Sun 17 Jan 2010
Creativity is a cat. Chase it, and it will run away. Ignore it, look the other way, and it will rub up against you and jump in your lap. (Where it may or may not interrupt your current knitting plans, depending on its mood.)
I told you last week that I have put aside the complicated lace patterns for the moment in favor of simple, mindless, meditative knits.
I made a cowl-y thing. And a hat. Yesterday, I finished a sock.
Baby steps. Basics.
And then, all of a sudden, there was a tickle at the back of my brain. The shawl was calling. Not necessarily calling me to knit, but calling to say I’d picked the wrong yarn.
I love the Mountain Colors yarn. Love it.
But my lace is getting lost in its color changes.
(The fact that the photo has to be that overexposed to see both the lace and the color should tell you something…)
It looks ever so much better in the plain yarn that I used to swatch when I needed to see my stitches more clearly.
It needs a plain yarn. It told me so, in the moment that I was ignoring it. A quiet whisper in my ear, unbidden and unexpected.
I didn’t even know that there was a problem, though I had suspected that the yarn might not be perfect for this project. I probably should have figured it out when I wasn’t excited about picking it back up after the move, but I just chalked that up to general life craziness. And now, it’s solved before I even knew it was there.
Sometimes I forget that the best way to find creative answers is to simply walk away and wait for them to come padding in on quiet cat feet.
I so often works out that the best solutions to a problem come when we’re not even thinking about it, doesn’t it? I find this especially happens right as I’m about to fall asleep. Funny the way our brains work – it’s like they’re always multi-tasking, even when we aren’t!
I think a solid yarn will definitely work better with that patten. The hand-painted yarns are so pretty but they’re sooooo difficult to work with (temperamental divas!).
I agree, things tend to want to work things out when we are not paying attention to them. Can’t wait to see what yarn you choose to try again with.
Yep, so often the key is to slow our brains down enough so we can hear what we’re being told.
It’s a great sock, too, even if simple. One you will wear and enjoy many times.