Intentions

I'm still musing on the next lace knitting project. I'm vacillating between knitting something just for the pleasure of the process, and finding something to knit that I might actually want: working toward the product. This is a variation on a theme, for me, because my weaving is generally all about the end product.

Once, long ago, on a warm Sunday afternoon, I had one of those memorable conversations with a group of spinners. Memorable, impromptu, unplanned, unbidden, all those things that make for an unexpected gift in one's life.

We were talking of spinning, and of weaving. Two of us were spinners and weavers, and we both happen to have an ethnic weaver's perspective on the craft: you make what you need. I need a new bag: I set up the loom with appropriate yarn, in an appropriate size, and weave away. If I need to spin for it, I now have the parameters: which fiber, what grist, what amount of twist. I need a new jacket: I start with the plan of the jacket and work backwards: how much yarn will I need, what size/color/fiber will I use, etc. Traditional people all over the world have woven that way forever: weaving as a process to obtain a needed item. While it can be fun, it is also very practical.

Spinners often do not think like that. Often it is: here's a nice fiber, fleece, color, (whatever), I think I'll spin some up. We often buy fiber that way, especially now, with all of the beautiful hand-dyed rovings calling their Siren call. Then that *what will I do with the yarn* process comes. Start with the fiber, and work toward the project: the reverse of the weaver's perspective. Often, not always.

I have the weaver-mind on: which project, then which fiber. I try to reverse my thinking: spin up some yarn, then decide. That gets me lost in the spinner-mind: oooh, this is a nice fiber, oooh, this is a nice color. Sort of crow-like, or kid-in-a-candy-shop behavior. Maybe it's time to just play a bit with some of the fibers, sample.

Play comes into both weaving and knitting too, of course, experimentation, fooling around, trying things out. Sometimes weavers do the swatch thing, as in trying out a new weave structure or fiber, but usually there's is an end product: a scarf, a shawl, a blanket. Weavers can weave just a sample, but I don't know many who do. Usually we are weaving a thing.

So this mental debate of mine is trying to come to grips with knitting something just because. Because, that's what my lace knitting is. It is not because I need or want more lace, it is because I enjoy the knitting of it, and want project to pick up, of an evening, to work on as I work through thoughts of my day, my week, my month. A pleasant activity that allows for rumination, that takes one away from the everyday world, if only for a few moments, like being in the cone of silence, but anywhere: in a coffee shop, on a commute train, in a busy living room, in a corner by oneself. Thus, my intentions are the process, not the product. A new way of looking at things.

I have given away more of the lace knitting than I have kept. I guess I am making gifts, a store of things for the future.

Luckily I have time: I'm working through the edging on Boundary Waters now. It will take me a month maybe, and I will ruminate on which project I spin for next. But(! you knew there was a but!), I have to get on it: I want the yarn spun and ready to go when I finish this knitting.

So I'm back to square one: what will it be? Slap me someone. I think I'll go spin :-).

(Happy Birthday Jesse!)