It’s a snowy, windy, sleety Saturday. I received in today’s mail a skein of sock yarn that I was compelled to try out immediately. It’s Waki Saki by Wisdom Yarns—an interesting combination of fibers: 50% merino wool, 25% bamboo, 25% nylon. So soft. I located my favorite old well-used Kollage square double-point needles & got down do it. As I worked I heard the wind outside my window & listened to a chapter of Harry Potter (book 4 or 5) on my AirPods (love those pods!). The yarn is lovely in shades of purples, pinks, lavender. It stripes & self-patterns as I knit—somewhat like the magic in HP—my wand being my needles. Years ago when self-patterning sock yarns first came out I got hooked and hundreds of socks later I’m still loving those yarns. I haven’t knit anything other than socks for several years and only when I’m watching movies or listening to books or music. Also still liking the HP books and J.K. Rowling’s intelligent writing. Way back in 2002, I designed and published in Interweave Knits magazine, a Harry Potter sweater pattern along with a short essay that accompanied it. At the time I was heavily into knitting anything, everything, designing, writing, working part time in a yarn shop, editing an annual literary anthology, and marketing my husband’s art. I was thrilled to be in Interweave (they’d already published an essay of mine in their defunct supplement) but they wanted more designs. I was faced with the decision to design or write. I chose writing but never stopped knitting. Just pared it down to socks. Because, as head wizard Dumbledore said, “one can never have enough [knitted wool] socks. People will insist on giving me books.”
And speaking of books, my newest just hit Amazon. A collection of poems: There Was Always Enough Time. It can be ordered from Amazon or publisher, Nighthawk Press, Taos, NM. Since my copies have been delayed (due to snow & ice?), I cannot post a photo. Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt from a chapter in my first book (2017): From Salt to Sage: A Memoir: (2nd Printing 2022 & not about knitting, but it does creep into an unrelated story or two). Stay tuned.
Gull Wing
“…I came across an old spiral journal with notes on knitting designs and items I’d made, as well as interesting names of stitches and their histories. I had used the information in a couple of articles I’d written for craft/design magazines. There are many vintage names and histories for knitting stitches, and many were listed in my notebook. One of those, called The Gull Wing, evoked thoughts about my father Dominic, the fisherman, who earned a hard living as an auto mechanic but whose head was always in the salty wind and whose feet were in the sea….
Like my father, I am an escape artist. My path is through words, books, imagination, yarn and color. I get lost in the poetic names of knitting stitches: Sailor’s Rib, Seaweed, Four Winds, Dotted Wave. Gull Wing.”
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