Tag Archives: Clara Parkes

2022 Year in Review – Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year from Messalonskee Lake in the heart of Central Maine, USA! We had a quiet evening last night and were in bed and asleep well before the ball fell in Times Square but we live a simple life here and we like to get up in the morning and watch the sunrise, drink our coffee together and usher in a new day in relative peace.

This morning I slept extra late and missed sunrise but it was still lovely when I awoke. Foggy and warmer than usual temps here this morning (though the fog has burned off and the sun is out!) We are beyond grateful to be able to live here in this remarkable place. My hubby made delicious Eggs Benedict for breakfast after I sent the store newsletter and now I’m busy up in my studio.

I’m moving over into my 2023 planner this morning and have added up my FOs for 2022. It seems like I’ve finished about 72 projects this year. I say “about” because I didn’t take the time to count every single advent jumper and other little projects. They’re all on my projects page in Ravelry, though, and I’m quite pleased. Among some of my favorites were knitting with fairy lights and completing a couple of Laura Nelkin’s Love and Light. I have one to make for a commission for a high school friend who loved mine.

I totally enjoyed knitting little sweaters for our future Advent calendar. I’ve made it to #16 which is still on my needles and 14 and 15 are waiting to be seamed a little bit and ends woven in. But I’ll get them done this year for sure. I completed three sweaters this year. I’ve worn my Elton several times – including on my trip to Rhinebeck in the fall. I even wore it buttoned wrong … all around Rhinebeck and meeting so many of my knitting idols. I love my Patsy’s Traveling sweater and my Fine Sand, too. I’ll enjoy wearing them all in years to come. I didn’t knit socks every month this year but I got several pairs made. I gave most of them to my girls. My sock drawer is pretty full! I owe my hubby his Christmas socks … I hope to get the socks knit in January.

I loved knitting the Humlebi Shawl and watching the little bees pop off the fabric! I have to look for this shawl … it was washed and put away for the summer and I haven’t yet taken it out. And I loved knitting everything for my new nephew, Noah and my new granddaughter, Sylvie. We are so thankful for these precious additions to our family and we are so happy to be able to spend time with our family near and not-so-near.

We’ve had some really sad days in 2022. I lost a dear student who I’d grown very close to. Lucille was like a mother/grandmother/auntie to me. I spent every Friday with her, picking her up for class and bringing her home again for many of them. I appreciated her knitting talent and her graceful-ish aging. She didn’t like not being able to knit and do things as she’d always done. I couldn’t blame her. We lost both of my Littles in 2022. Boq died in January and Lola in July. I miss them every single day. There will never be another dog like them for me. And then in November we lost my grand-dog Willow. She was my daughter’s heart dog (as my litters were mine.) We had the honor of bringing her ashes home to NYC at Christmas time. Rest well all of you.

This past year has been busier than I might have liked for me in the volunteer realm of my life. I’ve been president of the lake association and on the board of a free public charter school for the arts. Both have been very fulfilling and I’ve enjoyed them a lot. I’ll be wrapping up my service to the lake association in July but I live on the lake so I can’t step far. I believe that boards need new people on and old people off in order to keep them healthy and thriving. I’ll always be available to help the new leadership. That’s our job as leaders to lead, step down and then to share our knowledge to the new generation. I’m looking forward to having a little bit more time to get back to sewing. I’ve got several projects to finish and some that I really want to tackle.

Clara Parkes, in her Daily Respite post this morning, offered this poem as a benediction for 2023 and I really loved it. I’ve shared it on my daily FB/Insta post and I shared it in the store newsletter that I wrote. Three times is a charm so I’m also sharing it here. I’m off to fling the door wide in welcome and sweep the threshold.

“Think of the year
as a house:
door flung wide
in welcome,
threshold swept
and waiting,
a graced spaciousness
opening and offering itself
to you. . .

And may it be
in this house of a year
that the seasons will spin in beauty,
and may it be
in these turning days
that time will spiral with joy.
And may it be
that its rooms will fill
with ordinary grace
and light spill from every window
to welcome the stranger home.”

— Jan Richardson

Gone knitting.

Is There a Thing Called “Knitter’s Elbow?”

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IMG_3480I’m entering week four … WEEK FOUR … of not knitting. Nearly four weeks of not knitting is a huge punishment for me. I always knit; every day! Even on those days that I teach all day I go home and knit.

This started at my fiber arts retreat (aka camp). I started to feel a pull in my left elbow but because I was at camp, I just kept knitting. When I got home on August 4th, I began my “rest” from knitting expecting a quick healing since it was a short time that it “hurt”. Well, here we are, three weeks and a little bit more later. And I still can’t knit.

What’s a knitter to do when she can’t knit?

IMG_3502 I bought a little bit of linen fabric at the Yardgoods Center in Waterville, Maine a few weeks ago. I also bought some needles and some DMC floss in six or seven different colors and an embroidery hoop. With my Making Magazine, “Color” issue in hand, I cut the fabric and started stitching. I’m making a project bag. It’s not knitting but it’s better than nothing! And it will be useful when I get back to knitting sometime soon.

I’ve been to pick blueberries (with my right hand!) and bought some peaches. I’ve made blueberry “Afternoon Cake” (two of them) and blueberry muffins. The recipe is in another Making Magazine “Dots”. I even made a peach pie with almost all of the four pounds of peaches. It was delicious! DH and I made blueberry ice cream, too … it goes very well with peach pie! And we’ve been getting pounds and pounds of squash both zucchini and summer from our CSA half-share. There are zucchini bread muffins and loaves in the freezer. So many frozen baked goods that we may need to buy a stand alone freezer!

 

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And today I finished my first Christmas gift. I can’t tell you what it is or who it’s for or I’d have to kill you (not really, but you know what I mean!) But suffice it to say that it’s a sewn and quilted gift for a very special person. It was the messiest project ever and I took it to a laundromat to wash and dry before I could put it into my machine to finish the drying process. It still filled up my lint thingy with lots of tiny pieces of thread. But I’m happy with the end result. Now it just needs a tag and some photographs taken. I’ll show more pictures after Christmas!

I’ve also read three books! I posted (here) about A Stash of One’s Own by Clara Parkes that I finished and was very moved by. I also finished my book club book The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn which I loved. I couldn’t put it down. Since I’m not knitting, I read it in record time. And I just finished The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg. That’s THREE books this month! You can tell I’m not knitting!

Next project is … oh, sorry, I can’t tell you that either!

 

Take up Space

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I finished reading Clara Parke’s newest book, A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting go of Yarn. It’s a sweet collection of stories and essays by knitters dealing with their “issues” around stashing yarn.

The sentence above was in the last chapter of the book. Sitting there, just waiting to kick in my ocular incontinence. (Thanks, Bristol!) It nearly brought me to an ugly cry as I tried to explain myself to my DH. Why did a book about yarn make me cry?

At camp this summer (Medomak Fiber Arts Retreat), I heard my newest favorite designer, Bristol Ivy, give me permission to take up space. To claim a space that is comfortably and happily all mine. I don’t have to be pretty or well-mannered there. I don’t have to live up to anyone else’s expectations there, nor do I have to think about any societal rules about women (watch your weight, wear makeup, be attractive, speak sweetly, keep the house clean, cut the kids’ fingernails, don’t wear black, children are to be seen and not heard, you don’t need to know how to handle money, your husband will do that, etc.).

Hearing this was life changing for me. I grew up taking up very little space. My parents’ expectations were high but extraordinarily limited. I was taught to iron, sew and be a “good girl” with the idea that, one day, if I was lucky, I would gain a husband and a middle name. That was the reason that I went to college, too. Not to get a good education and grow as an individual but to find a husband. (The now-60-year-old me is groaning today!)

When I divorced my first husband, I continued in therapy with a series of wonderful women who helped me to identify what was important to me and to begin working on who I am today. Who I want to be. I have enjoyed the process of getting to know myself.

The idea of taking up space, however, was brand spanking new and threw open an entirely new door of personal development and a new way of thinking about my place in the world. AND it made me cry. It touched my soul to be given permission (so to speak) to take up space. To be myself, to dress as it pleases me, to speak my mind and to know that I am lovable and loved even as I am myself. To manage my own money and to buy things for myself and others. It was so incredibly powerful to hear that message and I’ve pondered (and will continue to ponder) that idea and how it applies to me and how to bring it into my daily life.

Today, when I saw the sentence above that says that women are expected to take up as little space as possible, it hit me again. Ocular Incontinence. (When I am brought to tears talking about something, I’ve learned, it’s a deep truth for me. I’ve hit the nail on the proverbial head. I am so grateful for the reminder that I have every right to take up space. And not just with my stashed yarn, either.

I have an extensive stash of yarn and two rooms in our home to use in any way that I wish. My DH is supportive of my creative endeavors (I have never hidden my yarn purchases from anybody.) I own my knitting and the supplies that I need to make it happen and I’ve always been unapologetic about it. I’ve been smart about it, too. Never would I be irresponsible and when I can’t really afford it, I head to my stash instead of my LYS. Finding a balance and being responsible are important parts of who I am. Who I have always been. But apart from my yarn, this reminds me to look at other ways that I take up space, to make some new boundaries in my life so that my time to create is sacred. Time with my wonderful, handsome DH is sacred. Time with my children and family is sacred. I want to have time to spend with all of them, and my friends, too.

So, today I put on my crazy flowered leggings and my cotton weird-edged tunic/dress and I am taking up space. I am worthy. I am loved.