Holiday for the cook today! lovely leftovers....no work.
And in the spirit of Buy Nothing Day, I've been reading a book from several years ago by Judith Levine titled "Not Buying it: My Year Without Shopping." Very interesting reading about social observation, what buying is really about, why people do it, and don't. If you make allowance for her NewYorkcentric approach -- a trip out of the city is a Big Event! even though she spends half the year in Vermont, strictly as an outsider -- she has a lot of good things to say.
What's amusing to the likes of this Yorkshire woman is that a lot of these brand new approaches are the way I've always lived, but I don't live in the commercial atmosphere of a big city and since she does, she's swimming against the tide. Anyway, it's worth a look.
On the subject of not buying it, my friends at Ravelry, the best knitting site in the world, have introduced me to the notion of harvesting yarn -- thrift store sweaters in excellent yarn and lousy design, unravel, hank, unkink and reknit into items that are really worth having. This fits right into the times, I think, as well as being a great source of total smugness for me!
Someone asked a while back what I knitted last year, just for the sake of asking, I think, and was blown out of the water, as was I, when I listed what I'd made. This is just in scraps of spare time, partner's total disability taking a lot of time and energy, and pursuing an exhibiting artist job, and art volunteering, helping curate local gallery, hang exhibits when needed, generally support, as well as everything else life seems to present, including three demanding cats and a little parakeet, taking most of my time.
Anyway, after I listed an endless number of kitty blankies (given to a friend on board of rescue agency), hats, socks, scarves, shawls, afghans, washcloths, dishcloths, art wallhangings, masks, bags, etc) I began to feel a bit tired myself! I also taught myself lace knitting and did a whole lot of small samples of classic lace patterns, some of which I made into ATCs for exhibit. So I decided to create a binder of pix of knitted items, to keep the patterns and general info.
And I thought you'd like to see a few entries from the binder.
As you can see, the pix failed to appear. I think blogspot is overloaded today, and I will try again with the pix when the traffic dies down. Sorry!
ReplyDeletesigned: Liz, hapless blogger
Aw shucks - I'm looking forward to seeing some of your knitting eventually. Your pics are probably floating somewhere in space keeping company with those of mine then went AWOL
ReplyDeleteHappy Day After Thanksgiving, Liz! Looks like you had a good holiday - all about family and loved ones as it should be. And you all look wonderful!
ReplyDeleteSo good to see your blog and all your doins'! The "Sisters" work is fabulous; I imagine it is is being well received in the showing.
Several other close friends have started blogs and have urged me to do the same as a great way to share and document with and for friends and family. This, from you, shows me just how right they are and might be the catalyst I've been needing to get busy. Doggone if I didn't just feel a definte pinch from my muse!
Until I do, you can get a sampling of what I've been up to through my photos (I also have some writing there.) http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparky2/
More later ... lots of faces to feed!
I love the idea of harvesting yarn. How do you "unkink" it?
ReplyDelete