Inspired

Various events and subtleties over the last week have resulted in a feeling of great inspiration in my knitting. The following are in absolutely no chronological order: (actually, they could be reverse order)

1) Reading Yarn Harlot's newest entry touched me and awoke a feeling of intangible mystery and awe in me. Her wedding shawl is beyond words. The beauty of it leads me to wonder what I could create if I really tried.

2) At Sunday's SnB, Steff loaned me Shannon Okey's "Spin to Knit". Since then, I've taken new steps in my spinning. I had filled up my drop spindle with my first handspun, and it was getting to the point where I was running out of room on the spindle.

The yarn from my first few hours of spinning is, of course, fairly large. But towards the end it's fairly consistent and thin. I'm well pleased. So, I didn't know what to do now that it was spun. Steff took pity on me (or maybe got tired of my comments on her blog asking her how to do things...he he) and since reading through some of the book, I've taken the crucial steps.

First I wound it around my niddy noddy...er...um...chair. I counted it up and found that I have about 40 yards. Perfect for my first afghan...I mean, coaster.

Then I blocked it. I would have spritzed it, if we had a spritzer. Instead I threw handfuls of water onto it and let it dry. I did this because I realized, from the book, that my yarn is overtwisted. Who knew? I thought the more twist the better. But, no.

Since blocking it on the chair, the twist stays the way it should and works into a lovely cute skein.

When I say cute, I mean cute. To get a sense of the scale, here's my foot. It's a not quite a knome-sized skein, but close. :)

The wool is batting of some sort from Asheville, NC. I bought it there at the Earth Guild (a very cool place). I think it's "locally grown" there. The wool isn't the softest or combed much, but I found it enjoyable.

3) Lorena brought 3 skeins of Lisa Souza's hand-dyed yarn to SnB on Sunday for me to fondle. Oh my GOODNESS! I could just sit and stare at it. I had to firmly remind myself that I needed to return the yarn to Lorena and do something besides stare at yarn for the next couple hours. I was interested to find that I was most drawn to the yarn with colors that aren't necessarily "my colors". My idea of beautiful colors has been changing of late. Of course, Steff was also next to me knitting her Lime n' Violet yarn from Lisa Souza as well. It knits up beautifully. (I think they were conspiring against me.) So, although I have plenty of sock yarn now, I NEED some of this stuff. If not to knit, simply to have my own staring material.

4) In January our SnB is going to have a shawl KAL. I've been busy looking through pictures of shawls. Now that has to be one of the best experiences. Lace is hot stuff. I can't wait to start.

And so all these things have been inspiring me around my knitting. My choice of patterns, choice of yarns, choice of colors, choice of needles, etc. All these things represent something. I'm realizing that if I'm going to knit something, shouldn't it be something beautiful? I mean, there are simple things I'll always want to knit- something meditative and relaxing. But, I really want to put my intention towards beauty in my knitting. And heck, I'm gonna buy some expensive yarn if I want to. If it adds to the loveliness around me, it's well worth it.

In a way, this is kind of the theme behind this whole blog. I try to take pictures of things in ways that feel beautiful to me, because that is how I view knitting.

I seek to create beauty. I seek to invite beauty into my life.