Rainbow Stitches of Time

When the rains come, I always hope for rainbows to show in the sky.  With my knitting I try to bring them out in the colors I choose sometimes.  This year has brought all kinds of weather situations and even an earthquake to the area that I live.  I finished one blanket and came into this year with it done.  In the way I knitted it, I tried to catch the fall season with it.  The colors that I chose were the colors of autumn.  The blanket is 7ft by 7ft.  It took two years to make.  It was that blanket that has taken me into the world of knitting.  I spent days and weeks picking out the colors and than taking the time to do the knitting.

Autumn Sky  7' x 7'

As I look at the pictures I took of that blanket, I couldn't help but to remember what I have experienced while I worked on that blanket.  In it is the time I spent on it.  Irene is coming and the blankets that I have started now will reflect on what I experienced now.  Each blanket that I work on has it's own color meaning.  The ones that I work on now are the ones with the 7" x 7" squares.  This year has brought life in small squares and requiring to be assembled.  Like the weather, they demand my time.  The year is half way through and one blanket of this year's type is requiring to be assembled.  It is the last part in the process of the making of my blankets that are of this year's version. 

With the construction of the blankets I am presently working on, I looked for interesting ways to put them together.  I like the idea of the size 7' x 7'.  The number 7 is often considered lucky.  I like the idea that a 7" x 7" will make a 7' x 7' blanket.  It is fun to bring the play of numbers to my knitting.  The colors were chosen in multiples of 6, such as 2,3,6, or 12.  The amount of squares is 144 squares and it all ends up with a 7' x 7' blanket.  The fun is using the idea of numbers with color and measurement.  With the color I used the number 6 and with the measurement I used the number 7.  Each square is made one day at a time.  The time it takes to make each blanket is 144 days.  Sometimes I make more squares in a given day. As I move into the final construction stage with my blankets, I will see how long that will take.     

Color Scheme in Yarn Time

In the travel of life I go in search of the yarn for each project I am working on.  I find that the decision to choose the color to make the project comes from all around me.  At this point, I have taken to choosing the types of yarns that can be easily found.  The colors tend to be the ones I like.  As I knit, the pleasure of what I am handling is important. 

The hard part in the project is seeing how the colors will go together and bring out the meaning behind the color choices.  I find that the search for a particular color takes time and energy.  Once I have chosen the color scheme of the project, the real work of finding that color in the type of yarn that I am working it.  Than it becomes the time to search yarn stores for that color.  It is often a search for a needle in a hay stack.  Alot of my time is spent on this task.  It gets me out in the world of yarn shops and other such stores.  I find that I am not alone in the adventure of looking for a particular type of yarn for a particular project.

Thoes knitters that have chosen what they are going to make and than reach out into the universe of knitting shops or sections of knitting material wander the shops till they find what they are looking for.  The body language is the same in all of them.  They take little notice of the world at large as their thought processes are aimed at the job at hand.  I'm sure that I am no different than the rest.  It is with a glancing eye that I notice the other customers of the yarn.  It is only recently that I have taken to noticing the other people that buy yarn.  Each of them had brought with them something that would indicate what color yarn they were looking for.  As I looked at what other buyers were carrying I took notice that they were doing what I was doing.  As I look for a particular color I bring with me into the store an example of the color of what I am looking for.

As I search around the aisles, like the rest I tend to move slowly.  Time tends to disappear as I wander along checking for that paarticular color that I am looking for.  Once I have what I want I make my way out again.  I have been known to get lost in such an adventure for four hours and more.  It often becomes an adventure that brings me such pleasure.  And as I move foward to new projects, I find that I do it often and tend to travel further to find what I am looking for.   

One Square at A Time

My daily routine consists of doing knitting as I rise.  My breakfast is at my side as I knit.  I find that if I do that each day will bring me closer to a finished project.  In my scheduling, I have put into place the idea that I would do one square a day.  I have organized my day in accordance to this thought.  Each day I work at knitting one square at a time.  With the thought that I would make one square at a time, I have also given thought to what I am making. 

When I first started knitting, I went randomly and did not take time to look at what I was doing.  I let the knitting take me where it wanted.  But I found that the choices of yarn and the color was too random and I was basically losing interest in the projects I was making.  The excitment that I was looking for was going out of each project that I started.  In order to keep my excitment I moved to a place of organization.  I began to schedule my projects.  The picture above is those organized moments that go into making decisions in the project, in terms of the size.  The kind of yarn and color is also taken into consideration.  I have tried to build a complete grounding in the planning of each project.  The doing of the planning has added to the excitment of the making of any project. 

As I now decide on each project, I plan each knitted item carefully.  I no longer randomly knit without meaning.  I function under focus and planning.  The fun is there in the planning.  I now also try to document everything I do.  Every project has a beginning date and an ending date.  The types of needles I use is noted and every yarn that I use is also noted.  It also means that I am able to afford the amount of yarn as I plan ahead.  In this day and age with stores closing, the supplier could disappear at any time.  I have several projects that I started that now have to be changed because the supplier has gone.  I often spend my time researching places to find the particular type of yarn that I require for a given project.  Because of the shoe string situation that I have found myself, making sure that the supplier will be there tomorrow is required.  Each store I enter into, I wonder if they will exist tomorrow.  Several of my projects that can not be changed have sat waiting for me to find a new place to find that type of yarn.  At that point, I have taken to the internet to look for places to buy that particular type of yarn.  It means hours of exploration of websites of yarn companies and stores that supply a particular type of yarn.  The fun and excitment of going out to explore the locations I have looked up in the Net moves my day.  So I end my day as I start, knitting and researching for the next knitting project.  

Square Root of Knitting

The struggle for starting a project and than moving onto a new project before the last project is finished has caused me to become creative.  In getting down to the square root of my knitting problem, I came up with a unique solution.  I would knit a 7" x 7" square at a time.  Each day I have taken to doing this unusual method.  I'm now finding that I am slowly finishing my projects at one square at a time.  Eventually I will have a finished blanket or shawl at this rate.  For me, it has brought a beginning and an ending to the projects that I am doing.

As I go down the road in my skill in knitting, I will eventually come to the point of actually knitting a sweater.  But for now, the pleasure of the slow and simple knitting project is what I need.  The other pleasure is the practice of the knit stitch and gaining of speed while doing it.  It also gives me practice in finding out what types of yarn do when knitted by different size needles.  I'm slowly starting to have an understanding what different types of yarn do under different types of situations.  As I measure the square and match the next one with the last, the idea of counting each stitch slowly starts to be understood.  In my skill of knitting, I'm becoming more aware of how to read a pattern.  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm slowly getting there.    

Shoe Strings and More String Theories

Once I have reach the goal of what kind of project to do.  It is at that point that the gathering together of the materials to start with.  I tend to function under a shoe string.  The choices of how much to buy becomes quite limited.  As I head to the different stores looking for the raw materials to start my project with, I wonder what will actually catch my fancy.  The notion of what I actually can afford also comes to mind.  Generally it requires that I buy enough yarn or string to start any project.  Naturally there is the fear that the type or color of yarn that I want may not be there.  At that point, I find a fallback point of another project.

Once I have established the project and the type and color of yarn, I proceed foward to buying what I need.  The assumption here is that I have already decided the type and size of the project.  The moment that the understanding of where I am going comes into view, the shoe string effect takes place.  The shoe string effect is one of thoes effects that have an extream impact on how quickly any project gets done.  The only escape from it...well, come to think of it there actually isn't any escape.

String Theories and other Struggling yarns

The interesting thing about the decision of making the choices on starting a project is...what to do.  My first struggle is usually with the color and design of what I do.  My reaction is to head to the nearest museum to get inspirition for my choices in the color of the yarn.  I treat the yarn as if it is paint and the knitting needles are the brush.  I find if I stare deeply into a painting, what type of art I want to create comes to my mind.  I head to the knitting store and move through the shelves for those color choices that will form my painting.  As soon as I reach the zone of what color to use, the next problem arises.  And I am again at a crossroad.  Do I choose the traditional type of yarn i.e. paint or move outside the box toward such types of material such as rope or string? 

At that point, I figure I should consider heading to a hardware store for the materials to use to start my project.  Upon occassion I head to a sports store for the choices of the different types of colored rope allows for more choices.  The struggle for how to start a project could go on for quite some time.  The road becomes a place to live at that point.  But somehow or another I reach the level of making a decision on what type of yarn, string, or rope I will use on a given project. 

Knitting Moments in Time

It started in a quiet way.  The call for picking up the knitting needles again.  It went from a whisper to an obsession.  Granted that my ability to switch from knit to purl needs work, but I knit anyway.  It has taken hold of my life to the point that the knitting moments creep in quite regularly.   

The knitting moments that I now crave like an addiction had not always been there.  It was one of those things that had been put away with my childhood toys.  It had started when I was ten and a neighbor had offered to show me how.  Along with her daughter, my younger sister and I spent our afternoons together learning how to knit from this wonderful woman.  But over time those chosen moments disappeared and the desire to knit along with them.  One can blame the loss of interest on the teenage interests, none that include anything crafty.  At any rate, the desire to knit has returned in full force.  I chalk it up to that midlife point that says...senior coffee??anyone.