Higher Part 3: Fibre Arts Meditation and Moving Inward

We sit on our cushions.  We meditate.  We spin.  We knit.  We're not looking for particular results, but it's in our nature to wonder: does any of this have practical benefits?

Fibre artists donate their time, efforts and money to many worthy causes.  Whether it be to premature infants, people struck by disaster or hapless penguins, crafters are always willing to donate hats, blankets, sweaters, whatever is needed, when they are needed.  The action can be political, too -  as witnessed by knitting support for the Occupy Movement.

Do more subtle changes occur as a result of our practice?  Given time, yoga and mindfulness can provide a shift in our perspective, a change in thought that may deepen our connections to other beings and the planet.

You won't be far along your spinning path before you realize the commitment and skill required to spin a good piece of string.  Spinning gives us new respect for the materials we use.  Instead of  always reaching for yarn that represents the best bargain for us, we may begin to think about the processes involved in supplying that yarn.  Just how can the $5 skein of yarn from across the world provide a living wage for its makers?  Would we be willing to make $5 yarn, even if we kept all the profits (never mind the numerous middlemen set to take their cut)?  Would it make more sense to buy locally?

If these questions arise, they are more likely to manifest slowly, subconsciously, rather than hit you over the head with moral dilemma.  I knit dozens of pairs of socks before I realized that I hadn't purchased myself a pair of Big Box Store socks for years.  Now that I understand the costs required to produce a pair of $3 socks and the likelihood that sock producers see very little return for their efforts, I no longer have the urge to buy cheap socks.  Apart from the ethical issues, sock knitting provides meditative moments in my busy days.  Besides, hand knit socks feel and wear better than inexpensive house brand footwear.

A word of caution: becoming aware of these connections among sentient beings and deciding on a course of action isn't a license for self-satisfaction or judgment.  I may no longer buy BBS socks, but I do stock up on winter tights every few years and I refuse to knit my own underwear.  We also never know the effects our actions have on others.  I may believe that knitting my own socks will contribute to the decline of sweatshops and child labour, when what I'm really doing is depriving someone of desperately needed income, no matter what the working conditions.

All we can do is live our lives in good faith and hope that we leave the planet a bit better, or at least, not make things worse.  Meditation practice brings us to awareness and connection.  It's a good place to start.

Namaste.

This week's knitting: working through my sock yarn stash

Halloween Howl: Frankensocks

I spun this rather lovely sock yarn last year.  The wool was Merino, too soft for socks to suit my tastes, but I spun it tightly and chain plied it.  It's firm, knits up into socks that fit both Birks and boots and the colours are very pretty. 

The socks turned out well, too, mostly.  I knit them up on small needles, with 2/2 ribbing for the legs so that the socks will stay up.  The heels and their turnings are padded and the socks fit tightly on my feet; these socks won't slip and creep.  They're finished nicely-in theory, I could wear these babies inside out. 

There's one small problem:

Yup.  Completely. Totally. Mismatched.  Not even close.  In a world where it's perfectly acceptable to knit fraternal socks, these would be the orphans in the bunch.

Do I know what happened?  Not a clue.  You see, I didn't bother to label this wondrous sock yarn, so I don't know how I managed this impressive feet  feat. 

Sock #3 seems to be knitting up differently yet again.

I'll wear the um, pair?  They're still nice socks.  I can amuse people by my apparent incapability to dress myself.  Who knows, by the time I finish knitting up all the yarn, perhaps I'll have something resembling a matched set. 

Either that, or I'll have the nicest dusting mitts/socks around.

Happy Halloween!

Sockual Heeling

Okay, that's an atrocious pun, even for me, but it's cold and damp here and I need to maintain my sense of humour, no matter how badly I may express it.  (Despite the cold, it's still a lovely day.):

On to the source of the bad punnery: Many years ago, I was fortunate enough to have a pair of my hand spun, hand knit socks included in SpinOff magazine.  I was fairly new to sock knitting at the time, so I was full of great wisdom and words of advice.  I was the only person included in the article who talked about darning socks and only to boast casually that "I had yet to darn a pair of my hand knit socks."

From that day on, the sock knitting goddesses had me in their sights.  Every pair of socks I knit managed to gather holes in a very short space of time.  Worse yet, the holes developed just beyond every reinforced area I worked, usually just past the heel or right at the heel turning.  I darned, I patched, I cursed.  I tried a few different things with my spinning and knitting, but returned to my habitual ways, with the same results-one definition of insanity.

Years later, along came Ravelry and its spinning groups.  In threads and forums, great debates ensue as to what makes the perfect sock yarn.  Some people insist that sock yarn must be 3 plies or more, while others claim that a singles can work just as well.  "Merino and Blue-faced Leicester are great for socks," say some.  "Not so," say others. "You must use Romney or Corriedale, or . . . ."

Last year, finally fed up with mending socks, I decided to run an experiment on my own sock yarns.  I spun yarn for two pair of socks, plied and knit them at the same time, then subjected them to a year of regular wear, which for me, means hard use in shoes and boots year round.  I machine wash my socks, but air dry them.

The yarn for both pairs were spindle spun Z.  I spindle plied the yarn S for the striped pair and plied S with a wheel for the other pair.  I don't count twists per inch, but I put a lot of twist into these yarns. ("Barbed wire" was my comment in my original notes.)  The finished yarns average about 18 wpi (wraps per inch).  The striped pair was knitted toe up on 2 mm needles, with a gauge of about 6 stitches per inch.  The heathered pair was also knitted on 2 mm needles, top down, with a gauge of 6.5 stitches per inch.  The striped pair was spun from commercial wool top (possibly Romney).  The other yarns were 3 plied from a singles of mohair/wool/silk roving, a singles of wool roving and a singles of silk roving.  I finished both yarns by washing them in hot and cold baths, giving them some serious whacking and drying them without blocking.

These are the socks as of May 2011.  (I can't post a photo, for some reason, so please follow the link.)  And these are the socks as of yesterday.  Click and zoom if you want a closer view:

Both pair are wearing very well.  The heathered pair pills slightly, due to the fibre preparation (roving) and the wool content.  (I had thought that the pills were from the mohair, but closer inspection indicates that they come from the wool with some mohair bits, perhaps.)  The striped pair looks like new, which is remarkable, given my track record. I attribute that to the fact that I put much more twist in spindle yarns than I do when I'm working on the wheel.  (I think wheels are so quick that I get caught up in their speed and forget to pay attention to the yarn I'm making.) There are no signs of holes in heels or elsewhere.  Both pairs feel firm, harder than most socks feel, but they're comfortable and not itchy.  They're like cushions for the feet.

My conclusions from this small study are nothing earth-shaking.  The "best" sock yarn depends upon fibre choice, preparation, spinning and plying techniques.  If you want your socks to wear well, choose a tougher fibre, use commercial top or combed fibres, add plenty of twist when spinning and plying (Western spinners tend to under spin and ply their yarns), and knit the socks tightly.

Lessons learned:

1.  When something isn't working, change it.
2.  Experiment.
3.  Pay attention.
4.  Never, ever boast that you've yet to darn a pair of socks!

(If you're interested in more yarn experiments, head over to wanderskopos's blog.  She's a great source of thoughtful and entertaining tests of hand spun yarns and wonderful knitting.)

Lessons in Impermanence

The snow is melting more each day as we flirt with near normal April temperatures.  Many of us thought the snow would never go, but it is and it will.

We live with impermanence.  No matter how we try, we can't stop change.  Our best approach to change is to embrace it.

This is a "Buddha Board."  I bought it a few years ago.  It's great fun.  Similar to the Etch-a-Sketch that some of us played with as kids, you use water and a brush to "paint" on the board:

In seconds, the painting fades and soon disappears:

You enjoy using the board more if you learn to enjoy these changes.

Some changes aren't that much fun:

These are socks I knitted from hand spun Perendale wool dyed with lichen.  (I thought it was logwood dye, but no.)  They're pretty, I think.  I made them around 1997, so they've done well.  But, they've changed:

I'm not bothered by the repairs at the heels.  Those are standard for me.  Look at the toes.  Do you see the fading?

These socks have been worn and washed dozens of times over the years.  I was impressed with my crafting skills, because umbilicaria lichen, which gives fabulous colours, is a notoriously fugitive dye.  Not the way I do it, or so I thought. 

One day, I left the socks near a sunny window.  When I retrieved them, a few hours later, the colour at the point where the sun hit the toes had faded:

There you go-changes, whether I wanted them or not.  I could overdye the socks; they're still wearable, even as they are.  Some people think the changes are deliberate and I could pretend that they were.  Instead, I'm keeping the socks as they are, as a reminder that nothing is permanent.

And to remind me to close the blinds!