Live Your Creative Life

I am not big on New Year's Resolutions.  The way I see it is that any day is a good day to make a change for the better, make new plans, start something new, finish something old, make a habit, break a habit, whatever strikes your fancy.

I did have a thought that "more life, less work" would be a good plan.  It went right out the window on January 2nd.  So much for that idea.  January 3rd fared even worse in that regard.  Third time was apparently the charm because I managed to stop working fairly close to five o'clock.

Will I now magically stop working on time every day from now on?  No.  Of course not.  But I will keep trying, and maybe eventually I will come out on the plus side.

In addition to increasing the ratio of life to work, there is the matter of quality of life.  What do I want to do with all of this time I will have once I stop working so much?

In addition to continuing to follow my passion for knitting, spinning, and things fibery in geneal, I want to read more, for certain.  I used to read voraciously when I was younger and didn't have grown up responsibilities or the great time drain the Internet.  My reading appetite increased and decreased over time, and my tastes changed.  I moved into a house I had to share with another person, so I got rid of a lot of my books.  Then I started knitting with greater focus and frequency which led to greater skill and the discovery of fabulous yarns, so my disposable income went into yarn rather than books.

Last year, and it may have started in 2017, I started to rediscover books and their enchanting possibilities.  What I have not as yet rediscovered is my reading attention span.  I worry that reading takes away from my knitting (and now spinning, which I picked up last year), which it does because I can't really knit and read at the same time, but I need to not worry about it.  I knit for pleasure and to learn and create and as meditation, but I read for those same reasons, too.

I used to read almost exclusively fiction, but now I find myself interested in the stories of people who were or are participants in and observers of history, as well as novels by and about people who are different than me -- live in a different part of the world, speak a different language, or have experiences I will never have (for good or ill).  I want to learn more about my chosen hobbies of knitting and spinning, try new techniques and improve overall.  To that end, I have set myself the goal of knitting my way through Milarrochy Heids by Kate Davies.  She has also written a memoir, Handywoman, which is on my reading list, as is the memoir of Jane Hawking, who was married to Stephen Hawking for thirty years.  If the film The Theory of Everything is to be believed, without her there would have been no Brief History of Time.  I am embarrassed to say that it never occurred to me that he had been married and that his wife would have been his primary caretaker, facing all of the challenges that responsibility would entail.

There are plenty more titles I could add to the list, along with movies to see, podcasts to explore, and music to hear, but they could (and probably should) merit posts of their own.  Or I will post sidebar lists.  Or both.

How this writing thing is going to work is still a mystery, but I am to keep writing because writing is writing.

Is this thing still on?

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

~ E.L. Doctorow

I have been doing a lot of thinking about writing publicly, as in resurrecting the blog.

Ever since (and maybe a bit before) I heard those words "president-elect Donald Trump" come out of my kitchen radio on that fateful day, I have felt less inclined to keep quiet and more like I have something to say.  Out loud.  And not just to the cat.

In the last couple of years, my eyes have been opened not only to the depth of misogyny and racism and intolerance of whomever might be the "them" of the moment still so prevalent and entrenched in this land of the free and home of the brave but also made me really angry about it.  It has also made me angry that I hadn't realized just how safe and isolated my life is.  And how luxurious.

I have a house and a car, neither of which has been threatened or destroyed by wildfire or hurricane or tsunami or earthquake.  I have heat and electricity and drinkable hot and cold running water.  (Hot running water is my absolute most favorite modern luxury.  There aren't too many things in life better than a nice, long, hot shower.)  I have plenty of clothes and food.  I have a tiny bit of money in the bank.

As I was becoming more angry, I was also becoming more grateful.  Every night, especially if it has been a difficult day and I am having trouble falling asleep, I make a gratitude list.  If job stress is keeping me awake, it can be difficult to be grateful that I am employed, but I can still be grateful that I don't live in a war zone, and the roof is still attached to the house.

2018 has been a challenging year.  A number of major events which I knew were inevitable came about in fairly quick succession.  They were the kinds of things which I expected to be horribly devastating and had no idea how I would handle.  I didn't always handle them well, and there were moments when I definitely wanted the world to stop so that I could get off, but I survived them all not too much the worse for wear.

I might write about those events.  I might just write about food and yarn and books and movies.  I might rant about the injustices of the world.  But I am pretty sure that I need to stop thinking about writing and start writing.

To Swatch or Not to Swatch -- the eternal knitting question

Okay, so maybe not eternal, but frequent and the subject of much debate.  I'm not sure that I can add anything new to the conversation, but as I become more experienced as a knitter, I do more research into techniques and fiber, and I pay more attention to the technical side of knitting -- how needle size and fiber content and ply affect stitch definition, drape, and gauge.  When I ran across this post from Love Knitting, I felt compelled to add my two cents' worth of input to the conversation.

While I see the value of a swatch, especially for a garment which needs to fit, I don't think that it is the be all and end all. It needs to be a guideline because a 4x4 inch square is only going to tell you so much.  If there is more than one stitch pattern involved, make a swatch for each because your gauge may vary significantly.

Washing and blocking the swatch gives you some indication of how much the piece might grow, but it doesn't tell you what the sheer weight of the fabric will do to your gauge or how long term wear will affect the item.

If it's a cowl or scarf or shawl, maybe I don't want to match the gauge in the pattern. Maybe I want something tighter or with more drape. I take it on a case by case basis.

When the gauge on a pattern matches the gauge listed on a yarn's ball band, I get a bit suspicious.  Did the designer really match the yarn's ball band gauge exactly?

The real reason for knitting a gauge swatch -- or otherwise determining gauge --  is that each knitter's gauge is unique.  And the knitter is not the only variable.  Needle material and shape, yarn weight and fiber content, and the combination of the two are all factors.  (Therefore, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to compare worsted weight knitting on square wooden needles to fingering weight knitting on round metal needles, as was done in the aforementioned post, unless it was to make that same point.)  In addition, each knitter's preference is unique.  You might get the recommended gauge and not like the fabric.  If so, find a gauge which gives you a fabric you do like, keeping in mind that it may mean making other modifications to the pattern (i.e. stitch count or yardage requirement) in order to end up with a pleasing (and properly fitting) finished object.

While I am far from an expert knitter, my advice is this: do what makes you the most comfortable and yields the best personal results.  Don't be afraid to experiment.  Realize that not all experiments will be successful.  Be prepared to try, try again, whether by ripping out and re-knitting or starting a new project.  Practice, practice, practice.  With or without a gauge swatch, your knitting will definitely improve with practice and persistence.

ETA: Shortly after I finished this post I came across Jill Wolcott's thoughts on the subject of swatching and wanted to include them because she has lots of interesting things to say about knitting.