Apr
The Knitting Soapbox (caught on film!)
I have delusions of grandeur. I fancy myself a bit of a writer even though aside from this blog I don’t write anything. Well, that’s not technically true but I’m terrified to write anything that could be submitted somewhere for publication because rejection scares me and as I understand it about 90% of being a writer is being rejected. Anyways, I have a few major obsessions/loves in my life that I pursue whole heartedly and with the rabid voraciousness that is expected of a woman on a mission. It used to be that I was satisfied with just knowing how to knit and crochet, the very act of it was fine with me.
Something snapped one day and I lost my mind a bit. I started hoarding information like a squirrel hoards nuts before the long winter. I started taking in as much new information as I could stuff in my little brain cheeks. My obsession expanded from merely knitting and crochet to yarn, and dying yarn, then making yarn, then how yarn started being made in the first place and who thought of making a device (let alone a variety of devices!) that could do this? Where did the techniques come from, why are there so many techniques? Why is there 1,000 different ways to make a sock and WHO ARE THESE GENIUSES WHO COME UP WITH THEM?!?
For those of you who don’t know I’m a Sociology major in college. I have a particular affection for the intersection between craft and societies. I love digging around in history and cultural ethnographies to find the root of where crafting traditions came from and why they are still practiced and how they are practiced. I’m one of those nerds that would love to go live among the traditional people of Peru for a year or something and learn how they spin and knit. It is my greatest ambition in life to figure out how to get paid to do just that. (And then write about it naturally)
Now because I am a big geek for history, culture, knitting/spinning/crafting AND writing I naturally have taken to honoring the Yarn Harlot as though she were a professor of mine that I just don’t take classes from in person. I have read absolutely everything she has written, including her blog, and literally dream of going to a book signing or even better Sock Summit or the recently past Madrona Fiber Arts winter retreat.
So yesterday I was explaining to Mike why and to what degree I love the Yarn Harlot and after the first 30 seconds once he figured out this was going to be an important and passionate dissertation detailing why this was important he turned on the camera on his Blackberry and filmed it. Dear readers/watchers you must pardon the terrible angle, lighting, Godzilla-like audio and lack of make-up and just listen to the very important words I am trying to beat into my dear boy.
If you don’t know who Sarah Vowell is (then where the Hell have you been?) she is a writer, actor and NPR contributor. Mike and I recently listened to her audio book “The Wordy Shipmates” on a trip to California. She is wickedly funny and frighteningly smart.
Has anyone else noticed that this blog has shifted from showing off finished knit projects into something of an ongoing thesis about knitting and spinning?
I’ll dig out some knitting here shortly, I do have FO’s and WIPs to share, I promise.
