When I first met Shelli Martinez she was
knitting a pair of sweat pants.
Knitting them.
I was incredulous. “Is there actually
a pattern for knit sweatpants?”
Well, no, it turned out, unless I was talking about the pattern she made on graph paper after taking apart a pair of her favorite jeans to see how they were constructed.
I remember thinking,
“I have so much to learn
from this fearlessly creative woman.”
Continue reading “Creativity Talks: Shelli Can–and Does–Make Things By Hand”
My sister was the one who started the idea in my head. “Have you ever heard about a ‘weather scarf’?” she asked. I hadn’t. She explained that she had heard that someone had knit a scarf with colors for daily temperatures and she thought I might want to do that now that climate change has brought my Northern Virginia hometown more wild swings in temperatures. Continue reading “Putting It All Together”
2018 was, for me, a wasted year of missed opportunities and lost ideas. A time of hibernation and suspended animation. Besides the mid-term Blue Wave, there wasn’t much I was happy about. So I’m moving on. It’s a new year. A new focus for the blog. Continue reading “New Year, New Feature”
“Stitch by stitch, moment by moment, we are knitting a fabric of
present moment awareness.” — Becky Stewart, KnitOm
I follow Becky Stewart of Knit Om, a private knitters’ group on Facebook. She is a constant inspiration, helping my bring awareness to my knitting. She’s leading a 30-day knitting challenge, each day challenging us to think in new ways about our knitting, and to knit mindfully, meditatively. Continue reading “My “Why” for Knitting”
Maybe it was “The Picture” that that pushed me to action. The little girl in red, crying as her immigrant mother is searched and arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. That photo (by John Moore/Getty Images) of the terrified 2-year old and her mother hit me hard, as though the center thread holding together my sense of America’s goodness had exploded, that everything I believed and knew had ended. Continue reading “The Cry in the Night. And My Answer.”