Proper Knitted Attire Brings Confidence
"How did it come to this?", you may well ask.
Certainly there are those of us who long for the "luxury of time" to knit, the "patience" to knit, the "talent" to knit....any number of situational barriers to spending more quality time with our sticks and string. This picture alone brings to the point all those barriers for me and my life.
I do not knit because I am "patient"...
...often the opposite is a true-er description. Having my knitting makes me more patient with the ongoings of any situation. It gives some part of my brain relegated to scampering about on many subjects at once ("Hey, look! A bird!") something repetative and soothing to stay with and the rhythm of the stitches frees up my mind to listen to the lecture with a completely different part of my attention and process the information with a larger part of my brain.
I do not have any "luxury of time" more than any other woman of a certain age running a thriving business while holding down a part-time career...
...I knit to hold still the moments I do have to spend in peace and reflection or with loved ones. I may spend what seems like nanoseconds in the presence of this rapture, but I have the number of the stitches to mark the physical evidence that I was there. Sudoku are all well and good for me but I can't help but feel emptier at spending the time doing them, with nothing to show for my efforts.
I do not have the "talent"....
Trust me. I invite you to look at my quilting and you will know. I've often felt great dissapointment trying to get my work to match the picture on the magazine cover. I did not have a mentor, relative or friend to teach me the crafts, but knew that I wanted to do it and bought a cheezy "How To" book and took off. (my first projects were chickens...LOTS of them) There were years I would rather not show you my work, and gladly the Christmas stockings from the early attempts felted down well (inadvertantly) to cover up the blunders. "Talent" (as my sainted husband is fond of reminding his young violin students) is the coincidence of desire, enthusiasm and experience. Find in yourself enough of any of these and you, too will see a trail of accomplishment behind you that someday, someone will say "I could never do that...you have so much talent!"
...and as far as chickens go...
This hen arrived in an animal shelter in England (2008) with most of her feathers lost from an accident and one of the volunteers made her a series of jumpers to keep warm. She developed the confidence to mingle and scratch about and is surviving well. You can see videos at
www.neatorama.com/2008/09/23/featherless-chicken-wears-a-sweater-to-keep-warm/
Knit on-
Melody
