Here We Are

We left Sunnyside on Saturday am, loading up the back of the car with the knitting. The knitting took up the entire back space so all our bags had to occupy the passenger seat in the front.



By Saturday evening, we were in Roanoke, Virginia. I am sure it is a lovely place but as it was pitch dark when we arrived, we saw very little. Despite my best efforts to find hotels on-line that were in downtown areas, not on the highway, we were, in fact, on a strip where the only food options were Hardee's and something called "Jersey Lily's." And McDonalds, but that is not an option in my book. So we went to a grocery store instead. Simple but it worked and we were set for breakfast as well. This was good since our next day's destination was Memphis - a twelve hour drive. And we made it! It was a long day but we ended up at the Heartbreak Hotel, which is run by Elvis's estate. It was pretty funny and a real education for Finn and Lucy, who kept asking why so many people love Elvis so much that they need a special hotel for them. A hard question to answer, my dears.


Still knitting. Is that why they call it the Heartbreak Hotel?

And today...Dallas! We made it!

Throughout this whole trip I have felt very strongly that I am stranger here. It feels very weird to me to head south and west. Most of my travels have been north and east. I am comfortable heading north and east. I don't know from south and west. And so it is that I discovered that the south, with its very visible love of Jesus and Cracker Barrel, feels as foreign to me as any trip to Europe I have ever taken. I realized that I don't know the ways of this world, that all my usual ways of obtaining goods and services no longer work here. I hardly know the language even. It is a strange feeling. But it is fun too. To be a stranger can give one a lot of leeway, which I hope to take advantage of as much as possible in the next few days.


Here is a car wash in Texarkana, Texas. The picture isn't very clear, but it is called the 15:13 car wash, and the numbers refer to Biblical scripture which is quoted on the white panel on the side of the building. Who knew the lord spoke on keeping your car clean?

My final, somewhat disjointed, three-days-in-a-car thought is that, when I imagined this place (Dallas) and its relationship to cars, well, I really didn't know the half of it. It is intense! I think the project is very, very appropriate. But will anyone slow down enough to see it?

Here It Is

After a wee bit of drama, the packages from Newfoundland arrived:



I am speechless! It made me cry for the care and joy and trouble that went into this contribution. Into ALL the contributions. A friend recently told me that she only cares now about "honest intent" and her words have stayed with me throughout this process. The intention that this work is filled with, and I by no means mean my own ideas and intentions here, is just overwhelming. Look at this picture that came with the yarn:



These are women who are part of the senior's club in Port Saunders on the Northern Peninsula. It is so beautiful and heart breaking at the same time. It makes me cry!

But wipe away those tears so you can see this. Here it is (minus one more contribution that will arrive this evening):



Dallas, here we come: me, Finn, Lucy and a whole hellava lot of knitting!

UPDATE: I have THREE more contributions coming tonight! And I tried to make a final tally of all the knitters who contributed and I am at more than 80. It boggles the mind. Let's just hope that the Dallas police department are as impressed as I am...

Postcards from the edge

This arrived in our mail today:



Let's take a look at the back:



It is made on wood with an actual knitted piece attached along with little metal cars. Isn't it great? It made my day and made the idea of knitting just a few more skeins, I mean, rows, I mean, stitches, I mean, skeins, seem do-able. But who in the world sent it? After a bit of thought, I think I know who it was.

A wonderful surprise that arrived at the perfect moment. I love it!

Obsession isn't pretty

Now that our living room is filled with yellow garter stitch, I find myself lurching between activities, unable to complete anything without feeling like the other is calling out. I am doing laundry but Vanna is hailing me! I have to finish two applications but again, that damn Vanna. Yet, while I am knitting, I can only think about all those other things that need doing--what will we pack for this trip? Should I make hotel reservations or keep it loose? And children need to eat...regularly, apparently.

Yesterday, I hit the wall. I just couldn't make myself knit another stitch. I have a pile of knitting in my living room the size of the Great Pyramids of Egypt and still I am knitting? You gotta be crazy!

Oh...yeah....crazy. I know crazy. That's why I have a living room filled with yellow garter stitch.

And so I knit on.

Knit Mile Pile

I sent this photo out with an email announcement for The Knitted Mile but it seemed worth repeating here. May I point out that there is more to come? A fair amount more. I still have to collect most of what I shared out to local Sunnyside knitters, as well as a goodly amount from our Waldorf-y homeschool friends (you have to love an educational philosophy in which knitting figures so prominently!). There are two big boxes (gulp!) and a smaller assortment of packages still coming from Newfoundland, and...this is hard to put into black and white...Janine's box has not yet arrived. Yes, Janine of Janine and Raj and two of their sons who knit 15 skeins. It hasn't arrived yet. I am still holding my breath, still not totally resigned to it being the L-word. Each morning our postal delivery guy (we call him "Smokey" due to the cloud of cigarette smoke that travels with him from his van to the front door) rings the bell and we joyously collect a box of knitting - like Christmas EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK! But where is Janine's box? It's coming, I know it. C'mon Smokey - you can do it!

There is another reason why I am so anxious to receive Janine's box. Janine put some samples of two of her sheep fleeces in it. She has a theory that sheep who are bottle fed (apparently a very typical way of raising lambs) produce coarser wool than those who are allowed to nurse. When I expressed surprise at this theory, she promised to send me some fleece from two of her sheep (same breed). One she bought when it was already weaned but it had been bottle fed and the other is from one who she raised and allowed it to nurse. Does La Leche League know about this?

Some More Pictures

Things are adding up!



Patti's package arrived this morning (with Vanna still chatting away in there), and I collected over 100 feet from Zabeth Weiner, a knitwear deisgner who, as it turns out, attends the same Zen Center as I and generously knit up many, many skeins. She also invited some of her knitting students to knit too and five of them took up the challenge. The text you see says "slow labor, good results." One of the students had a friend who had a baby after a three-day labor while she was working on her knitting and it inspired her quotation.



Here is Lucy during our photo shoot yesterday. She is all wrapped up in the family business.

Why are this man's hands idle?

It may be that everyone entering our house from now on will be required to knit. This is Phillip Davies, the person who does PR work for Lion Brand. He came by yesterday afternoon and took pictures of me and Lucy knitting on the stripe. We actually had fun--I now fully swear by the following technique for feeling calm in the face of cameras: knit constantly. Phillip gave me a good idea about how to install the piece in Dallas and helped figure out that it will have around 1.5 million stitches, maybe more, when it is finished. He also convinced me to unroll the great wheel. It makes a lovely carpet...

Ditto

Not sure how many times I can talk about knitting a 4" wide stripe of yellow garter stitch...

It is getting longer. The donated yarn is all gone and I scooped up 18 more skeins at our local Michael's in Woodside (on sale!). I picked up another five feet of knitting from Helen last night at a gathering of a Long Island City knitting group. It was very nice on several counts, and not just picking up five more feet of knitting. For one, I got to finally meet Helen in person, which was very fun, and I found a knitting group that is serious about knitting. People are Doing Things there. Better yet, they can teach me to Do Things too. And it is at a lovely cafe in LIC which means good tea and maybe a tasty cookie while we knit. What's not to love?

Today, a man who does PR for Lion Brand is coming by to take photographs of the stripe. Apparently some buzz reached the ears of my contact there and he wants to get some good pictures of this madness. The iffy part of it, besides the amount of dust and clutter I have to remove from my livingroom before it is photographed for all to see, is that I feel certain that I will have about 200 more feet to boast of....tomorrow. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Janine's large package arrives today, otherwise it may be a little disappointing.

Here is my stripe, which includes about 20 feet by Lucy and Carol Sommers in NM:



That's Helen's contribution sitting on top. The great wheel of knitting is more than two feet across and is blocking access to the dining room, but I am not so sure it will be impressive in a "you knit a MILE????!" sort of a way. I know they want pictures of me drowning in yellow stripe....and I will be! Just not this afternoon.

Ok, now I have to rid my livingroom of all signs that I have been spending all my free moments knitting on an endless yellow stripe rather than cleaning up the detrius of a family of four.

The Landscape Doing A Moose

Heard, a bit late, that yesterday was a day to post poetry on your blog. Here is one that I love for many reasons written by John Steffler, who, until recently, was a resident of Corner Brook.

John actually was one of the very first people I met in Corner Brook when we were staying residence in Curling in 2001 as part of the Pouch Cove Foundation's west coast experiment (note that it is pronounced "pooch" not "pouch"). Colette Urban invited us to have dinner over at her place in Meadows because she had heard some artists were staying there. I still feel amazed when I think of it. She just called us up to invite us sight unseen and off we went to Meadows - a family of four no less!. We had never heard of Meadows or the North Shore but to say it planted a seed is a whopper of an understatement. We met John and his girlfriend there, along with Marlene MacCallum and David Morrish. Like any good American, I had no idea who these people were, except that they were very charming dinner companions who welcomed us into the homes and lives without reserve. The evening lives on in my memory in an almost dreamlike way. It was quite warm and we had BBQ fish and one of Colette's amazing salads. We even saw a minke whale swim up the bay: something I have never seen since. Who wouldn't have been completely seduced by that place?

A couple of years later, I asked John to record himself reading four of his poems for use in The House Museum. He graciously agreed and I tried installing them in the bathroom the first year. My hope was that, when one shut the door, the sound would start. But I never worked out the techincal details properly and it didn't work as I had hoped. Plus no one ever used the bathroom! I still have his recording of the poems saved and I will use them at some point when it feels right.

This is the one that has stuck with me the most, especially when we drive home from Stephenville.

That Night We Were Ravenous

By John Steffler

Driving from Stephenville in the late October
dusk -- the road swooping and disappearing ahead
like an owl, the hills no longer playing dead
the way they do in the daytime, but sticking their black
blurry arses up in the drizzle and shaking themselves,
heaving themselves up for another night of
leapfrog and Sumo ballet -- some

trees detached themselves from the shaggy
shoulder and stepped in front of the car. I swerved

through a grove of legs startled by pavement, maybe a
hunchbacked horse with goiter, maybe a team of beavers
trying to operate stilts: it was the

landscape doing a moose, a cow
moose,
most improbable forest device. She danced
over the roof of our car in moccasins.

She had burst from the zoo of our dreams and was
there, like a yanked-out tooth the dentist
puts in your hand.

She flickered on and off.
She was strong as the bible and as full of lives.
Her eyes were like Halley's Comet, like factory whistles,
like bargain hunters, like shy kids.

No man had touched her or given her movements geometry.

She surfaced in front of us like a coelacanth, like a face
in a dark lagoon. She made us feel blessed.

She made us talk like a cage of canaries.

She reminded us. She was the ocean wearing a fur suit.

She had never eaten from a dish.
She knew nothing of corners or doorways.

She was our deaths come briefly forward to say hello.

She was completely undressed.

She was more part of the forest than any tree.
She was made of trees. The beauty of her face was bred
in the kingdom of rocks.

I had seen her long ago in the Dunlop Observatory.

She leapt from peak to peak like events in a ballad.

She was as insubstantial as smoke.

She was a mother wearing a brown sweater opening her arms.

She was a drunk logger on Yonge Street.

She was the Prime Minister. She had granted us a tiny
reserve.

She could remember a glacier where she was standing.

She was a plot of earth shaped like the island of
Newfoundland and able to fly, spring down in the middle of
cities scattering traffic, ride elevators, press pop-eyed
executives to the wall.

She was charged with the power of Churchill Falls.

She was a high explosive bomb loaded with bones and meat.
She broke the sod in our heads like a plow parting the
earth's black lips.

She pulled our zippers down.

She was a spirit.

She was Newfoundland held in a dam. If we had touched her,
she would've burst through our windshield in a wall of
blood.

That night we were ravenous. We talked, gulping, waving
our forks. We entered one another like animals entering
woods.

That night we slept deeper than ever.

Our dreams bounded after her like excited hounds.

All Tied Up on Thursday

Yesterday I had the thrill of receiving the first package of knit stripe in the mail--from a woman in New Mexico who knit up two skeins. Then a fellow homeschooler handed me about five feet of stripe during our first annual Queens homeschooler Mardi Gras party. Fifteen feet in one day! Yahoo! Then I heard from the reluctant Helen that she had finished her skein and I could collect it anytime. We were up to 20 feet! And then I received this photo from my friend Janine in Wisconsin. She taught her husband, Raj, to knit just for this project, making for two new husband/partner knitters generated by this project by my quick calculation. Janine and Raj and two of their sons all pitched in and knit up 12 skeins.

At least they are still smiling!



UPDATE: Raj points out in the comments that they knit 15 skiens, not 12! Thank you Raj for clarifying! That is 15 more well-earned feet of stripe!

Kick'n Some Knitt'n Butt

One of the Knitters of The Mile came by last night. She is fairly new to knitting but has an enthusiasm that I admire. She wants to knit a hat, and she knows how to knit and purl, so she picked a pattern that she liked entirely based on the fact that she really liked it. She asked me to look at with her and clarify anything she might not understand.

I almost fell off my chair! She had picked a pattern that was two-colors (very funky skull and cross bones repeated - I agree it is a cool pattern!), includes a provisional cast-on, and uses size 1US/2.5mm needles. You gotta give the woman some credit for ambition!

While inside my head, I was saying "what???", I didn't want to discourage her. So we went over a provisional cast-on and walked through the pattern and, you know, I think she will be able to do it.

I had a flashback to when Patti and I started a knitting group back in the day in Sunnyside. At first, nearly everyone needed lessons to get started but soon enough people were up and running. Except that most didn't actually run, they walked. Slowly. Patti and I would ask if they wanted to learn how to increase/decrease so they could make something other than a square or rectangle, but no, they were happy. And they were happy! It drove me nuts in a silent sort of a way. "C'mon people! Don't you want to...you know...knit a mile or something????" Nope, no, they were happy chugging along on their novelty yarn scarves.

I suppose my admiration should go to those who find contentment in their 10th novelty yarn scarf - especially at this juncture (Vanna, I love you!) - but my understanding is with the two-colour, provisional cast-on, size 1 needles, first pattern ever knitter.

Sometimes you just have to go for it!

Check it out! - Part II

We made it in the newspaper!

Check it out!

Wee Ball Yarns is the featured shop this week at a blog called etsytreasures. I did my best to spin and knit up lots of new yarn and hats so there would be something to see. Have a look!

To Thine Own Project, Be True

We were out and about most of yesterday, on trains and all over midtown and the village. I noticed that I was looking at everyone's hats and scarves with great longing. A woman on the train had a gorgeous red hat that looked so soft, perhaps it was alpaca or even cashmere. Another had a neat fair isle in colours that were a surprise. I was staring at knitwear with lust in my heart. Finally it occurred to me that it was yellow garter stitch backlash. All around me were lovely knits of all styles and colours and there, in my bag, was Vanna.

But to Vanna I will be true, especially after seeing this photograph.

Everybody Knows

For a break from the insistent yellow garter stitch...the perfect song for our times. Written by Leonard Cohen and sung masterfully by Rufus Wainwright. Hint: it is worth staying to the very, very end.

Yesterday morning at about 7:15 am (EST), I was on the phone with Dorothy King of CBC radio in Corner Brook. She was speaking with me and Corner Brook artist/resident, Shawn O'Hagan, about The Knitted Mile project. Due largely to Shawn's efforts, the project has about 20 knitters in Corner Brook sitting at the ready to take up needles for the cause. (Side note to the greater powers including, but not limited to, the Canada Post: please let the yarn arrive today!!!!)

Dorothy gave us an opportunity to describe the project and let people know what the basic instructions were, and Shawn gave out her phone number on the air so people who wanted to knit could give her a call. Within a couple of minutes after hanging up, I received an email from Shawn telling me she had heard from a elderly woman in Port Saunders (a town on the Northern Penninsula) and that Dorothy had committed to a knitting up a skein. Several others also called her over the course of the day.

May I digress here a bit to mention that people in NYC frequently talk about real estate and quality of life. Being an artist, I tend to hang out with an artsy crowd, which means mostly people who do not have lots of extra cash floating around. The cost of living in NYC is very high, especially the real estate part, and people are always talking about moving out of the city to a place that is more affordable. The catch often seems to come when people start to imagine what kind of neighbors they might have--would they be conservative (socially and/or politically), would they frown on alternative lifestyles, etc. I hear a kind of us vs. them mentality, although most of the people making these observations or predictions are not cruel or narrow minded or snotty as a rule. It's just that, when you live in NYC, the rest of the country (and that includes Westchester) can seem like "the other." I mean, those 26% of Americans who still support George W. Bush live somewhere, right? Despite that fleeting moment on 9/11 when we were all New Yorkers, the fact is that New York City is not the rest of the country. Things are different here.

So, let's just say that, more than once, I have had a conversation about moving out of the city where the other person says, "I worry about having other people I can talk to." I am not saying this is right thinking, I am just saying that I have had these conversations.

May I digress further and mention that, while working on projects past that have included large amounts of knitting, I have received several comments from people (in NYC!!) along the lines that I should be knitting for a more useful cause. For one project where I knit miniature baby sweaters as part of a piece for a health care clinic, one person said I should be knitting real sweaters for real children who are homeless. For another that consisted of granny square blankets for light and sign posts on Canal Street in Manhattan, a woman complained that all that energy and effort would be wasted when I (or "we" since I had some dedicated granny square makers working with me--cough, cough, Patti, cough, cough) could be making blankets for the elderly, etc. etc. The notion that this kind of handiwork would go toward making an art work that had no obvious social funtion was irritating to those people who commented. It really bothered them. Yet, I suspect, that most painters rarely hear comments about how they could be using their skills to paint houses for Habit for Humanity.

I guess NYC doesn't have the market cornered on enlightenment after all.

To bring us back to Corner Brook, Dorothy King and knitting...my experience in Newfoundland has not been what my friends fear when they talk of leaving the city. Yes, it is a rural place. It is even quite conservative in a way. But I find that even people who are very conservative are open minded enough to allow others to live as they like to live. They might not ever live that way, but they won't interfere if that is your choice. And as for finding people I can talk to...well...this is not a problem in Newfoundland. But it thrills me even more that people heard what Shawn and I said on the radio and decided that they wanted to participate. Perhaps some people thought it was total horsesh*t and a gigantic waste of time, but some people went ahead and made a phone call to a total stranger so they could join in the process. And as I think of it, not just any process but one instigated by a part-time CFA for a project that will take place in Dallas, Texas, of all places.

I am full of love for my adopted home!

All Yellow, All Fun, All the Time

Yesterday I was feeling a bit under the weather so I undertook a strict regimen of sitting on the couch and knitting as a way of heading off a full-blown cold (it worked!). By the end of the day, however, I felt some photographic evidence of all our efforts-to-date was needed.

First and foremost, I want to remind everyone who is participating, should you be reading this, that I would like to get a photo of you knitting on your stripe. It need not include your face but it should include your hands knitting. These photos will be part of the gallery installation in Dallas. Here is mine - talk about greased lightening!



Here is what the stripe looked like at about 7pm last night:

The edge that stands out as slightly more rippled is about 6 feet knit by Lucy--must give credit where credit is due.

Then we started having fun with Vanna. Maybe she will come to Dallas and see her stripe...


(Does anyone besides me find it alarming that he can put that on his THIGH while wearing jeans?? I assure you that he eats more than most adults...)






So much for knitting increasing muscle mass...

Today, I have been trying to avoid the siren song of my spinning wheel. But damn, that merino I bought at Rhinebeck looks so tempting.

Must. Stay. Focused!

On the road with The Knitted Mile

A couple of the knitters participating in The Knitted Mile project have posted about their experiences. See them here and here. One thing that I have heard from several people is the way knitting the garter stitch becomes a kind of meditation. It creates a new awareness of their thoughts and that allows them to lose any sense of actual knitting. I know I have experienced this as well. And there is a kind of satisfaction in coming out of that dreamlike state to discover several more feet of stripe have been accomplished. If only I could knit while sleeping....

"It's One Loudah" or "Shocked....and Stunned'

When one sets a goal that is ambitious, that is going for a big impact, the risk is that it will fall short. The Knitted Mile becomes The Knitted 100 Feet, and frankly, who cares about that? One aims for no end in sight but ends up with just up to that lamp post.

I keep thinking of this scene...

It's here! I never thought I would be so excited about having over 100 skeins of acrylic yarn in my livingroom, but I am!

We made our way through the maze that is east Jersey, just outside of the Meadowlands, to the HQ of Lion Brand Yarns. We were greeted with kindness and two big boxes of yarn. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lion Brand! I immediately packaged up about half the yarn to be mailed to various states and taped up a powefully large box headed to the knitters of Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

We, of course, missed the turn-off to the local Carlstadt, NJ, post office and found ourselves headed back to the Lincoln Tunnel. Our goal was: get yarn, pack up yarn, mail yarn, celebrate at Mitsuwa, the fabulous and huge Japanese supermarket with the best food court east of the Mississippi in Edgewater. But after we missed the proper turn off (do they ever put up signs in NJ???), we agreed that getting back to the safety of New York was a worthy goal. Sorry Garden Staters, I just can't love your home, much as I have tried.

But now, with packages mailed and the remaining yarn securely here, I can breathe a sigh of relief and get to work. Only 5,230 feet left to go!

If it's brown..?

In between garter stitches and trying not to freak out about the fact that the clock is severely ticking and *still no yarn*, I made a couple of skeins of my own yarn and a hat (the hat was nearly done before garter stitch fest started).

During the making of both the hat and one of the skeins of yarn, I kept saying to myself that this was likely to be the ugliest damn thing that I ever did see. First the hat, with its brown colour...I mean, I hate brown! But I soldiered onward in the belief that it would be nice in the end. And in the end, I did like it a lot, mainly for its colours. I almost kept it for myself except that it doesn't actually look that good on me. Someone else will have the pleasure, I guess.



Then the yarn...the fleeces looked interesting together and I have been trying to be more experimental with my colour combinations but somewhere along the line, while spinning, I was almost embarrassed to be seen with it. What was I thinking? Again, with the brown! Yet, when I got the singles plied, I really liked the finished product.



You just never know.

Ok, back to freaking out now.

Eleven

Tomorrow is Finnian's 11th birthday. Yesterday he had a small get together with some friends--a good mix of ages and genders (hooray for homeschooling and the way it allows children to mix with all kinds and not form ideas about who they are supposed to like or dislike!). They dueled with Yu-gi-oh cards, a sport that is entirely beyond my comprehension in its intricacy and attraction. They used stamps to make cards and they almost to a person rejected the ice cream cake that I made. How, you ask, could children, nay, anyone of any age, reject an ice cream cake? We are talking Julia Child's recipe here, not some Carvel whale of a cake. The answer lies within--at Finnian's request one layer was coffee ice cream. Hint to parents: most children hate coffee ice cream.

Finnian is not most children.

And that is what makes him so wonderful and so frustrating. I think I have written more about Lucy because Lucy has embraced what I embrace (at least for the time being - believe me I am enjoying every moment knowing it may be short-lived). But Finnian and I often clash. He knows his own mind and does not want or need me to interfere. Being of a rather controlling nature, I like to interfere, or as I prefer to think of it, help out. We frequently find ourselves looking at each other thinking "how in the world can you....?"

I have noticed in other children that their 11th year is an interesting year. No longer children, not quite teenaged, definitely not adults, they wander between all those states: dipping a toe into adulthood, dangling their fingers into teenage life and then plunging back into childhood (how's that for a watery metaphor?). Finnian has been working his way there. One moment playing with his toys, one moment discussing Zeno's paradoxes. We see flashes of the person who he may become--someone who is a very caring, thoughtful person with a strong focus of mind and a killer sense of humour. I really like that guy and I look forward to seeing more of him.

I know he would not appreciate a photo of himself here, being of a rather private nature. Instead I will share a drawing he made for his cousin for Christmas. Please don't ask me what it means.

Knitters Rule!

The response to my request for help has been so gratifying. I have nearly 25 people lined up to help knit the mile. We may just do it! The list includes people in six US states and a strong contingent from western Newfoundland. Knitters, you are the BEST.

Now all that's missing is the yarn...

I am trying not to freak out about the fact that I still don't have the promised yarn. Deep breath. A million reasons why.

In between rows of garter stitch, I added ten new skeins of yarn to my etsy shop. I finally broke the one-page barrier! I re-photographed the yarn I still had on hand and tried a new look for the new stuff. I think it makes for more enticing photos. It is always hard to get the colour correct but I guess people know that computers are not colour correct, right? It all makes for a nice distraction from wondering where is the yarn???

I'm taking another deep breath...

The Knitted Mile - What's It All About?

Gestures of Resistance: The Knitted Mile

In late Feb. I will be installing a site-specific installation in Dallas, TX, as part of the College Art Association's annual conference. My piece is part of an exhibition titled "Gestures of Resistance: Craft, Performance and the Politics of Slow," which also is the title of one of conference's sessions led by Shannon Stratton and Judith Leeman, two curators who work out of Chicago and Boston, respectively. They also are organizing the exhibition and possibly an anthology of the session and exhibition. They have a website called Performing Craft.

My project, The Knitted Mile (working title) is to knit a mile of duplicate road stripe that will be placed over the actual road stripe in Dallas. The knit stripe is done in garter stitch and is four inches wide. I also am using a crocheted chain stitch to create words that are sewn on top of the garter stitch stripe. The words are (or will be) quotations and/or other thoughts about how knitting is a gesture of resistance, particularly in the context of our culture of immediate gratification as embodied or evidenced by Dallas and its car culture.

The gesture of placing a mile of knitting upon the roadways of Dallas is intended to be an intervention, an interruption of the everyday environment created for cars and trucks (all that they imply) with this lovingly made, handmade element. For me, it is as much a poetic gesture as a political one.

The Knitted Mile - The Details

I went ahead and purchased some yarn to get started knitting while I wait for the donation to arrive from Lion Brand. Yesterday afternoon/evening I knit up a skein and got about 5 feet of a 4 inch stripe completed. (I checked with the Texas DOT about the width of their stripes and confirmed it is 4 inches.) So, if a mile has...what? 5,780 feet? that means I need how many skeins of yarn? Well, you do the math. Clearly, I need help! Here's my plan:

1. If you knit and are willing to help out in this scheme to cover Dallas's roads in knitwear, think about how many skeins you can knit up before 2/10/08.

2. Email me at thehousemuseum(at)nf(dot)sympatico(dot)ca and let me know how many you want and where to send them.

I will pack up the yarn and send it along asap after the donation arrives. Complete instructions will be included but they amount to knitting as long of a 4 inch stripe as you possibly can in garter stitch. For me, this was 15sts in the selected yarn. If you wish to add any thoughts about slowness as an act of resistance to the culture of immediate gratification, original or from another source, you are invited to do so by crocheting the words on top. (Helen suggested i-chord as another way to generate writing - that is fine too)

3. Return your knitting to me by February 10th. This will give me time to stitch together the pieces and possibly mail some of it ahead to Dallas before heading down there myself. The installation will take place on or around 2/20-23.

4. All contributions will be gratefully acknowledged where ever and whenever possible.

5. I am happy to accept any help, be it 1 foot, 10 feet or 100 feet. No contribution is too small or too large.

6. If you want your piece back....it might be possible. Let's talk about it.

Please feel free to pass this along to any knitters you know who might be up for knitting some yellow garter stitch. I am still doing the math on how many skeins I will need for an actual mile and I am starting to feel a little woozy.

A Little Tingle

On Thursday night, I was driving home after a WAMER (Women Artists Meeting, Eating, Reading) meeting. It was late, almost 11:30pm, and I turned on the radio. I heard a man's voice giving a speech--what sounded like a victory speech--and it occurred to me that the Iowa caucuses had ended and that it wasn't Hillary speaking and it wasn't John Edwards speaking, it was Barak Obama.

For a moment, I felt a thrill, a real thrill, such as I haven't in a long, long time. A thrill that maybe the US would get on the right track again, a thrill that reason and smarts would govern, not fear and secrecy. That multicultural America would be embodied in our leader, someone who has lived in other countries and sees connections, not just opportunities for dominance. For a moment, I felt hopeful, as cliched as it instantly became, but it was true, I felt hopeful. When I got home, Dan was still up, also listening, and we both sat there grinning like fools. Maybe...just maybe...

Perhaps it was just a sign of how profoundly alienated we feel after seven years of Bush & Co. that the absurd circus that is the 2008 campaign actually moved us. But it did and we enjoyed the moment. A crack of light through seven years of tragedy and despair.

The Knitted Mile

I have been in conversation with Lion Brand Yarns about donating the yarn for my knitted mile project. They have been generous supporters of my work in the past and they seem willing to do so again. In the meantime, however, I need to start knitting! I decided that, given the time factor, that I will crochet any words on top of the stripe after knitting (or while knitting if a mile of garter stitch in one colour gets too boring--I know it sounds hard to believe that that might be a wee bit dull after, say, the first 1000 feet, but just in case, you know).

I think I recruited my mom to knit some of the mile if I send her up some yarn. Anyone else interested? I will send you yarn and basic instructions (cast on 15 stitches, knit in garter st for the rest of your natural life) and encourage you to add whatever text you want in whatever way you want. Unfortunately, since I am receiving only room and board in exchange for the experience, I can not offer to pay in cash money. I can only offer the thrill of being part of it all.

Any takers???

Every Day is a Good Day

Lest I begin the new year only yammering away about me, me, me, I offer up this koan and a link to some commentary.

The Blue Cliff Record, Case 7

At mid-month Unmon addressed the assembly, saying, “I’m not asking you about before the fifteenth of the month, what can you say about after the fifteeth?.” When no one could answer, he himself said, “Every day is a good day.”

Click here for the commentary.

2007's legacy is 2008's addiction or A Year of Yarn in Review

I think it is official. I am a total spinning geek. The rest of the family has gone off to a hip, happenin' party at a loft in Williamsburg sure to be full of artists and dancers and creative people of all stripes, and I have chosen to stay home and spin. Dan is totally sick of seeing me at the wheel, disbelieving that I could possibly be happy, once again, spinning or plying or what have you. Happy is not even the word...not even the word...

It was early in 2007 that I pulled the pieces of my new Ashford Travellor out of its box and put them together. Dan had given it to me as a Christmas present. It was like introducing your spouse to their future mistress, or something like that. I made everyone clear out of the house so I could make my mistakes in private (and curse out loud in the event of frustrating errors of which there were many). And I sat at the wheel and spun. I tried to remember everything that Cassie had said in the afternoon workshop she led that Lucy and I attended months before. I used up my 2006 Rhinebeck purchases determined not to care about "wasting" them--heck, fleece is cheap compared to yarn! I made terribly overspun, uneven yarn but I was totally inspired and completely undeterred by my mistakes. Little by little, my hands came to understand what needed to happen to make even, thin singles that could be plied to make lovely medium weight yarn.



Then came dyeing,



Then Wee Ball Yarns was born,



Then another wheel came into my life so I could make even more yarn, then a drum carder, and on and on.

Today, I successfully navajo plied for the first time (I had made many attempts that all looked pretty bad).



So the learning curve continues, perhaps less steeply than in January 2007, but with no less enthusiasm.

Comfort and Joy

The Christmas miracle of a husband who doesn't have to work the week between Xmas and New Year's allowed me to get at my drum carder yesterday for four hours - yes - four hours! It was like painting with fleece. I love you, drum carder! And after that, I even spun up some of the completely irresistable rovings, including my first foray into silk blends--is that red, or is that red? (Because of some issues in learning to dye silk (ahem), I could only add about 25% silk to the wool, but it was still lovely to spin.)

Then, I was interrupted in my spinning by supper and, all through the meal, I was looking over at my wheel and wishing I was back there. Even eating becomes a chore with the spinning wheel out. Don't even start on dishes, sweeping up, etc. But all was done and, hooray!, back to the wheel until my eyes were blurry. The best part of spinning into the late of night is that it tends to make all my dreams be about fleece and yarn.

Comfort and joy, comfort and joy!

Still 2007!

It is still 2007 and I have already crossed one goal off my 2008 list! How's that for not procrastinating?

For sometime I have been wanting to update the look of my etsy shop and add a bunch of new hats I knit in between all the holiday knitting. Lo and behold, it's done!

Check it out!

Of course having a deadline for being featured on a blog called etsy treasures also helped out a little in the motivation department. I think my shop will be featured in the last week of January. Now to spin all that yarn on the list....

Happy Winter Solstice!

little tree

by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

Little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

Have I Been Knitting?

Yes I have!

The proof:


This is a one-piece suit and matching hat for a one-year old. This project was a kind of commission. The woman who I sit next to for three hours every Friday evening while Lucy takes Irish dance has a new grand daughter, and after about four years of watching me knit, she finally asked me to make something. I feel strange about asking her to pay for it since, in those four years, she has told me all about her personal finances, which are tight. I dunno....I think I will just give it to her. Plus, it is awfully cute!

This is the only pattern that isn't my own invention. It came from Debby Bliss' Colorful Knits for Kids, although I made numerous changes to it--replaced a zipper with buttons, used different yarn and increased the sizing (for some reason the pattern only went up to 6 mos. so I had to extrapolate upwards to make it more a 12-18 mos. size).




This is a hat and scarf set made from merino I spun thick and thin (confession: done in the days when all my yarn was thick and thin!). I think it came out pretty nicely. This is destined for Wee Ball Yarns once I get my hat display in the mail. I purchased a set of three different sized wire hat displays because I began to believe that some people do not want to purchase a hat they see photographed on someone else's head. Here, Lucy displays all the hats, but don't tell anyone!


These are some wrist warmers made as a gift from Koigu. I couldn't resist the wild colours! They were quick and fun to knit up.


Another Wee Ball Yarns hat with those trendy ear flaps!


Experimenting with a more slouchy style...


And finally, a crocheted hat with more trendy ear flaps. To me it looks somewhat Aztec-ish but Dan suggested it looked like Gerald Ford's football helmet. For people with long memories perhaps?

Git Them Swiles

For the past couple of weeks, I have been in conversation with a graduate student at Columbia's School of Journalism who has made her thesis project on the subject of unschooling. For the unschooled, unschooling is a style of educating that is based on the notion that people have an innate drive to learn about the world and do not require experts, institutions or a state-mandated curriculum to do so. For a parent embarking on this adventure with their children, it means taking a gigantic leap of faith, esp. when said children are often found sitting around on the couch all day reading yu-gi-oh comics interspersed with some sitting on the floor reading Tintin comics. It has been a good experience talking with this grad student because she has really challenged me to assess why we are doing what we are doing.

We have embraced this philosophy for a variety of reasons, including the early experience of observing our infant children learn to walk, talk, read, etc., by watching and copying us and each other. I mean, if it worked for those things, couldn't it work for other, less important, less complicated things, like algebra? The experience to date has been very interesting. There are many times when I despair that the whole thing is a flop and I will have two illiterate know-nothings who will blame me for their wasted childhoods. Sometimes there are weeks like that. Months? Well, maybe a month. But then something happens and the light shines brightly again, I learn (again) that when someone figures something out on their own: on their own schedule, under their own motivation, it is the most powerful experience a person can have. The weeks of doubt melt away when these two people do things so amazing and wonderful and creative (and normal and ordinary), that I know we are on the right track.

Last week, the grad student stayed and hung out at our house for a typical, low-key day (rare though they may be!). She stayed at our house for six hours and we had fun, talking and playing. Lucy taught her to spin at one point. Right near the end, when I was feeling pretty good that we were a nice example of how unschooling works, she asked Lucy why her favourite doll had no fingers. The truth is that Lucy bit them off at some point. But Lucy just looked at her. So she asked again, "Did she have an accident?" Lucy nodded yes.

"How did that happen?"

Lucy's answer, "Sealing."

" What? Sealing? You mean hunting seals??"

"Yes, she had a sealing accident."

'nough said.

Wee Ball on Ice

Shawn sent me this photo of my beloved island at the mouth of the Humber Arm in the Bay of Islands. She took the photo just yesterday while she was at her cabin on the south shore.

Oh how I wish I was there! It has been cold and snowy and I'll bet the cross country skiing (or as someone in Corner Brook once called it - uphill skiing) has been great. As much as I love Gillams in the summer, it was our wonderful winter there in 2004-05 that cemented my commitment to the place. I never tired of the snow and ice and cold. Ok, shoveling three feet on March 31st started to make me wonder when it might end, but really, I loved every moment.

Newfoundland, I miss you!

Not for Hard-Core Capitalists

Something to think about in the days ahead:

The Story of Stuff

When Buy Local isn' Quite Local Enough

We have been having a series of 12-hour non-stop, rush-rush days since I don't know when. Out the door in the morning and back in well after dark. It is all fun, fun, fun so there's nothing to complain about but, man, am I tired. And now Finn is sick and I have the shivers myself and a scratchy thoat and it is raining ice at the moment and I have to pick up the first winter share of the CSA tonight. Dan is off to a slew of holiday, must-go-for business parties so I, meaning "me," have to, have to, have to drag my tired, achy body the twelve blocks to pick up this box of root vegetables with my name on it. I keep waiting to be visited with an inspiration as to how I will not have to do this but the inspiration isn't coming.

Oh yea magical CSA gods, deliver my box of root vegetables unto me...

The Mountain Comes to...

This morning we sat down to make our annual holiday list--who is giving what to whom--and to figure out where we will put a Christmas tree. Dan had the nerve to suggest that my "pile" nay, the word used was, in fact, "mountain" of yarn, fibre, and related items might need to be moved in order to make room for a tree. I responded that, with a little rearranging so that the greener items were near the surface, we would not need a tree but could just decorate the "mountain."

Mountain indeed! In Newfoundland, it would be considered nothing more than a nob.

Double Cancer

In light of recent events, I shouldn't even make jokes like the one above, but I am feeling almost giddy with new self-knowledge. I decided to have my birth chart done by an astrologer and it was actually an amazing experience. I approached it somewhat skeptically but openly. Born in July, I knew I was "a Cancer" and I knew that I really fit the bill whenever I read anything about what that might mean (eg. loves home life ---ummm, House Museum anyone?---loves to bake, can be very sensitive and retreat into their shell, etc.) But this went way beyond that. I found out that I am "a Cancer" and I have "Cancer rising" so yeah, that's a lot of those characteristics swimming around. My moon is Leo, which balances some of the Cancer and perhaps explains my, ahem, somewhat single-minded forcefulness in appraoching certain things I want done. Anyway, the accuracy of what I heard was eery, and actually kind of helpful in a way. But my favourite moment was when she said, "Oh you have Jupiter sitting in your twelfth house--you are going to live a long, long life." Thank you, my dear.

I am getting the rest of the family's charts done too. Have I totally gone off the deep end? I'll let you know.

The Man Hat and other gifts

Just added a new hat to Wee Ball Yarns. Note the grey colour...perfect for the man in your life! It is an alpaca/icelandic wool blend that was spun to a 2-ply DK weight, plying one strand of black alpaca with the icelandic, which has some flecks of very subtle colour. I kept thinking of it as my "man hat" as I knit it up.



Here is a shot of some of our dyeing we did last week, more subtle shades, although in the back of the rack where you can't see it is some firetruck red. I tried dyeing some tussah silk I bought at Rhinebeck just to see how it would work....not perfect but I learned a lot. I can't wait to start blending it up on the carder. That is the treat I have set for myself after I get all the holiday knitting done.

And remember The Dress? A project created by Mariana Frochtengarten, who is an artist living in Halifax and completing her MFA in textiles at NSCAD. She has made five dresses and she is inviting artists from around the world to work on them, each one having a theme and each one having five artists, including Mariana, working on it. The dress I selected is called "The Gift". Given recent events, I was even more happy about choosing that particular theme. Here are a couple of pictures of my response;



An experiment on using crochet to write words, not in my usual filet crochet style. I chained the letters then went back in worked single crochet over the chain. Here I am starching the final piece in the hope it will be legible. Can you read it?



Here is my contribution...the words "Breathe In" and eight small mirrors hung from the hemline. I was the fourth artist to work on this dress. Now Mariana will take it with her to her native Brazil for the last contribution. I am looking forward to seeing her project when it is all assembled into some kind of presentation.

More on Gifts

I have a new article up on ArtBistro.com. It is about artwork and the gift economy. When I was asked to write for the website, the creator of the website set topics for each month. November's topic was "getting what your work is worth." I decided to play something of the devil's advocate and suggest we should give away our work as gifts, using two books ("The Gift" by Lewis Hyde and"What We Want is Free" edited by Ted Purves) and The House Museum as my primary arguments. Read the comments for some lively discussion! Looks like some people aren't quite up for the "give it away" idea!

Click here to link to the article.

To Give or Not To Give

I have a question for all you handworkers out there. When it comes to giving your work as gifts, for example, at holiday time, do you edit who you give to according to how much you think or know they will appreciate the effort that went into the making of the gift?

My answer to that question is a yes. Several years ago, after working on a number of things and sending them off to the recipient and not getting so much as "your package arrived" phone call or note, I decided the gratitude factor had to reach a certain level or it was store-bought all the way. Part of me thinks this is kind of anti-gift in the sense that I am giving with some expectation of something in return, namely appreciation. And that ain't right, right? And then the more practical part of me says, "you are going to spend all that time and energy on something that they will probably toss in the dryer and ruin since they have no clue how to care for since they have no clue how it was made so don't do it!"

After talking about this with my friend Janine who is both very, very generous and an excellent knitter, she claims that I liberated her from a lifetime of frustration. She now gives only to the grateful. She actually scolded me the other day for venturing into unknown territory with someone new!

So, what about you? Give freely? Or give only to the grateful?

Between the jigs and reels

A number of things have been happening...

The good news is...I am probably not going to die very soon. The stitches came out and the news was generally good. But I am taking this as an opportunity, a gift, a reminder that I may not have 40 - 50 more years to diddle around. I am listening.

I have been knitting up a bunch of things: a one-piece baby outfit that is a commission of sorts (almost finished), a sweater for my sister-in-law for Xmas (nearly finished the body--did the whole thing in three days, then haven't picked up it again), several hats. Hats are my subway knitting. I decided to knit up what I have of left of my Wee Ball Yarns into hats and sell them. The two I knit up previously sold quite quickly, which was encouraging. On Monday, we skipped our regular schedule--the rain and cold and my deep desire for a quiet day at home with wool added up to the afternoon spent dyeing fleece. It felt soooo goooood. So, look for some new yarn and some new hats in the near future.

I am working out the details of my mile-long knitting project. I am waiting to hear the exact width of a Dallas road stripe and I may hit up a couple of yarn manufacturers for donations (I suppose, in theory, I could figure out from a swatch exactly how much yarn I need, right?). Then I start knitting. Yee Haw!

Buy Nothing Day

As a proponent of "do nothing" naturally today is one of my favorite holidays: Buy Nothing Day. So go out and enjoy the day: walk around your community, say hello to your neighbors, and then....go home!

Here is a graphic created by British graphic designer Jonathan Banbrook for the LA Times that explains it all (click on it to enlarge it):

Giving Thanks