believe I finished the whole thing!)

It could be whimsical:

(that's a pig.)

It could be cosy and comfortable, yet decorative and full of flair:

(I haven't yet made the match to this, so you only get to see one.)

Depending on what you choose to make, it can be meditative, engaging, challenging or consuming. It's handily portable. Hand knit items make great gifts. Beautiful yarn feels wonderful in your hands. You can work a bit at a time. And you're spared the crocheter's constant agony of people asking "What are you knitting?"

I use Knitter's Pride "Dreamz" polished wood needles (hey, I didn't name them), because they feel really nice, and stay put in my work, unlike aluminum needles. Also unlike aluminum, they don't have an irritating clicky noise - I think of aluminum as the Plastic of Metals. Ew. Using circular needles keeps me secure in the knowledge that it will be really, really hard for curious little fingers to pull the needles out of my work and ruin everything.

These days, besides a small piglet-in-process that I carry in my purse all the time, I am busily exploring a new dimension of knitting - airy soft and whispery delicate:

This is a lace stole from this book, which I've had for years and years and always wanted to try. The yarn is a mohair/silk blend - it's very hairy - with a bit of silvery sparkle just for fun.

So far, I've made about seven major errors. I recount at the end of every other row, and I've gone back and unpicked a few times (the yarn is too hairy to rip back, so lifelines are useless), but mostly I just mark the spot and correct on the next row. And you know what? It Doesn't Show At All.

Commenting Rules

Before I've even put up any real posts, there are a couple of things I want to head off. I'm going to be sharing a lot of photos of my work, and a couple of typical reactions to things I make drive me up the wall. If they continually show up in the comments (which I will moderate anyway), then I'm going to hate doing this, which will totally defeat the purpose of having this blog. Therefore, I have two rules:

1. Don't ever tell me "I wish I could do that." If you really wished it, you'd learn. If I can learn it, you can - I'm not that special. I had no guru, no method, no teacher, just you and me... oh wait. No, really. My teachers are books and youtube. This stuff is not hard.

2. Don't ask me where I find the time. The answer to that is on BobTalkLand - I prioritize practical creativity over other things that you think are important. That's the only answer, and if I start thinking about it, I'm going to realize that your priorities must be better than mine and I should do other stuff before I sit down to work.

After that, I welcome your thoughts. Tell me about your own projects. Share your sources of inspiration. Tell me how wonderful I am. Go ahead!