I went to my local yarn shop’s (Yarn O’clock) social evening last week and, as I’d hoped, made some good progress on the sock. The gusset decreases are now completed and I’m on the main part of the foot. In theory it shouldn’t take long now to finish this sock, but that only works if you actually pick it up and I haven’t done any more on it since last Wednesday!
Why not? Well, I’ve been working on my new design which should also have been nearing completion. Except I did a stitch count when I was partway through the armhole decreases only to find I was one stitch over what I should have had. One stitch?! That’s not a lot! No, but this is the sample for the design so it needs to be correct (and front and back need to match) and it turns out I’d missed the decrease from the ribbing to the main body. So back it went! Frogging with the emotional support of a cup of tea and some bourbons. I’m about two-thirds of the way back to the arm-holes now.
As a change from the historical fiction and Terry Pratchett novels I tend to listen to, I have recently been listening to a book called Tiny Habits by B J Fogg (that link takes you to the Tiny Habits website). It’s a fascinating approach to getting yourself to do things you want to do, but haven’t yet managed, by breaking your goal right down to the tiniest first step and then just doing that. There’s a lot more to it than that obviously, including a lot of celebrating yourself each time you do the thing (however tiny) you’re setting out to do, and I think I may need to listen to the book a second time in order to get the full approach clear in my head. But it’s an appealing idea – you don’t have to do ‘the thing’ (whatever it is) all at once – break it down, do the first bit until that seems easy, then add the next step.
Mum recently gave us an amaryllis plant to look after. She was given it at Christmas time and, without a window sill in her room, she was worried that it wouldn’t get enough sunlight to really grow. It’s been on our kitchen window sill and growing like mad and I’ve been photographing its progress and sharing it with Mum.
Yesterday the flower bud finally began to open!
If you’re anything like me, you might have been reading the news and social media over the past few weeks and despairing. It’s hard to know what to do or say that doesn’t seem trite or performative, but if you are in the US, please make your feelings known to your representatives. If you are in the UK, please use your votes wisely in the coming months and years to ensure we don’t end up with a similar situation. Many knitters and crafters I am in contact with online have been told to ‘stick to their knitting’ when mentioning what is going on in the outside world, but knitting has always been political.
Knitting was a way of sharing intelligence during the Second World War (for example, through code knitted into fabric by women who sat by railway lines and watched who and what was moving where, or knitters who listened in to conversations and then added useful coded intelligence into their knitting) and as a way of protesting. A number of years ago we saw a knitted sampler in a Guernsey war museum that had a ‘pretty’ textured border around the edge. It had been knitted by a prisoner of war. The textured pattern was morse code for something along the lines of “Hitler is a ****” – I don’t remember the exact phrase, but you get the idea! I think the accompanying information said that the officers in the camp had claimed the sampler to display in their offices, which was ironic, considering the hidden message!
If you are a crafter you may have seen a rising number of patterns available with protest slogans included on them or patterns that are symbolic, such as the red Norwegian knitted caps that are getting a lot of attention currently. These were a visible symbol of resistance during World War II and wearing them became banned in 1942 as the Nazi’s were intimidated by the unity and resistance they represented and they are being knitted again as a form of protest against what is happening in the US, specifically with ICE. Some folk are embracing the idea – especially where proceeds from the pattern or sales/donations of the hats are going to help those in need, others think it is pointless or that individuals are ‘trying to monetise’ the situation. Am I going to knit one? Probably not; I am not in the US and it would cost too much to post one to someone there. But as John Stuart Mill, said in 1867 (not Edmund Burke): “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
Knitters and designers on social media are often expected to respond to causes and events with grand statements or high profile sales with money going to the relevant cause. Equally they can get told to keep politics off their posts and ‘stick to their knitting’. There’s not a lot I personally can do in practical terms – I still need to promote my designs on social media rather than posting about current events every day. But do know that although I am not continuously shouting from the rooftops about the world turning upside down, I am very aware of it. My Dad went up Sword Beach in Normandy three days after D-Day to help rid the world of fascism. I can’t imagine what he would say about seeing what is happening in the world now.
On a related note, today is Holocaust Memorial Day.
Look after one another and do something that makes you happy. Until next week, take care, K x