Is Knitting A Slap in the Face to Feminists?

Did you know that this 'resurgence' of knitting (and canning, and quilting and cooking at home) is called the 'new domesticity.'  This term seems to have been coined by women more than a decade my junior.  As always, I'm either ahead of my time or the last to find out.

As with any 'phase' in which massive amounts of people join in - this is newsworthy.  I read a piece in The Washington Post's Sunday Outlook on this topic.

Weird.


What's weird is that people find this desire to care for our bodies and our homes a social phenomena.  Aren't we all here to live healthy lives?  Don't we hear the call to cherish the body we've been given? To tread lightly on Mother Earth and give her respect?


Is it "new age" or anti-feminist to want to be the healthiest and most compassionate person we can be?

What about the creativity factor?  Is it anti-feminist to be creative?  Or is it highly feminist to place creativity in our own lives above all else (including an income?)


Isn't our place to find balance?  Isn't that the best use of our time, energy and creativity?  Ultimately a creative life is one in which we create the life that makes our heart sing.  At least that's the way I see it.

My mother, who will never be accused of being a hippie-liberal-bra-waving-feminist insisted we eat whole, natural foods at every  meal.  In the 70s all I wanted was Skippy peanut butter but she was buying the fresh ground stuff from Abma's farm.  Our meat was fresh from the local butcher, our eggs from the farm and the milk was delivered from the local dairy.  That's the way our life was in suburban New Jersey.  Sure, we got the occasional quarter for ice cream from the "ice cream man" in the summer and we ate our share of pizza and diner food, but all in all, we had a household where the food was homemade from the real ingredients.

I'm grateful for that now.  (Back then I felt like the biggest nerd on the planet).

My grandmother was a great cook.  My other grandmother was a stellar knitter and crocheter.  I still snuggle in a blanket she made for me when I headed off to college. 

Of course times were different when my grandparents were kids and young parents.  There weren't scientifically altered foods on the shelves at the chain grocery store.  You had several stops to go to put together the ingredients for a family meal - the farmer, the butcher, the bakery, the dairy...

I'm certain the advent of convenience made everyone breathe a sigh of relief.  The convenience was supposed to help us spend more time with our families and with those we loved.  What we might have missed is the fact that all the shopping, and prepping and cooking was time with those we loved.  So we've found ways to spend our time.


Don't mistake me here -- i LOVE the internet.  I'm tremendously thankful that I have running water, (hot and cold!), a heated home and access to food and movies and - really - anything my heart desires.  This is progress.

At the same time, I'm vigilant about where my food comes from and how it's been altered or enhanced to encourage my repeat purchase.  I'm a fan of commerce and capitalism.  To the companies that make their dollars putting chemicals in food to encourage eating and purchasing, I say rock on.  They're doing their business and they're making money.  Because we're buying.

If we stop buying they'll change their business practices.  Right?

Because they're in business.

So is this knitting thing I do an anti-feminist stance?  Does my desire to carefully tend to my body and make my own meals mean that all the work Gloria Steinam and the sisters who came before me is for naught?

Nope.  I just love knitting.  It gives my hands something to do.  It provides a meditative state for me to work out challenges and frustrations.  And it's sooo fun to see the look in a gift receiver's eye when they open a hand-made gift for me. 

Does that make me old-fashioned?  There's a first time for everything?  Does that make me a hippie?  Maybe.

Thanksgiving

I was sick for two weeks.  That was good for my knitting.  Finished a scarf for Mom's birthday (drat! I didn't snap a pic of her wearing it -- next time) 2 wash cloths and started and made great progress on the scarf for my sweetie and my sister in law.

There were a few times along the sniffling, sneezing, itchy eye path that I worried about getting my germs on my work.  And would it transfer to the recipient.  I decided that frequent hand washing and generous use of tissues (not to mention a dose of antibiotics) should keep everything clean. 

Of course I'll be blocking everything before it's ready to go - so that's how I made it work in my mind.  Anyone have anything more scientific to go on?

I spent almost a week with my parents - drove down with the dogs to celebrate mom's birthday (low key - but she liked the scarf!) and then helped out where I could to prep for Michael's arrive with his kids for Thanksgiving.

Every time I'm visiting them I'm intrigued to see glimpses of how I got to be who I am just be observing my parents' being themselves.  46 years we've been a family and I'm still learning things.

It's fodder for a book.  That's for sure. 

The thing I'm most thankful for this year is the fact that I can find a way to sit back and observe and take note, without reacting.  (Okay,  mostly).  We get into patterns with the people in our lives and the usually the hardest patterns to dislodge are those with our parents.  I know people that haven't spoken to their family for years because the patterns can be so painful.

It seems I'm finally realizing that the pattern is as much a part of me as I want to make it.  In other words, I can change the pattern anytime I want.  I can even frog the story I've been telling myself about my family, how I got there and why I am the way I am.  I get to start over anytime I want.

Family relationships are there for the learning.  They may be complicated pattern, but it's what we have and, I truly believe, what we choose.  This year I choose to be curious, and non reactive with my family.

And because every post should have at least one picture -- here's my oldest, this morning as I was loading the car to hit the road for home. 

Thinking in Patterns

I have always proclaimed that I have no designing skills.  And that is is traced back to my desire to avoid math problems whenever possible.

I lose track when counting simple patterns. I practically need to be in a silence chamber to handle more complicated lace and cables.

Still, this Fall, I'm finding myself picturing all the goodness and color and nature around me in knit. or crochet.  I'm wondering if there is a way to do this without having to calculate a pattern first?

In music I'd say this thing that I want to do is "play by ear" but I don't know what you call it in knitting?

There's so many amazing yarns out there in the colors I see around me, but how to capture the trees and leaves and light?

I have to admit this is a wholly new concept to me.  I've gotten "into" crafts and projects and creative pursuits before.  It's been a long time since I started dreaming about them as I drifted off to sleep.


Anyway,  here's on what's the needles now.  It's the Ionic Column Scarf by Patricia Kalthoff from the Holiday 2009 Interweave Knit Gifts issue.  I had two little puffs of Miss Babs and figured I'd test out the pattern on them.  Now my only complaint is that I don't have enough of the yarn to make this a full size scarf.  The pattern is an easy rhythm (even for my easily distracted brain) and I intend to make a full size one with some lovely lacy weight yarn I've been hiding from myself.

In Progress

I like the idea of WIPs instead of UFOs but you and I both know that they're more or less the same, right?

I've got several WIPs.  Some are going to be finished by Christmas by god because they're gifts.  others are languishing.  i've lost interest or gumption. or run out of yarn.

Mitt Envy - probably for me

I'm one of those peeps who has to be intrigued by what I'm working on.  That means scarves and blankets take forever unless there's something intriguing in the pattern.

Scarf for  Step Daughter

 

With books, I can never read them a second time.  I'm sort of that way with bigger patterns too.  Hats and mittens are so quick I don't mind much doing the same ones over and over -- there's always new yarn and needles to play with.  Anything else though?    One time only!

Caron's Simply Soft Shawl - crochet - for my mom

For me - Traveling Roses Scarf (in my defense, this is the first piece I've ever tried to do in lace)

Mittens

I'm a little obsessed with hands.

In 2004 I had my hands read by a professional hand analyst.  Later that year I started a year long journey to become a certified hand analyst myself.  In 2005 I had the certification and have been using hand analysis professionally to help my coaching clients ever since.

Is that why I've become obsessed with mittens?

I've been on a quest for warm hands since Snowmageddon 2 years ago.  While I have gloves that were purchased, in a rush, from the shelves of a local big box store, they really aren't my cup of tea.

When I started knitting again this summer I decided that I wanted to make mittens (and socks, but that's another post) because they seemed more complicated than scarves and I thought I could do fun things with glove design once I figured out what I was doing.

I'm an intrepid knitter.  Rarely do I have a clue about what I'm getting into before I start.  (Like most things in life) I think this is a good habit because once I'm "in" I can't simply quit.  I also feel compelled to finish the project I start.  Sure, I frog a decent amount, but sometimes I can't quite figure out what I'm supposed to be doing until the entire project is done and I can review my work to find my mistakes. 

Oh.  So Mittens.

I bought some Manos Maxima from my LYS, Fibre Space in Alexandria a month ago.   I have a pink colorway, a blue/green colorway and a tan/pink/yellow colorway.  Anyway.  I found the Mittens to Fit pattern by Slavi Thomsen on Ravelry and dug in.

The first attempt was the pink pair.

The larger mitten on the left was the first one I did.  I'm new at reading patterns and it seems that Slavi was new at writing patterns.  So as far as I'm concerned, he and I learned together.  I used #2 US dpns and went to town.  This is where I learned that somehow I knit in the round backwards (inside-out).  Because although I was knitting the finished work was purl side out. 

This was okay though because when you get up to the tippy top of the mitten you're supposed to somehow work your mitten inside out (getting the needles through there was impossible for me) so that you can finish with the 3 needle bind off.

Since my mitten was already inside out, I simply did the bind off and THEN turned the mitten inside out.  >Brilliant!<

I then went hunting on YouTube to figure out how to finish the thumb.  (Beginners like me need details -- like, uh, yes, you want to pick up the thumb stitches with more than one needle so that you can knit in the round).

For the second mitten I was feeling more prepared and the knitting went faster, the thumb finished up nicely (although if you look closely on both thumbs you'll see where the purl was outside in, til I decided to purl instead of knit and made it look right).

I used almost the entire skein of yarn (~219 yards/200m) for these.

All told, I'm pretty happy with these -- first pair, they're for me and they keep my hands warm and are in a fun color!

You'd think I would be a pro by the time I went for the second pair. 

Not so much.

I intended these for a friend's Christmas Gift.  She's a forgiving friend so I may well give them to her still. 

I'm a perfectionist and don't like the bind off on the mitten on the right.

For these I started out with the Fried Chicken Mittens because I thought they looked a little easier to follow. 

Then somewhere along the line I realized I was doing the inside-out/backwards thing again and also decided to improvise.  From there I sort of combined the Fried Chicken and the Mittens to Fit and created my own.  (Does that make me a designer?)

The mitten on the right was first - and because I had corrected my inside-out knitting along the line, the bind off was awful (since I still have no idea how one is supposed to turn a mitten inside out and bring the needles through). 

These were knit with Manos Maxima too.  And they were done with US #8 dpns.  and I have nearly half a skein left of the ~219 yds/200 m I started out with. 

They feel softer to the touch than the smaller needled pair.  Since I have so much yarn left I think I'll make another pair or try something fun with fingerless mitts.

So, anyone reading this -- do you have any idea how I inadvertently seem to wind up having my purls on the outside when I knit using dpns?   

Knitting Fever

So I've found a new way to waste spend my precious time.

In addition to running my business (which is actually starting to BUSTLE by the way) and caring for my dogs and my honey and his daughter I am KNITTING.


It's taking up a lot of my life.   the good news is that I seem to eat and drink less bad stuff when I'm busy making stuff with strings and sticks.

This week I'll start posting pictures of what's being created.  And my journey to believing that I really do know what I'm doing.