Emotionally Ready

Sunday, on my way to the gym, I caught part of an interview on NPR with a woman who has read every Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. At the end of the interview, she was asked whether she'll immediately read this year's winner (Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout). She replied that she would probably buy it soon, but only read it if she was emotionally ready for it, as fiction has the ability to connect with our souls and move us emotionally. Similarly, I believe the same can be said for craft. Craft isn't just about making things; it's about communicating to the world what I'm feeling and how I've been inspired.

But it also explains why some projects just get shelved, or why I just don't have the motivation to continue. Despite that I currently have 3 projects on the needles, I cast on another yesterday. The WIPs are unsuitable to knit for the following reasons: Laminaria -- dropped a bunch of stitches and have to retrofit a lifeline. This requires time, patience, diligence, patience, a clear head, patience. Which I have none of at this particular moment. The yarn for the drawstring raglan has been ordered and I'm eagerly awaiting it's arrival. (Final additional color choices where mushroom, ice blue and cinnabar -- color combo inspired by an artist who had decorated a robin's egg with dried flowers - white petals, beige centers - and some kind of flecks of red.)

And then there's the beach dress. That dress has been stressing me out ever since my first attempt at it almost a year ago. Life outside of knitting is currently stressful as it is (end of the semester, graduating in a month, still looking for a job, etc etc) and this was an unfortunate project to take on at this time -- it wasn't alleviating the stress in my life, sadly, only adding to it. I need something that reminds me about the joys of knitting, something that surprises me, something that stirs my emotions positively. Enter Vogue's latest Pleated Top.

Every stage of this project has been an unexpected delight and delightfully unexpected. Paid a long overdue to my LYS on Sunday, to pick up needles. (Somehow I'd found myself with all this lace weight yarn, but no appropriately sized needles with which to knit it.) Nancy greeted me and instantly told me I needed the new issue of Vogue. It's a great issue, by the way, the patterns are truly timeless and versatile. And so I stumbled upon the Pleated Top...and matched it with a skein of Misti Alpaca Hand Painted Lace in Piney Woods.


Normally I don't like variegated yarns, but there was something about this hank that spoke to me, and now that I'm knitting it, it is revealing to me it's secrets, it's undulating rivers of forest floor, flecks of lavender and budding leaves, peaking out from the edge of ponds reflecting a midnight sky, all in lace yarn that is whimsical, feathery and playful, while being, not unlike pine needles themselves, sturdy and resilient.


In other words, this is a gorgeous fabric. I have visions of the finished top dancing around in my head. I haven't knit anything in over two weeks -- arguably one of the longest periods of time I've gone without knitting -- to the point where it was actually a bit awkward to knit at first, which is slightly embarrassing. In any case, this is the project that has restored my faith in knitting, in craft, in wanting to create and communicate with the world. This is the project I needed to change me, emotionally.