A time of change

      This holiday season has brought with it much turmoil and upheaved our usual family festivities. My beloved grandmother, who taught me to knit and with whom I had a magical relationship, passed away on Christmas Eve. I am so grateful that I was able to fly home early and see her and laugh with her and sing with her one last time. She was the most incredible woman, never said a bad word against anyone in 97 years, and everyone we talked to afterwards had a special story to tell us about her. 

Lost paradise of childhood...

As she left us, we were all around her, and I was knitting her a pair of socks. I was well aware that it was pointless, but I felt that to keep knitting it was a way to stay connected to her until the end. Those half finished socks are now at the bottom of my knitting bag. One day I will frog them, but I'm not quite ready yet.

The lonely, unfinished sock.

     It is the first time I have lost someone so important in my life and, with the grief, it is bringing about a lot of uncomfortable questions about myself, my purpose and the way I experience the world. To remain in knitting territory, I have noticed that instead of using knitting as a mindfulness practice, I've been using it to disconnect myself from what was going on around me. As nice as it is to knit while in class, or while talking to a friend, it puts distance between me and the moment. This is one of the (many) changes I would like to make, as I try to live my life in a way that moves towards awareness. Knitting is a wonderful meditation/mindfulness practice, if it is used as such, and I am determined to do so. I cannot keep ignoring the fact that I go through life refusing to let myself experience it, refusing to trust myself, refusing to make choices, in a constant state of denial or escapism.

        While I was spending a week at my mom's between Christmas and New Year, I gave myself time to dive a little more into designing. My Chrysler pattern is pretty much figured out, I just need the go ahead from The Yarn Company and the test yarn. I also did a first tentative chart for the Mexican mitts I've been thinking about for months now. I'm not 100% sure of it, but it's a start.

      I'm beginning to understand why some designers become dyers. You'd think with all the options available, it would be easy to find the right yarn for a design! But I never seem to find the exact right color/effect I have in mind. And while I usually have no problem buying from the internet, here I'm reluctant because I would like to touch the yarn and figure out if it fits what I have in mind... I'm much more demanding as a designer than as a knitter! I wish I could dye my own yarn, like Beata or Tanis - both businesses you need to check if you like pretty colors... :)

Spun from a braid by Beata... you just cannot go wrong!

 
   Speaking of pretty colors, let me leave you on this, the yarn I was spinning during this whole sleepless week. It is messy and irregular, just like I feel right now. I called it Renoir, because it reminds me of the impressionist paintings my grandmother took me to see when I was no more than five. We both remained in love with them all our lives, and it is one of the many sparks of her that will live in me forever.