The Club Can't Even Handle Me Right Now

A couple Fridays ago, I got one of the best e-mails I've gotten in a long time. I was getting ready to go to a conference, and the e-mail was from the conference organizers. It said: "Please feel free to bring creative projects you may be working on currently... We invite you to select and bring a project with you that helps support creative thinking during our discussions and activities."

I was so excited, but I was already away from home and my collection of creative projects. (I'm not making it up - that part of the e-mail was bold in the original). Thankfully, I was with my Mom, and she has a huge collection of her own of stuff to make creative projects.  (With love, some might call this collection a "hoard.") I was able to find a couple of small skeins of yarn that, I swear, are older than I am. Knitting needles were not a problem - Mom has quite a few extras. Mom also provided great inspiration with the simplest idea: "Why don't you make felt bowls?"

Why don't I!? Because I don't have a clue how to knit in the round.

I also didn't have a clue how to knit stripes, and as you can see, I was able to figure that out. I still haven't figured out how to knit in the round (project for March, seriously), but I found a pattern online (awesome use of free wireless in the conference hotel!) and adapted it to be able to knit it on straight needles and stitch it up. Since you can't get a sense of the dimensions from the picture (and since a picture of the bowls from farther away wouldn't let you see the fun stripes!), the bowls are 3 1/2 inches in diameter.  

The felting was a fun Saturday evening for me and the hubby. They are very lightly felted (I was using a washing machine and kind of scared of causing a lot of irreparable damage, so only ran them through, like, um, 5 times), but I've been told that better results can be achieved through hand felting. 

Superfreak

My mom is what Debbie Stoller, in her classic knitter's guide Stitch and Bitch, calls a "get your freak on" knitter. Says Stoller: "Throwing away their knitting magazines and relieving themselves of the shackles of a pattern, these knitters, also known as artsy-fartsy knitters, like to grab some yarn, grab some needles, and just make something up. Many of them are so busy expressing themselves that they can't be bothered with knitting rules or techniques. The sweaters they make are one-of-a-kind, gorgeous concoctions, though you might not be able to get your head through the collar."

Like many women, I have a deep-seated fear of becoming my mother. I've begun to confront that fear (read the original post on this blog, for instance). I'm trying to embrace the parts of myself that are like my mom, rather than run screaming in the opposite direction.

But, we've always been different sorts of crafters. I tend to like to follow a pattern, usually just choose one color or color scheme for completing any given project, and stick to the basics, not going too far astray from what anyone might call "normal." Sometimes my crafting is like what my mom says about my clothing choices: "Elana, do you ever wear any colors? I mean, it's always black and grey, grey and black." (That exchange happened a few years ago, but sadly it pretty much still holds true.)

For a few weeks, several of us in my office have had a knitting circle, preparing squares for the Pine Street Inn Knit-a-Thon (see more in this post). Our bunch has shown that knitting is a timeless activity - women have been doing it for years, probably because knitting together opens us up to share parts of our lives that we might not otherwise share. We now knit at lunch time, knit during monthly birthday parties, and some of us knit during conference calls (not me, of course!). So when I started working on my square to contribute to the project, I thought it would be a perfect project for me, an old-school knitter. A 9 inch by 9 inch square. What could be harder?

I had forgotten about genetics. I started knitting (see lovely sea of turquoise above) and got 80% of the way through my "square" before I realized it was a rectangle. An 11 inch by 8 inch rectangle. I knit one final inch, did the binding off, shed a tear/gave a huge sigh of relief, and threw it in the pile of squares created by my co-workers.

And the funniest thing happened. Everyone liked my "square." Even though it was freaky-big and didn't meet the Knit-a-Thon's "requirements." It's the same way I really like the square being created by my co-worker who's knitting for the first time. She's totally charmed me by saying "Elana brought her own sticks." I love that she calls needles sticks - I'm really not making fun. I also love that her knitting is super-tight, full of holes, and that she might drop a stitch, oh, for every five stitches she completes.

So, on this day before Thanksgiving, I'm giving thanks for imperfection, for beginnings, for freaks, and for breaking the rules. Get your freak on, knitters.

Big Debut

I have a secret.

My mom was right.

Yours probably was, too.

That's a huge secret.



What was my mom right about?

My mom's dream for her little daughter, pictured here, was to be a writer and illustrator of children's books. Or just a writer. Or just an artist. Or a designer. Just something really, dramatically different than what I do now, which is make people uncomfortable by talking about difficult subjects, like sex, violence, and death. Something creative and positive, Elana, not so depressing all the time.

I realized my mom was right some time in the past year when I found myself writing a post for my professional blog (not depressing, it's about suicide prevention!) on PsychologyToday.com. I realized that I loved writing, that I was actually good at it, and that it would be really cool to do it more often than I have the opportunity.

I also realized my mom was right some time in the past couple of years when I was sitting on the floor futzing with beads, wire, and miniature pliers, creating a piece of jewelry. Also, again, thanks Mom, when I was knitting a hat for my friend's new baby. And when I was making a birthday card for a friend. And when I fell in love with a pattern for making tiny felt birds.

My mom is a big fan of mine. She is always proud of me, even when I'm making people talk about uncomfortable things. I think she'd like it if I were a little more proud of myself.

Only recently has it become really trendy to be really proud of yourself, and put it out there - there's a whole industry of shameless self-promoters, of which I'm apparently a part (as a blogger, as someone with a Facebook profile, as a tooter of my own horn for my economic survival, as there's no such thing as having a job without having to prove your value added). As I'm usually a little late on picking up on trends, I'm a late adopter with this one, but I'm here now.

So, this blog is for me, and for my mom.

As my mom would want it to, it's going to focus on the positive. It's going to be all about being creative.

Because we are completely incapable of not becoming our own mothers, I have become a crafter, a hoarder of yarn and beads, someone who carries a gallon plastic baggie filled with crafty gear with me on trips.

Because I get paid to do social change, which is a neverending process, in my down-time, I make stuff. In particular, I like to make small things that don't take much time, like earrings or baby hats, because in real life, there are so few opportunities to actually be done with something.

I'm lucky to have met a bunch of people other than my mom who are really interested in and supportive of the little things I make, who often ask me to show them what I'm doing. Since no one ever got anywhere being shy and keeping all of the interesting parts of themselves to themselves, this blog is a way to share my creativity in the way that has increasingly become the way of this world - through absolutely shameless self-promotion.