Connections — maybe it's all about the yarn

This post will be a departure for me - in that it has capital letters. I wrote it first over on Substack, but decided I wanted to have it here, where I keep such writing. And I don't have time to undo all the capital letters. Maybe now we'll have a mix here on MPC, or maybe it's the start of something new. 

So much going on at the moment. Lots of separate projects coming together. And I’m starting to see how they all fit. And even though there have been moments when none of it seemed like it was headed that way, they DO all fit. The work ones, I knew would eventually fit. It’s the way that the more personal projects are coming together, or blending into the work that is more of a pleasant surprise. It makes me realize that my life is more holistic than I thought. What a revelation. 

And weirdly (or not), it all comes down to yarn.

Our local creative group, CreaGive, chose Fifty-fifty as the theme for our yearly exhibition. The only requirement is that the work you bring must measure 50cm x 50cm. It can also be 50cm x 50cm x 50cm, or a cube. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to break the rules while still technically not breaking the rules. (Hello, that’s who I am.) But I’ve ended up making a cube that does indeed measure 50x50x50. (Probably also, admittedly, who I am.) 

I received some wool yarn, left over from industrial carpet production, from a weaver in town who is moving and so she wanted to give away all her weaving supplies (lucky me!). So it was natural to use that. We still have some of the sticks from Syrian artist Nisrine Boukhari’s The Wind’s Home, an ephemeral work that she created near Vejle Fjord in connection with a project for Trapholt Museum, back in 2017. They became the base of the cube.

And speaking of Trapholt, I was part of Astrid Skibsted’s Dataspejlet art project at Trapholt back in 2022. I both embroidered my data (from Facebook, of all places) and wove a section of the weaving done by my weaving group in Randbøldal. It’s when I learned about Astrid’s vikleprøver. And my cube is basically a giant vikleprøve (yarn winding).

So, you might say the cube I’m creating for the Fifty-fifty exhibition has been many years in the making. We are constantly taking in inspiration — through conversations, our eyes, our ears, the things we listen to. And I genuinely think we never know exactly how they will manifest when they become something. But our brains are working on it all in the background and all these impulses ARE becoming something. It’s just a matter of letting it come out.

I don’t really know what it is yet - is it a stool? or a table? a sculpture of sorts? But I will figure that out. Ideally, with enough time (and yarn), I will fully fill it out on all six sides. But for the exhibition, time (and work and other projects) allows only one side of it. But perhaps like life, it takes time to develop into something fully formed and filled out on all sides, connected and whole. I’m loving it as it is right now, but I also can’t wait to see where it’s headed.

I’m also working on a tea towel project. Taking a little break from my self-imposed assignment of weaving Taylor Swift’s albums as tea towels to do some for work. We have this cool drawer-insert contraption that helps you organize your kitchen drawers, but we don’t have proper photos of it. It will perfectly fit 15 tea towels and so I’m working on those. I created a warp that’s mostly white with black edges and stripes and one colorful stripe. I’m going to make it my own by weaving in with colors to make a rainbow of sorts.

I’m also going to change out the red stripe in the warp along the way. That sounds like a crazy idea, but I want to do something challenging and new in every set of tea towels I make. I need to LEARN something here! But really, who changes the warp along the way? And I intend to change it FOUR times!

Turns out I do! And it has worked! I’m happy there’s a four day weekend ahead so I can make lots of headway. I’ve woven the whole first towel since the change from red to orangey-yellow. Two to go before we change it again. I’m so happy to have Emmy, my personal weaving teacher and previous owner of my loom to help me with all of her wisdom and knowledge.

My loom, which is also much more experienced than I am, is also my friend in this project. Sitting at it, weaving these tea towels, the latest in a long line of creative, strong women to sit there, is such a privilege. The threads I’m working with, connecting me to them with every pass of the shuttle. The connections we weave to make up our lives take my breath away. Maybe it really does all come down to yarn.

* * *

I publish as sporadically there as I do here, 

but you're welcome to subscribe to my Substack. 

and on my needles

 

at the end of march last year i got my first real knitting lesson from my friend emily. i didn't finish that sweater (the novice sweater by petite knit) until late in 2024, but since then, i've been rather actively knitting and getting a bit more adventurous. 

i've finished four sophie scarves by petite knit - two long and two of the shorter version. they're a nice project to have on the needles for taking on the go. i've got a couple more queued up and i just have to cast one on again. i'm thinking the next one will be brown. 

back in november, i bought all this luscious yarn to make the holly sweater by knitting for olive. my friend emily, who taught me to knit, is making it too. we both wanted to finish by christmas, but that didn't happen. for me, it's because i encountered the berries, which seemed a little advanced for my level of knitting. i think for emily, she just ran into a knitting dry spell and hasn't felt like working on it. 

but thanks to the wonderful, experienced knitting ladies at my tuesday evening knitting group at our local museum, i have now learned how to make both german short rows and the berries (turns out it wasn't really that difficult) and am well on my way again. it will for sure be done in time for next christmas. 

and then last friday, i decided on the spur of the moment that i had to make a sweater that i saw in the window of a knitting store in a nearby town. it's icelandic wool and an icelandic pattern called the kastali sweater. it's supposed to be a cropped sweater, but i bought extra wool to knit it a bit longer. i'm already well on my way - this one is knitting from the bottom up, which is my first time trying that.

i'm even further than in this picture - it's quite easy to just knit in one color while watching t.v. in the evening. and much nicer than doom scrolling on my phone. i would actually never have imagined that i would be good enough at knitting to be able to knit and watch t.v. at the same time. i'm still a timid knitter, but my skills are coming along and i am getting braver. 

and lastly, the end is in sight on my sophie hood, also by petite knit. i'm so glad i went back for the last ball of yarn, because i definitely wouldn't have had enough. it's kamelia by permin and it was in a sale basket at my local yarn store. when i first started, it nagged at me that i might not have enough yarn and so i went back and got one more. good thing i did! it's so soft and i can't wait to wear it. i hope to finish it and block it this weekend. 

i'm currently trying to leave all meta platforms because i finally realized how evil those running them are and i don't want to give them any more of my attention, but you can find me and my knitting projects on good old ravelry. and i hope to be back here a bit more regularly now too. plus, i might actually start posting in earnest on substack. 

when you are ready, the right teacher will come along

before our fabulous weekend away, i emailed the girls and asked if anyone could teach me how to crochet a granny square while we were there. i threw in some yarn and some crochet hooks, just in case. my dear friend elizabeth tried to teach me a couple of years ago, but i'll be the first to admit that i never really caught on.

but somehow, on saturday evening, it clicked for me and i made the granny square above. and i don't even have the feeling, which i had the first time around, that i would go completely blank if asked to make a second one. i took my early attempts along to show the girls and you can see them here, together with the blue and grey one that i made on saturday. as you can see, i have really learned it now, whereas some of the others ended up with two centers and weren't  even remotely square.

i learned something else about how totally free you can be when you crochet (way more so than with knitting). you can really just crochet in all directions. it was rather amusing because when i first started the square, i was sweating from the effort and had to take off my scarf and sweater (i don't think it was a hot flash, just the hard work of learning something new). i also forgot to breathe a couple of times, from the sheer concentrated effort. that wasn't so good, but it did make everyone laugh. but then, i relaxed and just crocheted. maybe it was because one of the others crocheted the white thing above and there was so much freedom in it - no sense of right and wrong, but just where the yarn takes you. i think it took realizing that for it to click for me.

i started crocheting a circle after my first square, just to give it a try. and it stayed flat and didn't become a nest (that has happened before) and i got into a kind of rhythm with it. and it felt somehow freeing. and tho' my effort wasn't nearly as free as christina's little white lichen? snowflake? seafoam? thing, i felt like i had learned it at last. and i will get more free with it and i'll undoubtedly show you the results right here.

check it out, i even managed to crochet a little jacket for a stone! funny how sometimes it just takes learning something at the right moment. i don't think i was ready to do granny squares before and now i am. just imagine what i'm going to do with all those pins on my must learn to crochet (or knit or whatever) board on pinterest....

sticks and stones....and wool and yarn and rusty nails

i should have been working on christmas gifts, but instead, these little pieces are what i did. sticks, stones, felt, yarn and rusty old horseshoe nails that were once holding matilde's shoes to her hooves. they may need a bit more needling, but i like the feel and the direction they're going. and who knows, maybe they will be gifts for someone or other.

sunday creativity

because i couldn't resist and it was still available 2 hours after the go-live and because i want to make a shawl--a lovely red shawl--when i finally do learn to knit.

mamba in laceweight 2-ply sophia (thank you, posh yarn for making such lovely things)


i'm reading this wonderful and very inspiring book. yesterday, i began following the exercises in it. the first one was to draw a mug, a chair, a table and a person. you should use pen. you shouldn't erase. it went pretty ok. the mug turned out best. i tried to draw husband as the person. it didn't look a thing like him, but it did look like a person. which was more than i expected, as i've always thought i couldn't really draw people. turns out i can draw people, i just can't draw them so they look like the person i'm drawing.

so today, i continued with the book. despite having a monster headache for most of the day (or maybe because of it), we went on an afternoon walk and i picked a small branch of pussy willow, which i brought home. then i sat quietly upstairs in my new space and drew it. i was quite pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. so pleased, in fact, that i drew a few more versions of it in my art journal.

i've been struggling with the whole question of creativity and with being able to get down to it and make something, but this feels authentic and real this time and not like i'm imitating someone else's work or doing something that's not me. what a relief it is to feel that way! who imagined that i could come to that feeling through sketching? and why didn't i think of it before?

stash expansion

isn't it lovely?

i had to move the unwound skeins of posh yarn over to their own basket. thereby making my stash now fill two baskets. else has gone on an extended weekend vacation, so i haven't yet had the knitting lessons from her, so i continue to be, for all intents and purposes, unable to knit. from what i've been reading on the knitting blogs, this stash is so small it cannot rightfully be referred to as a stash. and yet, i shall restrain from buying any more when it goes on sale this evening (in 2 hours, but i'm not counting). the basket they are in is one i bought from a lovely old russian lady when i went on a volga cruise eleven years ago. i love that. both that i still have the basket and that it has been put to such a lovely use.

sunday yarn

these are the lovelies i snagged at posh yarn today. i think it's my best "do" ever--i was so ready when the site when live at 8 p.m. (my time) and i wasn't denied anything that i wanted in my pre-scoping. and in case you're wondering whether i can knit yet or not...i cannot. BUT, i found out that my next-door neighbor can and she's going to help me this week! so i shall soon be worthy of this stash. and it is indeed a lovely stash. one to be proud of, in fact. i'm definitely going to need a bigger basket.

tosca (lei--that's the one with bamboo--super soft!!)

surf's up (lei--again, with the bamboo)

vegas (lucia)

tapestry (emily)

space cowboy (lucia)

these are going to make some seriously lovely socks. either that, or they will look excellent in my yarn basket on the dresser at the top of the stairs. but i will learn to knit and i will knit socks from these.

it's pretty much all about the stash

i've been reading stephanie pearl-mcphee's knitting books casts off and knitting rules and now i understand why i keep ordering the beautiful yarn from posh yarn. if i'm going to be a proper knitter, i have to have a stash. who cares if i can actually knit? that worries me very little, actually. what matters is that it's lovely and soft and it makes me feel good, just caressing it or even just walking past and seeing it there in the basket (tho' i will soon need a larger basket). additionally, it may eventually help to insulate the house and save on heating bills. so it's an environmentally sound thing to do. (do you hear that, husband?)

the stash concept may also explain the obsessive acquisition and stockpiling of scrapbooking supplies. i've carried the notion of establishing a stash over into that zone. i have managed NOT to photograph the pretty papers (because i think that frankly, we're all pretty tired of hearing about those). but the stamps and ribbons and little bits and bobs all look very pretty, don't they? and for some strange reason, having them and looking at them (even without really using them) makes me inexplicably happy.

too yummy not to

buccaneer - emily

disco - laura

fandango - laura

i was going to restrain myself today, but instead, i found myself strangely drawn to my computer at 7 p.m., right when this week's posh yarn lovelies went on sale. how could i possibly resist? i resolve to learn to knit properly this week so that i'm worthy of this yarn. either that or sit around and stare at it all day long in the yarn basket and just enjoy how completely beautiful it is.

yarn candy indeed

i got my posh yarn order in the mail today. i had to pile it up in my yarn basket (which seems to be getting a bit full) and photograph it in the natural light coming in the window upstairs. it's all even more beautiful and soft and luxurious than i had imagined. i seriously need to get better at knitting so that i can turn it all into something lovely. we're feeling a bit tired after our big day out at møn's klint yesterday, so we're going to do nothing more strenuous than rolling the skeins into balls. the green ones on top are last week's posh yarn order, which we already rolled. oops, this is turning into an addiction.

the picture doesn't do justice to how luscious the colors are (i'm trying not to use the word "gorgeous" so much).

and of course, it's all very, very soft (which is in and of itself a sign of superior quality).

pretty yarn

fairground (lucia)

mister (emily)

twirl (lei)

salsa (helena)

this week's acquisitions from posh yarn. now i just need to learn to knit properly....because i wanna make socks. and olives.