Winter & Knitting

As I spend more time outside and in my garden in the summer, and as my body aches sometimes from repetitive motion I think that I will not be knitting as much anymore.

I have also mentioned that I love switching from one fiber art form to another in order to give the different parts of my body - that are required and strained - a break. The initial idea actually comes naturally to me and is the fact that I love and find myself switching from one arts and crafts medium to another.

And here I am again, Fall of 2021, knitting frantically, well, at least knitting with a lot of enthusiasm! I find myself teaching different knitting techniques and woops, getting back into it myself and actually using some of the knitting skills and techniques I have acquired over the years and stepping it up a notch.

It is fun! And so interesting to me that over the years things haven’t changed very much in my habits and seasonal likes and pulls. It is Fall, Winter is around the corner, we sit comfortably by the fire in the evenings and I knit. What has changed it seems is my noticing that this happens and that my body doesn’t always like it. I must have arthritis or something similar because my hands and arms ‘speak’ to me after I knit a colorwork hat in less than a week on a size US 2 knitting needle with sock yarns.

And there it is again: the balance and the call back to it. Sometimes I think I will keep these patterns and habits until my body says stop! But, hopefully I will keep varying it up and give different parts of my body a break. I try to listen.

So if you have any knitting or weaving requests right now, it’s the time because as the weather warms up in the Spring I will be outside more and garden.

The unpredictability in what I will be doing next is exciting to me. As Rebekah of Stitch Witch NoCO said to me one day, you are like a Popcorn Artist, you jump from one craft to another. I find that is so true.

This concept can be a little scary and hard to know in my business because I think it makes me look like I can make a lot of different things but not one hundred percent.

But I think I am ok with that because I love teaching all I do and even if I teach at a beginners level most of what I do. There are some domains of my fiber arts knowledge where I can teach at secondary or tertiary levels.